[3.5] Soul Mantle Dark Pact Totems - League Starter - All Content

what would you change from here? I can't get lvl 92, I die to often in maps t11-t12-t13

sometimes skeletons just 1 shoot me (they hit me at the same time)

Would you consider other ascandancies for SSF HC?

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Silence3000 wrote:

what would you change from here? I can't get lvl 92, I die to often in maps t11-t12-t13

sometimes skeletons just 1 shoot me (they hit me at the same time)

The gear looks pretty fine.

Try using a Rumi's Concoction flask instead of the Basalt or Mana.
Don't use Haste if you're having trouble surviving.
Also check the map mods from time to time; we can ignore most mods, but monsters can hit really hard with -max resists and added elemental damage.

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sorcita wrote:

Would you consider other ascandancies for SSF HC?

Not really.

Guardian is already the best ascendancy for that because of the curse immunity (+15% resists and in general less damage taken).

Assassin could be replaced but I think it's too good to give up (along with the Shadow start).

One thing you could change is taking Sentinel/Resists as a start in the skill tree instead of Shaper/Mana. This can makes gearing quite a bit easier.

Hey, I was wondering how would you make this build for an assassin. Is there something to grab on the passive tree on the way to the totem nodes? And how would you build the tree? Any item besides Void and Inya? What would be different between the Sciond and the Assassin in general?

Is there a reason you are using increased critical strikes instead of faster casting on the totem links?

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lucastb wrote:

Hey, I was wondering how would you make this build for an assassin. Is there something to grab on the passive tree on the way to the totem nodes? And how would you build the tree? Any item besides Void and Inya? What would be different between the Sciond and the Assassin in general?

You could grab Doom Cast and Throatseeker as an Assassin, but only if you're okay with giving up defenses. Otherwise I'd go for something like this, which is similiar to the tree in the guide (definitely get the Power Charges).

I'd use no other uniques than Void Battery/Inya's Epiphany/Soul Mantle/Kikazaru, but there should be room for 1-2 more optional uniques if you wanted to.

The key plus is that you can do more damage than Scion if you're using Void Battery or Shimmeron, which typically leads to faster boss kills.
Otherwise, Ambush is pretty good for killing packs quickly.

Cons of Assassin are that you'll typically end up a bit squishier due to less skill points and that you're reliant on Power Charges (which you can only get with Power Charge on Critical).
Also you only have 80% curse resistance, which means you have to get your resistances to 90% to counteract elemental curses.

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Regretful89 wrote:

Is there a reason you are using increased critical strikes instead of faster casting on the totem links?

Crit Strikes is better/more reliable most of the time.

Crit Damage or Faster Casting can be better depending on the state of your character (PoB can tell you). If that's the case, you can swap the Gems of course.

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SHEPUUURD wrote:

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Regretful89 wrote:

Is there a reason you are using increased critical strikes instead of faster casting on the totem links?

Crit Strikes is better/more reliable most of the time.

Crit Damage or Faster Casting can be better depending on the state of your character (PoB can tell you). If that's the case, you can swap the Gems of course.

According to your pob link your build gets about +4.2% (+23600) added DPS by switching to Faster Casting.

Im just curious if there is a mechanic / reason other than the increased DPS?

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Regretful89 wrote:

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SHEPUUURD wrote:

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Regretful89 wrote:

Is there a reason you are using increased critical strikes instead of faster casting on the totem links?

Crit Strikes is better/more reliable most of the time.

Crit Damage or Faster Casting can be better depending on the state of your character (PoB can tell you). If that's the case, you can swap the Gems of course.

According to your pob link your build gets about +4.2% (+23600) added DPS by switching to Faster Casting.

Im just curious if there is a mechanic / reason other than the increased DPS?

If you turn off the diamond flask, crit will be stronger. The power of the gem depends on how much crit chance/multiplier you already have, that's why I can't strictly say one gem is better for the 6-link than the other, but the best 3 gems are always Faster Casting, Crit Strikes or Crit Multi.

If the damage is close to each other (within ~5%), I recommend crit over cast speed for the following reasons:

1) A crit does ~4x the damage of a noncrit. If you want to kill packs as fast as possible you want to
oneshot them with a crit (you also get a crit multi bonus from Assassin for targets at full life).
Therefore a higher crit chance makes clearing more reliable.
2) Cast speed makes your totems die a bit faster. This is mostly unnoticeable because they tend to get replaced pretty fast, but it will make a difference if you're also casting Wither.

Hi shepuuurd. Thanks a lot for the in depth build guide and constantly answering questions on this thread. My character can pretty much do most end game content right now including red-tier elder/shaper guardians/shaper/uberlab sub 10 min/t11-15 maps with any mods. Only difficulty I'm running into is uber atziri, HoG, and constantly tracing back to pick up loot since I'm destroying mobs so quickly. Otherwise, I'm having a lot of fun with this character.

1 question though, could lightpoacher great crown be viable for this build?

so ive been using mostly ghetto MF gear and have managed to clear tier 15 maps without issue at 91, am like 2% away from 92 and i can equip my next skilltree gem. thats whats really impressive about this build, is how much you can clear with basically zero cost gear. i mean i only have a 5L still but it already feels like overkill on everything except maybe a few red map bosses. and i have no lvl 21 gems and like nothing has quality except some of the less important gems. super super cheap!



obviously the biscos isnt cheap but for bosses i swap out to a 1chaos gold amulet wiht life and a low roll crit multi, and its more than enough.