Lash/Gyre Assassin. 5-7 Million dps. 6khp. Max Dodge/Spell Dodge.

Greeting Exiles...

Here is my version of the poison Assassin made possible in Blight League.
I will try to update this guide as I toy around with some more options, but I think this is pretty much the best possible tree/itemization you can get, and it pays off.

Why another version of this build?
Spoiler

I know that loczek123 has a popular guide on the forum atm, but our build choices differ slightly, and I wanted to offer an alternative to some of his decisions. If you're interested and want to compare, his guide can be found here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2626271
You'll note some differences in our PoB set ups, so be careful when comparing to use realistic checks in the calculations section. Also, I think he might have some errors in his tree (or at least, I cannot understand some of his decisions), so be careful to check both yourself against your gear and the PoB average damage % per point tooltip.


Videos:
Spoiler

I'm very bad mechanically about using my flasks and the uber fight, so you can do *a lot* better than I did.

Forge of the Phoenix Map clear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYYNqoZFivk&feature=youtu.be

Uber Elder:
(with juicy jewel at the end)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaVCIUyQtg8


Build Overview:


The playstyle of cobra lash is very similar to spectral throw, giving you good range, but also auto-targeting with chains. This build can very easily be converted to venom gyre with sacrificing 3 passives to get piercing shots, but I prefer lash for the chains. The math on Gyre is very difficult since you have to factor in whirling blades, gmp calcs, etc. Because of this, I'm not sure which has higher top end dps with perfect mechanical skill. This exact build can also use viper strike for roughly 2.5x the damage single target, but you forgo range, and our damage melts uber elder already anyways (but if you've always wanted to have crazy PoB numbers, go for it)

Pros/Cons
Spoiler

Pros:
6khp
5-7 million reliable dps (no charges)
Nearly max dodge/spell dodge (70-75% depending on your withering step usage)
Maps and Bosses easily
Cheap to start (with wasp's nest claw)
Very fast whirling blades
Always upgradable gear for min-maxing

Cons:
Expensive for top end damage/itemization
Occasional one-shots if you fail to dodge (Uber Elder)
Poison isn't the best for delving



PoB/Skill Tree:
https://pastebin.com/V4yd3WbR

Skill Tree Discussion:
Spoiler

You obviously have many options here. I've experimented a lot with my skill pathing and am fairly confident that this is the optimal choice. Some trees go for the scion life wheel, but I find it too inefficient/point-consuming for only slightly more life than the duelist area gives you.

The tree can be converted to dual-wield or venom gyre easily.

For your amulet anointment, you want to either go for Constitution for life (if you can afford the hefty cost of 2 golden oils and a silver) or Dirty Techniques for dps (1 silver, 2 amber).

One interesting to note in the tree is how low our "increased damage %" is. This means that this stat, which normally you would avoid since it is the most common, is actually one of the best dps increasers on our gear (I have about 300% increased, which means that a 20% increased damage with poison mod on a jewel is roughly a 5% more dps increase).
Also note how high our attack speed is compared to other builds; this means that further attack speed isn't as efficient as it might seem (I have 200%+ attack speed. Since this stat normally comes in 3-5% increments, it's very rarely efficient to take on your gear).



Gear:
Spoiler

This is a huge section, open to a lot of discussion and individualization. It's up to your own taste how much to stretch for life (fairly expensive to get 6k if you also go for top tier damage items) and how much for dps.
This is the balance I've settled with (My gear is pretty expensive, but completely doable with much cheaper as well):

Claw:
Use a multimodded claw (aberrant + corroded). Otherwise, a wasp's nest is very good.
Claw Craft Guide:
Spoiler

If you want to craft your own claw, there are a few things to keep in mind. For your base, select an ilvl 83+ Imperial Claw. Gemini is also popular for the mana on hit, but it is not necessary. Your hit damage is high enough to leech you enough mana, and if you get reduced mana cost anywhere, it will be unecessary. Gemini claw has 10 less life on hit and 1.5 base attack speed as opposed to imperial claw's 1.6.

If you are going to try using blasphemer's grasp (something I considered), you should select an elder base, but I strongly recommend against this for a causal player (or unless you're sure you want to use those gloves) because it opens many more affixes to roll during your crafting.

After you get the base, use perfect fossils 1 at a time until you get a quality higher than 20% that you're happy with (for me, 28+, but min-max as you will).

After that, use 2 socket resonators with aberrant and corroded fossils. This will open a few things for you.

The most important mod to look for is the prefix "60% chance to deal 100% more poison damage with this weapon". If you want, you can try to annul the remaining bad mods until you only have this left, and then multimod it.

However, I think you can do better, so I would keep going.

The next important mod is the malicious chaos damage prefix. This is a huge amount of flat chaos damage added to your attacks, and, as luck would have it, is also a prefix which means that you can craft "prefixes cannot be changed" and scour leaving this mod, and the 60% more Poison mod.

So ideally, you want your claw to have these 2 prefixes and an open suffix to craft the prefixes cannot be changed. If there isn't a suffix open, you can try for a lucky annul (what I did).

Other good mods to look for are 25%+ attack speed, or apply lvl 10 despair on hit (a unique mod from the aberrant fossil). If you have either of these, depending on what you can still craft on your claw, AND assuming you also have the required 60% more damage with poison mod, then you can keep it, try to annul off other mods so you can multi mod, or just sit on it and try to craft another claw with your remaining fossils hoping for something better.

In the end, it's expensive (6ex craft) but kinda easy.
Summary of steps:

1)Imperial Claw + Perfect fossil to 28+% quality
2) Aberrant + corroded fossil looking for 60% chance to deal 100% more poison damage.
3)If the other mods are bad, try to isolate this one with either prefixes cannot be changed (2 ex) + scour or lucky annuls.
4) If you get this mod and the malicious flat chaos mod alone, then craft "can have multiple crafted mods" (2ex)
5) Craft the highest tier attack speed (1ex), Increased physical damage (1ex), and Critical Strike chance (some odd chaos).
6) Divine until you have 20% attack speed and at least a middling flat chaos roll


A much cheaper option is to just get the poison mod + despair on hit/malicious mod and craft attack speed. This will still be better than wasp's nest, by about 15%, depending. The claw crafting I described is about a 30-35% dps increase.




Chest Armor:
Anything with a high life roll, preferably with the socketed attacks cost -15 mana from serrated fossil)


Gloves, Boots, Helm:
Fenemus' Weave is (maybe) best in slot, but expensive. I used rare life and resist gloves for a very long time (and used malevolence instead of Aspect of the Spider). For boots, go for a spell dodge roll and high life. Helm is self crafted used an aberrant fossil on the enchant base.



Rings:
The best choice for rings is the Circle of Nastoglia with both increased Herald of Agony Buff Effect (which turns the 10% more multiplier into a 20% multiplier), and increased chaos damage while affected by HoA (a up to 60% increased for roughly 15% more damage). This ring alone is responsible for 22%+ of my damage, and you can use *two* of them if you find enough life and resistances elsewhere. This is one place where I think my current set up can be improved.



Amulet:
You may use the unique amulet Maligaro's Cruelty until you have enough cash to purchase one with a high crit multi, chaos DoT multi, non-chaos as extra chaos, and/or increased chaos damage. A Temp Chains solstice vigil is also a popular option, but I am not sure this is the best decision since there are many ways to apply a second curse if you have the capability.



Other:
High life, resist, and damage


Jewels:
Find out what you need from your own PoB. I scaled best with increased damage, and it should be noted that there is a cheap watcher's eye with 15% increased attack speed with precision, essentially a 6%life, 15% attack speed jewel.




Gems:
Spoiler

6L: Cobra Lash - Added Chaos Damage - Unbound Ailments - Deadly Ailments - Vile Toxins - GMP/Void Manipulation.
(for uber elder, you can drop gmp if you have the helm enchant. Otherwise I'd recommend to continue to use it as it makes your adds phases smoother and doesn't detract from damage that much anyways)

Auras: Precision, Herald of Agony, Aspect of the Spider/Malevolence.
(If you have Aspect of the Spider, you may support your agony crawler with damage since you have extra mana).

Plague Bearer - Withering Step - Inc. AoE
(getting +1 level with plague bearer is very good for bosses/blights)
(Withering step can activate every 3 second, or when the buff effect is 75%, meaning you always have at least 15% dodge/spell dodge from it if you are good about constantly activating it (I'm not))

Wither - Spell Totem - Multi Totem
OR
Ancestral Protector - Culling Strike - Withering Touch
(I'm not sure which of these is best, since we already have a wither application from withering step)

Whirling Blades- Fortify - Faster Attacks -Blood Magic (optional)

Blood Rage, Ice Golem, Guard Skills per your preference.



Play Tips:
Spoiler

1) Get in the habit of using withering step as often as possible. It's a hard skill to get in the correct habits with, but ups your survivability and dps a lot when done correctly.
2) Don't be like me and actually use your flasks
3) Place your mouse curses very close to your character model while in blight or delving for screen wide area coverage
4) during uber elder fight, you can still chain your lash off of both of them even when their invulnerable and have it then autotarget everything else. This is useful because it means you can go without gmp since it's much easier to target. I'm not sure if they count as getting poisoned (for 0) damage during their immortal phases for the purpose of the assassin's duration modifier, but regardless, this took me a while to discover, and ups your dps a lot.
5) Plague Bearer is nice to pop on map and blight bosses like you would a vaal RF (but I forget often).
6) when delving, throw your lash in the darkness to get lots of life gain on hit. Also, use withering step for phasing (but be careful not to cancel it with another skill use!)





If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know as I will continue to test different set-ups.

Edit 1: Added Claw Crafting guide.
Last edited by Kroughfire on Sep 27, 2019, 11:56:16 AM
Last bumped on Oct 10, 2019, 11:16:07 PM
I dont know about numbers, but, how do think the build would do with

Precision(lv1) + Temp. Chain or despair (Blasphemy) with 100% from Solstice Vigil amulet + Aspect of the spider(gloves) + HoAg

We would change Witchfire Brew for Atzri Promise
I´m tryin a Build similar to yours, but I simply cannot pinpoint the best Auras and gem setup for my Assassin Poison CL

Thx for the build
Yeah, using solstice vigil is an option, but I'm not sure it's necessary. It does give general survivability during mapping, but that's all, since if you already have an additional curse, you can simply use any other method of temp chains application on bosses (storm brand). These are my reasons for not liking it, but obviously you may have your own preferences.

I was torn a lot about using aspect or malevolence, since I had a watcher's eye for precision and mal, but I think aspect is better because of the increased damage from the gloves and the extra mana.

Overall:
Aspect = 25%
HoA = 25%
Precision = 5% ish (low level)


With this set up, you could run blasphemy temp chains without solstice vigil (easier if you have an enlighten), or you could juice up your HoA since he's always sitting at 40 stacks.

I think I'm going to throw some supports on my HoA personally, but it's because I would need to craft an additional curse on my body armour, and I haven't unlocked it yet.
Last edited by Kroughfire on Sep 27, 2019, 4:28:25 AM
Is the claw build much better than Bino's + offhand dagger?

I'm running Cobra Lash atm with Bino's and the clear is amazing with the prolif.
"
Zalixor wrote:
Is the claw build much better than Bino's + offhand dagger?



I think your clear might be better with bino's at lower stages, but once you have enough damage, it's not necessary at all since you almost insta kill everything anyways. The only think which slows my clear is invulnerable stages (of harbingers, for example). Rares and blight monsters might seem to take a long time, but that's because you're not letting the poison do the work. Just swing at them for half a second and they die.

For survivability though, you cannot beat the claw's lgoh, and the top end damage is higher because of higher attack speed.

I welcome you to throw a gg dagger in and see if you can get higher dps though! They will be really close either way.
Last edited by Kroughfire on Sep 27, 2019, 10:33:44 AM
"
Kroughfire wrote:
Yeah, using solstice vigil is an option, but I'm not sure it's necessary. It does give general survivability during mapping, but that's all, since if you already have an additional curse, you can simply use any other method of temp chains application on bosses (storm brand). These are my reasons for not liking it, but obviously you may have your own preferences.

I was torn a lot about using aspect or malevolence, since I had a watcher's eye for precision and mal, but I think aspect is better because of the increased damage from the gloves and the extra mana.

Overall:
Aspect = 25%
HoA = 25%
Precision = 5% ish (low level)


With this set up, you could run blasphemy temp chains without solstice vigil (easier if you have an enlighten), or you could juice up your HoA since he's always sitting at 40 stacks.

I think I'm going to throw some supports on my HoA personally, but it's because I would need to craft an additional curse on my body armour, and I haven't unlocked it yet.


So right now I run a level 17 precision, skitterbots, herald of agony, aspect of the spider, and free temp chains aura. I have 6 mana unreserved. Luckily I have the chest enchant and both ring enchants so every single skill in my kit is free except for my Plague Bearer, which costs exactly 6 mana. It works beautifully. Skitterbots is incredible for both offense and defense.
"
Kroughfire wrote:


I was torn a lot about using aspect or malevolence, since I had a watcher's eye for precision and mal, but I think aspect is better because of the increased damage from the gloves and the extra mana.



Why pick? :P

I'm using Mal, Aspect, Precision AND Herald of Agony, using Enlighten 4 and Charisma cluster. It's pricey at 5 passive points but should still be able to reach 6k life

I'd consider Scitterbots, but...Watchers Eye Mal mod is too good, and there isn't a comparable scitterbot mod.
Last edited by DamageIncorporated on Sep 27, 2019, 5:47:08 PM
On mobile so I cannot check POB but i have a few questions:

1) Choice of flasks?

2) Why not dual curse with Temp chains (Solstice Vigil) for very long poison duration, longer buff duration, and increased survivability with enemies action speed slow?

3) How do you solve accuracy issues?

4) Do you encounter mana issues before and after you get your chest piece?

5) What kinds of jewels would you get? Would you get Watcher's eye with Malevolence mods?
"
Get in the habit of using withering step ...


Put Withering step on LEFT CLICK.

It will use withering step as soon as you press it, auto renew it if you're holding left click while the cooldown ends, and DOESN'T stop left click from being "move only" while it's on cooldown.

EDIT: well slight lie, it DOES mess with your walking while in towns.
Last edited by RatchetMyPlank on Sep 28, 2019, 3:39:59 AM
Hi everyone!

I switch to your tree and almost reached 6k life. I also put Malevolence instead of skitbots. To be honest it's hard to see a difference at some point. I like the fact I almost have 6k life and i will definitely pass this number pretty easily!

I also use Venom Gyre, I prefer for single target and the the clear speed is really good.

So far my stuff:

Spoiler



Also I can't imagine this build without a free temporal chain, even more when it's combined with aspect of spider. It get you very safe out there with this combo. The solstice is definitely BiS imo.
Last edited by Sorytis16 on Sep 28, 2019, 9:31:30 AM

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