Could you fix my mess?

Hi, I have tried to get some help with my build so I might aswell try it in the Help Section(duh)

Anyway I am playing a Static Strike Crit Shadow. Dagger and Shield, Innervate for onslaught and Poachers Mark for Frenzy charges. I recently switched from Evasion+Acro to Armor/ES. Feels better actually and is easier for my links.

Anyway I am squishy as hell and my damage was great before, now its kinda meh.
So this is my Tree and Yeah I know this needs changes. But I dont know how to get more out of it.


Character Name is Raizex. I guess my gear needs some upgrades too and lets not talk about uniques.
What do I do with this?

Thanks in advance.

1. Innervate is not a good support for your main damage skill. Use Melee Physical Damage (damage converted from physical to lightning damage will still get the full multiplier for the original damage type, i.e. physical damage) or Faster Attacks. Better yet, get a five-linked body armour (not expensive) and use both. Or - if you have high critical strike chance - use Increased Critical Damage.

2. You have too little %increased life from the tree (aim for 150% at least at this stage, more later) and very little %increased armour, so basically no real defense except for Fortify (which is strong but not always up) and low life.

3. This is not a crit build. You use a weapon with only 6.6% base critical strike chance, which is low. You have low %increased critical strike chance from the tree (you should aim for at least 300% by that stage). And you have very low %increased critical strike multiplier so even if you get a critical strike it won't do much extra damage! You're not using Assasin's Mark and have no other way to get Power charges. So basically it's a Static Strike character with a little crit on the side.

4. You path all over the tree, from Shadow to Templar. That means a lot of semi-useless nodes (Dexterity/Strength/Intelligence nodes etc.) for little effect, since you could get everything you take at Templar at the right side of the tree as well (save for additional curse but that's not very strong in your build anyway). The life and increased damage from Templar can be gotten at the right side as well. You also take four Dexterity nodes to Acrobatics which I don't know what to do with.

So what to do? It depends on how much Orb of Regrets or passive refund points you have left, because I'd change the tree quite a bit. If you really want to play Static Strike Crit Shadow I'd do something like this:



(this tree is just a quick draft, there are surely some inefficient paths in there)

More life, back to evasion + Acrobatics (because armour is too far away) and a lot more crit chance and crit multi. Also some life and mana leech to sustain attacks and stay alive. If you really don't like Acrobatics I would get a shield with high evasion or armour and take some of the nodes giving additional shield block chance + increased defenses from equipped shield instead (there are some right near the path I would take). Use Blasphemy + Assassin's Mark and then either Hatred or Wrath or Herald of Thunder (depending on your mana and base damage).

Also - and this is important - get a dagger with good physical damage but also HIGH BASE CRIT CHANCE (at least 8%). Without that no crit build will ever work.

I myself don't like Static Strike that much, the tree would work as well with something like Reave which I find easier for fast clearing.

You know yourself you need better gear at poe.trade. Better life rolls, better resists, crit chance + crit multi on your jewellery...but without knowing how much currency you have I can't make any recommendations. Rat's Nest is good, Maligaro's Virtuosity as well, Starkonja's Head is cheap and decent.

Good luck with the build!

First of all, thank you. This is the information I needed.
Anyway to be honest I just went for crit to get the shocking effect for Innervate. If that is just bad and onslaught not really worth it I might aswell forget about crit and just go for the ususal stuff.
That means I also need to get a different kind of weapon. From that perspektive shadow wasnt the best choice for what I wanted to do.
Going back to Evasion makes sense when it comes to passives but its a pain in the butt to get just red and blue sockets on a Dex Item and tabula still costs more than I have.
I am going to save your tree since it might be my best bet but from what you told me this sounds more like back to the drawing board.
*sigh* this happens when I try to be smart.

Going for crit is a heavy investment regarding gear and passive tree, so it's definitely not worth it just for Innervate/Onslaught. Note that while critical strikes are used to apply shock, some things (like Innervate or some nodes on the tree) have an additional chance to shock independent of critical strikes.

You don't need many (or any) blue links for a typical melee build. The most common setup is melee skill (red/green) - Melee Physical Damage (red) - Multistrike (red) - Faster Attacks (green) - Weapon Elemental Damage or Fortify or Added Fire Damage (red). And most people playing melee use a unique body armour anyway, armours like Lightning Coil or Belly of the Beast are very good (and not expensive) and getting three or four red with them is easy.

If you're into melee with lightning damage using a Hyaon's Fury is viable (sadly their price increased some time ago). I made a Shadow using Hyaon's Fury + Reave along with Blood Dance boots to get Frenzy charges and it was able to do tier 10 maps fine. Shadow melee in general is perfectly viable with many different weapon types, only problem is the lack of life nodes on the right side of the tree so you'd have to path to Duelist or to the Scion life wheel in most cases.

If you want to play inexpensive melee, I recommend Bringer of Rain helmet + high-armour shield with lots of block nodes (additional block chance and increased defenses from shield). It works and costs very little to get into mid-level maps.