Types of Shadow Builds?

So my first character is a Shadow. I see people are posting a lot of different types of builds. I was just wondering what a Shadows main focus is. What attributes and perks should i be looking for with my items? Passive skill tree wise, what should i do.. or is that really just up to me? So far i did some Increase One Hand Physical Damage, Duel Wield Block, Attack Speed, Maximum Life, & Movement Speed. Next step i was looking at Increasing Critical Strike Chance or Increase Invasion & Energy Shield. What is your opinion? With a build going this way, which way should i be heading towards?

Thanks in advance.

Anyone, anything?

Based on my (limited) experience wish Shadow and lack of anything but "any class can do anything" responses, I believe it really is up to you. I too am debating which way to go but I hear that they can turn into wicked casters. With mine, I'm planning on going either claws or fast 1h weaps such as daggers. In any event, I've placed my main focus on general DW/1H talents until I've made a decision with a little into +int as I'm seeing a few decent items on another character (who is further along in the game) that require int. I also am intending on having minions so the ability to level my zombie gem is dependent on int.

But as far as a "main focus" is concerned, there simply is none (which I am biased against, every class should have it's strengths and weaknesses or else what would be the point?). Given the Shadow's placement, I'd say they are best suited with a melee/casting blend but that is all up to where you place your skill points. Also based upon my reading, resistances play a big part in end-game (higher difficulties and A3) so it wouldn't be a bad idea to sink a few points into those.

Hope this helps, I am new myself but we're all learning along the way ^_^.

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guyinblack wrote:

Based on my (limited) experience wish Shadow and lack of anything but "any class can do anything" responses, I believe it really is up to you. I too am debating which way to go but I hear that they can turn into wicked casters. With mine, I'm planning on going either claws or fast 1h weaps such as daggers. In any event, I've placed my main focus on general DW/1H talents until I've made a decision with a little into +int as I'm seeing a few decent items on another character (who is further along in the game) that require int. I also am intending on having minions so the ability to level my zombie gem is dependent on int.

But as far as a "main focus" is concerned, there simply is none (which I am biased against, every class should have it's strengths and weaknesses or else what would be the point?). Given the Shadow's placement, I'd say they are best suited with a melee/casting blend but that is all up to where you place your skill points. Also based upon my reading, resistances play a big part in end-game (higher difficulties and A3) so it wouldn't be a bad idea to sink a few points into those.

Hope this helps, I am new myself but we're all learning along the way ^_^.

Thank you. Yeah i picked up a Gem that is blue. Its a aura, and regenerates mana every X amount over a X amount of period. Which i find really useful since i run out of mana fairly quick. So i to am seeing a shadow player being Melee,caster.. I guess this game is very customizable when it comes to Class and equipment. Which i agree with you on the fact that classes should have strengths and weaknesses. But thank you for your input if anyone else is willing to add, please feel free to. Looking for more advice and tips.

Well, the classes do tend to have some limited strengths and weaknesses. Based on their starting area in the passive skill tree, it can be harder and more costly to get specific skills. Shadows start very close to a lot of DEX/INT skills and can go both spell damage or 1H weapon damage and attack speed early on. As you gain levels if you were going for a specific 'non-standard' skill you can make your way there, but not as quickly as a class that starts by that skill.

I think i know what i will like to do with my shadow.. Base a build off of his class name :D

So I want to stack energy shield and evasion while also getting Chaos Inoculation. It seems incredibly easy to go from there to Pain Attunement (I assume this works with Chaos Inoculation). The contradiction of the class comes into play in that with all the avoidance and shield, it seems like it should be on a melee character, which I like, but then there is no real point in the Pain Attunement. So maybe I can focus on more AoE spells so that I can use all the avoidance to my advantage. Is something like this possible?

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I assume this works with Chaos Inoculation

Only been playing for a few days but I'm pretty sure I read that Pain Attunement doesn't work with CI.

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_rakk wrote:

"

I assume this works with Chaos Inoculation

Only been playing for a few days but I'm pretty sure I read that Pain Attunement doesn't work with CI.

PA is 35% of max hp or less, you can't do 35% of 1hp, they don't work together.

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ixJay wrote:

So my first character is a Shadow. I see people are posting a lot of different types of builds. I was just wondering what a Shadows main focus is. What attributes and perks should i be looking for with my items? Passive skill tree wise, what should i do.. or is that really just up to me? So far i did some Increase One Hand Physical Damage, Duel Wield Block, Attack Speed, Maximum Life, & Movement Speed. Next step i was looking at Increasing Critical Strike Chance or Increase Invasion & Energy Shield. What is your opinion? With a build going this way, which way should i be heading towards?

Thanks in advance.

Pick a particular weapon or spell, then look on the tree for bonuses that apply to that weapon/spell. If you can get from the shadow starting point to the area with the weapon bonuses you want, and still get plenty of useful passives along the way, then you can make the build work. For example, passives which benefit cold spells are spread all throughout the shadow, Witch, and Templar trees, so a Shadow can use cold spells if they stay in that area. Dagger and Claw passives are all around the Shadow starting point, so those are an option as well. Heck, if you head through the center all the way to the duelist tree, you can pick up useful life, attack speed, and movement speed passives along the way making one-handed and two-handed sword builds a possibility as well.

Making a good build is all about minimizing your attribute passives, and getting the right proportions of offense and defense. If you can find a path to the passives your build needs which minimizes attribute point nodes, maximizes useful nodes like attack/cast speed, life/defenses, and damage/crit, and has a good balance of offensive and defensive nodes, then you can make your build work.

Some rules of thumb:

For Weapon-based builds, Increased Physical Damage is weak because much of your damage at high levels will be elemental, not physical.

For weapon-based builds, Weapon Elemental Damage nodes are extremely powerful for the above reason

Attack/cast speed and crit nodes are useful because they are a multiplier to your overall damage whether physical or elemental, and are more difficult to find on items than Increased Damage stats.

Melee builds should have at LEAST +150% Life and +150% to their chosen defensive stat, or at least +215% energy shield if using Chaos Inoculation.