[3.14] Zizaran's Poison Bladefall / Blade Blast Assassin

+ low entry cost
+ great clearspeed
+ high single target damage
- two button main ability
- not very tanky

‣ Damage over Time: Unlike hit damage, Damage over Time (or DoT) applies consistent damage per second over a duration to enemies. The length of this duration depends on the DoT source.
While their damage ceiling is usually lower, DoTs allow you to damage enemies while moving which makes it easier to avoid their damage and can improve clearspeed.

‣ Evasion: Evading a hit avoids all its damage aswell as ailments and stuns it would cause to you. It's calculated against the attacking enemies accuracy, rolls twice on a critical strike to potentially downgrade it to a normal hit and uses an entropy system to avoid lucky strikes on either side.
Only attacks can be evaded, spells don't use accuracy and are therefore unaffected by evasion.

‣ Dodge: Similar to evasion, dodging a hit avoids all damage, ailments and stun it would cause, but it doesn't share the other mechanics. It's checked after evasion, capped at 75% and separated into Chance to Dodge Attacks and Chance to Dodge Spells, DoTs can't be dodged.

Your journey through the ten acts can be seen as an extensive tutorial, slowly confronting you with the majority of game mechanics and increasingly more difficult enemies to learn to counter.

This section will help you while playing through the ten acts and shows the recommended
passive tree progression, gem setups, quest progression and exp farming zone for each act.
The passive tree goals are just a pointer, it's not a big deal if you're over- or underleveled.

Keep in mind that this section includes major storyline spoilers, if you care about that.

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Caustic Arrow -> Blade Blast at Level 38
+ Pierce -> Poison w/ Blade Blast
+ Void Manipulation -> Unbound Ailments w/ Blade Blast
+ Deadly Ailments w/ Blade Blast

Explosive Trap -> Toxic Rain at Level 12 -> Bladefall (Lv1) at Level 38
+ Swift Assembly -> Unleash w/ Bladefall
+ Blastchain Mine w/ Toxic Rain -> Spell Cascade (Lv1) w/ Bladefall
+ Void Manipulation w/ Toxic Rain -> Faster Casting at Level 38

Smoke Mine put Detonate Mines on left-click

Frostblink -> Flame Dash

Withering Step

Despair

Summon Skitterbots -> Malevolence -> Flesh and Stone at Level 38

Herald of Agony at Level 38

Plague Bearer at Level 38


Life Flask
Life Flask -> Silver Flask
Mana Flask
Quicksilver Flask -> Quartz Flask
Quicksilver Flask

Get Diamond Flask in Act 7 for endgame!


Kill all Bandits for +2 Skillpoints


Act 1 Passives
Act 2 Passives
Act 3 Passives
Act 4 Passives
Act 5 Passives
Act 6 Passives
Act 7 Passives
Act 8 Passives
Act 9 Passives
Act 10 Passives

Passives

‣ Early Maps
‣ Endgame w/o Cluster Jewels
‣ Endgame w/ Cluster Jewels

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Ascendancy

‣ Opportunistic (Normal): Gives us a damage multiplier while only one rare or unique monster is nearby, or reduces the damage we take if there's atleast two rare or unique monsters nearby.
The reflect immunity for crit strikes it grants isn't very useful as we don't crit consistently.

‣ Noxious Strike (Cruel): Increases our chance to poison enemies and gives a damage multiplier. It also increases poison duration for each poison we've inflicted during the last 4 seconds and recovers our life based on how many poisons were on that enemy during the kill.

‣ Toxic Delivery (Merciless): Adds up to 2% base crit chance and adds a huge damage multiplier to poisons inflicted through a crit.

‣ Mistwalker (Uber): Grants us Elusive on crit, increases its effect and makes us take no extra damage (= crit multiplier) from crits while we have the Elusive buff.

Blade Blast - Poison - Deadly Ailments - Unbound Ailments - Vile Toxins - Void Manipulation

Blade Blast is a physical spell that detonates lingering blades on the ground to deal AoE damage and unnerves enemies on hit. While it deals good damage on its own, we use it to apply poison.
Poison deals 20% of the hits combined physical- and chaos damage as chaos DoT over a duration and can stack indefinitely, only limited by application rate and duration.

Poison increases our chance to apply poison and gives a damage multiplier for poisons.

Deadly Ailments lowers hit damage but gives a huge damage multiplier for damaging ailments.

Unbound Ailments gives a damage multiplier for ailments and increases their duration.

5th Link: Vile Toxins adds a damage multiplier for poisons and increases our hit damage based on the number of poisons on the enemy up to a limit, which is pretty effective with our hit rate.

6th Link: Void Manipulation gives a chaos damage multiplier but reduces elemental damage, which we don't deal and therefore don't care about.

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Bladefall (Lv1) - Spell Cascade (Lv1) - Unleash - Faster Casting

Bladefall is a physical AoE spell that we use for lingering blade generation. It releases 5 volleys per cast, each leaving a blade on the ground. Increases to AoE pull the location of those blades further apart which is bad, as we want our Blade Blasts to overlap for poison stack application. That's why we don't want gem quality here. We also keep it at Level 1 to reduce mana cost.

Spell Cascade adds additional volleys in front and behind the regular volleys, effectively tripling the amount of blades we create. It also reduces AoE based on gem level, we keep it at Level 1.
Just like Bladefall, we don't want gem quality here for the same reason.

Unleash builds up seals over a duration while not using the linked spell. These seals have a base limit of 3 and are released upon using the spell, each giving an additional cast with short cast time and no mana cost. This lets us create 15 additional blades per seal and easily reach Bladefalls limit of 40 blades, which massively raises our damage potential if enough Blade Blasts overlap.

Faster Casting reduces cast time so that we're not locked in cast animation for too long.

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Flesh and Stone - Herald of Agony - Vitality - Enlighten (Lv2+)

Flesh and Stone grants us the blood and sand stances, of which only the latter is useful for us. While in sand stance, enemies within its radius are blinded and we take less damage from attacks that originated from outside its radius. We always stay in sand stance.

Herald of Agony grants chance to poison and a poison damage multiplier. It also spawns a minion that gets stronger based on poison stacks we inflict, but is rather irrelevant for this build.

Vitality grants life regeneration and unlike most other auras, it reserves a specified value based on gem level instead of a percentage. Try to lower its level if you struggle with mana.

Enlighten reduces the linked auras reservation cost, but only does something at Level 2+.

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Flame Dash - Withering Step - Second Wind - Arcane Surge (Lv5)

Flame Dash is our movement skill, it has three uses and a short cooldown. It also removes Grasping Vines and prevents us from taking damage from DoT sources when dashing through.

Withering Step gives us elusive and phasing until we use a skill or elusive runs out, and applies wither stacks to enemies within its radius. Use it for additional damage when needed.

Second Wind reduces the linked skills cooldown and adds another use.

Arcane Surge grants a temporary buff after spending some mana, which grants a more damage multiplier, cast speed and mana regeneration. To consistently proc it, we keep it at Level 5.

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Plague Bearer - Increased Area of Effect - Empower (Lv2+)

Plague Bearer takes 20% of our poison damage to incubate plague value until it's full, which can be released to damage enemies around you at 12% of plague value per second until depleted. This is a great clearspeed increase and often enough to kill entire packs of monsters on its own.

Increased Area of Effect increases the radius within which enemies get damaged.

Empower raises our Plague Bearers gem level to increase its radius and maximum plague value, but only does something at Level 2+.


For endgame bossfights:
Wither - Spell Totem - Multiple Totems

This setup is only needed for endgame bossfights and should be socketed in a Cold Iron Point.

Wither is another source of the wither debuff, which stacks up to 15 times, increases chaos damage taken by 6% per stack and hinders enemies.

Spell Totem turns our Wither into a totem skill, which casts Wither while it's placed.

Multiple Totems raises our totem limit to 3 and lets us place two totems at once.

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Cast when Damage taken - Steelskin | Despair

Cast when Damage taken triggers linked spells upon accumulating enough damage from hits for its treshold. The spells required levels also need to be within Cast when Damage takens listed trigger level limit. While a higher level gem allows to trigger higher level spells, the damage treshold also increases and often makes it not worth it. We can fully level it for this setup.

Steelskin gives us a temporary hitpool, which takes 70% of damage taken from hits to life or energy shield until depleted or its duration runs out and has a 3 second cooldown.

Despair is a hex curse that lowers an enemies chaos resistance, increases the damage they take from DoTs and adds chaos damage to our hits against them. It gains doom over time if cast by yourself, which increases the curses effect.

It's important that Despair is not linked to the other gems in this setup!


If Enduring Composure Cluster & Despair on Hit Ring:
Cast when Damage taken (Lv7) - Immortal Call (Lv9) | Clarity

These are the gem replacements once getting the mentioned pieces of gear.

Cast when Damage taken still does the same thing, but this time we keep it at Level 7.

Immortal Call gives us a temporary buff that makes us take less physical and elemental damage and has a 3 second cooldown. We keep it at Level 9 to stay within the CwDt trigger treshold.

Clarity grants mana regeneration and can replace the Enduring Mana Flask. It reserves a value based on gem level instead of a percentage, adjust its level to whatever fits your setup.

It's important that Clarity is not linked to the other gems in this setup!

Weapons

Obliteration is our clearspeed weapon. While its Gain #% of Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage modifier gives us decent extra damage, we mainly use it for its Enemies you Kill have a 20% chance to Explode, dealing a quarter of their maximum Life as Chaos Damage modifier. We dualwield them for amazing clearspeed together with Plague Bearer.

Good corruptions are Chance to gain a Power Charge on Critical Strike, Chance to gain Unholy Might for 3 seconds on Kill and Increased Damage over Time.

The best harvest enchantment is Grants 1% increased Area of Effect per 4% Quality.

Cold Iron Point can be used for bossfights. Its +3 to Level of all Physical Spell Skill Gems gives a massive damage increase when dualwieded. When using these, put the Wither Totem setup in one and the other 3L setup in the exact same order as in your Obliteration and put them in your secondary weapon slots, so that you can easily switch between them by pressing x.

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Body Armour

We can start with any dexterity-based body armour with 90+ Life and Resistances.

Carcass Jack is what we eventually want. It gives both of those affixes, some damage and lots of Increased Area of Effect for Blade Blast overlaps.

The best harvest enchantment is Grants +1 to Maximum Life per 2% Quality.

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Helmet

A basic helmet with 70+ Life and Resistances is enough to get started.

The Elder Influence prefix Adds # to # Physical Damage to Spells adds some good damage, while Socketed Gems are Supported by Concentrated Effect can be used to further reduce Bladefalls AoE to maximize Blade Blast overlaps.

We also need an open suffix to craft Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments. We get 20% from the Thick Skin cluster and need another 80% from gear to be fully immune to elemental ailments.

The best enchantment is Blade Blast deals 40% increased Damage. Also useful are Plague Bearer Buff grants +20% to Poison Damage over Time Multiplier while Infecting, Plague Bearer deals Damage based on an additional 5% of Plague Value, Herald of Agony has 30% reduced Mana Reservation and Flesh and Stone has 30% reduced Mana Reservation.

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Gloves

Same as our helmet, getting 70+ Life and Resistances is a good start. Apothecary's Gloves are nice for some extra DoT damage from their implicit.

The Hunter Influence suffix Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier is nice if you can fit it in, however crafting Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments should have priority for endgame.

Don't bother with enchantments for this.

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Boots

Our boots should also have 70+ Life and Resistances together with 20%+ Movement Speed. Two-Toned- and Blessed Boots bases are preferred.

Additional Chance to Dodge Spell Hits is great to have and can come from Elder- and Redeemer Influence as well as Incursion boots and Essences of Scorn.

Atziri's Step have almost everything we need with their Life, Movement Speed and Chance to Dodge Spell Hits. They can only drop from Atziri in the Apex of Sacrifice and Temple of Atzoatl.

Useful enchantments are 70% increased Mana Regeneration Rate if you've cast a Spell Recently, 16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently and 8% chance to Dodge Spell Hits if you've taken Spell Damage Recently.

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Belt

Once again we want 70+ Life and Resistances here, ideally on Leather Belt or Stygian Vise.

Nothing fancy to add for endgame, just get high Resistances and use Prismatic Catalysts.

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Rings

Our rings should have 50+ Life and Resistances, for endgame on Vermillion Ring bases.

Strength and Mana Regeneration Rate help if those are lacking. Later on we want to craft Non-Channeling Skills have -8 to Total Mana Cost, which helps with mana sustain.

Curse Enemies with Despair on Hit from Hunter Influence is nice to have, but not necessary.

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Amulet

Ungil's Harmony has everything we need - Life, Mana and lots of Critical Strike Chance that synergizes with Toxic Delivery from our ascendancy. Its downside of dealing no extra damage with crits doesn't matter to us, as we don't scale Crit Multiplier in the first place.

A good anointment early on is Freedom of Movement, later on we want Dire Torment.

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Jewels

All of our jewels should have Life and atleast one of the following: Increased Damage, Increased Chaos Damage, Increased Damage over Time, Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier, Increased Cast Speed (-while Dualwielding) and Attack & Cast Speed.

Having a Searching Eye Jewel with Chance to gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Kill can give a nice clearspeed increase.

Useful corruptions for us are Corrupted Blood cannot be Inflicted on You and You cannot be Cursed with Silence.

Your Flask Setup should be the following:

Divine Life Flask - Eternal Mana Flask - Diamond Flask - Quartz Flask - Quicksilver Flask

Divine Life Flasks are better for instant heal, we're going for Seething or Panicked with Staunching to remove Bleeding.

An Eternal Mana Flask with Enduring helps with mana sustain, add Warding to remove Curses. If the curse comes from a map mod, it is only removed during flask effect.
Once mana sustain isn't a problem anymore, replace this with an Atziri's Promise which gives us lots of Chaos Resistance and Physical Damage gained as Extra Chaos Damage.
It can only drop from Atziri in the Apex of Sacrifice and Temple of Atzoatl.

Diamond Flasks make our crits lucky, which rolls them twice and takes the higher value.
We want Chemist's or Experimenter's with Heat to remove Chill and Freeze.
Once you're elemental ailment immune, replace this with Coralito's Signature. It grants us the Perfect Agony keystone and increases our poison duration, which is helpful for longer bossfights.

Our Quartz Flask gives us lots of dodge and phasing, use Chemist's or Experimenter's with Grounding to remove Shocks, or Warding once you're elemental ailment immune.

Quicksilver Flasks provide movement speed, get Chemist's or Alchemist's with Adrenaline.

Cluster Jewels can only be used in 3-point jewel sockets at the outside of the passive tree!

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Large Clusters

We want to use an 8 Passives Chaos Damage with Overwhelming Malice and Grim Oath.

Overwhelming Malice gives us a chance to gain Unholy Might on crit.

Grim Oath gives us 10% of our Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage.

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Medium Clusters

Here we want two Medium Clusters with 4 or 5 Passives Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier.

Good notables are Haemorrhage, Septic Spells, Eternal Suffering and Brush with Death. Eldritch Inspiration is also decent and can help with mana sustain.

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Small Clusters

Our first Small Cluster needs to be Chance to Dodge Attack Hits with Elegant Form to get another 30% Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments and some dodge.

The other Small Cluster needs to be Increased Armour with Enduring Composure, which gives us an Endurance Charge each second for 4 seconds after getting hit.

Check out this video to learn the basics about maps.

First thing you need to get used to is the two button main skill playstyle. When approaching enemies, use Bladefall first and Blade Blast right after, if you time it right you can surpass Bladefalls 40 lingering blade limit by detonating some while there's still Bladefalls being casted.

Once its plague value is full, use Plague Bearer to kill packs of monsters instead.

Start bossfights with Withering Step or Wither totems and cursing them with Despair, then do the usual Bladefall + Blade Blast combo to burst them down and try to avoid their skills.

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Mapmods to loot out for

Physical Reflect - use Soul of Yugul and a Sibyl's Lament to be safe, unless any modifier such as Shock or the Physical Sextant modifier make you take increased damage.

Chance to avoid Poison - pretty annoying but doable if you really want to.

Unlucky Dodge - you'll take way more hits and with that way more damage.

No Mana Regeneration - equip an Enduring Eternal Mana Flask if you're not using it already.

Soul of Solaris (Major): Lots of damage reduction that are generally good to have.

Soul of the Brine King (Major): Prevents stunlocks.

Soul of Abberath (Minor): Avoid taking damage from Burning Ground.

Soul of Shakari (Minor): Additional chaos damage reduction.

You can have 1x major and 1x minor Pantheon node active at once.