3.2 - Sygh's Poison Assassin

Brief Intro:

In many games I enjoy debuff/DoT/Degen style characters. In PoE i've made curse characters to this end and also really enjoy Essence Drain style builds. This is a melee take on that kind of build that uses a bunch of very cheap uniques. The potential boss dps is exceptionally high and depending on the skill you use your clear can be fairly good.

When i initially made the build, it was dual wield with Death's Hand for added chaos damage as well as power charges. This damage seemed completely unnecessary after the fact and so I made it more hardcore-friendly.

Pros
Very high single target DPS
Excellent recovery when faced with packs of enemies
Can run near any map mod
Extremely budget friendly to get started with
Can get to fairly high block (capped with extra investment in tree)
COVERS ENEMIES IN WEBS (Aspect of the Spider is sick)
Can do Red Elder, Atziri, Guardians, and Shaper

Cons
Doesn't have the highest raw health pool, utilizes block/temporal chains/hinder
Can't tank super huge hits (see health pool). Have to play around them
Requires multiple uniques
Some of recovery is gated behind kills (So ineffective on bosses)

Important Gear

-Wasp nest gives chance to poison (to put us over 100% with no investment), as well as a massive flat damage increase on a decent phys weapon. Most important stat on it is the attack speed but look for decent pdps/crit

-The damage this gives you is incredibly high if you can meet the attribute requirements.
The effective 7l gives slight damage and also increases our poison chance as well. A defensive chest CAN be used but the tradeoff is relatively steep.

-Embalmer are an extremely cheap option that give a decent amount of health, some chaos resistance, and are readily available.
-Fenumus Weave gives higher potential damage as well as added safety via the massive slow. The webbing also looks super cool.

-An additional curse is immensely important and therefore we have to either give up a ring slot, have a nice +curse amulet, or use Windshriek. I like the aura radius on it for Temporal Chains so it's the option that I go with. An amulet with good stats would be ideal.

-This gives us our major damage curse as well as % damage increase. Must have for damage.

-This gives us more poison %, massive poison duration, Perfect Agony to better multiply our damage on bosses, and a way to trigger Arakaali's recovery buff when we're fighting without Blood Rage on (bosses).

Other Slots
Amulet -
Look for Flat Phys and Crit Multi ideally. Crit chance, Accuracy, and an open prefix for Chaos Damage to Attacks is also desirable.

Belt -
Cyclopean makes the attribute needs (notably Intelligence)a little bit easier, as well as offering immunity to Freeze (opening up a flask slot). Can offer immunity to Shock too if you can get enough Intelligence to bypass Strength.

Alternatively, a Stygian belt works fine as a way to help cap resistances. Stygian belts are honestly overtuned relative to competition and some of the mods on them are really unique and valuable. If your jewelry isn't exceptional, this should ease the resist burden.

Rings -
Much of our resistances will come through rings and helmet, and this can also be where you find some Intelligence for Dendrobate and/or Cyclopean Coil. Physical damage scales our poison damage and an open prefix for chaos damage to attacks can also be valuable. Accuracy can also be found here.

Helmet -
Helmet fills the same role as Ring for filling out the remaining stats you need (without the ability to get a damage affix). Look for Accuracy, Resistances, and potentially Intelligence if you need it for Dendrobate/Cyclopean Coil.

Jewels - GET LIFE ON EVERY JEWEL


Abyss jewels can be good if they have:
Physical Damage to Attacks /// Physical Damage to Claw Attacks
Chaos Damage to Attacks
Attack Speed if You've Crit Recently /// Attack Speed
Multi if You've Killed Recently /// Global Multi
Onslaught on Kill
Damage if You've Killed Recently /// Damage Over Time While Wielding a Shield



Regular jewels can be good if they have:
Attack Speed With Claws /// Attack Speed With One-Handed Weapons /// Attack Speed With Shield
Global Multi /// Multi With One Handed Weapons /// Melee Critical Strike Multiplier
Poison duration
Poison damage /// Chaos Damage /// Damage Over Time

Physical damage mods on jewels are NOT physical damage+ailments. This makes the mod bad but not useless. Look for attack speed wherever you can.


Defenses
This build doesn't have a ton of raw mitigation or health. The defenses for the build come through Block (which we can spec into and even use Rumi's Concoction), Recovery via Assassin's Toxic Delivery node, Soul of Arakaali, and a good shield. (Shield defenses scale very well, as well as health recovery via a Shaper rare/The Surrender).

A rare shield with this mod is much cheaper than a Surrender but gives comparable (if not more at 5%) health recovery while also easing the burden on capping resistances.
Until you can get a shield like this, Ahn's Heritage/Lioneye's Remorse will work fine.

The safety afforded by Temporal Chains and the massive speed reduction from Aspect of the Spider's hinder effect allow you to skirt around most danger effortlessly to protect yourself. Giving yourself more time to react is extremely valuable.

Gem Links
Reave-Multistrike-Melee Physical-Deadly Ailment-Vile Toxins-Unbound Ailments

Blade Flurry-Melee Physical-Deadly Ailment-Vile Toxins-Unbound Ailments-Added Chaos Damage

---These always go into your Dendrobate. I'm currently using Reave to clear with because of Blade Flurry's low range.
***Blade Flurry is always the best skill you can use for bosses***

Shield Charge-Fortify-Blood Magic-Faster Attacks

---Standard movement stuff nothing to see here. One option you have is removing Faster Attacks for Endurance Charge on Melee Stun for some added safety. As you hit higher maps, your upfront damage isn't high enough to reliably stun though. Our damage comes afterward.

Wither-Spell Totem-Increased Duration--Faster Casting

OR

Ancestral Warchief/Melee Physical/Deadly Ailments/Unbound Ailments (In Embalmer if using)

---Wither is the highest dps. No question. For packs, and with the free 5l via Embalmer, Ancestral Warchief can feel really nice to use. Wither's targetting is wild and only really useful for bosses.

Cast When Damage Taken (Rank 1) - Immortal Call (Rank 3)

---You can also link a golem in here, Vortex, or slot your Arctic Armour here. You need this to trigger Arakaali with Blood Rage.

Temporal Chains-Blasphemy

---Filler for links past these 2.

Blood Rage

---Put it somewhere. Self-cast preferred so you can control Arakaali recovery better for single target.

Arctic Armour

---Same thing, slap it somewhere you have a slot. I use my last unreserved mana I can for the added safety. Another option is to go Herald of Ash to improve pack clear slightly.

Levelling and Passive Tree

29 Points
Level early with anything you want really. I recommend a 2-hand/DW with sunder. Other good alternatives are Frost Blades and Spectral Throw. Blade Flurry can immediately be used at 28.
55 Points
Getting here you can use a Mortem Morsu for the high Poison % and decent physical damage. Ultimately, you will just use an Ornament of the East and scale your plain damage until high level. Don't worry about poison scaling yet, its not the focus.
90 Points
Here we take the core poison cluster+some of the claw nodes while finishing the pathing for the build. We can switch support gems to focusing on poison scaling rather than raw damage once we have our uniques on and those nodes.
Finished Tree
Finished tree with the duelist life/hybrid defense nodes and Heartseeker. These are NOT "core".

Other options are:
Berserking
Tetsudo/Retaliation
The 3point jewel between Ranger/Shadow
Poisonous Fangs
Deflection

Bandits: Kill all. (Resistances can be a little tight so Alira has some merit however)


Map Notes
Reflect physical CAN be dangerous, but can be mitigated through.
Hexproof lowers our damage significantly, as well as removes safety from Temporal Chains
Enemies avoid poison can substantially lower our DPS
Cannot Leech isn't doable without mana gained on hit jewels and removes some recovery.

Closing Notes
I hope you guys have some fun with the build. It's extremely cheap to get going and has really high potential damage. I enjoy the playstyle of hitting things and moving past, getting the recovery as I fight the next pack of enemies.

I'll be frequently streaming live at https://www.twitch.tv/sygh where you can ask me ANY questions ANY time...or just hang out. As I do more content with the build I will upload videos and I'm sure I'll make it again in the future. With a previous iteration of this character I did all four shaper guardians deathless and am looking forward to the same potential with this new iteration.