3.7 Rusty Poisonous Steel (Lancing Steel Pathfinder Poison build) 2.6 M shaper dps

Here's a Axe or sword/shield variant for you - https://pastebin.com/g093G6F1


828k dps / 470k shaper dps

4889 life
29% block chance + 52% evade chance + 40% atk dodge + 30% spell dodge

includes setups for other attack skills that could be used

- Spectral Shield throw - 838k + 629k shards
- Frost Blades - 1.57mil dps on hit + 800k blades

Only ~6 nodes are purchased for attack damage/leech and they aren't expensive to switch out. Only 1 node in the tree gives spell damage. 3 nodes rely on axe specifically

In Spite of all this, look at the damage without changing any passives:

Non-projectile and some spell options
- Wild Strike - 1.7mil hit with any element + 870k secondaries
- Consecrated Path - 1.05mil
- Cleave 1.8 mil
- Frenzy 1.5mil with zero charges up to 1.8mil with charges
- Blade Vortex with 10 blades - 2.51mil dps
- Sunder 2.1 million dps on the primary wave + 850k shockwaves
- Smite 1.56mil dps
- Unearth - 900k dps
- Charged Dash - 1mil dps

Love that the poison is scaling decently well on just about any attack, without even changing passives that would effectively do nothing for many of those attacks

Details of note:

Your physical damage can chill. does this count as a hindrance?
The part about insufficient mana doesn't prevent melee attacks doesn't help, as we aren't using a melee attack.

Disclaimer -
As with the OP, some of the items are unrealistically rolled drops. Onslaught is included but is only up for a time after a kill. Spreading Rot appears to calculate in Path of Building as a MORE modifier instead of increased when Vaal Blight is used, but I could be wrong there. I accidentally left 2 Vaal Blight gems in.

Realistic variation with comparison Ahead (not using items I don't have, nor min/maxed PoB versions of the same gear) Level 86 (109/123 passives each)

I think the comparison is fair, but the pathfinder wins by a mile with more dps, and flask uptime. The duelist gets massive non-flask defenses in the form of 22% spell block.

My current stats: https://pastebin.com/WPV5GBgJ

147k dps, 4k life, 105 regen, 99.6 leech, 38% evade, 7% phy reduction, 40% move speed, 19% block, 0% spell block, 40% atk dodge, 30% spell dodge, 75% fire, 76% cold, 75% lightning, 21% chaos

Duelist Gladiator very realistic version: https://pastebin.com/9T5477wT


Done with my exact gear

117k dps, 4.1k life, 106 regen, 134 leech, 37% evade, 8% phy reduction, 40% move speed, 22% block, 22% spell block, 40% atk dodge, 30% spell dodge, 75% fire, 76% cold, 75% lightning, 16% chaos


Upgrades I will likely make today:

Hinekora's Sight, Sin's Rebirth, Cyclopean Coil

Oops the Duelist PoB has 2 extra Gladiator points spent, fixed the damage value above though.

PS: PoB does not include the damage change from a 60% chance for poisons inflicted with this weapon to do 100% More damage. I'm guessing this means the damage numbers above should be like +40k then 4 more projectiles so * 5 = about 1 million dps at level 86

Well well, there's a lot to absorb and discuss in your posts. It will likely take me sometime to study all these tweaks, but for now, let me answer your questions:

"

Your physical damage can chill. does this count as a hindrance?

No, hindeance is exclusive debuff that come from Blight and Vaal Blight. Also Wither (Though it's secondary effect, separate from the damage debuff)

"

Spreading Rot appears to calculate in Path of Building as a MORE modifier instead of increased when Vaal Blight is used, but I could be wrong there.

It's "Enemies take 25% increased chaos damage" (on top of the 20% of basic skill), so it's an additive, but it's an additive applied to the enemy not you. It applies after damage mitigation, and works like a more multiplier even though it's an additive.. (Double checked this from wiki and Reddit)

In reality it stacks with all instances of "Wither" , and with despair. Their total sum works like "more" to player's damage. Notice that's the same reason the helmet enchantment for Despair can be very powerful. *wink* *wink*

If we want quick estimation based on your PoB version for Axe:

Wither(Q:20) + spell totem + Faster casting(lvl:20/Q:20):
- One instance apply "Enemies take 6% increased chaos damage"
- It cast 4.6 times per second.
- It have 2.5 seconds duration
- At this rate, it can have up to 11 instances on single target
- At optimal setup, it can apply "Enemies take 66% increased chaos damage"

Despair(lvl:21 from Flask, no quality)
- "Cursed enemies take 25% increased Damage from Damage Over Time effects

Vaal Blight
- Hindered Enemies take 20% increased Chaos Damage

To sum them all:

[1+0.66+0.25+0.20)] = 2.11 total modifier

Now to calculate the increase from 'Spreading Rot' alone:

0.25/2.11 = 0.118 = 11.8% Total damage modifier.

This allow Spreading Rot take the damage from 739k to 827k, giving you +88k on its own while Vaal Blight is active (for 4.65 seconds). And as always, these numbers are for one projectile out of our five, seven or nine projectiles depends on which setup we running.

While waiting for game to update, I did some PoB:

https://pastebin.com/BbD2hkx5

EDIT: Fixed damage calculation to fit Lancing Steel

Assassin version of Lancing Steel, with 895k dps. Poison duration is +13 seconds, and it can stack +46 instances of poison on enemies from every single projectile (given the time)

Its single poison dps is lower than my Pathfinder version, and it will take some more time of constant attacking to reach maximum potential.

I can say PF will have better clear as each single poison is more lethal, but ultimately Assasin will best it at end game bosses.

Also notice that support setup will change slightly, as 'swift Affiliation' become way stronger than 'Vicious Projectiles' or 'Unbound Ailments'


Number of posions applied 'recently' :
Number of projectiles with dying sun (7) * Attack rate (3.51) * recently (4) = 98

That's 490% Increased poison damage from "Noxious Strike" alone.

Bigger number of poisons with boss adds and pierce, and even more while clearing.

Surely the shield with 100% hit chance is the key to stabilize damage, now we need to compare it to my Dual Wield to emphasize on what's stronger.

This build is twisted version of Acid Molten Strike Assassin Though Molten Strike can inflict +500 poisons in mere 4 seconds, which is stronger at the cost of fraying your CPU. GPU, and GGG servers!

I'm starting to wonder if boosting the Crawler's damage is worthwhile, or at least worth the large 5L reserve cost.

The PoB from your adjusted link shows him at ~370k dps and none of that is poison. As is we are at 1.08 mil dps.

Crawler rambling -


oh but I guess we can't use vaal blight with vaal haste eh? does the CWDT link with vaal blight mean that we pop off a little hinder any time CWDT fires?

New sword(s) and stuff


I'm thinking of getting sin's rebirth or taste of hate worked into flasks, since the belt makes sure I can't be frozen.

== Double post ==

You made me double check my tree configuration for Virulence stacks, turned out to be alright at 40. But what wasn't right is wither stacks .. It sits at 1 stack, which is so not very real.

Wither stacks on my standard lvl 97 PoB (posted in OP)

Cast rate (4.21) * number of Totems (3) * skill duration (2.4) = 30
(15 is Max, but this rate mean it will be consistent at 15 after 1 second)

Now editing this Wither stack in my PoB:

* It takes Crawler damage up to 481k
* It takes Lancing Steel up to 1.3 million

But that's not all!

"

wait it says he does no poison? does that mean he's reserving more mana just because he's in the gloves? If the vile toxins either works or doesn't increase reserve, then with just faster attacks, vile toxins, and withering touch I can turn off purity to get full time haste. But that only leaves 26 unreserved mana.

Vile Toxins have two components to increase damage:
* Supported skills do more damage with poison
* Supported skills do 5% more damage with hits for each poison on the enemy (up to 9 times at lvl 20)

Crawler deals mainly physical damage, with some portion converted to chaos, and do it as hits. Which mean the second component is our main focus (5*9 = 45% more). Crawler already have so much flat damage from Virulence stacks, so all flat damage supports not much appealing. So "More" is the way to go. Also with our debuffs, the chaos portion beat the physical by miles.

In PoB, for this specific modifier to show effect, you have to configure it manually into the PoB like this:


These poisons are applied through your normal Lancing Steel attacks, Pathfinder mechanics, and all other sources, so they are likely much more in numbers. But let's use just the Max limit (9) for the sack of 'Vile Toxins' only

And now we get this:


Now switching the gems between Gloves and any other gear piece drop this dps back to 481k, and free up 11% of reserved mana. I'm not sure I want to do this trade, but it's up to you if you choose to pick something entirely different. It's all about personal preferences after all, and I love seeing new ideas floating from this build.

Either way, here's the configured tree if you want to check it out/tinker with it: https://pastebin.com/8EBXkAEg

"

we can't use vaal blight with vaal haste eh?

You can alternate between them, use one for mapping/clearing and another for bosses.

Though if I'm to use another Vaal for bosses, I'd use Vaal Clarity for 10 seconds of infinite skills without using mana.

"

does the CWDT link with vaal blight mean that we pop off a little hinder any time CWDT fires?

Vaal skills can't be triggered by any "Cast" support.

I didn't mean does the CWDT fire off Vaal Blight, I mean does it fire off Blight? I notice the Vaal Blight skill was left at a level CWDT could trigger it.

Also you say 3 totems, but the limit is 1 without passives/gear, right? or does the new multiple totem gem semi-ignore that limit?

Vaal skill gems can't be supported by cast on damage taken. So it can't trigger neither vaal nor normal version, the gem itself is not supported, wno you can cast both directly. The low level is because of high int requirements.

Multipile totems raise the limit by two, meaning total three. and it cast two per use, so you need only two clicks to get the three totems.

Since our last discussion, I've been doing some in depth research on Crawler (Minion from "Herald of Agony") damage, and looking for ways to maximize it's damage in current setup. I wouldn't tweak the tree in favor of Crawler (Rather do that for Lancing main damage), so I messed with supports instead, and here's what I found:

* Note: All calculations is based on my current character (level 87), and my current equipped gear and tree, so nothing theoretical or inhumanly maximized

Current PoB: https://pastebin.com/vHLBzHPi

Summary (tdlr):
Most effective setups 4L in gloves (5L) are:

Or Alternatively:



===============================================================================================
1- Minion damage: (49% More, 130% mana multiplier, 111 INT requirement)


2- Vile Toxins: (45% More if 9 poisons on enemy, 120% Mana Multiplier)


3- Damage on Full life: (49% More, 130% Mana Multiplier, 111 STR requirement)


4- Withering touch: (29% Of Phy damage as extra chaos, 140% Mana Multiplier)


4- Vicious Projectiles: (49% More, 10% Less attack speed, 120% Mana Multiplier)


4- Maim (30% More Physical damage, 14% increased Physical damage against Maimed enemies, 115% Mana Multiplier)


4- Faster Attacks: (44% Increased Attack Speed, 115% Mana Multiplier)


4- Pierce: (19% More, Pierce 4 additional targets, 110% Mana Multiplier)



4- Empower (lvl 4) (+3 levels to Herald of Agony, 125% Mana Multiplier)



5- Slower Projectiles, Void Manipulation, Poison:

Bonus: additional accuracy:


Bonus: Added Fire damage: (44% of Physical damage as Extra Fire, 120% Mana Multiplier)