Sicarius Venentatus
Know they self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.
If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.
Sun Tzu
Build without gear/+skills: http://grimcalc.com/build/04KZYxR
Build with gear/+skills and devotions: http://grimcalc.com/build/mkuLheo
Primary damage types: Poison (1,766% self-buffed damage before Spirit bonus with 491% Duration) and Acid (1522% self-buffed damage before Spirit bonus)
Secondary (negligible): Vitality, Cold, Pierce, Bleed
Active skills: Blood of Dreeg, Pneumatic Burst, Blade Barrier, Ring of Steel, Shadow Strike, Dreeg’s Evil Eye, Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze, Dreeg’s Afflicted Spines, Curse of Frailty
Passive skills: Dual Blades, Anatomy of Murder, Merciless Repetoire
Weapon Pool Skills: Belgothian’s Shears, Nidalla’s Hidden Hand, Amarasta’s Quick Cut, Whirling Death
Weapon Procs: Venomlash x2
Preamble
Hey guys, to start with I’d like to say it’s my first guide on any game ever and that a similar build by Mirenheart called Dreeg’s Vomit is a bit more defensive than this build, which might suit your playstyle more. Also, I was going to add videos but Shadowplay is borked and I cba to faff about with it right now. Maybe later.
I was going to post a guide to my build 2 months ago but decided to play around a bit more to get to know the build better, hence the Sun Tzu quotes.
This is an involved, squishy build (low hp, lots of actives) so if that’s not how you like to play this won’t be for you. It is more than capable of breezing through Ultimate difficulty and since settling on this build version (tried various builds/devotions), I haven’t died so it might be HC viable though it’s offensive nature means it would be risky. You have been warned!
Also as an addendum for those who want to know, Sicarius Venentatus is Latin for Venemous Assassin.
Gear Overview
My gear choices are all offensive (+9 to DEE for example), though some do provide some small innate defences, such as resists, hp or hp regen. Armour is rather low though at 856. With item procs, my OA peaks at just a little over 2.7k and DA at ~2.1k and hp regen gets up to 1,414 hp/s. All the armour pieces have Mankinds Vigil augments except for the shoulders that have Demonbane Powder. I gone done goofed and didn’t buy Outcast’s Warding Powder in Elite then misclicked the combat dialogue option in Ultimate. FeelsBadMan.
Weapons: Venomlashx2 with Outcasts Venom augment on both. I have Mark of Dreeg on one (for a small Poison DoT and a granted skill, -res took a hit in 1.0.0.4) and Vitriolic Gallstone for a Poison and Acid damage buff and Aura. You could easily replace Vitriolic Gallstone for another Mark of Dreeg and have 2 Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze to stack them DoT’s.
Amulet: Black Gem of Dreeg with Mogdrogen’s Sanctity and Corpse Dust. Gives a passive skill with 25% chance to proc on attack to summon 3 Eyes of Dreeg that seek out enemies, dealing 3.6-4.3k Acid damage and 7,670 Poison damge over 2 seconds . Patch 1.0.0.5 buffed this item to decrease the CD of the Gaze of the Guardian proc to 3 seconds and to increase the explosion radius of the Eyes to 4m. Also for reaching the Shroud of Dreeg 3 set bonus of 100 OA.
Rings: Closed Fist of Vengeance / Open Hand of Mercy with Mogdrogen’s Sanctity on both as well as Corpse Dust on both. Shores up DA/OA issues and gives resists, attack slow retaliation, hp regen and the Set Bonus got buffed to include 6% Attack and Cast speed in 1.0.0.5. Also the Seal of Fate set bonus (100% chance on crit, 5 second CD 5 second duration, 8% OA/DA and 2%+124 health per second heal) has an almost 100% uptime as I crit pretty much all the time.
Helm: Helm of Dreeg with Sanctified Bone. 3 set bonus.
Shoulders: Mantle of Dreeg with Silk Swatch. 3 set bonus.
Chest: Vestments of the Great Guardian with Chains of Oleron.
Legs: Nidalla’s Legwraps with Silk Swatch
Hands: Viperfang Grips with Unholy Inscription for the Vitality and Bleed resist.
Belt: Thorn Girdle of the Misty Glade with Molten Skin. The Poison retaliation is not bad where you can’t avoid being hit, adding another 3,500 Poison DoT and the Wildvines proc (15% chance when your hit) adds nice slow/immobilisation on top of more Poison damage. Usually procs onto groups of ranged mobs so even better.
Medal: Badge of Mastery (+3 SS/+2 DEE) with Wardstone. With Seal of Fate almost always up and then Prowess proccing 100% on death, it boosts my OA to 2,700 and hp regen per second to 1,414.
Relic: Dreeg’s Affliction, level 70 Mythical Relic granting the ridiculously strong Dreeg’s Afflicted Spines skill. +1 to Occultist skills, 5% total speed and % Poison and Acid damage and a 3,940 Poison retaliation damage.
Skill/Devotion Overview
This section is basically an in-depth look at my skill/devotion choices and why I chose them. I’ll also include abbreviations, rather than having to type them out multiple times and give damage numbers where I can from my self-buffed +%Poison and Acid damage bonuses. The order in which you get what skills doesn’t really matter. As long as you max DEE /w transmuter and Blood Burst, Possesion and Vulnerability by end of Veteran with points in Pneumatic Burst /w Belgothian’s Breath and Blood of Dreeg /w Aspect of the Guardian as needed.
TL;DR - Stack as much Poison damage, from as many sources as you can, as quickly as you can. Don’t die.
Defensive skills
The reasons this build is Ultimate viable.
Pneumatic Burst (PB): The main heal I use, due to it’s 5 second CD with Breath of Belgothian mutator. With 8 points in it, it heals 26% max health, provides 9% Total Speed and 22 health regen per second. I have Turtle Shell from the Tortoise bound to it as a pseudo circuit-breaker to deal with any spike damage from the occasional crit.
Blood of Dreeg (BoD): Just a really powerful heal that also serves as a buff with 138 Offensive Ability (OA), 106 hp a second, flat Acid damage and retaliation and with Aspect of the Guardian, 54% Poison/Acid buff, 12% physical resistance and 100% Poison/Acid resistance. I have Behemoth’s Giant’s Blood bound to BoD.
Blade Barrier (BB): Stereotypical ‘Oh, shit!’ button with it’s 100% damage absorption. With only 1 point and high CD, use sparingly and in conjunction with pots/BoD/PB.
Ring of Steel (RoS) /w Ring of Frost: Just 1 point into RoS with the main utility coming from the 3 second Freeze effect of Ring of Frost. Decent CD at 3.5 seconds. Not useful against Bosses and Heroes. Acid Spray from Manticore is bound to RoS due to the relatively low CD to debuff enemies with -armour and -resists plus a small Poison DoT to add to all the other DoT stacks.
Veil of Shadow /w Night’s Chill: A 6.1 meter radius slow (-25% movespeed) and a decent -135 OA debuff. Night’s Chill adds -% Poison/Acid resist as well.
Shadow Strike (SS) should get an honourable mention here. It’s saved my arse many a time. Some people may not realise that SS can be used on anything that can be attacked; mobs, human remains, barrels, rock cairns etc. So if you get into some trouble and have heals on CD just keep an eye out for breakables and get out 'till they are back up. I also have Sailor’s Guide (recently buffed in 1.0.0.5), Spider and the first 3 points in Behemoth as slight defensive constellations.
Offensive skills/devotions
This is where the fun starts with massive Poison DoT ticks.
Curse of Frailty (CoF) /w Vulnerability: I only have 1 point in CoF (probably a point of contention for some), the reason being I do so much damage I have no need of debuffing trash/Heroes past what my skills/devotions/components already do. I use the 13/10 in Vulnerability to initiate Boss fights and follow up with SS, into DEE.
Dreeg’s Evil Eye (DEE): A 4 second CD, 10 meter radius spell with a large 28,776 Poison DoT over 3 seconds and initial 8,000-9,000 Acid hit (with Vile Eruption). Blood Burst adds damage and 3.5 meter radius increase, Vile Eruption adds even more Acid damage and Vitality to the initial hit and causes 3 fragments to hit nearby enemies. Terrify adds increased Acid damage and Poison damage with increased duration including a small chance to Confuse/Terrify affected enemies.
Tainted Eruption from the Abomination (only take the left Poison ‘arm’ of Abomination) is bound to to DEE, which has a 63% chance to proc (seems to proc a LOT more than that though) causing 1.8 seconds of Confusion and dealing 28,125 Poison damage over 5 seconds in a 10 meter radius.
SS /w Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends (NJE): Only 1 point in SS as Pierce and Cold are not the focus of this build. NJE, on the other hand, provides a decent 17,460 Poison DoT over 3 seconds with SS being on a 3.8 second CD. Akeron’s Scorpion’s Scorpion Sting (65% proc chance) is bound to this skill, with a 61% proc chance and another Poison DoT (6,820/5 sec) and a nifty -140 to the target’s DA.
Dreeg’s Infinite Gaze (DIG): A situational skill obtained from Mark of Dreeg. Against trash mobs you’ll probably never use DIG except vs high hp mobs like Flesh Hulks or maybe in co-op for a little extra damage. Deals a decent 10,611 Poison damage over 3 seconds per projectile (8 in total fired out from your character in 360 degrees).
Dreeg’s Afflicted Spines (DAS): This skill is DIG on ALL the steroids. 18 projectiles, fired out in 360 degrees, each with a 70% chance to pass through mobs, %Weapon Damage, flat Pierce and Acid damage and a rather large 29,295 Poison Dot over 5 seconds. Situational like DIG.
Merciless Repetoire: With my +skills this passive skill sits at a 67% Acid and Poison damage buff.
Dual Blades’ WPS/Venomlash: Nidalla’s Hidden Hand (1 point, goes to max 8 point with gear +skills) modifies Belgothian’s Shears (3 points), Amarasta’s Quick Cut (1 point) and Whirling Death (1 point) by adding flat Poison and Acid damage, increasing Poison and Acid damage by 66%, target movement slow and converts 33% of Pierce damage to Acid.
The weapons I am using, Venomlash, have a proc called Venomlash (10% chance to be usedx2) that deals 150% Weapon Damage (which averages around 4,000 Acid damage due to my % Acid damage bonus due to Venomlash dealing only Acid, not physical, damage), flat Acid damage with a 500% Acid damage steroid and a 33% chance to deal a ~7,000 Poison DoT over 2 seconds.
Devotions: I’ve mentioned a few already but these are the Devotions I have in full. As for the order, as long as you get Tainted Eruption from Abomination ASAP, followed by Tortoise, it’s up to you. The damage from pumping DEE with Tainted Eruption bound to it will carry you through half, if not more, of Elite:
Jackal / Rat / Akeron’s Scorpion with Scorpion Sting (Poison damage and debuff) / Hawk / Viper (needed the Affinity bonus) / Manticore (minus the back foot node. Don’t need the Posion/Acid resist) with Acid Spray (more Poison damage and debuff) / Abomination (left Poison ‘arm’ only) with Tainted Eruption (highest Poison DoT in my repetoire) / Sailor’s Guide / Behemoth (first 3 points only) with Giant’s Blood (decent heal and regen) / Tortoise with Turtle Shell (pseudo circuit-breaker, much needed)
Build Overview/Rotations
Basically this build is a melee caster focusing on stacking as much Poison damage as possible, as fast as posible and keep refreshing the stacks. Most of the damage comes from spells and devotion procs (stack them Poison DoT’s!) but a good 20-25% of the damage come from auto attacking to proc Weapon Pool Skills (WPS), propagating more Poison DoT’s and procing Venomlash.
It is heavily gear dependant and squishy, however, the advantage is up to 167k poison DoT’s (167k is the highest DoT I’ve gotten in solo, with crits, and in 2 man co-op I’ve gotten 212k) on prolonged boss fights. Trash mobs are inconsequential and Hero mobs die in less than 5 seconds usually, unless they have skills like Blade Barrier or Mirror of Ereoctes. For example, DEE does 28,776 Poison damage over 3 seconds and that’s only my second highest damaging DoT.
Against Bosses my rotation goes as follows; CoF > SS > DEE > RoS (for the Acid Spray proc) > DAS > DIG > auto attacks (get in as many as is safe, to proc as many WPS/Venomlash procs as possible. Need them Posion DoT’s, bruh). With melee Bosses, I use Slithblood Tincture for the 75% of Fumble/Impair Aim and, as a bonus, an extra 3,408 Poison damage over 2 seconds.
Some Boss mechanics prevent this, e.g. Moosilauke’s 2nd phase Crystals, Mad Queen Retaliation Aura etc. At this point just retreat and spam CoF, DEE, DIG and DAS). Apart from DAS, which has an 8 second CD, everything has sub-4 second CD so just rinse and repeat refreshing CoF when needed.In Boss fights you need to really be on your toes, especially vs Fabius. Make sure to keep Blade Barrier if you are up the proverbial creek, and use pots/heals whenever needed.
As mentioned above in the Skill Overview, with Terrify procs from DEE’s tree, the guaranteed 1.8 second confusion from the Tainted Eruption proc and the 3 second Freeze from Ring of Frost transmuter trash mobs can’t touch you, giving a lot of survivability in most situations.
Damage rotation on trash mobs is basically just DEE, however, some mobs have high HP pools so you might need to SS to apply the NJE Poison DoT. Heroes require maybe 1 CoF cast with DEE, SS, DIG and/or DAS.
Apologies for the walls of text…just trying not to leave anything out. Hope some of you at least get some ideas from this build or try it out if you have the gear. It’s fun to play and pretty efficient at farming. So…that’s it I guess.
I actually did the same thing as you trying 2x venomlash, but with more points in the WPS. It feels fairly similar think the pure caster ended up being a bit faster with a bit better aoe, but not a big diff comes down to what you like more. I’m surprised more people don’t play poison wh and there’s never any poison on the front 1-2 pages of this forum. I can destroy sharzul in 9 seconds if I get bit lucky build is super super strong