[1.3.1] DbyO's Phys Crit Reave Dagger [Reave to Freeze]

Hello. Welcome to my phys crit reave dagger build. (Yes, it's Atziri viable. Just like all other builds.)

Description: This build is somewhat of a glass cannon (due to Abyssus). However, everything will die before they have a chance of killing you. The high crit rate plus ice damage from Hatred and HoI will freeze most enemies in place if they don't die in one or two attacks. I don't believe this build is anything extraordinary. It is a generic physical and critical build made for the usage of dagger. The active gem could be static strike, cyclone or any other gem. I personally choose to use reave due its synergy with ice damage for them FREEZE.

Note on HoI: It may be just my own personal experience but HoI greatly increases freeze chance.

Current DPS

Passive Tree
Gears

Alternative Gears

Gems

Bandits

Video

Looks pretty fun, how well does the build do against reflect? And what map mods would you consider not running?

I just tested physical reflect on an Academy map. When I crit, I take about 2k damage. So it fares poorly on physical reflect maps. Elemental reflect wasn't a problem.

I find the vulnerability mod to be very troublesome because of Abyssus. It's possible to do a whole run without any problem but the risk of getting one shot is very high. Any minus max resist + elemental reflect is also recommended to be avoid.

I recommend dropping HoI, as the damage from it is minimal, and doesn't really contribute anything, as your freeze chance doesn't really increase since you're already using hatred. Then drop blood magic and get a proper dps support. I'd also recommend dropping true strike and scion life wheel and instead taking quickstep, thick skin and going to duelist area for dps and life.

I have build nearly the same build. (It is fun!)

Before you proceed, please do not take this as destructive criticism. In your video it looks like your build is doing just fine. Just a few ideas for you to play around with, maybe it turns out that your choices were better than mine and I have to change stuff ;)

I would suggest going into the duelist tree for master of the arena, the +2m melee range help a lot to avoid being hit in melee when reave charges are low.

Why do you not use atziri steps for additional spell dodge?
The defensive bonus the shield provides is marginal, because of acrobatics.
The -50% block chance negates the shields block chance advantage over dual wield imho and I would prefer the 16% spell dodge over the 11% spell block any time. (I think this is more a flavor thing than anything else to be honest and it can get tricky to cap resists)

I have ignored true-strike, as the crit chance is already high enough with 9.7%/10%CC daggers anyway and the Reflexes/Harrier passives aren't worth wasting 5+ points to get there. I also skipped the Aspect of the Panther, Weapons Artistry (will add this in 2 level), From the Shadows, Brutal Efficiency passives.

Instead it got: Survivalist (resist fix + eva), Quickstep (movespeed > all), Thick Skin (best life node), Art of the Gladiator, Bravery, Master of the Arena.
As mentioned before the +2m melee range help a lot while at low reave charges, the chance to dodge elemental status alignments from thick skin make those 4 life nodes the best thing in the south eastern regions of the passive tree. You also get access to profane chemistry, which, if picked, increase your life recovery from flask to 90% (instant life flask healing for nearly double amount? thx, I'll take that).

I am able to play without bloodmagic, using only HoT, Hatred, HoF and playing with ~100mana. (makes 50% regen maps somewhat annoying, but still playable)

You can reach me ingame in the evening (GMT+1) if you want to run some maps together or discuss some advantages disadvantages.

Thanks for the guide! :)

[EDIT]Yes, phys reflect map mods are not playable. Even huge rare packs or single rares with a lot of hitpoints can be very dangerous. I normally deal with them with pre-cast enduring cry (spell echo) + immortal call before I jump in. I can also play phys reflect maps this way, but it takes ages.

Hi, thank you both for your suggestions and inputs. The duelist nodes and life nodes in the southern region are great. I think it may perform better with the extra melee range. I never bother with Quickstep because I like to use whirling blades as movement.

Before this was a reave build, I was going to get Inner Force for other reasons and end up in the Scion's area. As I was testing out the build, it worked well so I didn't find a reason to remove those extra life nodes. For min max reasons, getting the Duelist nodes may output more damage.

I'm using blood magic because I'm a tad lazy to switch gears or deal with mana. Moreover, I like the visual effect of HoI :). It may not be the most min max choice but I enjoy using it. You both are correct in dropping HoI and using mana for more damage output if a player choose to. I feel ~70k is more than enough to do Atziri and high maps.

Atziri Steps is a great alternative. I would definitely use that if it wasn't for my resistances. The tri res boots was sitting in my stash so I just equipped it. I will add the boots as an alternative and give credit.

Hi, I am playing very similar build and want to share some thoughts.

1. You have a bit ineffective passive skill tree.

Your starting points


More efficient start


Basically it's more efficient. Note: this only works with your original tree, not the alternative one.

2. What's your thoughts about lightning strike? I personally find this skill to be much more effective and faster clearing as well as having a good single target damage when attacking from melee range. Maybe it's because I don't like the small radius charge-up time of Reave.

My links of lightning strike are: Lightning Strike + Multistrike + Melee Phys + Faster Attacks + Weapon ele (because of the conversion to lightning damage) (+ for 6l it would prob be Increased Crit Dmg or Additional Accuracy)

Passive tree remains the same for the most part, except we head for projectile pierce for added clear speed

Also note that I am running on mana so I pick up the mana leech for sustain.

Lightning Strike can be somewhat annoying, because it not as reliable as reave.
With reave (+vaal reave?) you can be sure, that you will freeze everything you hit within two attacks and the full AoE dmg profits from all your damage passives, auras and heralds.

For Lightning Strike the build would require some substantial changes to the tree to get the most out of the AoE clearing and increasing projectile damage and pierce.

Getting the best out of reave and vaal reave means playing a lot with the SHIFT key held to sustain the charges, but it also turns the attack into a large scale AoE attacks with decent range. The Lightning Strike projectiles never hit everything on your screen in a set AoE radius, reave does. (With Carcass Jack 10% AoE increase + vaal reave 16 stack you hit nearly everything on your screen within the 135°)

One thing is you use 2 passives avoiding 2 shield passives, remember that even if you dont care about the 3 block (down to 2 from acrobatics roughly) you gain 110% shield defenses which with a high evasion shield eg 1100-1500 x 110% is a lot of evasion. Otherwise it looks good I would personally do a higher dmg tree but thats me.

Why dont u get phase acro?