[3.22] 💀The Grim Reaper💀 - Hexblast Poison Mines Assassin (SSF Viable, League-start viable, Uber)

Flasks:


Jewels:


New:
EDIT - Sadly not available post-Sanctum :(

Notes on gear:
1 - I didn't bother making boots with Onslaught on Kill (Unveil), but you should.
2 - I don't have an Eternal Struggle Jewel with Wither on Hit. If you're on Trade League, be sure to get one, you socket Despair instead of the Golem in my case (or some other gem, there's some flexibility). EDIT: I do now :D
3 - Swift Assembly / Minefield is a play-style choice. Both work amazingly well, try both and see what you enjoy better. Minefield feels a bit clunky until you have gear with Mine Throwing Speed, but feels very punchy (and has way more DPS and safety), while Swift Assembly is... smooth.
4 - I already know you'll be asking about Devouring Diadem. It's a fine starting helmet, but it's also not worth using all the way to end-game by now. Get with the times :D
5 - Dialla's Malefaction is viable. I think it's worse, but it is viable.
6 - If you want to use Shield Charge, Leper's Alms is a fine option. I don't love scaling dps through Poison Duration alone, since nothing really survives that long, but it's the best shields can do.

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Mods you Want:

General Notes:
1 - You'll only need enough res to cap yourself to 75 in all of them, other than Chaos Resistance which is for Hardcore and people that are bad at the game (case in point, level 100 at -50% chaos res).
2 - You need 20% Spell Suppression in gear, which can be had in various ways total, or even spread into the tree some more to lower gear requirements.
3 - You need some Strength and Intelligence on gear for gems.
4 - As much gear as possible should have Evasion and Energy Shield (Evasion matters less, Energy Shield matters so much more due to Eldritch Battery).
5 - As much gear as possible should have good mana. Yes, this is strange for EB builds, this is to let you run more auras and handle the flat mana reservation from the stupidly high costs of mines.

Weapons (Daggers only due to 20% Suppression Dagger Mastery):
Synthesis Implicit / Corruption Implicit / Crit Chance Implicit
Prefix:
Chaos Damage / Mine Damage
+1 All Chaos / All Spell Skill Gems (If you have Covenant, this matters a LOT less - Added Chaos 29 does that)
Mana
Suffix:
Increased Damage with Poison
Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier
Damage Over Time Multiplier
Critical Strike Multiplier
Critical Strike Chance for Spells (worse, but still good)

Hunter Daggers have further options, like a better Prefix for Chaos Damage Over Time. Keep in mind this mod and the Chaos/Mine damage are the "same" mod, so you can't have multiple.

Veiled Daggers (or crafted mods) include:
Prefix - Damage Over Time
Prefix - Mine Damage / Chaos Damage (same mod)
Suff - Mine Throwing Speed (BiS)
Suff - Trigger Socketed Spells (put Storm Brand in here with utility links and get free Poison Duration as well since your Storm Brand will be YOU causing Poison)

Trigger Daggers only really work well with the "true" veiled mod, the one that has a 4-second cooldown. I'm not currently using one, but it's the best for POB-warrior stats, and might be fantastic for Ubers.
If you end up using a Trigger Dagger, make sure to not be using the boot enchant with "120% crit if you haven't crit recently", because you WILL be. Get regen instead.

Yeah, Apep's Rage is a viable option, but it's not a dagger and you can do better. Still, an option, you'll just need to fix Suppression some other way, and you get a cool 8% More Damage mastery.

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Body Armor is for unique items optimally.
The Covenant is best for most use-cases. Dialla's Malefaction also works fine.
Use what you can until you have one.

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Boots:
Life
Mana
ES
Flat Life Regeneration
Chance to Suppress Spell Damage
Res
Movement Speed + Onslaught on Kill (Veiled Mod)

Implicits:
Eater - Poisons you Inflict Deal Damage 5%+ Faster
Exarch - 4%+ Increased Action Speed

Enchant:
2% Regen if hit recently
120% Critical Strike Chance if you haven't crit recently.

I swear, we're pacifists.

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Gloves:
Life
Mana
ES
Flat Life Regeneration
Chance to Suppress Spell Damage
Res

Implicits:
Eater - Chance to Suppress Spell Damage / Chance to Poison (can save a point with this and a jewel)
Exarch - Freezes you inflict spread to other enemies... This one is a game-changer. You can get Mine Throwing Speed, or Damage Per Frenzy Charge, but this is just too big NOT to use.

If you can get Temple-modded gloves (40-60% Global Critical Strike Chance vs Shocked Enemies) that's amazing, as that's a "free" mod that doesn't take room. You can Harvest-swap the other Temple mods to become this one (the damage vs burning enemies, or damage vs chilled).

The best craft here is 28% Damage During Flask Effect. You could even get the True Unveil for a higher mod here.

If you somehow get gloves that are good and also happen to have Temporal Chains on hit, well, you've won PoE. See below on why this is great.

Asenath's Gentle Touch are a valid pair of gloves, and will serve well.

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Helmet:
Life
Mana
ES
Flat Life Regeneration
Chance to Suppress Spell Damage
Res

You'll want a free Suffix to craft Mine Throwing Speed, or the mod that gives you 70% Ailment Duration (Poison is an Ailment) while Focused. We have so much Duration by the end, this feels pointless later, but it's an option.

You can also craft this with Essence of Loathing to get Increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills (or find as a drop from Minion/Aura nodes in Delve).

Implicits:
Eater - Increased Mana Reservation of Skills
Exarch - Temporal Chains Curse Effect

Enchant:
Hexblast Damage
Temporal Chains Curse Effect (my favourite)
Grace / Skitterbots / other aura reservation...
Stone Golem Effect
Dash has +2 uses...

You might be thinking of using Sandstorm Visage like many people are. It's an option, I added it to the POB so you can see how it compares. Poorly, that's how. Especially when an enemy is on full or low life, since it does nothing at all.

Eber's Unification is actually the BiS for pure DPS, but I personally don't love going into melee range with every single boss in the game. If you use it, you'll need to fix mana reservation some other ungodly way.

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Belt:
Life
Mana
ES
Flat Life Regeneration
Res

Essence-only mod for Belts: Mine Throwing Speed.
Hunter-only mods: Chaos Damage, Life %.

Enchant:
Enemies Withered by you have 6% reduces resistances
Enemies Blinded by you have 30% reduced critical strike chance (my fav)

Best to get a Stygian Vise for the Jewel, as normal.

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Ring:
The MOST IMPORTANT thing here - Curse on Hit!
Despair if you can, anything else if you can't.

Anything else you get on top, be it life, damage, res, stats, that's secondary. Wear trash with a curse on hit if you must.

Profane Proxy takes your other ring slot anyhow. Get this at all costs (there's a card in Dungeon/Cells), or just buy it.

Some of you might be thinking of using Mark of Submission. Don't. It doesn't work with Mines unlike a proper curse on hit ring. I can explain why, but it doesn't really matter.

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Amulet:
Life
Mana
ES
Res
Mine Throwing Speed (Veil / Craft)
Global Critical Strike Multiplier
Damage Over Time Multiplier
+1 All Spell Skill Gems / +1 All Chaos Spell Skill Gems

You can't have it all, but those are the things you want.
Hunter amulets have some further options, but don't over-complicate this.

Enchant:
Corruption (Crimson, Black, Black) = 35% Increased Effect of Wither

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Jewels:

Medium Cluster Jewel:
(Chaos Damage over time base)
Eternal Suffering + 1 more mod (mana can help with gear, chance to poison saves a point, life is always nice, ailment duration and chaos damage are good)
STR/Res/Damage, as possible. Personally, I recommend Flow of Life as the 2nd mod.

Eternal Suffering is dramatic for QoL.

You can (should?) use a Trap and Mine Damage base (Or none at all!) after you have a Balance of Terror / 20% Wither on Hit on Daggers (Crucible). If you do, you likely want:
Careful Planning + Guerilla Tactics.
Arcane Surge doesn't affect Poison, so the notable that gives that is less useful.

Small Cluster Jewel:
(2-3 Passive Skills, 3 is better)
Sublime Form (Grace 50% Mana Reservation, 10% All Res)
Increased Effect/Life/Mana/STR/Res

Abyssal Jewel (for belt):
Life
Mana
ES
Res
Global Critical Strike Multiplier
Increased Damage Over Time While Dual Wielding
Chaos Damage to Spells (and while Dual Wielding)
Enemies Withered by you have 2% reduces resistances

Normal Jewels:
Life
Res
% Damage
% Chaos Damage
Global Critical Strike Multiplier
Critical Strike Multiplier with Spells
Critical Strike Multiplier while Dual Wielding
Damage with Poison
Mine Throwing Speed
Damage Over Time Multiplier
Chaos Damage Time Multiplier

Unique Jewels:
Balance of Terror with Wither on Hit is BiS.
Watcher's Eye with various mods is great (Malevolence/Grace/Precision have great mods)
You can use 2 Jewels to steal an Ascendency from Trickster or Saboteur if you want.

Trickster's Polymath is huge for DPS, while Saboteur has Pyromaniac for 10% regen and shock immunity or other options. I'd get Polymath if I could.

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Flasks:
The normal Life/Evasion/Movement Speed you'd expect.
The 2 remaining flasks are up to you, I personally like Witchfire Brew to make sure I have a curse in melee range for Hexblast before I throw any mines.
My last magic flask is just damage and regen, could be a Bottled Faith or one of the silly new ones that delay damage taken.

6L (Body Armor):
Hexblast (Divergent if possible)
High-Impact Mines
Minefield / Swift Assembly (dealer's choice, Minefield is stronger)
Charged Mines (generates Frenzy charges as well)
Trap and Mine Damage
Unbound Ailments (Awakened if possible)
7L = Added Chaos 29 (from The Covenant)

Blastchain is meant to be better for DoT builds, but it's just worse in every way - less damage, worse shock/freeze... Just don't.

Awakened Void Manipulation is better than Trap and Mine damage in theory. In practice, I wouldn't make that swap since you can't detonate mines fast enough and you'll just end up losing DPS in most cases, and Freeze/Shock worse.

If you're using a body armor that isn't The Covenant, Awakened Added Chaos is a fantastic option.

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3/4L:
Spell Totem
Wither
Multiple Totems
Faster Casting (optional)

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2L
Cast When Damage Taken
Immortal Call / Steelskin (Steelskin is better, but needs more STR)

Level of gems is variable and depends on your life pool and STR.
I'm using 14/18 at the moment, other combinations exist and work.

Anomalous Steelskin is 10% More. Worth it.
CwDT also has decent options.

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2L
Dash (Divergent for Phasing)
Second Wind (Anomalous for +2 uses is best)

Or any other movement skill you like :)

Whirling Blades is usable since we're even using Daggers!
If you're the sort of person who's addicted to Shield Charge, then use Whirling Blades with Faster Attacks.

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2L
Vaal Grace
Increased Duration

This will give you almost all of your Evasion, as well as a Vaal skill to basically become untouchable for a long time.

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1L
Flesh and Stone

This applies a Blind effect to nearby enemies, which lowers accuracy by 20% (and if you have the belt enchant lowers crit chance by 30%), and due to Aura Effect, reduces Attack Damage outside that range by 20% (at gem level 21).

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2L
Dread Banner
Generosity

Basically, reduce nearby enemies' accuracy, so extra chance to Evade.
Yes, Generosity increases the debuff :D



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2L
Malevolence
Divine Blessing

You use this along with your Energy Shield on gear, and Eldritch Battery, to get a free aura. Have fun. You need to activate this once every 15 seconds or so.

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1L
Skitterbots

These puppies apply Shock and Chill, add 10% More Damage, and are a staple for every miner.

Optimally, you want to abuse them fully by getting Profane Proxy (the ring) on your right hand, and then they also apply a curse around them without costing you mana.

(Profane Proxy = 1L Temporal Chains in the ring)

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1L
Despair

This is purely in case for when you have a Balance of Terror, to get Wither on Hit.

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That's it :)

All other links are fun things you can do, but very flexible!

Detonate Mines, the gem, either boosts Mine Detonation Speed (so it can keep up with your Mine Throwing Speed), or heals you. Enhance improves those traits.
If you're using Enhance and you have Divergent Malevolence, you also get some free DPS from that for free.

Speaking of Detonation Speed, it really depends on your Throwing Speed. At some point, NOT having any is a net loss in DPS. There's graphs I could show you, but not even I care about the exact math for this, and it's not practical anyhow beyond the advice of "get some".

If you don't have Profane Proxy yet, you'll be running Blasphemy with Temporal Chains on it, and dropping the Flesh and Stone + Banner combo.

Precision / Vitality / Stone Golem / other gems are optional and great when you can spare the sockets and mana. I'm using Empower to boost Steelskin's effect, myself.

If you wanna play around with other Auras, you can. Determination won't do much without scaling, but you can go that way (you'll die so much). Anomalous Arctic Armor will freeze whole packs when they attack you, Dread Banner lowers enemy accuracy (can also be Generous about it), and Herald of Agony is just plain good DPS (and saves a point or more if alt Q).
Tried all of those, I believe the current setup is best, but do play around.

Minefield requires more free mana due to a higher cost as well as a higher cap on mines. In general, you want enough mana free to throw your max mines +1, so that's 16 with Swift Assembly, and 19 with Minefield - this means the Minefield version needs more mana reservation and/or mana on the tree.

Speaking of Minefield, Enlighten 3 would let you remove at least 2 mana passives, and potentially more if you get more reservation than I have.

I'm assuming you're a semi-sane person, so you put Detonate Mines on your left click. The gem doesn't lose the "use without moving" setting when you change areas, while the base one does. No idea why, but whatever. Don't try to manually detonate mines, that way lies madness (even if it's theoretically way more DPS) - just prelay before bosses.

Hey there, and welcome to a primer on how Mines and Poison work in PoE :)

1 - Mines are NOT you.
Means: Reflect ailments YOU inflict from Altar? Doesn't apply to us. Reflect doesn't apply to us (nevermind that Chaos has none), and lots of interactions that do bad things to people that hit things don't apply.
2 - Mines INHERIT your stats.
Means: A ring with Curse on Hit works with mines, as does any other effect that happens when you hit. Mines also Poison and get all effects from your Ascendency (1 exception below).
3 - Poison/Damage-over-Time kills ARE yours.
Means: On-kill effects that happen from poison get applies to you. This is a legacy PoE thing. You can use it to get Onslaught on Kill Boots, and get massive amounts of Life on Kill from Assassin and the tree.
4 - Poison is a source of Damage-over-Time, that scales to infinity as long as you have the duration and time to apply them.
Means: Poison is a type of Damage-over-Time, namely Chaos, that is based on the Base Damage of the Skill used (not the HIT, but the Base Damage. More on this below). Unlike other sources of DoT, Poison isn't limited to one instance, and applying it 10 times per second will get you 10 stacks of Poison (per second).
5 - Wither is a mechanic that applies a debuff that increases Chaos Damage Taken, which stacks up to 15 times.
Means: We want to get this up to 15 Stacks whenever possible! The best anoint for us is the one that boosts the effect of Wither (Corruption).

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Now that this is covered, let's elaborate a little on what does and doesn't affect Poison...

Poison is affected by:
The amount of total hits you have (Mine Throwing Speed / Action Speed),
Poison Duration (and Temporal Chains),
Base Phys/Chaos Damage of the Skill used (Flat Damage of those types applies as well, such as Added Chaos 29 from the body armor, or any abyssal jewels),
Increased % Damage / Chaos Damage / Mine Damage / Damage with Ailments / Damage-over-Time (self explanatory)
Chaos Damage Over Time Multiplier / Damage Over Time Multiplier (those are multiplicative with increased damage).

Since we're playing an Assassin, we have 3 extra ways to scale Poison:
1 - Global Critical Strike Chance / Critical Strikes with Spells.
2 - Global Critical Multiplier (if using Perfect Agony)
3 - Damage Over Time Multiplier from Critical Strikes (this is a stat on the tree)

Something you need to understand about Critical Strikes and Poison is this:
Normally, Poisons applied with Critical Strikes deal 50% More Damage.
This isn't affected by Critical Strike Multiplier, it's just a base feature of how it works.
Now, as an Assassin, you further get 25% More Damage with Critical Poison (multiplicative with the above), and a very easy way to get Critical Strike Chance to be very high, as well as Critical Strike Multiplier (which due to Perfect Agony - the Keystone, applies to Poison as well).

The only thing Assassin gives us that does NOT apply to Mine Poisons is "Noxious Strikes", namely the part where it gives Poison Duration for each Poison YOU have inflicted recently. Mines are like us, but aren't actually YOU. This can be worked around with a trigger dagger as noted above. I don't feel this impacts practical play since nothing will truly live long enough to see your glorious 15 second poisons with this.

What does NOT apply to Poison?
Hit damage.
I know this sounds strange, but anything that purely affects the size of your hits has nothing to do with Poison. The most blatant example is SPELL DAMAGE. This does nothing at ALL for Poison, even though this is a spell!
The only reason you'd care about the size of your hit is so your hits Shock (I Shock Shaper for a full 50% in-game), and so you can Freeze.
Well, those reasons, and we just hit quite hard. Harder than many weaker builds just from that.

Did I mention Hexblast has a very very silly interactions with the elements? Right.

Hexblast can apply Shock and Freeze when it does critical strikes. Look at that. Seems like we get all the fun toys!

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Now, it seems I need to explain how Shock and Freeze work.

Shock is an Elemental Ailment. The effect is "increased damage taken", which scales from 1% all the way to 50%, and it's magnitude is based on the size of your HIT, and any "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" you may have (we get some from Divergent Hexblast and Unbound Ailments).
Shock itself stacks additively with Wither. We'll get to that.

Freeze is an Elemental Ailment. The effect is "Action Speed = 0". Frozen enemies are statues. Freeze, unlike Shock, is binary = either you Freeze, or you don't. What affects this is the size of the HIT, and "Duration of Ailments" (since Freeze *has* no Effect, it's either there or it's not). Freeze Duration acts as a "Freeze as if Dealing X% More Damage".

More or less as a side effect of effective murder, we get very large hits and scale both of those, such that we can, and do, Freeze and Shock everything in the game.

Freeze can be spread to Nearby Enemies if you have the fun gloves implicit here:

This makes mapping even more trivial, and prevents a lot of annoying on-death effects.

Being able to Freeze all content in the game sure makes it amusing.

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I did promise I'll get to Wither!
Wither is a debuff that increases Chaos Damage Taken (Hits+Poison), 6% per Stack, up to 15 Stacks. Can be boosted to 8% per Stack with the anoint I'm using (Corruption) or more with points and a Chaos Mastery (not worth it).

Wither can be achieved in many ways. Here's some of the better ones:
1 -
Eternal Suffering applies 6 stacks of Wither without you doing anything special. This Notable appears on Chaos Damage over Time Medium Clusters ONLY.
2 -
Glorious Vanity (Doryani, if you want the Keystone), can sometimes corrupt a Notable on the Tree to give a global 25% to Wither on Hit (no limit here). You can check on PoB before you but one to know which ones do this in locations you find useful. I don't recommend this option currently, but it's valid.
3 - The Balance of Terror jewel has a lot of variants. The one I'm yet to drop, but you can buy easily, provides Wither on Hit with no questions asked, as long as you've cast Despair in the past 10 seconds. Easy enough to do, you don't even have to curse anyone, just cast it on the air in rage.
4 - Wither Totems. Tried and True, Wither linked with Spell Totem, Multiple Totems and possibly Faster Casting, will ensure 15 stacks (as long as the totem is alive and in range).
5 - Withering Step. This skill applies 6-13 Stacks of Wither in a small AoE around you when it's used. I'm not a fan because it requires you to be in melee range, and it only applies it once, plus it messes with proper movement skills like Dash. Still, this is something many people like.

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Why Curse on Hit?!
Well, Hexblast deals double damage with Hits (matters for Shock/Freeze and just clearing) against cursed enemies, and a whopping 40% More with Ailments (like Poison). It also removes that curse right after as well as making a big poof of AoE damage around the target.
The only way, and I do mean only, to apply any curse fast enough for your mines to have it for every hit, is to have your Mines apply it on hit themselves.
Profane Proxy's curse, Blasphemy, Cursed Ground, none of that re-applies nearly fast enough.

You can use any curse to get started, but since we're actually dealing Chaos Damage for real, you want Despair for later. You can get Curse on Hit rings from Delve (any Elemental/Chaos/Physical node, Chaos for Despair) or on Influenced Rings (Hunter has Despair on Hit). You can also get Curse on Hit as a corrupted implicit for gloves (Temporal Chains is best for this).

Why are you using Temporal Chains as well?
Well, it's a massive defensive boost, but it also makes effect end slower on enemies. That includes your Poison, which lasts longer, but does the exact same damage per second (which translates to more damage as it stacks up more and more and more).

In an ideal universe, you'd want to apply Temporal Chains on Hit (Glove Corruption) and have Anomalous Despair 21/20 with your Skitterbots aura. That's a gigantic boost to DPS, and a possibility for Trade League. Anomalous Despair increases damage taken over time. Yes, that's insane.

Right, so Profane Proxy.
Wear this on your right hand, never the left. Why? Because you Shock more than they ever will anyhow, and you don't Chill while they do.
Now, what this does, is get a Blasphemy-like effect, for free, that sticks to enemies and at range, without losing any Curse Effect like the gem would. Ideal for us. It doesn't even really cost us anything since we Shock anyway.

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Oh, and a final note.
PoB actually DOWNPLAYS the DPS. I get 50% Shock on Shaper easily, and PoB expects about 35% at best. It also has some bugs with curses and Hexblast atm. In practice, you reach the max possible DoT damage way before you get my level of gear. Yeah, that's a whole thing. You can't go above 35.79m DoT/sec. Cry me a river, that's enough to kill anything in this game.

So, there's a lot of stuff you'll want, and if you're new to SSF you might not know all the tricks yet.

Profane Proxy can be farmed on Dungeon/Cells with The Penitent card. This will cause you psychological trauma for life, but it can be done, I assure you. It may take 100 sets, but it can be done.

The Covenant isn't specifically farm-able, but Skin of the Loyal/Lords are, as are rare 6L options. You can do various things to boost Unique drops, but that one is hard to guarantee. If you drop Dialla's Malefaction, it's almost as good (or better in some cases).
Good options: Ritual, Heist, Expedition (Gwen), Delirium (Unique Item Orbs + Scarabs).

Daggers are usually made with either SSF RNG, Harvest Reforge Chaos, Fossils (4 Socket ones optimally), and either Veiled Chaos or Aisling 4 in Research.
Having a Fractured base to start with makes this a whole lot less painful.
Check poe.craft to find out what the best options are for fossils and what's possible. Try and not waste Divines, you'll need them for crafting Daggers with Metamods (Suffix can't be changed, for example).

Generally, Ritual and Jun provide the Unveils you'll need for good bases, either to craft, of just plain use. Be sure to get those, and if running Jun missions, take the points that boost the "Bargain for veiled items" and the other good Jun points. It makes a huge difference.

Temple Gloves, at least good ones, are usually from Ritual, and only rarely from Temple itself. I'm using Fractured ones, that's great too, way easier to craft.

You might want Essences to craft with to make a lot of your gear, you know how to get those, right? The answer is obviously Ritual and Heist.

Despair on Hit or other curse on hit rings drop fairly often in Delve nodes, just don't expect to get anything amazing. If you get a Fractured Despair on Hit ring, gz, but don't count on it. Hunter rings are your bet for a proper ring later on. Remember you can Harvest-swap the type of Influence on a ring, so any good ring can be forced to be Hunter if you lack one (even Elder/Shaper, and those are easy to get from guardians). I'm using an Unset Ring, that's not a must.

Stygian Vise... Well, you need to do 1 Abyssal depths. Ever. Get it to be Hunter Influence if you want the best options and the shiny, using a Conquerer Exalt (any kind) first, and then craft with Essence of Zeal to get Throwing Speed. Unlike helmets and amulets, this one ONLY comes from Essences.

Cluster Jewels come from what you expect for once. Delirium, Ritual and Heist. Yes, just do Ritual and Heist for everything :D

The Balance of Terror drops from Lycia. Eventually. I'm told.

EDIT: It does!

1 - I can't throw mines, what do?!
Ok, so Hexblast Mines only detonate when there's enemies around. This is mostly an upside and help with pre-laying, but it also means you need to make sure to have enough mana to reserve all your mines +1 extra. If you don't, you can get a soft-lock until your first mine runs out of duration.

2 - I have "Chance to Poison" on my dagger, why isn't it working?
Well, that mod is LOCAL. It only applies to Attacks made with that weapon. The only part that isn't LOCAL in that mod is the Increased Damage with Poison. The craft for Physical Damage and Chance to Poison does nothing at all.

3 - My damage seems low in pob with the same gear?
You need to add custom mods to POB (pick according to what you're using):


4 - Why aren't you using curses to lower Cold Res (for example) to target Cold Res with Hexblast?
Simply put, Hit Damage has nothing at all to do with Poison. Lowering Cold Res does not affect the DoT you'll be doing, and that's most of your DPS.