[3.2] Icy "The Cat" Shieldmaiden (Spectral Shield Throw, 90% Ele, Deadeye, Aspect of the Cat)

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birdis0n a écrit :

I think you also dont want that the shield pierce so my advice is rupture at least with my version.

Fork should be nice yes, my feeling is that I would not clear much faster with it but I will test it.

No, I don't think so either tbh. It takes off so much damage for it to fork, and then you need both projectiles to impact the pack in order for the shards to maybe go into things twice.

That makes this entire build (at least to me) a whole lot less interesting though. This is now simply a single projectile "fireball" build scaled with phys and elemental damage, pretty much. In the shape of a shield.

The whole reason I liked this idea was to play with chain and/or fork, something interesting. The Captain America dream died today. How sad. :(

I testet now mapping with fork instead of hypothermia and its faster and rly fun (in pob it shows ofc a lot less dps), I updated the guide. For singletarget we still have to switch gems but maybe just fork im not sure yet

updated also pob a bit

I have a similar build. I am tweaking it now.

Powerful precision is fine.

The initial throw cannot pierce, so what is piercing is explosion projectiles after it forks.

Have those go through others and pierce is great.

Also I'm not sure I'd use point blank. The reasoning is the explosion part of SST is not going to reset the initial distance for point blank. It doesn't for fork or chain, so I doubt it does for SST.
So you basically have giving yourself a -50% dmg on the inital toss (the max distance for point blank is 10, which is really short), and then -50% on the explosions projectiles.

I'm using ewars as I'm almost too maps but I wanted to try some things out. Tweaking before maps.

I'm still unsure on chain, thinking on taking it out cuz I'm using powerful pre, I'll try with fork.

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Cryxx a écrit :

I have a similar build. I am tweaking it now.

Powerful precision is fine.

The initial throw cannot pierce, so what is piercing is explosion projectiles after it forks.

Have those go through others and pierce is great.

Also I'm not sure I'd use point blank. The reasoning is the explosion part of SST is not going to reset the initial distance for point blank. It doesn't for fork or chain, so I doubt it does for SST.
So you basically have giving yourself a -50% dmg on the inital toss (the max distance for point blank is 10, which is really short), and then -50% on the explosions projectiles.

I'm using ewars as I'm almost too maps but I wanted to try some things out. Tweaking before maps.

I'm still unsure on chain, thinking on taking it out cuz I'm using powerful pre, I'll try with fork.

Hi thanks for the feedback :)

Throws a spectral copy of your shield as a projectile which cannot pierce...

You are right I forgot about that, means that pierce is actually awesome for mapping.. this must be very nice for mapping combined with fork because I guess also the forked shields will not pierce so when they explode you have 16 projectiles which are piercing :O

On the other hand with Rupture you will do more singletargetdamage I think it depends what you prefer, I will go for Rupture still.

Point Blank is also for me not very clear atm combined with far shot, if it means that I do more dmg at midrange it is ok if not then I should maybe drop it - Can someone 100% clarify this maybe? I researched already but im still not sure :D but for the most bosses I will be nearly at melee range and evade their attacks with whirling blades because thats my playstyle - I will tweek a bit in PoB and will try to find something out.

I would recommend fork instead of chain and if you take Powerful Precision mapping should be very fun and they have 100% critchance :D so a lot of explosionstuffs (actually thats perfect for the EO version not?)

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birdis0n a écrit :

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Cryxx a écrit :

I have a similar build. I am tweaking it now.

Powerful precision is fine.

The initial throw cannot pierce, so what is piercing is explosion projectiles after it forks.

Have those go through others and pierce is great.

Also I'm not sure I'd use point blank. The reasoning is the explosion part of SST is not going to reset the initial distance for point blank. It doesn't for fork or chain, so I doubt it does for SST.
So you basically have giving yourself a -50% dmg on the inital toss (the max distance for point blank is 10, which is really short), and then -50% on the explosions projectiles.

I'm using ewars as I'm almost too maps but I wanted to try some things out. Tweaking before maps.

I'm still unsure on chain, thinking on taking it out cuz I'm using powerful pre, I'll try with fork.

I would recommend fork instead of chain and if you take Powerful Precision mapping should be very fun and they have 100% critchance :D so a lot of explosionstuffs (actually thats perfect for the EO version not?)

Yes, it is! I'll do some more building on the EO version. Hang on...

I went crazy and created a version for very rich ones -> https://pastebin.com/n0ECZWDt

If you need 4.3M Single-DPS :>

Below is my latest take on the EO version of the build, having dropped Chain all together, going for Fork instead on maps. Using Powerful Precision for the easy EO full-time upkeep.



The only issue it has is when you face single target bosses on the EO side of things. You'd have 5% crit chance there, because shield projectiles can't pierce, so the 100% crit chance doesn't apply to shield projectiles, only their shards. Initial Fork projectile won't explode, like Chain, and the secondary Fork projectiles won't explode into shards until they hit a target. On a single target boss, you'd need to pull him to a wall or something to have the shields hit the wall and shards fly into the boss at 14% crit chance each, but other than that single target EO might be hard to keep up while also dodging attacks.


Update: From my experience now in having tried a lot of different combinations of passives and gear on PoB, I can say that the crit version will have a higher damage ceiling as gear progresses, but will both initially and later on become expensive to gear. EO on the other hand is very budget friendly, but won't have as much potential scaling as crit does.

EO does deal the more consistent damage and has much more life and regen from points not spent on crit nodes. It also helps to be able to run Elemental Focus support for extra damage, Damage on Full Life regardless of Blood Rage (thanks to regen) and Projectile Weakness on Blasphemy. Curse gives you knockback as well as a huge damage boost for nearby enemies, which with Point Blank is what you should be aiming for anyway.

I've given it a shot, but I think I'll stick with the EO variant, even with the future damage potential of crit, it will still lack the defenses and the other things above. Herald of Ice doesn't do much damage at all, as we won't crit nearly enough to make everything blow up all the time.


Funny sidenote: PoB is also cheating in regards to Assassin's Mark in the Crit build. It's acting as if it's up all the time on DPS, so to be fair you should turn it off and only enable the power charges it provides. That's likely the only thing that will result from Assassin's Mark CoH, as it doesn't proc until something dies.

You could also simply run Blasphemy Assassin's Mark instead of Herald for full uptime of the curse and run Elemental Focus in your gem setup for a bit more damage. You won't have to care about ailments. Again, you should be attacking stuff close to you anyway with Point Blank in your build.


Tip: Imo, your current setup of Herald/CoH is better with Far Shot and without Point Blank, while keeping your distance from things, as you should be doing with your life total anyway. It would become the sniper kind of playstyle with shield throw, instead of kind of melee. You'd do much less damage closeby, but you'd be getting rewarded for it in damage and safety from keeping your distance. Damage you otherwise would never have with Point Blank, whether you have Far Shot or not. Far Shot doesn't nearly offset the downside of Point Blank at range.

Also, Fork projectiles count as the same projectile when it splits, in regards to Point Blank damage calculations. So it's a straight up anti-synergy with each other. I am still not 100% sure how the shards are calculated in regards to Point Blank. If it's like Tornado Shot, which is my guess, then the shards count as a continuation of the shield, and will have much reduced damage with Point Blank the further they travel. This makes increasing AOE spread through means of projectile speed also much less appealing. Again, I'm NOT sure about this, but it can make a huge impact on this build.

So if you ever find yourself attacking stuff far from you, maybe this is an idea for you. :)

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Xavathos a écrit :

Herald of Ice doesn't do much damage at all, as we won't crit nearly enough to make everything blow up all the time.


Funny sidenote: PoB is also cheating in regards to Assassin's Mark in the Crit build. It's acting as if it's up all the time on DPS

Did u run with a diamond flask? I crit all the time and have all the time my 3 power charges up except at bosses so i have fulluptime and after CWDT goes off it takes maybe 2sec till im full up again but you can check this in one of my next videos - For me the whole screen is exploding atm :)

I will play around a bit with Point Blank too bad that nothing happens when I configure the projectile travel distance in PoB

Can you show me how you tested the critversion I think something was missing I could help and also adjust my guide for others, I will also switch from rats to starkonjas I think for a bit more health and defense

And we should also not forget the high amount of evasion we get here which will be around 10k

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birdis0n a écrit :

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Xavathos a écrit :

Herald of Ice doesn't do much damage at all, as we won't crit nearly enough to make everything blow up all the time.


Funny sidenote: PoB is also cheating in regards to Assassin's Mark in the Crit build. It's acting as if it's up all the time on DPS

Did u run with a diamond flask? I crit all the time and have all the time my 3 power charges up except at bosses so i have fulluptime and after CWDT goes off it takes maybe 2sec till im full up again but you can check this in one of my next videos - For me the whole screen is exploding atm :)

I will play around a bit with Point Blank too bad that nothing happens when I configure the projectile travel distance in PoB

Can you show me how you tested the critversion I think something was missing I could help and also adjust my guide for others, I will also switch from rats to starkonjas I think for a bit more health and defense

Oh right, I forgot about Diamond Flask, because I don't have one in my build obviously. :P
Good point, I guess that works then, still don't know if it's better than a 24/7 curse though.

Evasion won't save you from what really kills builds in PoE, one shots. Anything that doesn't one shot you is generally fine against almost every build out there. The problem is, if you run with 5k life, especially on evasion builds, you will eventually get one shot. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near the things that would one shot me, hence my idea about the exclusion of Point Blank in your build. You've got so much damage anyway, won't hurt you much. Besides, you seem to like Arrow Dancing, which again favours staying at a distance.

Another tip here: The Primeval Force node in the corner doesn't actually do enough to warrant taking it for us. Reason being the 5% Elemental Penetration works only on Weapon attacks, which our shield isn't.

They also say that the "Attack Speed while holding a Shield" nodes only apply to the weapon attack speed on Reddit, but I haven't tested this myself yet. PoB seems to disagree.

To answer your question, here's a side by side comparison for you of my personal takes on the EO and Crit builds:

EO


Crit

Update 09.03.2018:
- Switched rats with Starkonjas for more HP and defense
- I could improve the tree by 3 points
- More HP from the tree
- 1 more Frenzy charge

PoB: https://pastebin.com/6k9fiyw1

I hope I can add soon a new vid I have some bad luck with mapdrops atm..

EDIT: I removed now Point Blank and use Decoy Totem to keep Bosses far, it works rly good :) thanks for your feedback!