[3.24] 🗡The Nightblade🗡 Unholy Might : 100% phys converted to chaos

Thanks for your kind words, dsintegrate.

If you have any question concerning this build or some mechanisms in the game, feel free to ask.

I've just made some improvement on the skill tree (a little bit more life, some more dmg).
Updated PoB link : https://pastebin.com/ZjsvC27z

Skill tree on POE planner : poeurl.com/cm2h

Version 3.7 is coming in June and they announced a lot of changes to melee mechanisms, so let's hope it will boost our build :

"

In addition to animation system improvements and melee skill rebalances, we are experimenting with changes to systems such as accuracy, melee splash, leech, fortify, various Ascendancy classes, the passive tree, hit/miss feedback, melee base types, movement skills and melee damage availability on items.

Any chance to this build to work with lacerate instead BF? I liked that skill and liked dual daggers. Was following this guide for BF when I've discovered Lacerate and loved it Lol

"

SimonDarkmoon wrote:

Any chance to this build to work with lacerate instead BF? I liked that skill and liked dual daggers. Was following this guide for BF when I've discovered Lacerate and loved it Lol

I guess this build could work with Lacerate, yes. You'd need some respect on the skill tree, to get more chances to bleed.
But Lacerate does not work with daggers, though.
A somewhat close skill is Double Strike : works with daggers and like Lacerate, has more dmg against bleeding enemies.

For Lacerate, you'd need swords instead.
Good unique ones would be Ichimonji : very fast and it increases the effects of your buffs :


Or Paradoxica with two good veiled mods :


(this sword is not optimized, since the "double damage" veiled mod is not added to "double damage" mod of sword : I don't get x4 dmg !)

Those are the ones I'm using on my Cyclone / Double Strike Duelist.
You can check this build : Hank the Tank.

Build update

PoB : https://pastebin.com/cUJQ7S68

This build was originally designed to kill the Shaper, which it does easily, with fast WB movements and nearly 1M steady DPS with Ancestral Protector up.
+ War Banner for Adrenaline + Vaal Double Strike + Vaal Ancestral Warchief etc.

Now I am more into delving, so I need some more tankiness.

I have respected the Ascendancy and taken the poison and chaos nodes of the Assassin, for more life regen. See Chaos Variant section in the first post, for phys-chaos dmg version. This is the one I'm using now.


Also, I now use a SHIELD :


Unshattered Will has life, elem res, inc channelling skill dmg and the Harbinger of Focus : stun and ailment immunities for 4sec every 8sec.

Shield is 50-60c, which makes the build much less expensive, since we don't need to get a second dagger for like 10ex.
Overall, DPS is slightly inferior (~960k instead of ~1M), but it's sufficient against most mobs in Delve : currently depth 240, so monsters level 83 and I'm doing well in Abyssal chambers etc. And we get more life : ~+200.
I have 6200 atm.

Other uniques to be considered :
- Lycosidae. Slightly more DPS -but we already have 95% hit chance. Less life and no elem resis.
- The lesser-known Great Old One's Ward : attack speed, phys dmg, life, spell block, but no elem resis.

A better rare shield would have : attack speed / inc attack dmg / phys dmg as extra chaos / inc global phys dmg (crafted) + life, elem resis...
This is at least 2ex in Std, and no immunities.

The elem resis on the shield have allowed me to take a steel ring with only attack mods :
(50c)

When Synthesis ends, we might get the Circle of Guilt ring in Std, for our Herald of Purity. Ideally, we'd need one with these two mods :
- HoP has 70-100% inc buff effect.
- 40-60% inc phys dmg while affected by HoP
Would be a huge boost to dmg, allowing us to get the same DPS we'd get with two daggers without this ring. With these two mods, the ring already cost 6ex in League, so expect the double when such pieces come to standard.

Additionnaly, I'm considering using the Garukhan's Flight boots : +DEX, immunity to elem grounds, +2 life / 10 DEX, which synergizes perfectly with our build, since we get 600 DEX = +120 life. But since I already use a lot of uniques, I would lack some res.

Hope you'll enjoy. Can't wait to see the changes to melee mechanisms in 3.7 !

Now that I am more into Delving, I have increased my protections.

I have reworked the skill tree to get life and crit from the Marauder zone : https://pastebin.com/nrRZN4Tm
(level 94)

Instead of Assassin's Mark, I now use Poacher's Mark for life gain on hit and frenzy charges.


STUN AND FREEZE IMMUNITY, no Kaom's Roots

Getting 100% stun avoid chance is doable, but costly.

36% chance on the Skill tree with Heart of Oak
+ 32% with those boots :
4ex. But you could find for less, since 35% movespeed is only QoL.

+ 35% on this Helmet :
2ex

= 100%

I also use the Vix Lunaris for Freeze immunity and the cold bubble protection :

~ 15-50c

So I am stun and freeze immune and I can still evade attacks, which Kaom's Roots would prevent.

*

IMPALE

I have replaced War Banner with Dread Banner.
Enemies have less accuracy, which is nice in Delve.

I'm not sure how to calculate the dmg of Impale. So roughly speaking :
- Impale adds 10% of DPS each time and last 5 hits.
- We have 20% chance to inflict Impale on hit.
- And Dread Banner lvl20 gives 19% increased Impale effect.

So on average, the enemy has 5*0.2 = 1 impale.
1 impale with Dread Banner = +10*1.19 = 12% more dmg.
So total DPS should be slighly better than with War Banner.
Since PoB cannot calculate it, I have added 12% more dmg on the mana flask, you just have to tick it.

*

POISON

Vile Toxins gives us 5*9 = 45% more dmg with hits when the enemy has 9 poisons, which we reach easily.

Atm, I got 7,7 attacks/sec, 94% accuracy, 76% chance to poison.
Poison base duration is 2sec.
So in 2 sec, on average I can inflict x number of poisons :
x = 7,7*0,94*0,76*2 = 11.
I rarely face enemies with BF more than 2sec, so we can ignore inc Poison duration from Noxious Strike Ascendancy. And anyway, we don't need 11 hits to kill most mobs.
Toxic Delivery gives us 0,5% life recovered per poison on enemy you kill, so against swarm of mobs, we get a lot of regen.

In Config., I have indicated 11 poisons applied recently, since enemy is set to Shaper/Guardians. But in Delve, that could be much more since we hit with AoE.

Not sure also how Poison dealt by Totem interactes. But I have added poison support to Ancestral Protector and Vaal Warchief. I may also add Multiple Totems support.

Is there a skill that I could switch to without to much hassle and change of Skill-Tree?

"

Foxicv wrote:

Is there a skill that I could switch to without to much hassle and change of Skill-Tree?

What skill are you using at the moment ? You don't want to use Blade Flurry ?
Is it for one of your Gladiators in standard league ?

How can it be that you only get 1M dps with such investment in gear?
I can't currently check the pob, but 1M dps with blade flurry and 6k life is something you can get with less than 1 ex, and I am not exaggerating. Plenty of builds you can find even here on the forum.

No offense intended really, I just think maybe you're doing something strange with your pob configuration...

"

cane_cane wrote:

How can it be that you only get 1M dps with such investment in gear?
I can't currently check the pob, but 1M dps with blade flurry and 6k life is something you can get with less than 1 ex, and I am not exaggerating. Plenty of builds you can find even here on the forum.

No offense intended really, I just think maybe you're doing something strange with your pob configuration...

Well, I'm not taking flasks and Vaal skills into account.
Say I add Vaal Warchief + flasks etc., I can reach ~3M.
And I'm not using elem dmg.

(No offense taken, btw. I was reworking the first msg, and I didn't expect my build to go back to the front page so soon ^^)

"

rahsaan wrote:

"

cane_cane wrote:

How can it be that you only get 1M dps with such investment in gear?
I can't currently check the pob, but 1M dps with blade flurry and 6k life is something you can get with less than 1 ex, and I am not exaggerating. Plenty of builds you can find even here on the forum.

No offense intended really, I just think maybe you're doing something strange with your pob configuration...

Well, I'm not taking flasks and Vaal skills into account.
Say I add Vaal Warchief + flasks etc., I can reach ~3M.
And I'm not using elem dmg.

(No offense taken, btw. I was reworking the first msg, and I didn't expect my build to go back to the front page so soon ^^)

So I finally got access to PoB and, in the attempt to optimize your passive tree and items I realized 2 things:
1. Assassin is really not the best ascendancy, as Trickster and Champion (probably also Pathfinder considering the perma flask) both give more dps and tankiness. All that crit chance is really just overkill, and daggers give so much base crit chance already.
2. Swords are way better than daggers. Mostly because of the more efficient passives I guess?

Other tips:
- Scale elemental damage. It is really much better than going pure physical. PoB takes into account 40% resistance already, so that's a pretty bad scenario too. Also, cold damage chills stuff (even freezes with Hypothermia), and with Yoke of Suffering amulet you also shock like crazy.
- Drop all those life and mana flasks. I only ever use a life flask, and some people even drop it to rely on leech. You are losing a lot of damage there.
- Unless you are going for Champion, the weapon craft Hits can't be Evaded mod beats by far an additional 70% inc damage (T1 hybrid prefix).

I was trying to optimize a BF character starting from yours, but I finally decided to start back from mine. Here is 2 PoB characters where you get 3M ish BF dps. Flasks up, no vaal skills. Budget is around 20EX, mostly because of weapons:
Trickster version: https://pastebin.com/pEtjp01R
Champion version: https://pastebin.com/KTgrv3X8