Desbris, I understand your woes perfectly. Like me, you've chosen not to use Chaos innoculation, and that is where all your troubles come from.
Atleast you're a hp/es ranged shadow. I'm melee, and you can't attain enough HP in that side of the tree to be tanky enough. Your ES won't be that high either.
"
Invalesco wrote:
aye kotao was an ice crit caster shadow.
i did make it to 77 with a crit dagger shadow though.
so it should be reachable no matter what build u do. HC is all about playing smart and not getting complacent imo.
that said, the only reason i actually got to 77 was coz it was a race. after the race i never really went back to grind again. grinding gets boring when u know things are gonna be wiped soon D:
I personally disagree.
You will never find a HP based non-IR shadow in any HC ladder, ever. Melee or ranged, especially melee.
The ladder is basically a "Highest survivability builds" list. Which practically means CI/IR shadows only, prefereably ranged.
I've seen you're race shadow. You used CI, LS (ranged), blood rage, and flicker. Blood rage with CI is free. Add ghost reaver and you get free leech with a ton of dmg. CI grants 50% more ES and chaos immunity. Meaning more points, that a hp shadow would have spent on life/str, to be used on other things. This also frees up life mods. Not trying to offend you and I hope you don't see it that way, but this is a very very safe build.
Ice crit cold shadow, and i'm 100% sure he's using CI as well, is also as safe as it gets.
It doesn't matter how smart you play. If you don't have the right build, or people to carry you, you won't progress unless you fit certain criteria as a shadow in HC:
Chaos innoculation or Iron Reflexes
Ranged (LS or cold)
Melee (with ranged spammable strong AoE, like LS)
Hp based shadow without CI/IR is not HC viable. CI and IR are 2 keystones that are too strong to ignore, and give too much for 1 passive investment. If you want to play a shadow without them, you better play default.
