3.5.0 build: Behold Bat_boy's Wildstrike 100% ailment up-time Crit-Freeze Assassin!

PICTURES IN SPOILER! REMEMBER: Thats tested on TRICKSTER, so the +40% poison chance from sin hasnt been added yet. It would be +80%. Also, again, on trickster, and so with sin, the crit and crit multi skyrocket and you're looking at doubled the dps and dots. Also, i havent 6 linked my loreweave yet, so the current DPS you see is based off just a 4 link. I.E: it will be much higher on a 6 link! Another double! I am expecting about 200 to 250 k DPS once I polish it up.

Posted this earlier but it was a mess. Had to multiple edit it to explain, so hopefully this is good to go as is. I also uploaded a PDF file to the main website under guides and will post it soon there too. The preliminary tests with me using trickster instead of assassin and a 4 link instead of a 6 link leads me to believe that once i apply those changes, this will be endgame viable.

Concept: Deal immense ailment, single-target, and AoE damage (with the focus of most of ailment damage being on poison's DoT stacking - would also work if you would like to increase impale's ailment or scorch's ailment damage). All you need to do is to make sure your enemies are always afflicted by either a freeze/chill ailment, an ignite ailment or a shocking ailment) using the following uniques (which I will term as "build enabling uniques"). You want to maximize physical damage, elemental damage, Ailment Damage, DoT/Poison/Chaos damage, and cold damage on your tree.

This is based on the uniques available in betrayal. If you want to play on standard, I have a little blurb on what chest you can use as well for that.

Skills: Wildstrike will be your main damage dealer, using Herald of Ice activated, with a burst of extra damage from impale mechanisms from the shattering steel or Lancing steel impale, which would be enhanced by the chill from Herald of Ice or Winter Orb. NOTE: these are not what you are linking together. Wild strike will have its own links. Shattering steel or lancing steel will have its own links. Winter orb will have its own links Herald of ice will have it own links. In the pics below, for example, keep in mind that the dps tooltip does not take into account the poison/chaos damage over time, as well as when it increases in combat (it spikes to about 85k dps). Keep in mind that this is on my trickster, and if I switch to assassin, my crit and damage go through the roof (double) and the chance to poison will go from 40% to 80%Keep in mind as well that this isn’t on a 6-link chest piece, but on a 4-link +1 level to socketed gem boots. Therefore, imagine I re-specced assassin, 6 linked my loreweave, and so use the following gems: WS - Added Cold - ELE DMG Attacks - Melee Physical or fortify - Critical Multiplier - ancestral call/multistrike instead of the current 4 link: WS - Added cold - ele dmg with attacks – crit multi

Weapons: Melee: Taproot(x2): Reason why: 20% chance to poison and bleed for each = 40 % (tested it it works). Good base Physical damage and nice attack speed. Ranged: (Haven't decided yet - that's where you all come in and try to find a good bow and bow skill if you want to use Hyrii's Ire in the new league instead of loreweave).

Chests:Loreweave:Reasons Why: Good Elemental damage, good life, good resists. Overall, this is probably going to be the main build's BiS item in Betrayal league. You wont be able to get the CURRENT Hyrri's Ire that adds the cold damage to attacks in betrayal league (but in standard you can, and I tested it and its the same strength). Instead you will get the new one (which adds it only to to bows and so if you want to play this build in betrayal as ranged, your BiS will probably be the new Hyrri's Ire. In standard, the Hyrri's that is going legacy basically adds old damage to all attacks, and works well with wildstrike and so if you wanted to play with Hyrri's Ire in standard instead of loreweave, you also can.

Gloves: Volkuur's Guidance: Reason why: Gives all cold skills 20% chance to poison. Also adds life for us and cold damage to attacks as well.

Rings: The Taming: Reason why: Ailments + Elemental Damage + great rolls otherwise for resists. With the addition of three more ailments, this means that all ailments (with the new ones included) will do more damage as long as an enemy is inflicted with either an ignite, chill/freeze, or shock. Seriously, the synergy is amazing. Testing it out right now before having no 3 additional ailments and its OP. What do you guys think? What skill and what bow could be used to make this guide viable for Betrayal for ranged characters

**PICTURES BELOW!**

Ok so basically, you pick assassin (40% chance poison with hits) and then with the dual taproot (20% chance to poison on hit each) and the volkuurs guidance (20% chance to poison using cold skills) your wild strike’s chance to poison on hit is 100% for its icy projectile cold damage attack (the icy projectile has the cold tag and that’s why wild strike is considered a cold skill as well).However, we don’t even have to worry about whether it ends up being 80% or 100% chance to poison on hit with wild strike because we will be also running herald of ice with ice bite (for frenzy charges). Herald of ice will add a default 20% chance to poison from Volkuurs Guidance and so having herald of ice with wild strike together activated, you go to either 100% or 120% chance or poison. This takes care of and ensures we are always applying a poison (chaos dot) with our hits.

Now, with the taking, you deal extra elemental and ailment damage for every shock freeze/chill or ignite on an enemy. Wildstrike applies shock with its lightning and ignited with its fire and freezes/chills with its frost portion. Also, herald of ice can chill/freeze. Therefore, this means that we are amplifying our damage the more we attack or the more mobs there are or the longer you are fighting a boss. Now we pick dot nodes, elemental damage nodes, physical damage nodes and cold damage nodes from the tree.** If you don’t believe me, check it out in path of building: Use the following as your links: Wildstrike - melee phys - elemental damage with attacks - ancestral call - multistrike - fortify Or the last two can be added cold and fortify Or multistrike and added cold Or deadly ailments. For Herald of ice - ice bite - hypothermia - lvl 4 enlighten. In addition, you still have room to make another skill in a 4 link, such as lancing steel or shattering steel, so that you can apply the impale ailment on top of the other ailments from wildstrike and herald of ice, which will further increase the damage of your other ailments and elemental damage.

I should be clear!!! I am NOT saying to link lancing steel or shattering steel or winter orb to wild strike. Oh god no! Your main two skills are activated Herald of ice and wildstrike. Your on use skills every so often are either shattering steel or impaling steel or winter orb to augment with even more ailments to increase your overall wildstrike elemental damage and thus increasing your overall poison dot.

The thing is using volkuurs has life on hit and adds cold damage to attacks. It also says your cold skills have a 20% chance to poison and that plus double taproot means you don’t even need to invest in any poison chance nodes to cap that 60%. Then you can just invent those into either life nodes or the cold damage nodes (for example, take the node that converts 20% of physical to cold damage)

Will do PoB right now and show you the results

https://pastebin.com/aQ53KiZX

I'm intrigued. Played a wild strike ranger once and it was pretty cool. I was thinking of league starting either with this or maybe LS.

Looks interesting overall, but 4k life on level 100. oof. it's very low even for Assassin. All slots are uniques and without capped ele-resistances. It's glassiest cannon of all glass cannons i ever seen. Any sneeze in your direction will kill you. And very poor boss killer, because you can't freeze them.

Try to make your build level 90 and ditch some uniques to cap on ele-res.

seems interesting.

would love to see a leveling guide or a video, may have to try this beast out