[3.5] Say_Ten's Melee Shadow - Murder Everything Cheaply

Mind taking a look? Im sure I could upgrade most everything but just want an idea on what would be the most bang for my buck upgrades.



Using Blade Flurry over Dual Strike as I like the range and I find Frost Blades a good alternative to Lightning Strike as I hate holding the Shift button so I dont walk up to mobs faces when using LS.

Not sure how Melee Splash effects Blade Flurry either, any idea?

Thanks, really enjoying the build so far!!

"

poojis wrote:

Hi, If mana presents a problem why dont you use soutaker siege axes in one of the hands? Its pretty cheap and really good. Is it because of the crit chance that you get from both the claws?

Soul Taker actually used to be really expensive!

But that's not a bad option. The main reason, in my opinion, is that by Level 59, you will have run into (and ideally fixed) that potential issue already. You can even pick up a Twin Claw for the Mana on Hit...but sure...running Soul Taker could technically even get you another herald or aura but then casting golem would be annoying.

Gear is decent...you should craft onto craftable gear since it's generally cheap.

Also get your flasks set up. Shouldn't have to run a mana flask at level 70+.

Splash doesn't affect BF and. Either does multistrike. Go with BF, crit damage and your choice of other gems (crit chance, AOE, Conc Effect, WED, etc)

Switched out to all these pieces last night, realizing I had all this lying around on another char in not playing...

Only reason im running a mana flask is due to running out of mana when im dashing around with whirling blades, sucks to get to a pack and be oom and unable to cast to leech.

Not sure if I want to upgrade out of Touch of Anguish claws, I really like the chain on my curse applier.

If I had a ton of currency whats a big upgrade I should shoot for?

P.S. I noticed the biggest tooltip increase using added fire, since BF tooltip is screwed im not sure if thats the right choice or not...

Another Question:

How to you handle stuns? Usually at high tiers you are stunned you are insta dead.

"

Killzu wrote:

Switched out to all these pieces last night, realizing I had all this lying around on another char in not playing...

Only reason im running a mana flask is due to running out of mana when im dashing around with whirling blades, sucks to get to a pack and be oom and unable to cast to leech.

Not sure if I want to upgrade out of Touch of Anguish claws, I really like the chain on my curse applier.

If I had a ton of currency whats a big upgrade I should shoot for?

P.S. I noticed the biggest tooltip increase using added fire, since BF tooltip is screwed im not sure if thats the right choice or not...

don't be lazy...get rid of that mana potion and at least get an aztiri's promise. you are missing out on a huge dps boost (with leech too). i also have rumi's and taste of hate. i carry one life flask and no mana or movement flask.

its tough to beat ToA for the price. you would need to find a 280+ pdps claw with LGoH, at least 1.75aps and at least 7% crit...those became expensive this league unfortunately. but that would be something you would spend a ton of currency on. some crazy weapons.

also Taste of Hate is expensive and good.

all of your gear can be upgraded incrementally too...

"

poojis wrote:

Another Question:

How to you handle stuns? Usually at high tiers you are stunned you are insta dead.

higher life pool prevents some stuns and so does higher block chance. you can also get stun and block recovery on the tree and your gear.

basically life though.

if youre really nuts you could ditch some more useful skill points and go for unwavering stance but then you'd be out of evasion so you would have to attempt to stack armor, which is underwhelming.

just get at least 5k life.

Hi mates,

Thx for this awsome build, i really enjoy it.
First of all i'm not an expert, i'v played the game (a lot) a long time ago, since everything changed so i might have missed something. Also you'll see that i'm not a native english speeker and it's kind of a tradition in my country to speeque ze worst englich possibleh.

In september, some mate suggested here to use a chest armor and so, not using BoR, in his case it was because he used Abyssus. So I started to wonder why or why not using a chest?

I still think about using a chest and would like to share with you some thoughts. As I dont have super awsome gear neither lowcost stuff, and as I'm not super rich nor poor i guess it could help people like me with average stuff to go to the end game.

Here is my situation, and why i'v started trying to understand this build and not just following it.


You can skip this part

As everyone i would like to die less, and dying less means survinving framedrops from auras/crits/gore effect in breach.(to me)

Multiple possibilities to die less:

1 Having more DPS to kill everything faster
2 Having more surviability so everything kill me slower



1 Having more DPS to kill everything faster

Prety simple, as i have decent dps boost on gloves and my flat damage boost on rings/amulet is far from perfect but decent.
Even if i maxed every DPS rolls on them, I would not gain much DPS.
(you can see my char profile)

So here we are,to boost my dps I need that 340pDPS+ claws with crti chance and eventually crit multi on them... My touch of Anguish are not enought anymore. But Oh wait! I dont have 30ex tu put in a single claw! (still spent 200c trying to craft some tho u_u).

Conclusion: For now, I can't increase my DPS significantly enought to die less, because I can only dream about this guy on breach league selling his mirrored 427pDPS claws....

So here comes the second solution and the core of this wall of text:

Ok you skipped a useless part, you can still skip the rest and go to the next post meh :(

2 Having more survivability so everything kill me slower

So first, i'v set my res up to 179% min
But i realised how low my life pool was so I'v lowered my res rolls to be able to get more life, afterall do I really need to be caped even when cursed, do I?
Then, after spending some time on PoeTrade, i'v seen how a good or average life roll could make an "X" item worth from 2c to 80c (from 30-40 life to 80-90life roll)



The main problem is to get rid of BoR to be able to use a chest and gain a huge amout of life and more armour/Evasion. BUT keeping the DPS boost we have from the flat damage bonus on BoR (which is super huge). Also, I will come to this later, we need to think about gem supports on dual strike because no BoR means no virtual 7links.


Obviusly i'll try to get defense on chest and some dps bonuses on helm.

Let's take as an example, Belly of the beast because the name is awsome, because it give "some life" and because Kaom's Heart have no sockets. Also we keep the gore effect so we can still have some stress on our graphic card, to loose frames and keep PoE's spirit.


Note that Atziri's Splendour is absolutely wonderfull and many other chests could do the job to I guess.

So we have a chest, we should die less, but we still have a huge loose of DPS because BoR give 20-30damage.


Here are some Helmets with decent dps boosts



We also can think about Abyssus, but the goal here is to die less so...



So dude you have written all this stuff...now what



Using Belly of the beast and Starkonja

- We end up with more life( around 15%), more res(+10/+15 all res) and a bit less DPS(-3.5% for me) (boths bad-average rolls).
- We also lost 6% block chance which is something.
- We lost some evasion depending on rolls (100-220) and armour is the same (+50 yea!)


At this point, using BoR would'v been more simple.


But we have a socket problem, our dual strike it supported with crit damage, multistrike, melee splash, melee phisical damage, faster attack and blind... that's 6supports+dual strike. We can say that everything is mandatory here except maybe blind or faster attack (lvl 12 faster attack is + 36% Attack speed, we can get 10-15% from Starkonja ).

Blind offer survivability, faster attack well.. it's awsome.

With a 6l Belly chest (i told you that i'm not super rich, but not poor neither) we could get everything except blind up to lvl 20 and with q20 as BoR only gives lvl 18 melee damage and lvl 12 faster attacks, it would be a nice improvement.

Would it be better? Does sacrifying blind worth this 2 gems upgrades? Maybe, I could test everything, I could do stats but I can't decently post an answer longer tant the original post.


Now and last

We still have +10-15 all res from the chest, and 4 empty sockets on the helmet and we still want more DPS or more def.

I let you guys find what super gem combo we could have in the helm to be absolutely invincible.

What we can do is to put our vaal haste and blood rage or whatever in our helm, why not?

So we can get something else than Unset rings... Steel rings anyone? You up to +4-14 physical damage as IMPLICIT mod, we could get a massive dps boosts....



Ok it's super expensive to craft or buy, let's find another way.

Diamond rings?

We still have out +10-15% all res from our chest, we could for example, get better res roll on stuff to be able to not use res on.. let's say amulet? Gloves? Whatever gear we can get super DPS boost on, and still have it "cheap" because it's does not have res.

We also can lower all our res rolls to try to get highter life, or whaterver we need for the same price (this intel wee need). Steel rings are the best option for the laste rich end game tho.




Conclusion :

Using a chest does not change survivability that much because BoR gives soooo much armour evasion and life (and blind). But it still provide a nice life boost and WILL free some sockets.

If you are rich enought to to buy steel rings with double physical damage boost +nice rolls (life res etc) and finally build a better character with a chest armor and not BoR well you are rich enought to buy these super claws that you can use with BoR to destroy the entire game with the advantage of not minding about this post.

Moral of the story: If you think about something to improve, someone else probably did the same before, and probably better. And i'v spent 3chaos just to put links for items i saw you><

"

GranTib wrote:

Spoiler

Hi mates,

Thx for this awsome build, i really enjoy it.
First of all i'm not an expert, i'v played the game (a lot) a long time ago, since everything changed so i might have missed something. Also you'll see that i'm not a native english speeker and it's kind of a tradition in my country to speeque ze worst englich possibleh.

In september, some mate suggested here to use a chest armor and so, not using BoR, in his case it was because he used Abyssus. So I started to wonder why or why not using a chest?

I still think about using a chest and would like to share with you some thoughts. As I dont have super awsome gear neither lowcost stuff, and as I'm not super rich nor poor i guess it could help people like me with average stuff to go to the end game.

Here is my situation, and why i'v started trying to understand this build and not just following it.


You can skip this part

As everyone i would like to die less, and dying less means survinving framedrops from auras/crits/gore effect in breach.(to me)

Multiple possibilities to die less:

1 Having more DPS to kill everything faster
2 Having more surviability so everything kill me slower



1 Having more DPS to kill everything faster

Prety simple, as i have decent dps boost on gloves and my flat damage boost on rings/amulet is far from perfect but decent.
Even if i maxed every DPS rolls on them, I would not gain much DPS.
(you can see my char profile)

So here we are,to boost my dps I need that 340pDPS+ claws with crti chance and eventually crit multi on them... My touch of Anguish are not enought anymore. But Oh wait! I dont have 30ex tu put in a single claw! (still spent 200c trying to craft some tho u_u).

Conclusion: For now, I can't increase my DPS significantly enought to die less, because I can only dream about this guy on breach league selling his mirrored 427pDPS claws....

So here comes the second solution and the core of this wall of text:

Ok you skipped a useless part, you can still skip the rest and go to the next post meh :(

2 Having more survivability so everything kill me slower

So first, i'v set my res up to 179% min
But i realised how low my life pool was so I'v lowered my res rolls to be able to get more life, afterall do I really need to be caped even when cursed, do I?
Then, after spending some time on PoeTrade, i'v seen how a good or average life roll could make an "X" item worth from 2c to 80c (from 30-40 life to 80-90life roll)



The main problem is to get rid of BoR to be able to use a chest and gain a huge amout of life and more armour/Evasion. BUT keeping the DPS boost we have from the flat damage bonus on BoR (which is super huge). Also, I will come to this later, we need to think about gem supports on dual strike because no BoR means no virtual 7links.


Obviusly i'll try to get defense on chest and some dps bonuses on helm.

Let's take as an example, Belly of the beast because the name is awsome, because it give "some life" and because Kaom's Heart have no sockets. Also we keep the gore effect so we can still have some stress on our graphic card, to loose frames and keep PoE's spirit.

Note that Atziri's Splendour is absolutely wonderfull and many other chests could do the job to I guess.

So we have a chest, we should die less, but we still have a huge loose of DPS because BoR give 20-30damage.


Here are some Helmets with decent dps boosts

We also can think about Abyssus, but the goal here is to die less so...



So dude you have written all this stuff...now what



Using Belly of the beast and Starkonja

- We end up with more life( around 15%), more res(+10/+15 all res) and a bit less DPS(-3.5% for me) (boths bad-average rolls).
- We also lost 6% block chance which is something.
- We lost some evasion depending on rolls (100-220) and armour is the same (+50 yea!)


At this point, using BoR would'v been more simple.


But we have a socket problem, our dual strike it supported with crit damage, multistrike, melee splash, melee phisical damage, faster attack and blind... that's 6supports+dual strike. We can say that everything is mandatory here except maybe blind or faster attack (lvl 12 faster attack is + 36% Attack speed, we can get 10-15% from Starkonja ).

Blind offer survivability, faster attack well.. it's awsome.

With a 6l Belly chest (i told you that i'm not super rich, but not poor neither) we could get everything except blind up to lvl 20 and with q20 as BoR only gives lvl 18 melee damage and lvl 12 faster attacks, it would be a nice improvement.

Would it be better? Does sacrifying blind worth this 2 gems upgrades? Maybe, I could test everything, I could do stats but I can't decently post an answer longer tant the original post.


Now and last

We still have +10-15 all res from the chest, and 4 empty sockets on the helmet and we still want more DPS or more def.

I let you guys find what super gem combo we could have in the helm to be absolutely invincible.

What we can do is to put our vaal haste and blood rage or whatever in our helm, why not?

So we can get something else than Unset rings... Steel rings anyone? You up to +4-14 physical damage as IMPLICIT mod, we could get a massive dps boosts....



Ok it's super expensive to craft or buy, let's find another way.

Diamond rings?

We still have out +10-15% all res from our chest, we could for example, get better res roll on stuff to be able to not use res on.. let's say amulet? Gloves? Whatever gear we can get super DPS boost on, and still have it "cheap" because it's does not have res.

We also can lower all our res rolls to try to get highter life, or whaterver we need for the same price (this intel wee need). Steel rings are the best option for the laste rich end game tho.




Conclusion :

Using a chest does not change survivability that much because BoR gives soooo much armour evasion and life (and blind). But it still provide a nice life boost and WILL free some sockets.

If you are rich enought to to buy steel rings with double physical damage boost +nice rolls (life res etc) and finally build a better character with a chest armor and not BoR well you are rich enought to buy these super claws that you can use with BoR to destroy the entire game with the advantage of not minding about this post.

Moral of the story: If you think about something to improve, someone else probably did the same before, and probably better. And i'v spent 3chaos just to put links for items i saw you><

LOL

On Chest Use...

Pros:

+ Easier to cap resists, which MAY free up a passive skill point or two, depending on what you have already invested in, or some suffixes on your other gear slots

+ Able to get a higher life pool if you are using a helm with a high life stat on it

+ More armor, evasion or ES

+ Opens up another 4L setup (could do a warchief totem, another vaal skill (or two) with support gems, or a 2nd CwDT setup)

Cons:

- No huge DPS boost

- No extra block chance

- Relying on more expensive armor (will cost more than a BoR) to get a 6L setup to keep the defensive stats and skill gem setup alive

You have realized most of this.


On survival...

Both of your major categories are correct, and it is always a choice to take #1, #2 or a combination of both

All of your suggestions for gear have good and bad aspects.

If you went Abyssus, you could combine with Lightning Coil and make sure your Lightning Resistance is capped.

Your bottom line is correct and that's what makes POE great. There are so many options.

My builds are generally cheap and straightforward. The only thing that gets pricey is if you want super high dps claws, which used to be a lot less expensive than they are now (thanks, Mathil).

I enjoyed reading through your thought process as it legitimizes many of my own thoughts and again...it's just a guide, so the fact that you are thinking all of these things is exactly what I would encourage.

Let me know if you have any more thoughts/questions and also let me know what you end up doing. And don't spend 200c trying to re-roll stuff again haha.

Hi again, Great guide and I am using Belly of the beast right now with 5L until I get to 68. Facing tanking everything.

Few things I noticed on my char (jhincritdiebeautifully), equipping soultaker siege axes gave me a huge boost to movement. No mana issues on Whirling Blades, LS or Dual Strike which is a huge boost and you can cap auras if you want and either keep it at 75 for golems (Finished Cruel in few hours lol). Next step is to replace my sword with claw as you suggested and that would add some survability to my char.

Right now sitting at 30k dps for dual strike and 12k LS unbuffed. So I am asking your suggestions to improve on my char and gear. Please comment.