Penetrating Shot - Rain of Arrows

This build focuses on the long range capabilities of Penetrating Shot and Rain of Arrows on top of providing Stealth, to remain safe, when you evade forward for Flickerstep. We also focus on making Rain of Arrow's cooldown as low as possible.

1. Cast Rain of Arrows
2. Cast Shadow Imbuement
3. Cast 3x Puncture -> Penetrating Shot -> Evade
4. Cast 3x Puncture -> Penetrating Shot -> Evade
5. Repeat with Poison Imbuement on Elites
6. Concealment for mobility, Unstoppable or to lower Shadow Imbuement's cooldown

This build tries to make each Penetrating Shot as impactful as possible by combining Condemnation and Combo Points with Imbuements.

We also reduce Rain of Arrows's cooldown through Preparation and Flickerstep.

In order to not die when we Evade forward we take Lethal Dusk which makes us enter Stealth when we Evade into an enemy affected by Shadow Imbuement.

Attacks Reduce Evade Cooldown implicit affix on boots is mandatory on this build.

Build Requirements and Replacements

• Flickerstep is incredibly good for our build but can be replaced with Ghostwalker on boots with the Attacks Reduce Evade Cooldown* implicit.
• Condemantion is also incredibly good but can be replaced with Rapid.
• Word of Hakan is not replaceable.
• Eagle Horn is replaceable with Accelerating.

Poison Imbuement Hidden Mechanics

Poison Imbuement has some hidden interactions that make it even stronger than it already is.

• Core Skill and Cutthroat Damage contribute to their own damage bucket, which is why we prioritize these stats on our Gear and Paragon Board.
• Although Bladedancer's blades do reduced damage they are considered a normal Twisting Blade for Poison Imbuement and therefore apply the full poison damage amount.
• All Damage, or how it's shown on the Paragon Board, Damage, gets double the normal value which means 12.5% Damage is really worth 25%.
• Combo Points increase Poison Imbuement damage.
• Expectant, Condemnation and Tricks of the Trade do not increase Poison Imbuement damage.
• Critical Strike Damage does not increase Poison Imbuement damage.

Armor and Resistances

Armor

As of Season 2 it's much easier to reach the Armor cap so we no longer have to stack + Armor% on every slot.

You need roughly 7600 Armor to cap with a maxed Disobedience on your amulet and 9200 when the aspect is on an armor slot.

This means you need 2 Armor% affixes when you have Disobedience on an armor slot and 1 affix when it's on your amulet.

Resistances

As of Season 2 the Resistance cap is 70% and up to 85% with +15% Maximum Resistance. This is now a very strong stat for damage mitigation.

In my opinion, the most important overall resistance is Poison because it's very prevalent and unavoidable.

In order to cap your Resistances you need 1x Resistance Affix of 4 different Resistances while the rest can be gemmed.

Once you have very high item level jewelry you can do the following to cap Resistances:

• Two rings that give the same Elemental Resistance
• One Elemental Resistance affix on piece of gear
• Gem the remaining three Elements.

Example:

• Penitent Greaves 60% Cold
• Rings 2x 12% Shadow
• Gems 30% Poison, Fire and Lightning
• Intellect 29% All
• Jewlery 28.5% + 2x 12% All
• Paragon Board 18% All
• WT4 Penalty -50%

Totals:
All: 49.5
Fire: 30 + 49.5 = 79.5
Cold 60 + 49.5 = 109.5
Lighting 30 + 49.5 = 79.5
Poison 30 + 49.5 = 79.5
Shadow 24 + 29.5 = 73.5

Vampiric Powers

Vampiric Powers are the Season 2 mechanic.

• Hemomancy heals and is great for leveling.
• Metamorphosis makes us Unstoppable when we Evade.
• Hectic lowers our cooldowns when we cast Basic Skills.
• Ravenous because all Rogue builds regularly are at the Movement Speed cap or very close to it this power is essentially 40% Attack Speed.
• Aniticpation lowers our ultimate's cooldown.