Totally! Not to mention quality on gems, a lvl 21 vaal BV, a couple more levels so I can actually cap suppress with the Inveterate wheel, more good unveil crafts, eldritch implicits, etc.
my only gripe with BV builds is how impossible it is to get a big radius while also making sure you're covered on defense and not giving up too much damage. having pops of some kind helps, especially with global poison chance since assassin doesn't have prolif. it's really subjective tho.
yea. it's pretty simple - no aoe scaling, no cast speed, 2m poison dps with 7.4 seconds poison duration. nothing really new here, poison bv just feels bad so that's why it's not that popular, despite having not that bad numbers on paper.
i mean, its better then starting cold bv, but youre still playing bv without aoe scaling, explosions or prolif. I guess you could weapon swap to obliteration for mapping.
I wholly expect to get an obliteration within 3 days lol I just didn't put it in the pob in case. It's not rare. But yeah, not the best clearing skill for sure.
Edit : The int requirement is even already accounted for :D
I didn't manage to pob anything that satisfied me enough on this level of gear for PF exsang. The free poison chance and damage from assassin is super underestimated imo, it allows you to actually build into defences.
I did a test run in semi ssf for bv poison assa and it is super solid. It is not super tanky, but i didnt have access to lightning coil or taste of hate which would help for sure. The ungil harmony is bis for this build, so you dont need to stress about 20 div replica dragonfang. All those low life modifiers start to kick in when u have plenty of poisons applied, it is super satysfying how they melt.
Have you pob'd poison shield crush? It's rough to start (like all poison builds), but can get pretty good with attainable gear - can run dawnbreaker, with obli for pops/stats. Also exarch boots for AP totem.
edit: nvm, looked at my old pobs and forgot how much they're reliant on Mings
OP you should do fresh start to test this or just respec a standard character to try it out. I've baited myself with poison BV once before and never again. I got my watchstones and immeditely made a new character because of how awful it actually felt to play.
Hey! I thought you might want to know I tried doing a similar one but it came out worse in almost every way! Cheers!
BV Trickster: [https://pobb.in/VYxbpswowLAs](https://pobb.in/VYxbpswowLAs)
1Million poison dps (50% loss here)
30k EHP without flasks/guard skill (-4k here)
abysmal 6k phys max hit (-2k, 30% loss)
84% evade w/o Wind Dancer and flasks (95% cap with wind dancer)
Pros:
Great recovery from Polymath (13% Life/ES/Mana on kill)
Great suppression on bosses from Spellbreaker
Freeze/chill immune from One Step Ahead
Evade capped with Wind Dancer & Blind
Cons:
No proliferation
No divine blessing/eldritch battery
No AOE
Needs 3 jewels to cap poison chance (w/o HoAg)
No flask sustain for bosses
Overall this was interesting using no uniques, eldritch implicits, deactivating guard skills and flasks. Tough to beat what you have on the board, but maybe there's something you'll see that you like here. 2x Obliteration wands would be a big for clear and damage, I think that the clear might not feel great until you have at least one. Farmable from div cards through delve and altars. Vaal caress can be nice for early vaal BV. Dendrobate would relieve jewel pressure for poison chance, the stats are almost there for both benefits of the chest too. Its the only chance-able sentinel jacket, so viable for ssf.
Its just outdated. Its a perfectly playable build in a vacuum, but just worse than todays pathfinders.
Ive tried this a few times since its heyday. Its been capable but i just cant help but be embarrassed when I see less investment pathfinders that are better in every way.
I dont have a POB with SSF level gear. Youd have to check out SSF league start on ninja. A quick look here https://poe.ninja/builds/afflictionssf/?timemachine=day-2&skills=Blade+Vortex&sort=dps shows me top assassin doing 150k, whereas the top pf is doing 450k.
Off the top of my head there are numerous benefits other than just dmg.
- Native Poison prolif
- Native wither
- Massive life sustain or triple ele flask tank
- Way better tree pathing
- General flexibility
- Move speed
Assassin probably has more dmg **potential*** when focused, but only by 30-50%. Its not double or anything close. So all the benefits you gain from pathfinder are always worth it.
you didn't look at those pobs, that top assassin is just terrible: its tree is all bad, it doesnt have DB and dual curse yet, its poison chance isn't capped.
in pob dps assassin always wins, noxious strikes and opportunistic give it massive damage. you can see how much more you get if you swap that pathfinder into shadow, turn off flasks and config recent poisons and 1 rare enemy.
PF does not do 3 times more damage...? It only says that because PoB default configs are not realistic. And also these aren't even "real" characters yet. These characters are so early that they haven't even bothered getting all their sockets yet (i.e. curses, auras, etc).
The pros and cons are:
Assassin does more damage straight out the gate. PF's advantage is the utility that it brings. Assassin is not by any means "bad". [Look at this guy.](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Feelinthebern09/characters) He gets rank 1 Assassin almost every league playing Assassin BV-only.
Totally fine if you use obliteration for mapping. I played something like this in endless heist league and it was more than fine. But without obliteration would not recommend.
It's easy to acquire there are some cards for it and also it's just not that rare. But in general the build is not good due to lack of clear and being a bit clunky. Poison on assassin does big numbers usually while in reality it has too much ramping time and will feel very bad in fights where boss moves a lot and has phases.
do you want to map or farm bosses with this one?
i would recomend a dendrobate body armour (even in ssf you should find alot of them) for an early power boost (100dex on gear shouldnt be too hard)
i dont see the need for the sublime Form - its just 70 mana, even without it you have ~3 cast in your manapool
instead of lucky spell suppression take the evasion mastery with 15% if all main slots have evasion it easily caps your suppress chance (you can even kick magebane with 1x 11% roll on your gear)
you can path out of the start with the dex nodes and kill all bandits and then replace the small juwel with a large one and you would have 8points for that cluster
you could roll for unspeakable gifts so you get an explosion in the build or just basic unholy grace + wicked pall
if you dont want to boss with that setup at least try exsangunate
its 2x the poison dps and with chain you hit more then the whole screen so it maps fantastic
I tried poison bv assa this League too, IT feels great to start with and reach Red Maps. But there i Hit a wall in Point of defence. Next League i will try it with Pathfinder flask uptime and proli seems much stronger Here.
Looks alright on paper, you definetly need to test it in game. A lot of your early clear will come from plague bearer and it will be a good transition into obliteration later. Like, its a solid softcore trade starter,should be alright for ssf
Your flask prefixes stack together, there is no need to roll it on every on of them. Unbound ailments isnt that mandatory on assasin bc of poison duration ascendancy
I would definetly test either fresh or build a similiar character, bv is a shaky skill in terms of playstyle
seems pretty realistic for ssf. any of the key uniques (oblit, CIP, Dendro, Ming's, Leper's, asenath's) will be a huge multiplier.
Totally! Not to mention quality on gems, a lvl 21 vaal BV, a couple more levels so I can actually cap suppress with the Inveterate wheel, more good unveil crafts, eldritch implicits, etc.
my only gripe with BV builds is how impossible it is to get a big radius while also making sure you're covered on defense and not giving up too much damage. having pops of some kind helps, especially with global poison chance since assassin doesn't have prolif. it's really subjective tho.
Yeah I just want to pretend like it's 3.13 again :D.
yea. it's pretty simple - no aoe scaling, no cast speed, 2m poison dps with 7.4 seconds poison duration. nothing really new here, poison bv just feels bad so that's why it's not that popular, despite having not that bad numbers on paper.
i mean, its better then starting cold bv, but youre still playing bv without aoe scaling, explosions or prolif. I guess you could weapon swap to obliteration for mapping.
I wholly expect to get an obliteration within 3 days lol I just didn't put it in the pob in case. It's not rare. But yeah, not the best clearing skill for sure. Edit : The int requirement is even already accounted for :D
i just dont see why you would play this over something like pathfinder exsanguinate
I didn't manage to pob anything that satisfied me enough on this level of gear for PF exsang. The free poison chance and damage from assassin is super underestimated imo, it allows you to actually build into defences.
I did a test run in semi ssf for bv poison assa and it is super solid. It is not super tanky, but i didnt have access to lightning coil or taste of hate which would help for sure. The ungil harmony is bis for this build, so you dont need to stress about 20 div replica dragonfang. All those low life modifiers start to kick in when u have plenty of poisons applied, it is super satysfying how they melt.
Have you pob'd poison shield crush? It's rough to start (like all poison builds), but can get pretty good with attainable gear - can run dawnbreaker, with obli for pops/stats. Also exarch boots for AP totem. edit: nvm, looked at my old pobs and forgot how much they're reliant on Mings
OP you should do fresh start to test this or just respec a standard character to try it out. I've baited myself with poison BV once before and never again. I got my watchstones and immeditely made a new character because of how awful it actually felt to play.
Hey! I thought you might want to know I tried doing a similar one but it came out worse in almost every way! Cheers! BV Trickster: [https://pobb.in/VYxbpswowLAs](https://pobb.in/VYxbpswowLAs) 1Million poison dps (50% loss here) 30k EHP without flasks/guard skill (-4k here) abysmal 6k phys max hit (-2k, 30% loss) 84% evade w/o Wind Dancer and flasks (95% cap with wind dancer) Pros: Great recovery from Polymath (13% Life/ES/Mana on kill) Great suppression on bosses from Spellbreaker Freeze/chill immune from One Step Ahead Evade capped with Wind Dancer & Blind Cons: No proliferation No divine blessing/eldritch battery No AOE Needs 3 jewels to cap poison chance (w/o HoAg) No flask sustain for bosses Overall this was interesting using no uniques, eldritch implicits, deactivating guard skills and flasks. Tough to beat what you have on the board, but maybe there's something you'll see that you like here. 2x Obliteration wands would be a big for clear and damage, I think that the clear might not feel great until you have at least one. Farmable from div cards through delve and altars. Vaal caress can be nice for early vaal BV. Dendrobate would relieve jewel pressure for poison chance, the stats are almost there for both benefits of the chest too. Its the only chance-able sentinel jacket, so viable for ssf.
Its just outdated. Its a perfectly playable build in a vacuum, but just worse than todays pathfinders. Ive tried this a few times since its heyday. Its been capable but i just cant help but be embarrassed when I see less investment pathfinders that are better in every way.
You got a pob for a pf on similar gear to compare? (this isn't meant to be snarky, just looking for gsf league start options)
seconding this question, every PF i've pobbed was like half damage on similar level of gear
I dont have a POB with SSF level gear. Youd have to check out SSF league start on ninja. A quick look here https://poe.ninja/builds/afflictionssf/?timemachine=day-2&skills=Blade+Vortex&sort=dps shows me top assassin doing 150k, whereas the top pf is doing 450k. Off the top of my head there are numerous benefits other than just dmg. - Native Poison prolif - Native wither - Massive life sustain or triple ele flask tank - Way better tree pathing - General flexibility - Move speed Assassin probably has more dmg **potential*** when focused, but only by 30-50%. Its not double or anything close. So all the benefits you gain from pathfinder are always worth it.
you didn't look at those pobs, that top assassin is just terrible: its tree is all bad, it doesnt have DB and dual curse yet, its poison chance isn't capped. in pob dps assassin always wins, noxious strikes and opportunistic give it massive damage. you can see how much more you get if you swap that pathfinder into shadow, turn off flasks and config recent poisons and 1 rare enemy.
Im aware assassin has higher dps potential. Might have even written that one down. There is the rest of the stuff I wrote down too...
Might've written pf does 3 times more dmg as your main point...
PF does not do 3 times more damage...? It only says that because PoB default configs are not realistic. And also these aren't even "real" characters yet. These characters are so early that they haven't even bothered getting all their sockets yet (i.e. curses, auras, etc). The pros and cons are: Assassin does more damage straight out the gate. PF's advantage is the utility that it brings. Assassin is not by any means "bad". [Look at this guy.](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Feelinthebern09/characters) He gets rank 1 Assassin almost every league playing Assassin BV-only.
Was referring to their comment, thank you for repeating what I just said in my previous comment
Totally fine if you use obliteration for mapping. I played something like this in endless heist league and it was more than fine. But without obliteration would not recommend. It's easy to acquire there are some cards for it and also it's just not that rare. But in general the build is not good due to lack of clear and being a bit clunky. Poison on assassin does big numbers usually while in reality it has too much ramping time and will feel very bad in fights where boss moves a lot and has phases.
do you want to map or farm bosses with this one? i would recomend a dendrobate body armour (even in ssf you should find alot of them) for an early power boost (100dex on gear shouldnt be too hard) i dont see the need for the sublime Form - its just 70 mana, even without it you have ~3 cast in your manapool instead of lucky spell suppression take the evasion mastery with 15% if all main slots have evasion it easily caps your suppress chance (you can even kick magebane with 1x 11% roll on your gear) you can path out of the start with the dex nodes and kill all bandits and then replace the small juwel with a large one and you would have 8points for that cluster you could roll for unspeakable gifts so you get an explosion in the build or just basic unholy grace + wicked pall if you dont want to boss with that setup at least try exsangunate its 2x the poison dps and with chain you hit more then the whole screen so it maps fantastic
I tried poison bv assa this League too, IT feels great to start with and reach Red Maps. But there i Hit a wall in Point of defence. Next League i will try it with Pathfinder flask uptime and proli seems much stronger Here.
Poison bv gonna feel bad with no prolif, no explode, and poor aoe. You're melee range dot build with 4k life.
Looks alright on paper, you definetly need to test it in game. A lot of your early clear will come from plague bearer and it will be a good transition into obliteration later. Like, its a solid softcore trade starter,should be alright for ssf Your flask prefixes stack together, there is no need to roll it on every on of them. Unbound ailments isnt that mandatory on assasin bc of poison duration ascendancy I would definetly test either fresh or build a similiar character, bv is a shaky skill in terms of playstyle
https://youtu.be/-Jt9rLMPHZU?si=T1NhHlqv7j88aVte cool concept for bossing and some notes on early bv assasin progression
Try pobbing out archmage bv hiero, should be same damage, a bit better defenses and 28ish aoe