Frost Blades Assassin?
" Thank you. That looks really good, with impressive damage and crit chance. The Shaper's Touch gloves look awesome. The stats appear so puny, but it must really add up. As I briefly mentioned in-game, though, I've started playing now, and decided to drop Assassin and go with Raider instead. It has been fun so far, although lacking in single-target damage. Clearing is excellent though, and I like that there is an element of strategy involved, in that positioning matters. This is what I'm using for now, but it is of course likely to change depending on how it plays. https://pastebin.com/tjRF6h0E Much gear is essentially empty, but getting a 6-linked Loreweave isn't exactly cheap, so not sure how realistic that would be. Decently rolled ones cost 7-8 ex. Gotta say that Nomic's Storm boots are really nice for levelling, at least with this build, because they often give +40% movement speed. That's good because I always run into soooooo many deadends. Quite like the Frost Blades skill for now, but time will tell how well it will perform in the mid-to-end game. Single target damage appears to be the Achilles heel. |
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" Hi again. Since you are playing an Assassin but have characters hidden, could you please elaborate a bit on what skills and ascendancies you are using, and how it plays? As I wrote in the previous post, I have already started playing using a Ranger->Raider, but it would be interesting to hear more about how Assassins play. Getting Multistrike on my character was a seismic event. Totally changed things, and I hope it will be easier to deal with bosses now. Prior to that, pretty sure I must have spent 5 minutes on the last Izaro fight (first lab). Doing next to no damage and needing to run around a lot because of dangerous mechanics and lack of life flasks (had to farm add-ons). Just glad I got him in the end, because that was more difficult than most uber lab runs. Much the same with Malachai, but thankfully managed to take him down deathless. Was another close call due to puny damage and a long drawn-out fight. I like it so far, though, because it's more tactical than just walking around spamming right-mouse button. |
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" Sadly I now see where you are coming from. Just came from the Innocense fight. Got him in the end, but due to the extreme time it took (easily 15 minutes) I died twice as there is only so much running round and pinging him I can do when out of life flasks. The clearing is good and it's been fun - within the limits of how fun things can be in a game where mobs largely don't pose any threat. Tougher rares and bosses is an entirely different thing, and it takes forever. I'm fine with somewhat longer fights, it's normal from other games, but when I need to tickle them to death it's not so great any more :( Given the problems I've had with (normal lab) Izaro and Innocense, I don't want to think about how gruesome the fight against Kitava is going to be. Disappointed right now. Hoped I could go really far with this build. But if single target is going to suck this badly, it may be better to pull out early. Damnit. |
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Hi,
I have played assassin but trap build and that´s a different story. But lets take a look at your build. 1) All melee builds need a good weapon to scale damage. You have taken some physical damage nodes but your weapon deal low physical damage and it´s bad anyway. You can get decent weapon for just 1 alch: http://poe.trade/search/onotokitukisik f.e. Ornament of the East Gut Ripper is a decent unique weapon for that level with free "Resolute Technique" kind of modifier. You need two good weapons for dualwielding FB (it´s alternating weapons while attacking) You can keep Advancing fortress in offhand it will reduces your damage though. 2) I think you should change supporting gems to fit your build better. You will change the weapon but let say you can take Ornament of the East Gut Ripper You should have: FB + multistrike + melee physical damage + ruthless + Elemental attack + Cold penetration (faster attack till you take the Winter spirit passive). You have low critical chance to get smth from crit damage support and added cold damage is less effective with low attack speed weapon and no penetration but nothing bad. Make these change above and you should be fine. Dernière édition par Rakiii#5559, le 12 août 2018 à 18:29:07
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Good times ahead xD
" Sorry for not getting back to you sooner on this, and thanks for the advice. That looks like a very strong build, no doubt about it. Ultimately I decided to basically keep the setup I had, though, with two 5-L skills in the Tabula with the same support gems. Molten Strike really helps out. And although your setup would greatly boost single target damage, each projectile's damage was cut in half. Therefore I figured it was best, at least while levelling, to keep Molten Strike and sort of get the best of both worlds. Since then I've purchased a good claw and been able to equip the almost perfectly rolled Touch of Anguish. The new claw has built in Multistrike and Ruthless, so I've put Molten Strike there for now. Means I need to drop something else, which will probably be the CWDT setup, as I'd like to keep the Curse on Hit. But I suppose if I were to put Curse on Hit - Herald of Ice - Assassin's Mark - Frost Bomb ...the Frost Bomb wouldn't trigger? Not sure often it did trigger before anyway, but it looks pretty solid with essentially 25% penetration. Also bought this chest piece, which I was going to use if linking Loreweave didn't work out. It's pseudo 6-linked with this build, with other good abilities, so would be a very strong backup. Loreweave is ofc better, though, and the attributes help out a lot due to the struggle with enough strength and intelligence requirements. I've taken two +30 nodes for now to deal with it. Plenty of respec points anyhow. I do hope it's possible to use this build in Delve. But I'd probably have to use a separate single-target setup as Frost Blades simply isn't good enough until it's scaled very high. The skill tree has gone through quite a few revisions since starting this thread, and in the most recent, which I may well stick with, I've dropped Twin Terrors and adopted Fangs of Frost. That makes the tree still level 91, which should be achievable for me given the softcap around level 90. Removing Twin Terrors hurts a bit, but it was what hurt least, and crit chance (with flasks) is still 75%. Current version: https://pastebin.com/jKbNaZ0v Don't mind the weird skill setups in that link, I've simply kept it to easier compare DPS values across the various permutations. Currently there is an empty jewel too, which would ofc help out a lot depending on what I am able to get/buy. That jewel slot looks like a bad fit compared with the one near Acrobatics, but I simply need all the int I can get (once the temporary stat nodes are removed). One of the reasons I've stuck to this character and build is that I find it really fun to play with frost effects. Cool to see enemies freeze and shatter, especially in mid-air. And it gives some good defensive boosts too. If they're frozen they can't attack you, and then they can't kill you :P Now when I've filled out (what I wanted) from the Claw wheel, I should get charges much more reliably too, which will also help. For the moment I only have two ascendancies, but Rapid Assault --> Avatar of the Chase will grant permanent Onslaught, which should help a good deal as well (without need for the Silver flask). Still need to sort out a few things, like cold resistance and the boots (need new colours), but other than that I'm really pleased - especially with managing to 6-link the Loreweave with slightly under 600 fusings :) |
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" Assassin's Mark would trigger either from shattered effect or from Frost bomb explosion. Btw it´s great you´re enjoying the build and GZ for 6-linking the body. |
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as youve probably started to work out by now frostblades is one of the most powerful melee skills in the game, its absolutely bonkers.
With the single target damage, to me it only seems an issue if you push the very heights, were talking guardians and shaper. I manage guardians with FB and ppl use it to kill shaper given strong enough gear but I dont bother with either, I switch the skill out for wildstrike if Im going into dedicated boss content. For general mapping FB should just wipe the map and the boss easy tbh. I use raider with a dagger and shield, tho the gear level I use is quite extreme so I can see going claw dual wield being a more sensible league option. You could do with using a regal on ur abyss jewels and probably upgrading the belt. The tree looks solid, theres a fairly standard shape to ranger builds like this that is usually most efficient and you seem to be using it. thats the tree I use on my frostblader, more or less the same thing tbh, obviously few more points spent at a higher level. I love all you people on the forums, we can disagree but still be friends and respect each other :)
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" You are right, the general clearing with Frost Blades is pretty nuts. I did some low-tier maps yesterday, and stuff just died every which way after a click or two. Loreweave doesn't exactly hurt (despite the relatively poor physical damage roll), but the skill itself truly shines in clearing. Bosses are harder, it's just the way it is - the skill's weakness is single-target damage. But now when I have basically end-game gear, spamming bosses with FB is okay too, although I still tend to use Molten Strike for that. I looked up your character in PoB, and the gear is indeed nuts! xD Is that amulet and dagger Kalandra material? I see it has the "Mirrored" tag. That kind of gear is out of my reach, but I'm still very pleased with what I have currently. Our trees are also almost identical, apart from dagger vs claw specialisation, and it looks like I've gone more "all in" for cold damage and cold conversion (originally due to the Touch of Anguish idea). You also have more points, which I'll probably never get tbh, as just getting to level 91 is a massive pain in the rear for me. I don't like that kind of mindless grinding, and it's pretty slow at those levels. Won't get to Shaper before this league ends, but it may be something to strive for in the next league, unless they 'destroy' Frost Blades. Apart from the big frustration earlier with single-target damage, where bosses took 15 minutes to whittle down, I'm having a lot of fun. It may actually be in danger of moving into "boring" territory due to the power of FB for clearing, but we'll see how that goes. The tactical factor I talked about previously is kinda gone if you just hit a button and everything around you dies no matter where you stand. But even so, the effects and playstyle is great fun, so I'm going to try to push it a bit further and see how it goes. Map bosses can still be pretty darn sturdy, so although they're far from the level Shaper will be at (never tried), it's still going to be a test for the skill and build, which I can use as a measuring stick on deciding whether to go for this next league. I need to sort out some things though. The belt could use an upgrade as you say, and I tried yesterday, but couldn't top up resistance again with for instance Stygian Vise (and really good ones are DAMN expensive). +42% res for each element is a LOT. But 4000 life feels on the low side, so I should try to get it closer to 5000, or at least 4500. To make colouring the boots easier (would need 4 off-colours now) I should find new ones, but not easy to replace those, with good life, resistances and 30% movement. Blew a bunch of essences on a Vise yesterday, but nothing worth keeping. Want to regal those jewels as well, but ideally with better affixes. Just really hard to get lucky with a 3rd one since there are so many variations, and I'd prefer a better life roll to begin with. This character has replenished my interest in the game, though, so that is good. Just doing the same thing over and over gets boring after a while for me, so I tend to need new goals. Probably the reason why I usually prefer story-driven games. There's something more to experience than just the core mechanics of the game, an extra layer if you wish. Perhaps the reason I've been restrictive in trading as well for this character, despite having maybe 10 ex worth of chaos. |
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For a dual wielding claw build, I really think Bloodseeker is worth taking a look at. While it's dps isn't amazing, it's instaleech applies to all attacks as long as they alernate (or only use the bloodseeker itself but that's logical). Probably sloppy programing from GGGs side?
If you had something like an Ahn's Might in the other hand, one could argue the speed of Bloodseeker compared to Ahn's Might leads to majority of time is spent swinging a better weapon making combined weapon dps closer to that ones, but that's more for other builds (if any tbh :-/ ). All in all, Bloodseeker is cool. Especially for DW claw. When it comes to frostblades in particular, I always thought of it as having insane more multipliers in Hatred and Cold Penetration, making it quite important to convert damage and focus on cold to get the most out of it. On my frostblades some leagues ago, I wanted to focus on cold to the point of making it a hybridiser like you with added cold (hybridiser meaning getting both flat phys and flat cold, usually done with phys wanders since even mirror worthy wands have relatively low base dmg as well as wand nodes scaling all damage usually). However, I kinda felt like if you want the highest numbers the usual PoE approach of going insanely ham on one thing (phys damage) would have scaled better in the end though. But idk, I never found out since Tzteosh kinda one shot me in a t5 map. Gravity is just a prejudice. A part of Earth's jurisdiction. As an apache helicopter, I find that very oppressive. Dernière édition par Zorajin#7086, le 18 août 2018 à 08:37:41
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" the reason that character is that high level is because its old, old as the hills, it probably hit lvl90 over 3 years ago. I tend to go to maybe 90ish in a league if Im really feeling it, maybe less even if I get bored. Thats also partly the reason for not being full cold conversion. When frostblades was released the cold conversion nodes didnt exist so physical to lightning was the way to get yourself to 100% ele conversion and get the most out of elemental damage with attacks gem. Full cold is a better way to do it, if I switched up some nodes Id drop about 200 life and gain maybe 100k dps from using cold pen and full cold conversion instead. I may do it next level when I have an extra point, though the other reason is that I use wildstrike for running guardians etc, thats where I need the extra damage the most, but its 100% conversion skill so the cold nodes are a waste on it. I am considering just going full frostblades though and if I did that Id switch to pure cold. The gear is stupid tbh, its just standard league stuff, eventually u get so much currency there u might as well spend it and thats what u end up with. My setup is actually more of a tank than a dps: coil, arctic armour, 20k evasion, 7200 life, phase acro, toh, basalt, blind etc. With that sort of gear you could easily do 1.5 million dps if you went full mathil and just accepted youre gonna die somewhat regularly. Ive built that character in a way that it shouldnt ever die unless I completely mess up. I love all you people on the forums, we can disagree but still be friends and respect each other :)
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