Poison Rapid Fire

This build revolves entirely around Poison Imbuement and Rapid Fire. Focusing on Poison damage lets us trade some burst damage for incredible amounts of DPS. This is needed to progress far in The Pits.

1. Cast Poison Imbuement
2. Cast Caltrops against Elites
3. Cast Death Trap
4. Cast 3x Blade Shift -> 1x Rapid Fire
5. Cast Shadow Step for Unstoppable when needed

This build focuses entirely on Poison Imbuement and Rapid Fire as a great way to apply it.

Because Poison Imbuement doesn't get buffed by Critical Damage and a lot of damage multipliers that affect Core Skills we have to be careful with what we use to buff it. This means we have to use Close Quarter Combat for example, which makes us have to use Blade Shift.

Rapid Fire used to have to be paired with Penetrating Shot in order to be able to do AoE damage but this is not longer the case as Scoundrel's Kiss transforms your arrows into bombs.

Build Requirements and Replacements

Unique Items

No Unique items are used on this build.

Paragon Board Stat Requirements

• Dex: 605

Stat Requirements

• Poison Imbuement Lasts for 5-6 Casts Tempering Affix

Affix Replacements

• Amulet: Ranks to Exploit can be replaced with Ranks to Malice or Ranks to Deadly Venom.
• Daggers: Damage over Time can be replaced with any relevant damage affix.

Skill Choices and Explanation

Basic Skills

Blade Shift is used to generate Combo Points and to help activate Close Quarter Combat.

Core Skills

Rapid Fire is used for its incredible single target damage and now also AoE damage with Scoundrel's Kiss.

Agility Skills

Dash is used in the midgame version for more mobility.

Shadow Step is our Unstoppable skill.

Caltrops essentially functions as a huge damage multiplier through the Enhanced Caltrops Passive and the Deadly Ambush Legendary Node. Both of those damage multipliers double dip with Victimize.

Subterfuge Skills

Dark Shroud is used passively through the Umbrous Aspect and therefore does not need to be placed on our Skill Bar. Dark Shroud is an insanely powerful defensive skill in Season 4 because of it's parabolic scaling.

Imbuement Skills

Poison Imbuement is used because it is the best way to amplify your DPS. The Pits will have a high DPS requirement andPoison Imbuement helps meet it.

Ultimate Skills

Death Trap is used to group enemies which is very important for Pits pushing.

Armor and Resistances

Armor

As of Season 4, it's much easier to reach the Armor cap. Once you hit 9230 you are done.

Don't hesitate to grab extra Armor nodes on the Paragon Board to hit the cap when your gear is not optimal.

Resistances

The recipe to cap Resistance is explained earlier in the guide, below the gear on each variant.

Remember, if your gear is not ideal, don't worry about it and look to cap your Resistances/Armor any way you can.

Max Resistances are 70% and up to 85% with enough + Max Resistances. Remember that WT4 gives you a penalty of 50%. This means you need to get to 120% to soft cap your Resistances.

Dark Shroud Explained

How it Works

Dark Shroud is used passively through the Umbrous Aspect and therefore does not need to be placed on our Skill Bar. Dark Shroud is an insanely powerful defensive skill in Season 4 because of its parabolic scaling. This means that it gets stronger the more we invest in it.

Level 1 Dark Shroud provides 40% DR at 5 stacks.
Level 5 Dark Shroud provides 48% DR at 5 stacks. 1 - (1-48%)/(1-40%) = 13.33% effective DR increase.
Level 15 Dark Shroud provides 68% DR at 5 stacks. 1 - (1-68%)/(1-48%) = 39.5% effective DR increase.
Level 19 Dark Shroud provides 76% DR at 5 stacks. 1 - (1-76%)/(1-68%) = 25% effective DR increase.

As you can see, the more we increase our Dark Shroud level the stronger each level gets. Going from 1 to 5 is equivalent to adding a 13.33% DR affix while going from 15 to 19 is equivalent to adding a 25% DR affix.

Masterworking Priority

Although this guide shows the most optimal gear setup, it's not easy to acquire and generally compromises must be made. For that reason, it's important to understand how the different affixes rank in terms of Masterworking priority.

Breakpoint Affixes

These affixes and their exact Masterworking values are used to reach specific breakpoints.

• Armor
• All Resistances
• Attack Speed
• X Imbuement Lasts for X Casts
• Ranks to X Passive

Maximum Priority Affixes

These should be 3x Masterworking at all costs as they are incredibly powerful affixes.

• Ranks to Dark Shroud

High Priority Affixes

These should ideally be 3x Masterworking but are not an absolute necessity.

• Dodge on (Boots, Legs)
• Lucky Hit Chance (Gloves)
• Critical Hit Chance (Gloves)
• Cooldown Reduction

Medium Priority Affixes

These should ideally be 2x Masterworking, although exceptions exist when other affixes of the same priority level or higher co-exist on the item.

• Close Quarter Combat: Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• Precision: Critical Damage
• Victimize: Vulnerable Damage

Low Priority Affixes

These are mostly interchangeable 1x Masterworking affixes.

• Maximum Life
• Dexterity
• Movement Speed