TbXie's Storm Brand Assassin Ascendancy, Bandits & Pantheon Powers (PoE Necropolis)

Ascendancy (Shadow – Assassin)

Unstable Infusion

As one of the Assassin’s most iconic notables, Unstable Infusion is what gives you a steady influx of Power Charges. Especially since Storm Brand hits so fast, you’ll almost instantaneously cap your Power Charges which will instantly get you to maximum DPS output. To add some extra scaling so we don’t have to be satisfied with just a source of Power Charge Generation this notable offers an extra Maximum Power Charge which adds more to the scaling you get between Assassin, Void Batteries, and the Power Charge cluster in the Skill Tree.

Deadly Infusion

As Deadly Infusion offers you a way to scale your Power Charges, that suits the build really well. Between Unstable Infusion, the Skill Tree & Void Batteries, you’re stacking 9 Power Charges which means this notable gives you 45% Multiplier, and 1,5% Base Critical Strike Chance. If you then realize this Ascendancy node recently got nerfed quite severely, it makes you wonder how broken it was before that nerf! It still is one of the games most potent picks if you stack Power Charges.

Mistwalker

Personally, I think this used to be the most broken Ascendancy passive in the entire game. Mistwalker, an exquisite damage reduction versus incoming critical strikes nowadays provides up to 30% Damage avoidance & 60% Movement Speed. Really fun node to have. Sadly, the effect diminishes as it is active and reactivates as it’s completely faded away. Still, pretty solid pickup.

Opportunistic

Opportunistic offers you 20% Reduced Damage Taken while there are at least two Rare or Unique Enemies nearby, which is probably great for things like fighting 10 Ritual Bosses simultaneously, but that makes you lose its 25% More Damage, which feels kind of awkward. However, versur pure single target, it still is a really solid damage bump and in a lot of situations, where multiple rares are close & you’re not in need of the single target damage, it’s reduced damage taken portion kinda carries really hard.

Feel free to experiment between Opportunistic & Ambush and Assassinate but if you want to play it safe, stick with what we know!

Bandits

There really only is one option here. You want to kill all (help Eramir) for Skill Points. Sure, getting some Resistances and Mana Regeneration from Alira isn’t terrible as a league starter, but capping resistances should be possible without it! Eramir just offers so much flexibility that it almost always is better than the others!

Pantheons

Major Gods

Soul of the Brine King with upgrades to be Freeze Immune is mandatory. Otherwise you need to run a flask affix.

Minor Gods

I would recommend Soul of Shakari as again, Chaos Damage is probably your biggest weakness so taking a bit less from Damage over Time is really nice and welcomed.

Upgrading your Pantheons

Whilst upgrading your Pantheons never hurts you, it’s not that important for this character. If you have nothing else to do at some point, sure, why not, but it shouldn’t be something you focus on or spend a lot of time on.

Pantheon powers can be upgraded by using Divine Vessel in the Map Device while you are activating the particular Map that contains the boss you need. Once you’ve killed the boss and captured his soul, you can consume the Divine Vessel, which’ll show up filled in the map device, or deliver it to Sin in Oriath for extra dialogue relating to the game’s lore.

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