First, my build theory is posted above. As I’m still farming most of my gear, I prefer to have builds that can beat Ultimate with minimal point diversity (i.e. maxing out a couple of main skills + support skills). As gear is obtained, I will slowly respec into more respectable end-game builds with more point diversity.
The idea is to SS onto a mob, use ABB, Inquisitor seal, and Execution to finish them.
What I need is advice on this bare-bones build. Is it solid enough to beat Ultimate? Should I distribute points differently?
This is my first attempt at a NB-based build. So far, I have successful Pyromancer, Cabalist, and Witchblade builds farming Ultimate but never a NB or Inquisitor.
A setup with just some skills picked out and devotions is just a bundling of devotions and skills, it is not a build. Gear plays a massive role in determining what resistances you need (so maybe you don’t need X devotion, or you need Y devotion to cover a gap). It also gives many skill bonuses (so maybe 6 points instead of 12 in one skill, or you have extra points to boost another skill).
Plan it out with the ideal gear, that’s a build. The stuff you have on hand is your character.
I’m well aware of the (you can see my other build posts from ~2 years ago if you’d like) difference. As I stated in the thread, I’m looking for advice on whether this base-bones set up is even viable with sub-optimal gear as I’m still farming for ideal gear. My familiarity is with Soldier/Occultist/Necromancer/Demolitionist as I’ve played those into Ultimate and Crucible. I know absolutely nothing of NB and Inquisitor.
No build starts with optimal gear and, as it advances into Ultimate, it necessarily changes. My question is if the idea looks solid or if I’m missing some key NB-centric ideas.
I have played the hell out of my infiltrator in many different ways (so much respeccing) and have beat gladiator crucible and ultimate on him as different builds too.
I think the short answer to your question is no I don’t think you have the core skills required to make this work for ultimate. Particularly you are not utilizing some of infiltrator’s core skills that are required for survivability. Namely, you have no points in pneumatic burst or any of it’s upgrades, no points in vigor which gives you much needed HP as a class that struggles to get HP, you have no points into ring of steel and circle of slaughter which provides cc and fumble chance (thus more survivability) and you are heavily specced into shadow strike. Now I know there is an infiltrator build that uses heavy shadow strike, but as an infiltrator it is extremely counter productive. You are investing 24 points into a seal that you have to stand in, yet you are building your character to deal damage with a mobility ability…
Now to agree with the other person, it is impossible to say based on this skeleton because no matter what gear you have crappy or not, you will get + to skills which will change how many points you need to soft cap skills and then free up points to put into additional passives etc.
But yeah… everything I said about missing the most important infiltrator skills for survivability. Also, if you are planning on playing pierce based you are going to need the reduction to pierce resistance in inquisitor tree.
edit: oh yeah and your distribution into ABB / lethal assault is backwards. you want the points in lethal assault for much needed OA and potentially also cold damage depending on what you are playing.
edit 2: sorry to keep editing, but you are also severely under invested in veil of shadow. You should at least soft cap this skill for survivability and range on your night’s chill.
-Amarasta’s Blade Burst with DW melee (from what I have read/heard) only uses the off-hand weapon for damage so it is only used for ranged builds (which uses both weapons for DW) and 2-handed builds. Otherwise, you want to ignore the base skill and use it for Lethal Assault only.
-You want points in Pneumatic Burst, Belgothian’s Breath and Shadow Dance.
-You want probably want points in Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends for more Shadow Strikes and so they hit harder on a crit.
-Don’t overlook Veil of Shadow. The -OA buff is nice.
-1 point in Ring of Steel and Circle of Slaughter is nice for the Fumble
Thanks! That’s been my concern with NB-based builds ever since the beginning… they seem impossible to level properly as you have more skill needs than points thus making it very difficult to properly plan out a build.
As an infiltrator, what would be your main damage skills? From what I understand on the class, Veil is debuff, SS is mobility, Lethal Assault is a buff + slight dmg, RoS is CC, Word of Renewal is debuff + health/res, Seal is buff plus dmg absorption, and Aura is Aura.
How would you level a cold-based infiltrator build to have enough damage to beat Vet/Elite/Ultimate to actually farm some gear? Should I do something like this, with the understanding that, as I hit softcaps in Veil, Burst, etc, I would redistribute points into dmg skills:
I feel like the build has very little actual damage? End-game build isn’t my true concern as I can respec into the DW melee infiltrator build (or something similar). I’m more curious as to how do I level this NB?
as an infiltrator melee build either cold or pierce your damage will come from auto attacks. in a belgothian setup you would use the set bonus as an auto replacer and in a cold setup you would get a shard of beronath to replace your auto. But either way most of your damage will come from left clicking.
as far as leveling: i have leveled multiple nightblades and i would recommend focusing the majority of your points in nightblade at first. max pneumatic burst EARLY because it gives you tons of healing on a 5 second cooldown, and great buffs including avoidance, movespeed, and DA. Don’t max skills like like elemental awakening unless you are max level and need the ele resist. This goes for most passives unless they are shadow dance or night’s chill. Also, while leveling in general dont take skills to 12/12. Stop them at like 8-10/12 so you get a good bang out of them without using all your skillpoint.
ok so general summary of points as leveling in terms of priority:
get high pneumatic burst, lethal assault (only 1 point in ABB), get passives for your WPS skills like belgothian shears with only 1 point, pump points into NB for stats and eventually execute. If you want to put some points in inquisitor, try to get word of renewal + vigor for more survivability. And as an FYI inquisitor seal is much worse in my opinion than its upgrade (arcane empowerment). One point in shadow strike just for mobility, dont even bother with the upgrades. One point ring of steel / circle of slaughter… yeah that’s about it. Most of your damage will come from left clicking which i think you should like if you want a simple build.
>Most of your damage will come from left clicking which i think you should like if you want a simple build.
That’s actually the reason I haven’t played my Witchblade in a few months. I hate melee builds where you just left-click. Boring and slow until you get your devotions set up.
I guess that’ll be something I’ll have to live with while leveling though. Thanks for the advice!
Shadowstrike or shard of beronath for cold DW melee infiltrator. The latter will rely upon the good WPS (execution, belgo shears, quick cut)
Amatok is not worth taking unless you have a lot of CDR. Infiltrators don’t get a lot of CDR, thus don’t take amatok on infiltrator. Chariot of the dead will serve you better with its OA.
For leveling you can go the caster route or the melee route. Caster takes rune of hagarad and rushes up to Aura of Censure as well as night’s chill. With stacked AoE RR and abilities that leave you mobile you just walk by stuff as it dies. Caster will eventually switch/blend into melee. Melee starts off with blade burst / night’s chill, moves towards maxing out lethal assault, picks up ring of steel then maxes first two parts of shadow strike.
As for where the build gets most of its damage. As expected it’s gear dependent.
Lethal assault, 12/12 is 55 flat cold, 22/12 is 124 flat. +1 nightblade and + to LA are very potent.
proper weapons. Spectral longsword (blood grove vendor sells these!) and loxmere’s frostblade are the usual suspects for shadow strike. Ugdenbog chillstrife is something you’ll be farming at level cap if you want to do an auto attack build. A chilled ugdenbog chillstrife of whatever will outperform any legendary, same deal with longswords and frostblades.
alkamos rings. Flat damage, OA, total speed. Conversion is bonkers for shadow strike, decent for auto attack if you’re going with Conviction. Nightscorn (a blue ring) is good filler.
I will add one thing. Even though I think pierce infiltrator is stronger, cold melee is much easier to gear. I recommend looking at Weyu’s cold infiltrator build guide. You can easily get the blue items like silver sentinel that give the build a huge damage spike and chillstrife and malkadarr weapons are easy to farm. The boots you can just use any green boots with good resists and the rest gets a bit trickier but you can use fillers as replacements. Also deathchill is extremely easy to craft as a relic and gives a huge boost to dps as a cold build. Once you get belgothian you can switch to pierce and thank me later =)
Also cold build has more buttons to press since it uses lethal assault and rune of halg. But pierce only adds one skill for RR.
Pierce build is easier to gear as you can cap res using good legendaries/blues in every slot. Meanwhile cold has a higher potential, but only if you can get your hands on good greens.
Agree to disagree. You can do a good cold build without much legendaries at all and a decent green pair of redeemers but the legendaries you need for pierce will take time farming and luck.
which i think you should like if you want a simple build.