The shadow is a design disaster
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few comments after getting a trickster to 53 with Viper Strike
1) just base EV/ES items are enough to get there deathless. Ghost Dance is functional as early as early you pick it up 2) Viper Strike scales with gem levels. Lesser Poison Support - just as well. so you dont need any particular weapon to deal very good damage on 2 link 3) Shadow's sustain seems to be 'life/es/mana' on kill and it works well enough 4) bosses you do on flasks if you care to do them deathless 5) life on hit/mana on hit wheel near shadow solves all sustain issues early on 6) evasion works very well during leveling because the threats you face are mostly attacks. it changes in end game and collapses in end-endgame (it is all about spells and degens by then) but leveling with evasion items is just laughably easy on Poison. unless Pathfinder somehow loses her poison prolif i cannot see shadow being used for strike poison build, it is just too convenient to use. Bino's is cool but you can get MUCH better chaos weapon than Bino's Last edited by sidtherat#1310 on Dec 23, 2022, 3:52:36 AM
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" I did exactly the same thing but i got a little further, the default playstyle is fine until around act 8, act 9 is still manageable, act 10 your just probably gonna be one shot because u cant sustain ES. Any hit you take almost kills you because you cant count on ES for your effective HP pool, ive reached the start of act 10 with 3500 hp pool, 700 from ES, as soon as my ghost dance is gone which takes about 2 seconds since ur playing melee u now have 2800, on any boss thats gonna be 1 or 2 hits. Also keep in mind that this HP pool is with a pretty decent bought 5 link. Keep playing you will see what i am talking about. It's not a fun experience. |
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im level 70 now (farmed in blood aqueducts)
it was EXTREMELY easy, and what is nice about it: cheap uniques are BIS for this setup Sin Trek + Vertex (+ Replica Soul Tether for more experienced) for great starting gear setup. Im experimenting with gear right now because i have no idea what i where do i want to go from here - but i consider Queen of the Forest, Dendrobate or a rare EV/ES with some fancy mod EV/ES shield with suppress (so i can 'start ES recharge on spell suppression') and plain old 'just dont get hit' im far more worried about damage vector - Viper Strike is a horrid skill to play. for a new player - it might be BIT too complicated but it is effective unless someone insists on facetanking everything edit: ive been doing EV/ES builds 8 years ago when nobody thought they are a thing. i kinda know what im doing so i might not replicate 'new player' perspective well - but i did all the mistakes new players do - played starting skill and used garbo items (till ~68 when i regeared for the first time). it works and for sure is easier than 'facetank me armour melee' or pure ES witch Last edited by sidtherat#1310 on Dec 23, 2022, 12:25:50 PM
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" Did you finish kitava yet? the only way i see this working is by using soul tether and bloodseekers the thing is, a default build shouldn't need uniques to work it should just work, not even counting this leagues bloodseeker price, it would be impossible to buy as a first character, im not saying it should be the best build in the world but it should work comfortably at least until u finish the campaign. Last edited by sonicphi#6276 on Dec 23, 2022, 2:37:21 PM
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" maybe the problem is that you keep coming back and you are not getting better, because you are blaming the game instead of asking yourself how you could be building your character differently. for example u cant sustain es... ok, but you have ghost reaver which disables your es recharge. the whole synergy of evasion and energy shield is that evasion has entropy and guarantees regular pockets of misses in incoming attack hits which allows your es recharge to kick in. the most powerful es sustain node to pair with evasion is wicked ward which stops your es recharge being interrupted once its started, so you ust have to evade enough to begin recharging then ur unkillable for 4 seconds. but instead youve disabled es recharge entirely, in favour of leech, but you wont have anywhere near enough es or damage at that level to have a meaningful leech rate. youre running discipline to try and bolster that es, but youve robbed yourself of your ability to sustain it so once it down it stops providing any benefit when you could have been running grace which would give you those reliable windows of not getting hit to recharge and enough evasion rating to make ghost dance work properly. pathing to that attack wheel through the center evasion node rather than going down the outside of the tree and cutting under the ranger starting area through herbalism is probably not the way to go. youve spent so many points on that skillgramage into no mans land its robbed you of so much passive power its like your build is 10 levels underlevelled because youve just been taking 10 dex modes forever instead of life and damage nodes. https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.20.1/AAAABgYBfQAGAQkBJAIRAjoDhwW1Bx4KmwxzDY0OSBCSEZYSMBUgFfYV_Ra_HF8i6iP2JP0mlTB8MgEyMjY9PP4_bEX0Rg5HBklRSVJJsUpqSn1LHE2SUEJRR1M1VUtbr11OX2ph4mJ5YqxiwWSKZKZkr2WSZ6BqjGyMcq9zDnX9d6J313gZfXWAIoP3hG-Hdom3ijiMNo19jYGNv4_Bj_GSgJMnlS6dX52qotmjiqQFsNiyGbTFtUi42bkCu-PBoMKcwuzIFMzHzerPetDQ0UbTftRC1gfXz9g02-fdDd1I45_nVOjW6druDu-I8NX1GPVv9xP47_k3_MX9Af66_94ABboaASScaUpq-31iwTW9wpyY8tg0?accountName=sonicphi&realm=pc&characterName=SonicphiClawCrit ive highlighted all the nodes that have crit viper strike damage, life or spell suppression along the way if you went under the ranger. theres so many you cant even take them all, youd have to pick and chose exactly what you wanted because theres just such a feast of things at almost every step along that path. so the fact hardly anyone plays shadow claw/dagger melee says the devs have a problem with their game balance/design that needs addressed. i dont think anyone can argue that imo, the shadow has clear architypes it is attempting to fulfil and theyre not reflected in what people are using shadows for. but theres a difference between no ones playing them because the other options are strong, newer, more exciting and then saying that shadow with a claw doesnt work. i havent played your character but if i was going to attempt it i wouldnt attempt it the way you are doing it because my experience of dagger/claw melee and ev+es defence would lead me to dismiss that way of building it on paper, i would presume it wouldnt work. maybe im wrong because i havent played it the way you are doing it, i wouldnt rly know for sure unless i tried it. but maybe not, maybe your way doesnt work. dont dismiss the ide that you are not the worlds leading expert on shadow melee and theres thing out there about building those characters you could learn. im sure theres stuff we could all learn, its probably been a while since we fully explored the possibilities of shadow melee because ggg hasnt done a good job of looking after it and making it exciting with new skills and favourable balance. I love all you people on the forums, we can disagree but still be friends and respect each other :)
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he had to path this way because GGG decided that this is the closest 'attack mastery' wheel for shadow. it is GGG's problem to fix, and it is a legitimate design issue that actually makes shadow-melee a bad experience
some tips other than that: EV/ES wheel + mastery '+ES for EV on boots' - this with any 300+ EV boots (obtainable at that level) or with Sin Trek (best EV/ES boots for this type of build) == +700 ES craft +ES on items if you can spare a change use ES / EV or ES/EV shield. Ghost Shroud works of your EV rating. it sucks if you have like 3000 EV. 3% of that is what? 90? Run Grace and ffs - Trickster, not Assassin if you fancy EV/ES btw Melee Phys Damage on Viper Strike is bad due to flat chaos damage on the skill itself. you are not scaling it |
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" Once again you missed the point entirely, its getting a bit tiresome so i will explain the idea once more and be done with it. The idea is that the SHADOW DESIGN sucks, i didn't say that you couldn't go get other stuff from other parts of the tree like wicked ward ofc i can, but then i wont be playing the shadow i will be playing a shadow/witch WHICH IS NOT THE POINT OF THE THREAD!!! The shadow must be able to hold its own design wise, specially the build that the developers tell you to play. Also stop coming at this from a softcore perspective, linking a lvl 100 build helps no one, everything works in softcore, u just have to die a million times and you will clear the content as far as i am concerned softcore doesnt exist and it shouldn't exist for any 1 trying to play this game in any competent fashion. Im indeed not the best player in the world but ive been playing this game since closed beta and i've always enjoyed this playstyle and as far as i remember the only time it was viable was when vaal pact and ghost reaver worked together to give instant ES leech, they removed that and the ES/EV playstyle has been crap since forever unless u play ranged skills. If GGG is selling me this fantasy of a melee assassin ninja why are they not delivering on it, why is the shadow a played like a witch or an archer. Please understand i dont care about "GOOD BUILDS" i want to play the shadow the way it is being advertised to me and i especially dont want to play it in softcore i would rather play sims, at least in the sims your character can die and theres something at stake. Last edited by sonicphi#6276 on Dec 23, 2022, 5:12:19 PM
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" Your post highlights exactly whats wrong with the shadow, why the design is garbage. Look at this from this perspective: I started a character, i got all my big nodes and i am using all my ES/EV gear, i followed the path that was laid out before me and still my build is trash and i struggle, not even taking into account that i bought a pretty decent 5link. When you do things the way GGG leads you to do, you suck, i garantee you that even if i had went trickster and had the ES/EV ascendency it wouldnt change a thing and i can say this because i've tried it, ive tried many things over the years. GGG needs to take a very deep look at the shadow(and melee again by the way). |
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dont say that, because if that is true, it is more 'skill' problem than ever
your EV/ES gear is made of.. Helmet: 17 EV and 5 ES Boots: 52 EV 11 ES (you could at least quality it..) Gloves: 124 EV 32 ES Body: 525 EV 125 ES Belt: 20 ES i know it is hardcore and stuff but i hope you understand noone is going to buy that you 'tried'. these items are below ANY par. you could buy MUCH better for 1alch a piece, even in HC. people in SSF have better gear at lvl 66 you want play shadow, i did. and i did not go for Wicked Ward (altho - it is the best pick in the long run) reconsider your build choices. actually get ES/EV gear ffs. what you have now is just terrible Get ES/EV nodes (+1 ES per 8 EV on boots is actually amazing with good starter boots like Sin Trek or Atzir's Step) and tell me how the f.. you want to leech something with poison build? like seriously? Ghost Reaver is good if you also have life leech AND ES leech support + Corrupted Soul for 50/50 life/ES damage/sustain. what are your stats? ~2000 EV (and no flask) and 1000 ES? you know that ES leech depends on your ES total so why you try and force it with just 1000 ES? i understand your point, but your attempt is just wrong. you might be right that the 'archetype' is weak - it might be. but you execute this archetype poorly and expect stellar results for comparison - my current (lvl 71) Trickster has 3000 HP, 3400 ES and 28000 EV, Corrupted Soul from Replica Soul Tether and if not for garbage playstyle of Strike Skill on shadow - i could like this character (and i still have gloves, rings, amu and shield to get) seriously, get POB, 'craft' yourself mid-range gear and check for yourself. it can be done. just dont try to facetank with this char - if you want to do that, go Champion |
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" Are you telling me that if i get decent gear that i can do kitava without any issues? If you have a 6400 efective HP pool at 71 than you 100% bought a lot of items, is this your first character? im coming at this from a first character perspective, because when you design a game you are supposed to give your players something functional from the get go, especial if the player is new. POB is not suposed to be a nescessity and i assure you i can make a make a capable build if i chose to i just chose not to because i want to see how far the "standard" way of playing, the way GGG "tells me" to play takes me. Please dont try to fix my build that is not the point of the thread, but i will buy some new items and see if what you were saying lets me clear kitava. I wont spend more than a few chaos tho, cause that would be meaningless. |
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