[3.7] Viper Strike Pathfinder

Hello and welcome to my Viper Strike Pathfinder build guide. So, after seeing the melee rework in 3.7 I decided that I want to give it a go as well. But I also wanted to try poison build, and after seeing Mathil's video about Viper Strike it looked like it has pretty smooth playstyle now and do not requires that much investment, so I started theorycrafting a bit and then decided to play it.

So, why Pathfinder? Well, it synergizes super well with poison builds because it gives a lot of poison damage from ascendancy. Nature's Reprisal is also simply awesome clearing tool, and it looks like it will work really really well in Legion 5 way battles, because you can proliferate millions of poison damage to generals.

I will be updating this build with more info and leveling trees as I go, possibly also with some more optimizations, as I am still just leveling the character.

Changelog



Pro's & Con's

+ Pretty good single target (up to 7m with rare crafted claws, up to 4m with Wasp's Nest).
+ Pretty good clear speed (because of Nature's Reprisal poison proliferation)
+ 172% increased movement speed with flasks up
+ 7K+ Life
+ 33k Evasion
+ 96% melee avoid chance, 96% projectile avoid chance, 64% spell avoid chance (with Vaal Grace up), 28% stun avoid chance
+ Fortify
+ Permanent flask uptime (because of Nature's Boon)

- 2 gem swaps for single target are recommended (you can just use mapping setup all the time, the damage will still be good, but gem swaps are better)
- Needs a lot of strength and intelligence from gear
- Can run into mana issues without mana gained on hit claws
- Max DPS rampup on bosses is around 17 seconds (for all poisons to stack up and also to get all wither stacks up)

Path of Building

Path of Building is tool for PoE to plan gear, skill tree and calculate effective damage. It also contains Bandits choice. You can download it here. Then simply import below Pastebin URL.

Pastebin

Navigating through PoB (important, read carefully)

There are 2 item sets:
- Default: This is regular version, using Delve crafted Gemini Claw and rare life body
- Starter: This setup is designed for league start, using Tabula Rasa and double Wasp's Nest

There are 2 body skill gem sets:
- Bossing: This setup is using Melee Physical Damage and Multistrike gems
- Mapping: This setup is using Ancestral Call and Melee Splash for better clear instead of Melee Physical Damage and Multistrike

Pantheon

For major god Soul of The Brine King is good pick to avoid being chain stunned in bad situations. Another great picks are both Lunaris and Solaris pantheons (Lunaris being better for mapping, and Solaris for bossing).

For minor god Soul of Ralakesh is good choice to reduce dot from Blood Rage and to get Blind and Maim immunity. Another good option is Soul of Ryslatha for extra charges for life flask and extra life recovery from it.

Ascendancy

Get Nature's Reprisal first. Then get Master Toxicist and Nature's Boon for some survivability and damage and finally get Master Alchemist from Uber Lab.

Leveling and gearing



Media

Leveling Lvl 57

Added short video of me leveling (level 57):

Leveling Lvl 57

Nice guide. Could you update this guide followed to your leveling and gearing progress.
Could we add something to make ppl more interested into this guide eg. a se-xy Poison Ivy fanart under your GIF? :))

"

leohero923 wrote:

Nice guide. Could you update this guide followed to your leveling and gearing progress.
Could we add something to make ppl more interested into this guide eg. a se-xy Poison Ivy fanart under your GIF? :))

Thanks :) Yeah I plan to update it as I go.

So far I was testing new Asenath's Gentle Touch for a while, and it is great, but, sadly it breaks Nature's Reprisal poison prolif. But, it ist still awesome pick for poison builds outside of Pathfinder (and chaos dot builds in general).

Uhh, well, I want to keep the guide serious, so no sexy poison ivies :D

Thank for your answer.
I really like Pathfinder because of her movement speed and flask spamable.
Please keep update this guide, I will follow your guide to play my Pathfinder in this melee era.

I stumbled upon the video of a guy killing shaper with a build almost identical and way worse stats on the PoB toltip. I'm starting this build later, it looks very interesting.
Keep us updated!

Why did you select this Passive skill tree as opposed to the one Mathil provided?

"

ninjamonkee wrote:

Why did you select this Passive skill tree as opposed to the one Mathil provided?

Well, I did not checked how Mathil's tree looks like, but I feel like mine is pretty optimal.

Basically, Mathil's build has better burst DPS and a little better overall DPS.

OP's build has more survivability and longer poison duration.

The main difference is that this one paths up to the Scion Life wheel, whereas Mathil's takes the DPS stuff at the bottom/bottom right of the tree and grabs a couple extra Frenzy charges.

"

Basically, Mathil's build has better burst DPS and a little better overall DPS.

OP's build has more survivability and longer poison duration.

The main difference is that this one paths up to the Scion Life wheel, whereas Mathil's takes the DPS stuff at the bottom/bottom right of the tree and grabs a couple extra Frenzy charges.

I see, so I guess he focuses more on attack speed and poison damage. I generally skip frenzy charges on tree unless I can sustain it on bosses, and this build can't.

I believe that for pure DPS, poison duration wins, mainly with Viper Strike jewel (because with poison duration, you will have more poisons up). But the ramp up time is harsh, but after hitting the threshold the DPS should be way better.

Also I started this build specifically for eventually farming 5 way battles, as the poison prolif with this duration with such density should just obliterate the content (e.g when all strongest poisons from trash proliferate to general, it will just get deleted), and I do not wanted to go TS for this.