[3.0]TeaRan's Pathfinder Moonbender™ Blade Flurry Guide (End-game build, 7mil+ DPS vs. Shaper)

Important Update!
If you want to achieve higher damage than what I have shown in this build, make sure to check out my Scion post at the bottom.




Introduction & what you should know before getting into this build

This is a Blade Flurry build. Why? Because it's the one skill that potentially deals the most damage in the entire game with correct set up.

My only goal of playing this game is to have as much damage as possible. And what does that mean? Basically in order to deal the most damage you, or in this case I, need to be level 100, have the best DPS weapon, all end-game gears, jewels, gems, and of course most importantly correctly set up the skill tree and gem link.

And what does my goal have to do with you? Well, with the same set up and worse gears, you will be able to melt Shaper as well, as I will explain to you in my following paragraphs. It may appear to a lot of you that Shaper, Guardians, Uber Atziri may be hard to beat, but it honestly just requires the correct set up of gears. I am not saying my build does the most damage in the game, as many of you had noticed the gears are not even that top tier, but I am doing the best I can in order to achieve my personal maximum.

Now, without further ado, let's get into this melting Shaper build.

FAQ
Spoiler

1. Why Daggers not Claws?
Spoiler

Claws work just as fine as daggers, if you have a equally good claw, then you can take them claw nodes, for which you gain 1 skill point (gaining two by respecing dagger nodes to claw nodes, and the mana leech nodes, but lose 1 skill point to reach Claws of the Pride node), but you will lose a very good amount of critical damage and critical chance (on both skill trees and dagger itself)

2. Why Pathfinder not Raider? Or Scion?
Spoiler

Raider works just as fine, Raider has more attack speed therefore faster movement speed and clear mob speed, but in the end they have about the same damage because stacking frenzy charges give about the same amount of damage as stacking elemental penetration.
PF is safer while mapping because you are never going to run out of the 4 out 5 flasks (Vinktar being the only one might not being perma-up), and the 20% more effective on flasks gives more Cold, lightning, Chaos resists and Armour, it also increases Toh's 20% to 24%.
Scion (Elementalist&Raider) is better mapping, more tanky in a sense. But it does less damage compare to ranger because it is almost impossible to gain to full frenzy charges in boss fights, therefore losing a lot of potential damage. If you can keep up the frenzy charges during Shaper fight then it's another story.



Starting with POB
Spoiler

Defensive: https://pastebin.com/7SnE3iR4 3.0 mil & 5k hp

Offensive: https://pastebin.com/98ajCKeC 4.6 mil & 4.47k hp

Notice for both set up I did not check intimidation and there's no way for pob to calculate Vinktar's shock effect, so the final dps number should *1.22

Also there is culling effect which should bump the dps by another 11.1%

I do not want to give fake DPS by checking power charge (although for bosses you can have 3 power charges), since I want to give numbers that is close to actual dps while in combat.

At level 100 this build should have even more dps without doubt.

For the sake of it here is the POB when this build reaches lvl 100, with power charges, intimidation (add another 1.12 shock effect) we get 7.3 mil damage vs. Shaper (isn't this how other guide calculate their damage lel?)
https://pastebin.com/ANUY877z 7.3 mil & 4.65k hp


Items to get you started
Spoiler


They do not need to be corrupted in any way, but there will be more explanation on how effective the corruptions are.
These are essential items, meaning once you have these and a physical dagger you can start your build.

As you may have noticed, this build is to convert all physical damage to elemental damage, with Moonbender's, 2 Skill nodes, Weapon cold damage and Winter Spirit, and a conversion Vinktar.

Once we achieve this we will be able to scale both physical damage with a physical weapon, in this game a dagger, and weapon elemental damage on our passive tree, rings, amulets. And on top of those We will scale both physical and elemental damage with our gems, auras.


Essential Items
Spoiler

Weapon: A good physical dagger, not amazing, 350 pdps with 20+ crit chance is good.

Rings: Rare rings, you do not have to use Opal rings/Steel rings, a ring is a place to make up for resistances mostly, here are two rings I had used before


Amulet: Rare Amulet, just Focus on Elemental damage with attacks, intelligence/strength. Accuracy, Crit chance, Crit Multi, flat physical damage are all bonuses.

Body Armor:

Rare chest, with a lot of life and resistances. You can use Carcass jack (really good for the AOE increase), or Belly of the Beast, but then you will need a ton of resists from other places.

Helmet: Rare Helmet with Resists. Accuracy/Int/Strength are all bonuses.

With all these items I guarantee you that you can beat Shaper, maybe it is not as dramatic as I show in my videos, but it definitely has enough damage.


Defensive Stats
Spoiler

Without flasks

With flasks



Upgrade your gears
Spoiler

In the following order:
1. Culling on Moonbenders, probably the best thing for boss fights, a 11% more damage increase.
2. Elemental penetration enchantment boots
3. Helmet enchantment: Ancestral Protector grand increased attack speed enchantment > Ice Golem effect > Blade flurry damage > Blood rage grants more attack speed.
4. Elemental weakness corruption Shaper's touch

Use Opal rings if your weapon has APS less than 1.7, and use Steel rings if above 1.7.


Leveling Guide
Spoiler

Use Tabula, Wanderlust, Goldrim, and Dual wield Last Resort from the very start. You can use spectral throw or frost blades to level.
Upgrade to rare swords/dagger/claw once they out damage Last Resort, level until level 28 so you can equip BF.
BF all the way, keep updating your claws/daggers/swords along the way, you can use claws/swords until you get dagger nodes, or just simply stick to claws/swords.


Skill Tree



Bandit & Pantheon & Ascendancy Order

Spoiler

Kill them all.

Soul of Solaris for bossing, Lunaris for mapping. And of course Soul of Yugul for reflection reduction.

Veteran Bowyer then Master Alchemist or vise versa. As long as you get Nature's Adrenaline last.


Gears I am using at the moment
Spoiler

Defensive (I usually only use defensive set up)


(Mirror thread is up, see below for link)

Offensive
Switch Helmet and boots to


To be honest, the damage is enough with defense set up to do every single content in this game, including Shaper, Uber Atziri, Guardians, and Chayula.


Jewels
Spoiler

Here are the jewels I am using at the moment

Prioritize Crit Multi, Attack speed, and Life. The rest just get Physical damage, area damage, or generic damage. DO NOT get crit chance on jewels.



Gem set up
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Now this is where the fun comes, I will start with the easier ones

Aura set up on Gloves 2r1b1g:


Helmet 2G2R:


Dagger/offhand 2G1R:





Now for Blade flurry
For bossing


This is where you can argue with me with the gem set up, there are many good gems for this build, including Damage on full life, Ruthless, and critical damage.
Spoiler

Damage on full life is good for only POB Dps number to switch out for Maim, not only during all fights it becomes very half-assed, but you also cannot use bloodrage for the sweed attack speed boosts.

Critical damage is just less damage compare to Maim.

As for Ruthless, It is a very good gem, but there is no indicator to tell the player your next skill will be ruthless, so it is really inconsistent in a boss fight like shaper, I will still need to test this out, but in the time being, I will stick to Maim.



For mapping

Area is needless to say very needed for mapping, crit chance is also very good because it may shatter all the enemies, not only granting more flask charges, but also shatter enemies like hedgehogs.


Flasks
Spoiler



Very straightforward, Wise Oak is good to replace Atziri's too, but I prefer the Chaos resistance.



Videos
Spoiler

#1. Offensive set up VS. Full life Shaper, last stage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr5rvxwWn0A

#2. Shaper Run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACu4oh9lmcI

#3. Hydra Run https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAcBXXzMuPE

#4. Defensive setup vs. half hp Shaper https://youtu.be/buub4ACWTaI


Updates
Spoiler

9/2/17 Added Ascendancy order, added leveling guide.

9/4/17 Updated Current Gear (dagger recrafted), mirror thread, and video #4.


My shop for mirroring the dagger I am currently using


My Other build guides
Spoiler

Scion BF with dual totem, extreme damage: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1991080
Last edited by neuroy on Sep 9, 2017, 1:10:34 AM
Last bumped on Dec 5, 2017, 11:40:26 PM
Reserved
How are the defenses for this build?
IGN: BurtsyBees
"
How are the defenses for this build?


With defensive set up, it's 5k life, 2.3k Armour, maxed out res without flasks. But then there is Vinktar, ToH, and Lion's Roar, so that's 82 lightning and cold res and 7k Armour.

On an unrelated note I feel like they nerfed Shaper's Slam damage, last league with 30% ToH and 50% flask effect I could barely take shaper slame at 8k es, and this season magically I tank it with 20% and 20% flask effect.
I'm going to go ahead and turn my current Raider BF which is sword based into this dagger based build as I simply have not been able to find any 400+ pDPS swords. Build is very similar, almost exactly alike besides a couple different nodes here and there.

I'm going to try out using Starkonja's as the helm and a Doryani's as the offhand. Any thoughts on that?
Last edited by itsNaeno on Aug 30, 2017, 3:10:30 AM
"

I'm going to try out using Starkonja's as the helm and a Doryani's as the offhand. Any thoughts on that?

Starkonja is solid as long as you still have resistances capped, however you do lose the evasion bonus with Kaom's Roots.

Doryani simply loses the core concept of this build since you either have to use Hrimburn, which means losing about 300 accuracy, 100 life, 80% increased damage for 100% increased elemental damage, or you have to use physical to lightning to replace maim. The latter seems okay, but in reality you lose the culling effect which is another 11% more damage.

However, you do raise a good point, I think physical to lightning can replace maim, and we can get another off hand with culling corruption such as the Soul Taker, we might be able to have a better aura set up with soul Taker since it means we can reserve almost all of the mana, I will look into this and thank you for your suggestions.
"
neuroy wrote:
"

I'm going to try out using Starkonja's as the helm and a Doryani's as the offhand. Any thoughts on that?

Starkonja is solid as long as you still have resistances capped, however you do lose the evasion bonus with Kaom's Roots.

Doryani simply loses the core concept of this build since you either have to use Hrimburn, which means losing about 300 accuracy, 100 life, 80% increased damage for 100% increased elemental damage, or you have to use physical to lightning to replace maim. The latter seems okay, but in reality you lose the culling effect which is another 11% more damage.

However, you do raise a good point, I think physical to lightning can replace maim, and we can get another off hand with culling corruption such as the Soul Taker, we might be able to have a better aura set up with soul Taker since it means we can reserve almost all of the mana, I will look into this and thank you for your suggestions.


Well here's what I was thinking to optimize.

Use an Abyssus, Carcass Jack, Doryani's, and Shaper's Touch as the only unique pieces of gear. For the belt and boots you would just use a rare pair to catch up on resistances and life alongside the amulet and ring.

For Blade Flurry 6L:
Blade Flurry - Melee Phys - Ruthless - Ele Damage - Conc Effect - Phys to Light

On paper it seems to do a lot more damage (at least with my gear) than the current setup. Alongside this I'm also running Herald of Ash, Hatred AND Arctic Armour linked with a level 3 Enlighten. Have had no mana issues so far and seems to work just fine. Obviously my build is currently made around sword over dagger but it's the same thing at the end of the day, just a different node wheel.

"

"
Completed 32 Challengesneuroy wrote:
"

I'm going to try out using Starkonja's as the helm and a Doryani's as the offhand. Any thoughts on that?

Starkonja is solid as long as you still have resistances capped, however you do lose the evasion bonus with Kaom's Roots.

Doryani simply loses the core concept of this build since you either have to use Hrimburn, which means losing about 300 accuracy, 100 life, 80% increased damage for 100% increased elemental damage, or you have to use physical to lightning to replace maim. The latter seems okay, but in reality you lose the culling effect which is another 11% more damage.

However, you do raise a good point, I think physical to lightning can replace maim, and we can get another off hand with culling corruption such as the Soul Taker, we might be able to have a better aura set up with soul Taker since it means we can reserve almost all of the mana, I will look into this and thank you for your suggestions.


Well here's what I was thinking to optimize.

Use an Abyssus, Carcass Jack, Doryani's, and Shaper's Touch as the only unique pieces of gear. For the belt and boots you would just use a rare pair to catch up on resistances and life alongside the amulet and ring.

For Blade Flurry 6L:
Blade Flurry - Melee Phys - Ruthless - Ele Damage - Conc Effect - Phys to Light

On paper it seems to do a lot more damage (at least with my gear) than the current setup. Alongside this I'm also running Herald of Ash, Hatred AND Arctic Armour linked with a level 3 Enlighten. Have had no mana issues so far and seems to work just fine. Obviously my build is currently made around sword over dagger but it's the same thing at the end of the day, just a different node wheel.


I personally feel it is extremely risky to farm t16 maps with abyssus (it's doable I know and I have done it for a very long time).
With my current defensive setup I think my dps vs. shaper is 3.2 mil (have to double check), but it goes even higher if you count culling (3.45 mil) and I feel that's high enough damage to do every content.
With offensive set up I think my damage vs. shaper is 5.5 mil (again have to double check tomorrow since I'm not next to my laptop), with culling the reality damage might reach 6 mil.
My point is that basically abyssus is a huge dps booster but not in anyway it is a necessity. I'd rather farm maps with 5k hp and lower dps than 4.4k hp with 40% more damage taken and high dps.
Yeah I agree with you, it's not really needed.

I'd suggest also adding a Path of Building Pastebin link by the way, would be quite helpful.
any reasons for you Gems in your Helm ?


Better go Cwdt + IC + ID + Vaal Haste

and switch the 2 gems with your off hand




and you still deal 10% phy and 90% ele or do i miss anything?
30 Shores with Double Pack / Breach / Max Sextants https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2006424/page/1
First Selfmade Build as Sparker ( MF ) https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1637690
1 Million Tool Tip Dps Sparker https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1761162

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