[2.4] The Bringer of Frost - Dual Malice CI Assassin - T10+ since lvl 70, 13 charges up!

This build focus on the new unique Jewelled Foil: the



Even if the aps is decent, the critical strike chance is low: this will lead us to the only possible choice in terms of Ascendancy: the Assassin!

The reason to prefer a dual wielding to a single weapon + shield relies on the 10% more attack speed
Even if a CI relies a lot on chest and shield to gain Enegry Shield, we'll be able to gain 10k ES without effort with still a lvl 17 Discipline.

Even if we're CI, I'm not wearing the Eye of Chayula as i preferred to get ES from every available gear piece.
So i choosed

It allows us to hit (and cast spell) from a huge distance (compare for example to Cyclone, which is way to overrated in my opinion). And it's cool ;)

In this way we will be less likely to be hit (and stunned to death)!

In this scenario, our best set-up is the following:




Gems are in order of importance: we need a lot of crit and base crit, a lot of attack speed, and accuracy.
Anyway i'm using a 5l still and my 5th gem is not increased accuracy but increased aoe: i prefer an higher distance rather than and higher chance to hit (even if my chance to hit is around 87%)

I'm currently using this set-up:




I've picked those gems because they grants a nice combined attack/defense effect:

Arctic Breath
chills a lot making the enemies slower
Vortex
has a decent damage + a very nice dot which also makes our enemies going even more slower
Frostbolt
has a very good synergy with Vortex: you will see a lot of vortex cast far away from you!
Ice Bite
this gem, linked to the most damaging spells (Arctic Breath and Vortex) in our spell set-up, will grant us frenzy charges when we kill a frozen enemy, and trust me, we're freezing a lot!. Frenzy charges will increase our damage but mostly the attack speed! They'll be ALWAYS up.
Frost Wall
I can assure that this gem will give us all the necessaries defenses we need: enemies won't be able to damage us, but we can hit them in a totally safe way!


I've seen a couple of guys using discharge here with voll's (devotion and protector)
I've tried a Voll's Devotion + Discharge, but not only i'm losing ES from the amulet, aalso the cast per second is very low, as we need our power charges to be up and running if we wanna crit: consuming them is not reccomended!
You can use the gloves with +3% to crit chance..but you're losing 2 links in this way which means less attack speed and again less cast per second, that you can read as a lower dps in general.
Should try it with Voll's Protector maybe, but don't have one available right now

ASCENDANCY

The Assassin is the only reliable ascendancy in my opinion for just one reason:
the low base crit from Cospri's Malice

In order to crit there's no other way than to increase the base critical chance:
this is where the notable "Deadly Infusion" will come in handy.
With 7 power charges Always up we have a +3,5% base critical strike chance, coupled with the +1,9% from a level 20 Increased Critical Strink, will bring us to a 10,9% base crit chance which will allow us to cap the critical strike chance quite easily!

So head first to Deadly Infusion with the first 2 lab run (normal and cruel).
In merciless go "Ambush" which will increase a lot the damage we deal.
Uber is for "Assassinate" another big boost to our dps (i still need this one though)



TREE

I'm level 81 at the moment, and levelling in T8+ since I reached lvl 68 (which allowed me to wield the Cospri's Malice"). Hit my first Château at lvl 70 and killed both the Boss + Bameth in the same room without harm.

My actuall passive tree is the following:


The trees doesn't need any explanation as it's quite leaded by the build itself:
- Energy Shield
- Crit Chance
- A few accuracy
- And all the 3 Power Chargé

I've used an "Energy from Within" to the socket near Melding (between Shadow and Witch), and an "Intuitive Loop" near the Power Chargé at the Templar side of the tree in order to get the Power Chargé and "Faith and Steel" without wasting too much points (this is optiona, but the Power Chargé is not).

A level 91 tree can be as follows:

Where I've picked 3 jewels socktes and Spell Critical Strike Chance nodes


LEVELLING

I've levelled without investing in life nodes, rushing to the circles who grant ES + Life (Melding and Written in Blood).
I've levelled as a fire storm caster using dual

And i must admit i've struggled a bit untill i reached lvl 68, probably you can easily find a better way to level up.

BANDITS

- Kill all
- Kraytin (for attack speed)
- Allira (for our 7th Power Charge)

THE GEAR

Except for the Cospri's Malice, which are mandatory for this build to run (I strongly suggest you to use 2 Cospri's Will, but you can also try for 1 Cospri's Malice and an ES Shield with high spell dmg/crit, but you'll lack attack speed) other items are just up to you. Obviously they will be ES based.