Poison charges & melee assasin build

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RogueMage wrote:

Sorry, but you missed the boat, in 1.0.2 Viper Strike is no longer anything but a secondary support skill.

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raics wrote:

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RogueMage wrote:

Sorry, but you missed the boat, in 1.0.2 Viper Strike is no longer anything but a secondary support skill.

It was never anything else, and probably shouldn't be if you ask me.

About assassin builds, I had a puncture-splash shadow. It fits the theme even more than viper because you mostly need only one hit, then you whirl away to slash the other side of the group and leave the ones following you bleed to death. Since splash correctly reduces bleed now it might be a little less effective but 'takes % increased physical damage' now affects bleed so it just might even it out.
Anyway, it's a fun and fairly safe build, you don't stand and spam so you are very hard to pin down, as long as whirling doesn't desync you are indeed very hard to kill and you can do decent damage. Viper was used too as a boss killer, it might be a decent option for static target cluster too, those did go down a bit slower.

Whatever you do, vulnerability curse is a must.

P.S.
Those chaos and DoT improvement nodes will be welocme, shadow and ranger will probably get them and they might make Adder's touch a bit less useless, I took that one for the flavor (and crit multi boost).

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darklordof1 wrote:

As for puncture, isn't it a bit useless for targets that barely move? ;/

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raics wrote:

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darklordof1 wrote:

As for puncture, isn't it a bit useless for targets that barely move? ;/

Sure, but with that particular playstyle melees will chase you around most of the time and ranged will try to get away after you hit them so it mostly works. Viper is there for truly static enemies like totems and devourers which don't come in large groups.

Anyway, just try it for yourself and see, it's not a waste of time. You might want to wait for those dot and chaos nodes before you start planing, though.