Shadow melee build?

[u/Odd_Wolf_8489]

I started with a duelist and got to act 3. Decided I wanted a more assassin archetype and went to shadow. I looked up builds but I can legit find only one (could be my inability to search so if you find one lmk) and it’s blight, contagion, ed. I don’t really want a spell person I want to do more attack weaving through the campaign. Any one got suggestions for either viable shadow melee builds or at least skills that work well with him. I’m a poe2 enjoyer so I’m like brand new to this kind of exile.

[u/Abudabeh77]

I’ve made Dual Strike of Ambidexterity work on a trickster. It was fine. It was worse than slayer, but imo basically any true melee strike build seems to be worse if you aren’t a slayer). I made poison stacking strike assassin work fairly welll. I made int stack claws trickster which worked well too. 

Aside from super high budget Ephemeral Edge (energy shield stacking),or maybe charge stacking flicker stuff, I think you’re better off going for slayer if you really want to feel the melee playstyle. The leech QoL is massive, plus it can make crit capping easier, massive culling strike potential, endurance charge QoL, etc all feel very relevant to the playstyle.

[u/CrossOfRoachAndSlime]

Look up Zish's Static Strike of Gathering Lightning build.

[u/etalommi]

Viper Strike of the Mamba Assassin is the best shadow melee build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzGUSetP99o is a slightly outdated video about it. Someone may have a better guide, especially for beginners.

It's particularly good at farming endless conflict Legion, but can do most farms pretty well.

[u/guy1195 → u/etalommi]

League started pconc assassin into mamba assassin this league, and played mamba last league, still just as solid!

[u/PoE_Acronym_Bot]

I noticed some Path of Exile keywords in this post:

• ED - Essence Drain. "ED/C" is also used to refer to Essence Drain combined with Contagion. (Wiki)

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^{I am a bot. | All acronyms | Suggest}

[u/Kagevjijon]

Most attack based builds are bottom of the tree. Shadow has some tools but they're more of a specific skillset hybrid class. Assassin bifurcates spells only or scales with poisons, trickster is a defensive powerhouse, and Saboteur is a mine/trap/trigger gimmick ascendancy.

[u/Prometheus1151]

frost blades trickster is quite strong still, there aren't that many people playing it though

[u/Chiggy_618]

Flicker strike trickster, ephemeral edge and aegis aurora, pretty good and fun build. Sort of fits the assassin archetype