My dual claw/energy shield solo build

i'm tring this build

it's quite fun but i'm having some problem in ruthless
i got one shotted easily

maybe my equipment is shitty?


this is my skill three now



noob question how do i link the equipment?

"

boneraiser wrote:

During the stress weekend and after checking the Passive Tree a bit, I had the idea of using a build very similar to this one. 1 hp Energy Shield, Energy Shield nodes here and there, Dual claws nodes for + damage/accuracy/life leech (energy leech with the passive) etc.

I also had some other thougts that involved + crit strike, but I realized it would be useless without accuracy, which you pointed out promptly.

Other idea would be the + cold effects/dmg nodes. I only found a 'lightning damage aura' in my 2 playing days, and shocking mobs was pretty nice for extra damage, so I believe some cold/slowing/freezing aura would also exist. This would provide crowd control, which would be amazing for higher survivability in the shadow.

Another 3 skills that could help you stay alive are Crystal Skin, Chance to Avoid Chilled and Avoid Freeze. Everytime I got frozen with the shadow at lv 20-25 I was good as dead.

What are your thoughts in these ideas?

The energy leech passive is very good for this build, I'm so glad GGG put it in, =D.

There's a fire aura (Anger) that adds a flat bonus like the lightning one, and there's a cold aura (Hatred) that adds a % of your physical damage as cold damage. Crowd control isn't much an issue for me, as many of my enemies die too fast for it to matter once I get in melee.

I actually just finished testing out Crystal Skin myself. From my experience, they're more useful early in the game before you have a way to deal with chill. Later on, it's easy to get max cold resist and a flask that gets rid of chill/freeze, making Crystal Skin less useful. I'm actually just about to be giving it up (when I get more refund points), because my 4 points for it will be able to be spent better on ES for straight defense against everything. So if you would take Crystal Skin at all, I would rush to get it after the Claws of the Pride cluster, and then refund it later after you get resists up.


If possible, I'd like to hear about your experience leveling as this kind of shadow, because I leveled mine before some of these major changes, feel free to PM me if you have the time, thanks! =D

"

kurojishi wrote:

i'm tring this build

it's quite fun but i'm having some problem in ruthless
i got one shotted easily

maybe my equipment is shitty?


this is my skill three now

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQYABybKlhEO6MsakGuPHW6o4ioRdGYs18ILL6MMgzDpZhI1tSrrNrhKMDmWlms_nl9NSUc4nEsMhrpNM76rT0NZfVbSYmpZI8GtXJ9o12M6v8hj8nqPcKt4knNtYcV3ABYJe8LQtoeeSQeICWYliEUxTou_Ct-MKoh2ltEcBJjiHBydMLjXnWUYpam_B2KwHEZesKYR7LdArbq7VeVIu4z0570hu1bDlV__xx9hH8dBqpbIOTABzcpmY-NYSNbk6IMj6EB07fMQbvf3IyC59zxve_fFZjH7PiOo

noob question how do i link the equipment?

When you're typing a post, at the bottom of your screen will be your character portrait, click on your character, and then you can click on the items to link them to the forum.

Once you've taken Chaos Inoculation, you want to make sure you're looking for high Energy Shield armor, and max resistances are a must (I'm using two resist rings to help with that). If you're having too much trouble surviving, you can refund Chaos for now and take the Fitness node in Shadow's Starting area. Having health again means that you will be able to use life flasks in emergency, and after getting better gear, you can take CI again. My suggestion for when to get CI is when damage is being fully absorbed by your energy shield and you no longer see your health drop.

Also, there's a bit of an awkward time between taking CI and getting life leech claws, I still need to update the main post to describe this (and to include the leech and ES cluster by Ghost Reaver). But during that time, the only way to regenerate ES is by letting it regen naturally, which means running away from enemies when your ES gets low. I'll be able to give you a few more pointers when I see your gear though, =)

"

Aplier wrote:

The energy leech passive is very good for this build, I'm so glad GGG put it in, =D.

There's a fire aura (Anger) that adds a flat bonus like the lightning one, and there's a cold aura (Hatred) that adds a % of your physical damage as cold damage. Crowd control isn't much an issue for me, as many of my enemies die too fast for it to matter once I get in melee.

I actually just finished testing out Crystal Skin myself. From my experience, they're more useful early in the game before you have a way to deal with chill. Later on, it's easy to get max cold resist and a flask that gets rid of chill/freeze, making Crystal Skin less useful. I'm actually just about to be giving it up (when I get more refund points), because my 4 points for it will be able to be spent better on ES for straight defense against everything. So if you would take Crystal Skin at all, I would rush to get it after the Claws of the Pride cluster, and then refund it later after you get resists up.


If possible, I'd like to hear about your experience leveling as this kind of shadow, because I leveled mine before some of these major changes, feel free to PM me if you have the time, thanks! =D

Thanks a lot for your feedback! It was much appreciated.
Since the stress weekend has ended now I won't be able to test it before open beta. I would buy the bronze pack to have keys for me and 2 of my friends, but there's no viable paying method for me.

Anyway, I'll get back at you when open beta starts, and will probably create a thread explaining my leveling experience.

Once the game is released I'll look forward to be playing with you :)

You have a PM boneraiser :-)

The late 30's to late 40's are the time those builds are prone to quick deaths from my experience and there is no really good option to solve this problem.

What I did was I picked up ghost reaver early and used a life on hit support gem so that I could regnerate both ES and life while fighting, but I also had claws which are better than the normal weapons at this level what allowed me to leech a decent amount of ES.
Also, if you have the possibility, you may want to use granite flasks, possibly I would go with 1 life,2 mana and 2 granite flasks (I used 1 crit instead of the life and one hybrid instead of a manaflask when leveling my second shadow).

From the experience I made when doing the first maps with my new shadow yesterday crystal skin could be a better idea than I originally thought, I got frozen way more often than I hoped, and that was by white skeletons without damage increasing mods (and me sitting at 75% res).

"

Victo wrote:

You have a PM boneraiser :-)

The late 30's to late 40's are the time those builds are prone to quick deaths from my experience and there is no really good option to solve this problem.

What I did was I picked up ghost reaver early and used a life on hit support gem so that I could regnerate both ES and life while fighting, but I also had claws which are better than the normal weapons at this level what allowed me to leech a decent amount of ES.
Also, if you have the possibility, you may want to use granite flasks, possibly I would go with 1 life,2 mana and 2 granite flasks (I used 1 crit instead of the life and one hybrid instead of a manaflask when leveling my second shadow).

From the experience I made when doing the first maps with my new shadow yesterday crystal skin could be a better idea than I originally thought, I got frozen way more often than I hoped, and that was by white skeletons without damage increasing mods (and me sitting at 75% res).

Victo, I can't stress enough how thankful I am. Really, you actually made my day :D
From my experience, I didn't really notice the change in ES regeneration with Ghost Reaver in early-mid 20's. Probably because 10% of a 136 Energy Shield isn't that much :p
That's why I am creating a shadow from scratch and try going in a different direction. I know I should only allocate 80~85 skills, but got excited and ended up using them all :p

I know early game can be though without going in the dexterity nodes (I will be taking intellect to rush the Eagle Talons node and rush all ES amplifiers asap), but then again, increasing claw passives should be enough. Also, having a trap or cold spell will help pulling the dps up a bit, so I think it won't be a trouble.

A friend of mine suggested getting Pain Attunement since I will always have 1 hp. This should give the fire/cold/lightning auras a significant buff.

Crit nodes will synergyze not only with the physical attacks but also with the auras, burning/freezing/shocking all the mobs around, especially with elemental propagation support gems.

I never got to see granite flasks. Are those the ones with a lion brand that we see in the streams?

Haha, I know, right? Those skeleton mages can be a real pain! At 20's, being frozen for 2~3 seconds is more than enough to die. Careful skill levening order is a must, or the shadow will be a glass cannon.

Once again, much thanks Victo!
Tonight I will start the infamous Aura-Energy Shield Shadow guide :p

Haha, I am glad that I made you happy :-)!

When I said I picked Ghost Reaver early, I actually meant somewhere in the mid to late 30's, picking it in the 20's will be completely useless because you probably won't leech more than 3-5 ES per hit.
Remember, Life Gain On Hit-Effects are not the same as lifeleech and are not affected by Ghost Reaver at all!

With 12-16 skillpoints you get for free putting ~75 into the tree is a realistic and "quickly" achievable goal to aim for.

Pain Attunement does not work with CI in the way your friend thinks it does. Actually it doesn't work with it at all because with 1 max HP you are either at full life or dead, there is no "low life" in between. And even if it did it wouldn't boost your auras because they don't "deal spell damage", they give a buff to you which gives you an additional bonus for your attacks (that's also the reason why bonus damage support gems don't work when linked to auras).

Granite Flasks grant you 10.000 bonus armor for 4 seconds, I have absolutely no idea which brand they have and if it's different from Crit-Flasks ;-).

Oh yes, I see. I guess I had life on hit effects, the Claws' bonus that is.

I thought as much, would be really good if it was like that. Seems like I have some tree studying to do before I allocate those skils :p

Thanks for the heads up (and the pm :p).

Edit:
Now this looks a bit more like an end-game build. Maybe I will not pick the 5 6% ES nodes near the Witch tree to swap for Strong Arm and Crystal Skin. Also, I have 2 Deadeyes, accounting for 72% accuracy. Maybe only 36% will be enough, but again, that is something I will have to test.

Check the originally thought build here.

Check the "possible modifications" build here.

I am at level 61 now, my Dual Strike is at 5461 dps without buffs.
One more level to go for Vaal Pact, I will stream tomorrow evening, which is around 21 hours from now!



Current Build

Level 70, not final

I have not yet decided if I respec my points and go the other way around. I would sacrifice some defense (ES) for more DPS (Accuracy), if I change it around I will do it after hitting level 70 and grabbing the accuracy nodes. I don't see this build having trouble with either, DPS or survivabilty so I can wait and see how things look at level 70.

I'm going to start levelling up new shadow all on its own (no hand-me-down items from main), to see how I can tweak my build for that early-mid area, and try to rewrite this thread to be more like a guide, because it has picked up in popularity. Thanks to the claw changes, I'm thinking it might be worth delaying CI until around level 50 when you move out of life on hit claws, or at least until after getting GR and the leech cluster. Until then, having that extra buffer of life will probably save many lives.

"

Victo wrote:

I am at level 61 now, my Dual Strike is at 5461 dps without buffs.
One more level to go for Vaal Pact, I will stream tomorrow evening, which is around 21 hours from now!

Don't forget that Dual Strike currently thinks you alternate weapons and not attack with both, so the 5461 dps you see on character sheet is actually double that, 10922 dps

"

Current Build

Level 70, not final

I have not yet decided if I respec my points and go the other way around. I would sacrifice some defense (ES) for more DPS (Accuracy), if I change it around I will do it after hitting level 70 and grabbing the accuracy nodes. I don't see this build having trouble with either, DPS or survivabilty so I can wait and see how things look at level 70.

The way you have it now gives very easy access to the giant ES cluster just north of mid, which with that and the ES cluster below GR could lead to a very defense-oriented shadow, with 84% extra increased ES (and more from int). I am starting to feel like my ~3500 ES is not enough, but my armor is also very outdated for my level (now 70). About 5k would be more comfortable, but I could see 8k being fairly eay with good gear and all those extra ES passives.

Can't wait to watch the stream and find out how good Vaal Pact really is, =)

"

boneraiser wrote:

Oh yes, I see. I guess I had life on hit effects, the Claws' bonus that is.

I thought as much, would be really good if it was like that. Seems like I have some tree studying to do before I allocate those skils :p

Thanks for the heads up (and the pm :p).

Edit:
Now this looks a bit more like an end-game build. Maybe I will not pick the 5 6% ES nodes near the Witch tree to swap for Strong Arm and Crystal Skin. Also, I have 2 Deadeyes, accounting for 72% accuracy. Maybe only 36% will be enough, but again, that is something I will have to test.

Check the originally thought build here.

Check the "possible modifications" build here.

In each of your builds, you pass by Repartee 18% damage (and one of the 6%'s to get it) in the shadow starting area. This is a great damage buff for 2 nodes, especially early on. That choice between the extra ES or Strong Arm is different for each person, the build can go both ways after getting all the main passives, if a person wants more ES or more DPS.

For me, even 72% accuracy is low, I like to be closer to 85%. Accuracy affects crit too, and because this build gets a decent amount of crit chance, accuracy is helps a lot. Critical hits are checked with accuracy, if the critical "misses" then it's just a normal hit, so real crit chance is crit*accuracy.

Also, something I noticed for crit chance is the Mental Acuity node in the spell part of Shadow's starting area. This gives +20 int +30% crit chance, and it takes two +10 int nodes to get it. So for 3 nodes you're getting 30% crit chance 8% energy shield and 20 mana, which compared to 3 passives spent on "normal" nodes of crit and ES that would only be 30% crit and 6% ES for 3 passives. This might be worth putting points into later, when the rest of the build is complete and you can't decide where to go for next.