So I seem to have accumulated quite a bit of nightblade and poison gear leveling my other characters who have no use for it. Looking for a good tanky poison build using NB + (something).
Anyone have any favorites? Non-HC but needs to be able to handle ultimate of course. High survivability is a big bonus.
Been thinking NB + Soldier or Occultist with former being tank tho later has some poison synergies…
Thanks 
I don’t really see a reason to pick anything, but NB+Occ here regardless of whether you want to be evil eye caster or melee. Such a huge dps loss to pick any other secondary class. Soldier would be tankier, but it’s not by a gigantic margin. Can also so Occ+Arcanist if you want an evil eye spam build, but again it’s less damage and not too much safety gained. Those classes make a safer experience, but if you play well and have enough damage it is just not worth. You will be squishy early on till you have the right gear/devotions, but you will also be able to shit on stuff pretty fast before it gets to you. You do get 2x nice heals from blood of dreeg/pneumatic plus with melee you can get lifesteal and something like dryad. As a caster I enjoy going behemoth+lizard+wendigo for pretty awesome hp regen and heals, this route still lets you get a decent amount of offensive power too
In terms of gearing you have few options for sets. Dreeg set for DEE spam. For melee you can go Venomblade set or DM set with a Mad Queen’s Claw or similar.
I was considering the blood + pneumatic combo as that is a lot of healing and ya, even more with devotions. I have a witchblade I enjoy and seem to get by ok with just blood of dreg and am tanky as hell. The NB part I only really want to use because of the glut of NB gear I have stashed with epics and quite a few legendaries. Leaning more towards melee-based since I have… waaaaay to many casters.
So I guess it would be NB + Soldier… which would be super tank… could even go 1h + shield for even more tank tho that would lower dps I would think since I can’t run dual blades tree.
NB + Occult would be not nearly as tanky [granted I would have blade barrier for emergencies] + blood of dreg and even spines if I take occult that far and IIRC a few other “bonus” items from Occultist for poison damage/resist buff/debuffs.
So ya… was just an idea. Saw all the gear laying around and thought… damn… I should make a NB poison death machine! … and thus this post. 
A two handed witch hunter equipped with Nightshade’s Reach makes an incredible high DPS character with a surprisingly good survivability. The petrify effect on the sword, plus the stun/freeze/fumble on Ring of Steel, plus the fumble/impaired aim on Mark of the Apostate, mean that as long as you’re actively attacking you’re pretty close to untouchable. And the DPS is insane- many bosses go down with just one cooldown cycle, two cycles will knock down anything but a nemesis.
Definitely not super tank unless you are talking a shield build and uhh a poison sword n board blademaster sounds pretty crap to me
If you go NB Soldier the thing is it’s so much less of a poison build. You have the shadow strike dot and the acid/poison from hidden hand. Occultist provides a lot of flat acid, % poison boosts, another -% poison debuff.
I happen to have that weapon in my stash as we speak.
For melee you can go Venomblade set or DM set with a Mad Queen’s Claw or similar.
I can hardly believe it, but this weapon finally dropped for me today (The Legendary). I would like to build a Witch Hunter (Nightblade + Occultist) that dual wields Mad Queen’s Claws. Anybody have some suggestions and a grimcalc?
Now I just need one more!
Great. Thank, you, Guurzak!
Ooo that one looks fun. I like jajaja’s builds generally. I did laugh as I think this is the first Occult one I’ve seen from him that doesn’t have CoF.
I have no doubt jajaja’s build is really effective, but after looking at his build, I don’t like the idea of using Beronath’s fury, for thematic reasons. I want to do full poison/acid dual wield. Is it possible?
It’d be cool if there was a poison variant of that skill. I’m not looking to do much elemental damage. It’s tempting though, because you save so many skill points. I suppose I could use ABB + Lethal Assault instead.
Maybe there is a melee poison skill granted from items that I’m not aware of…
A maxed out Lethal Assault gives a lot of acid damage.
Ok. How many points would you recommend putting into ABB?
Yes, I temporarily turned my caster witch hunter into full acid/poison dual wield. It’s not amazing, but definitely not bad.
Not taking beronaths fury is a huge dps loss you must take it. Also if you use weapons that do pure acid damage than there will be no elemental conversion 
just that tiny elemental bonus
If you have the points available you should max lethal assault, if you want ABB to be your primary aoe you should probably put quite a few points into it as it does damage of only 1 of your 2 weapons and does cold damage which makes it pretty weak
I would put only one point. The rest of you AOE will come from procs and devotion skills. It definitely works. I’m on a melee acid witch-hunter these days, he’s level 72 and it’s pretty satisfying to play.
ABB should always be kept at modified 6, in order to get 100% weapon damage. Anything beyond that is wasted (and quickly drives your energy costs to unsustainable levels). Lethal assault, on the other hand, should be maxed and overmaxed as much as possible.
I’m thinking on a new one with the new set. Maybe a mix between 3 pieces from new sets and parts from the old ones … still don’t know how to make something great with good def…
Was there a new Poison/Acid set introduced in the last update? I’m kind of out of the loop.
Venomblade set with 2 weapon and chest / helm
Currently leveling a DW Acid Witch Hunter. Gonna use Venomblade set minus the Fist weapon. Going to use Mad Queen’s Claw instead.
I’m level 69 and i’m about reach Fort Ikon on Elite. So far it has been really easy, pretty much melting enemies with no problems. Then again, Ultimate is the true test, so i’m eager to know on how it will perform there.
