[BSC] Sword & Board BF Assassin (Life/Crit/Block with Iron Reflexes)

Greetings Exiles,

This is my first character build, so as a new PoE player I'm very much open to suggestions/improvements. It probably also means the build isn't HC viable, at least not without considerable adjustments or very defensive play and heavy gem/flask swapping.

The goal of the build is to deliver respectable DPS while having decent survivability and being able to run most map mods (with the notable exception of Phys reflect that needs a lot of gear/gem swapping). Plus, this being my first character and all, the items required are relatively cheap - my biggest expense was buying a 5-linked Belly of the Beast, as the boost to max life is too good to pass up. Another important consideration was general smoothness and ease of playing, ie not having to worry about too many buffs/debuffs being up, depending on flasks etc.


The DPS part is relatively easy, courtesy of Blade Flurry and the Assassin Ascendancy, providing Power Charge generation + bleeds & poison. All you need on top of that is a decent physical dps sword/dagger/claw, I went with swords because they offer increased weapon range and that just makes life as a melee easier. For the same reason I almost never swap out the inc AoE gem for concentrated effect, having to hug bosses to get that extra dps varies from annoying to rippy.

For survivability, aside from life, I picked up a few shield block nodes along with an Aegis Aurora and Iron Reflexes to convert my evasion to armor. That along with Grace & Purity of Fire auras plus Fortify cover most of my bases in terms of defenses - bringing my phys dmg reduction up to 49% without Fortify, 51% block with Tempest Shield and having 79/80 Fire/Cold res. And if all that isn't enough, there's always Whirling Blades to get out of Dodge.

Lvl 90 skill tree here: http://poeurl.com/2Lq

Bandits: Kraityn(Resists)/Point/Alira(Power Charge)


For flasks I go with 2x HP (Bleed+Poison removal), 2 DPS flasks (Witchfire + Atziri's) and the 5th slot is usually Quicksilver with curse removal, although I swap it out often for freeze remove or a diamond flask if I want even more dps.

Life leech: I use Warlord's Mark (applied via CoH+Reckoning) + Atziri's flask. I haven't toyed with Vaal Pact yet, it's next on my list of things to try out.

DPS buffs: Ice Golem, currently messing around and trying to decide on the totem (Wither/Protector/Warchief all seem viable with certain pros and cons)

I haven't reached the end of the game yet, only had the luck of 1 t13 and 1 t14 map dropping so far so I don't know how it performs vs Shaper/Guardians. General mapping seems easy enough, very few bosses are troubling and I'm pretty sure half my deaths or more are just Esh breaches. Tul seemed to take forever (killed on the last portal), normal Atziri was bad (died like 3 times), Xoph and Esh were alright (1/2 deaths). It was just my first visit, with no prior preparation except for Atziri, so could probably improve there significantly - but as I said at the start, the build definitely needs adjustments for HC.

Other than that, if there are any Uniques that would help the build, if I picked the wrong class or the build just needs to be more focused... just fire away!

So I decided to go the same way for SSF-Legacy (ie BF Assassin), was planning on 1h+shield but RNJesus blessed me with 2 decent physical dps swords for leveling so I'm DW for now.

The core of the build is still the same and I'm keeping the DW nodes at a minimum to make it easier to respec later on, just not sure yet if I'll go for Shield + Iron Reflexes or stay DW w/Evasion.

So far it's been a breeze to level, just hit Act3 Cruel at lvl 54 with 3k hp, in the limited time I had available.

Current tree (63 points): http://poeurl.com/92H

Planned tree (112 points): http://poeurl.com/92L

Since it's SSF I can't really plan on gear, I'm just going with whatever drops, I can share a few tips for leveling though:
1. Always go for Life nodes on the passive tree first while leveling, let your gear upgrades take care of damage.
2. Get a 4-Link ASAP and keep it even if it has crap stats, until you can get it on another slot, don't waste your Jeweler's / Fusings while leveling, the extra link will more than make up for any stat deficiencies.
3. For armor pieces, upgrade every chance you get, focus on max life. Exception only for boots, get 20-25% move speed even if it means you have to drop some hp or resists, the extra move speed is worth it.
4. For rings/amulet, use whatever drops that has flat physical dmg + life, resists and useful implicit is just a bonus.
5. For weapons, go for whatever has highest DPS, until you do Cruel lab, from that point on you want to focus on the physical DPS of the weapon + crit chance.