Dunefiend isn’t even a shadow strike set, it’s a set that happens to include SS as a single target nuke.
Deathguard was a 2p for shadow strike even before the changes and the added bonuses make it much more favorable for acid SS in general. You never fooled around with the necro side of it because necro is made of paper and has no acid RR. Before FG you could get some outlandish numbers on a witch hunter courtesy of deathguard pieces. Now with dervish coming equipped with starpact+ the whole set offers 12% CDR, slap in unseeing eye and some viloth rings and thats 34% CDR (probably get a different necklace because 27% should be sufficient for hourglass boosted ascension). I forget what the shortcomings of the build ended up being, don’t recall an MI’d version being posted anywhere.
Yup, base acid damage, attack speed, +1 nightblade and each dagger converts half of second rite. Adding in Putrid Necklace and viloth rings shot it up to near chaos levels of flat damage but there was a lack of AoE and the gearing demands made it prohibitive to assemble.
I made Deathguard feedback thread and it seems it was completely ignored. Deathguard SS Dervish does Crucible 150-170 in 7 minutes and does every second time. It’s squishy, it’s wonky, damage is not there.
I think Z. just doesn’t like Shadow Strike, he is probably getting 'Nam flashbacks from the days of Spellbreaker dominance or something. So “buffs” to SS are not really buffs. Dunefiend SS is completely useless with added cd, Deathguard is between mid-tier and trash-tier, cold SS does not have any items support.
The most recent buff to the skill line was pretty sizable. acid and cold can push the base cooldown to 1.7 before CDR while it was 2.3/2.1 acid/cold before. The extra 10% on nightfall helped as well. Such a big leap was not without risk as SS has a history of causing issues. At this point we’ve seen the jump fell short of causing any issues. Another round of buffs would put the skill at a point where the accessible builds actually have a hope of doing stuff.
What are those changes? Because I must’ve missed them or something. Iirc Dunefiend adds cd to SS and from my Dervish SS tests cd was low and damage tooltip was respectable but it still wasn’t nearly enough to build around.
Here is my Deathguard thread by the way. SS cd with max CDR everywhere 1,6. And it had 50% success rate in pre-1.1.4.0 Crucible. I am afraid in current patch it will be squished like a bug.
Only working version of acid SS that I have seen (and tested myself) was @Safarel Nightshade’s Reach/Shattered set SS Dervish. It was a 6:30-7 minute build with ok consistency (obviously lower than other Shattered builds).
Shadow Strike: reduced Cooldown to 3.5s, energy cost reduced accordingly. Increased % Weapon damage scaling at ultimate ranks to 385% by max ultimate rank.
Nidalla’s Justifiable Ends: increased Poison damage scaling with rank, particularly at ultimate ranks. Increased Cooldown Reduction scaling at ultimate ranks to -1.8s by max ultimate rank.
Nightfall: Radius now scales with rank, increased base % Weapon damage by 10%, increased Frostburn and Vitality Decay damage scaling with rank
Seems I was a bit off with the top of my head numbers, I’ll correct those in the other post too
Original 3.8s cd -> 3.5s
Cold SS with nje and loxblades 2.1->1.7 (gained 0.1 on nje)
Acid SS capped nje 2.3-> 1.7 (0.3 on nje)
Testing with cold has shown that nightfall is a serious contributor for crucible times as it culls even heroes given time. Double DG blade and global cold-> acid could make it even better on dervish but I still expect durability shortcomings to be the main issue.
So I have modified the spec a bit and here is what I have tested with: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZy9OjwZ. As you can see, defensive devotions (because otherwise it has no chance). It certainly feels better than pre SS buff, however, because Crucible got buffed too it’s still a 50% success rate build. I am guessing less experienced players will be dying with it all the time.
My runs: death at 170 and 6:42 run. I made two more runs at died at both once at 169 and once at 170. I can’t even imagine how horrible Reaper would be with a similiar spec. But this Dervish is certainly not worth it. Deathguard is still below mid-tier and SS is still meh.
Without Aeon and Dying God and with classic Acid devotions build has no chance. With it it has 50% chance.
I don’t know, I am guessing it’s mostly Dervish with its insane synergy for Acid (double passive RR, CDR etc.). Set is borderline bad (3 items set bonus is Bleeding resistance ffs). Overall build feels and plays like a squishball lottery with you winning the prize every second time.
Green free spellbreaker SS is an utter joke I won’t even consider anymore after comparing it to bare bones loxblades or chillstrifes. Relying on mirror/blade barrier resets makes life surprisingly comfortable so long as you understand the timing but that’s a recipe for slow play. Most of my recent testing has avoided hourglass and focused on including single affix MIs to experiment with skipping Ulo buff for Ulzuin’s OA/DA or flexing things the other way to ride the line assuming ulo res.
I’ll revisit hourglass when I’m able. Belgo relic shenanigans are all the more favorable in that arrangement. My main dislike of hourglass approach is the big bite it takes out of your damage. Points are already strained.
Yup, Hourglass route nets you way less flat cold. I tried route with max damage and also dreamy Lox daggers. I had around 30k WD and definetely the build was still meh. But that was before SS buff and Crucible was easier. So perhaps I will try it again in the future, The concept is appealing. I wonder if it’s possible to utilize Amatok’s Breath on top of SS for extra damage&mobility
You want displacement. Dodging something you’d otherwise have to mirror is just pure gold. It gets you out when you need out, it’s quite possible you’ll die in the middle of Amatok’s breath as it lacks the properties that protect you when you’re shadowstriking.
Kicking it around every which way the one problem I’m always finding is chaos resistance. No pieces that line up (anymore, old DM jacket chaos res) provide it and none of the augments for jewelry or weapons have a whiff of it. Zantai doesn’t like dying god being used for non chaos/vit builds? Well I’m sorry that I need OA, DA and chaos res. I’d like to investigate other options that don’t lean on korvaak without resorting to MIs beyond an acceptable range of rolls but hey big K gives the Fing C res. Boots of primordial rage line up nicely with -you guessed it- chaos res plus necessary stunres and a helping of OA. Helm? Purple ravager’s. You need the ele res AND the chaos res… and the +1 all skills.
Swap the +% crit damage to SS modifier on loxblades to chaos res comparable to the ather on chillstrifes and life should be more comfortable for cold SS. As it stands you can barely make overcaps using Ulo buff and even then it depends on rolls… or you don’t because there’s instances of 40%+ from a single enemy source so push mirror and hope you get lucky with crits.
OA concerns will probably keep the devotion page from venturing towards green/purple but maybe something can be worked if you accept that it’s going to depend on cruci buffs.
