Crackling Lance Assassin Gear, Jewels & Flasks

TbXie

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Summary – TL;DR

Like expected, nothing matters more than capping your Elemental Resistance before anything else. This means modifiers on gear are subordinate to Resistances as long as we’re not capped. Otherwise you’re just focusing on getting Life & Resistances on good Energy Shield bases as we’ll mention to get some additional Energy Shield. Some of your items will have something that is a little build enabling and others are just tailored to be quick fits and cheap items so you can focus your currency towards getting the Uniques that can be a little more expensive early on in a League.

We’re providing you with an extensive analysis further down the page, but chose to start off with an overview / recommendation. As you’ll notice, a lot of the emphasis is on Strength or %Strength rolls, as we’re looking to get as much of that as possible.

Our recommendation:

Item Slot Item Name
Head Hubris Circlet Hubris Circlet with high Life & “Nearby Enemies have -9% to Lightning Resistance”
Amulet Badge of the Brotherhood Badge of the Brotherhood
Chest Vaal Regalia Vaal Regalia with high Life and “Chance to gain Frenzy Charge on Hit”
Gloves Fingerless Silk Gloves Fingerless Silk Gloves with high Life & Resistances
Boots Two-Toned Boots with 30% Movement Speed, high Life & Resistances
Belt Stygian Vise Stygian Vise with high Life, Resistances
Rings 2x Vermillion Ring Vermillion Ring – Life and Resistances – One of which has “Assassin’s Mark on Hit”
Weapon 2x Void Battery Void Battery

For crafting Rare items, you can check out all the affixes that can roll on an item base, depending on its level, influence, and many other factors, using our affix tool.

Armour Pieces

Helmet

You would really like your Helmet to be a Hubris Circlet Hubris Circlet. Even without any additional Energy Shield rolls, we’re getting a decent chunk of Energy Shield from items like these which will help in the long run. Besides Life (and potential some resistances should they be available) you’re looking for the Redeemer modifier “Nearby Enemies have -9% to Lightning Resistance”. Affix priority is as follows:

  1. +# to maximum life (at least 85)
  2. Hubris Circlet Hubris Circlet base
  3. Nearby Enemies have #% to Lightning Resistance
  4. +#% to Elemental Resistances (until cap)

Body Armour

Again, for your Body Armour you’re looking for a Vaal Regalia Vaal Regalia as it offers the highest base Energy Shield. Besides Life you’re looking for Redeemer modifier “10% Chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit”. Ideally, you want an open prefix so you can add “Gain 10% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield” on the Crafting Bench. The priority in which you should be getting these affixes is the following:

  1. #% Chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit
  2. +# to Maximum Life (at least 90)
  3. Open prefix for “Gain #% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield” crafted on the bench
  4. Vaal Regalia Vaal Regalia base
  5. +#% to Elemental Resistances (until cap)

Note If you don’t have this type of Chest yet you need to find another way to generate Frenzy charges. Gaining them on a boss is almost impossible without this modifier but you could run a Blood Rage Blood Rage for example to gain some while clearing a map.

Gloves

Ideally, a pair of Fingerless Silk Gloves Fingerless Silk Gloves will grant you some extra spell damage but that isn’t really of the greatest importance. Life and a lot of Elemental Resistances are to be found here!

  1. +# to Maximum Life (at least 70)
  2. +#% to Elemental Resistances (at least 100)

Boots

Your Boots follow the same rules as the Gloves such that you want to find Life and Resistances here. Since Two-Toned boots exist, we don’t mind not getting an Energy Shield base here, in favor of more resistances. Two-Toned boots offer an extra 24% Elemental Resistances and we really like those in our build! Should you ever have the same gear as I’m recommending here or better in every slot, you can look into getting a “You have Tailwind if you have dealt a Critical Strike Recently” modifier on boots. Affix priority:

  1. +# to Maximum Life (at least 80)
  2. #% Increased Movement Speed (at least 25)
  3. +#% to Elemental Resistances (at least 85)
  4. You have Tailwind if you have dealt a Critical Strike recently

Belt

This slot is mainly a stat stick again, but we opt to use a Stygian Vise Stygian Vise here which fulfills a very important role! Make sure to thoroughly read the paragraph about Cinderswallow Urn Cinderswallow Urn later down in the Flask part of this page to understand why. The affix priority on your belt is the following:

  1. Has 1 Abyssal Socket
  2. +# to Maximum Life (at least 90)
  3. +#% to Elemental Resistances (at least 90)

Accessories

Amulet

The best in slot here is definitely a Badge of the Brotherhood Badge of the Brotherhood. The combination between this Amulet, Assassin and your Weapons just makes it insanely strong. Getting 6 Frenzy Charges from an Amulet slot is very hard, if not impossible, to beat. I’ll show you a very early game alternative, but Badge together with your weapons really is one of your first major upgrades! Even though there’s a couple of shenanigans you could be doing here like getting +2 to your Crackling Lance Crackling Lance level I suggest you just pick up a cheap necklace and save up for the big Badge. The affixes you’re looking for on a placeholder amulet are:

  1. +#% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
  2. #% increased Cast Speed
  3. #% increased Spell Damage
  4. #% increased Lightning Damage

Anoint

The best anoint DPS-wise is Disciple of The Slaughter for some Frenzy Charges scaling. If you want a cheap one to start out, Divine Judgement is great too.

Rings

Both of your Ring bases are preference. If you have plenty of excess Resistances, you can get away with running Vermillion Ring Vermillion Rings but if you still need additional Elemental Resistances, picking up a Resistance base (such as Sapphire Ring Sapphire Ring) can be really helpful. We’re looking for Life & Resistances here. One of those two rings needs a “Curses Enemies with level # Assassin’s Mark on Hit” modifier. After the changes to Marks in 3.12 Heist League this is a huge multiplier versus bosses and you’d rather not manually cast it. If you don’t have this ring yet, I do recommend manually marking bosses with Assassin's Mark Assassin's Mark.

Weapons

No Shields for us! We’re an Assassin and they don’t do shields, right? Void Battery Void Battery is just too strong not to dual wield. It is the bread and butter of nowadays Assassin because of how it interacts with the Power Charge nodes on the tree and Badge of the Brotherhood Badge of the Brotherhood. Getting more Power charges means more Frenzy charges and a bunch of other scaling effects that start multiplying your damage. They might be a tad expensive early on but they’re definitely worth investing into.

Flasks

We all know Flasks are generally pretty customizable but for this particular build I’d recommend following the exact setup we give you. I’ll start by explaining the Cinderswallow Urn Cinderswallow Urn that I mentioned during the talks about the belt. The reason why a Stygian Vise Stygian Vise is so good in this build is because we really don’t like any of the Abyss Jewels too much. They’re vastly inferior to normal jewels for you, yet you need a single one. You need one single Abyss Jewel with a Flat Fire Damage to Spells modifier on it. This is because you have an obscenely high Crit chance, which means no matter how little Fire Damage your spell deals to an enemy, it will always Ignite it. While you have your Cinderswallow Urn Cinderswallow Urn active, that means the enemy will be taking 10% Increased Damage making the entire flask a 15% More Damage multiplier!

The rest of the Flask setup should look as shown underneath. Make sure to have at least the Warding, Heat & Staunching rolls on them, as they’re vital to your build’s survival:

Our recommendation:

Slot Flask
1 Chemist’s Diamond Flask Diamond Flask of Warding
2 Seething Divine Life Flask Divine Life Flask of Staunching
3 Cinderswallow Urn Cinderswallow Urn with %Regen
4 Experimenter’s Quartz Flask Quartz Flask of Heat
5 Atziri's Promise Atziri's Promise OR Chemist’s Quicksilver Flask Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline

Jewels

Thread of Hope

The build wants to use a Thread of Hope Thread of Hope in the Witch socket, as shown underneath. Allocating all these nodes without having to travel there is tremendously potent and a well worth upgrade. The one you’re looking for “only affects Passives in a Large Ring”.

Glorious Vanity

As mentioned before, you’re looking for a Glorious Vanity that has “sacrificed in the name of Doryani”. This will guarantee that any keystone in the area will transform into Corrupted Soul for 20% of your Maximum Life as Maximum Extra Energy Shield. Once you get one of these you also redo your pathing at the start of Shadow as you no longer gain benefits from the starting nodes as the jewel completely changes them.

Abyss Jewel to proc Cinderswallow Urn Cinderswallow Urn

As mentioned in the Cinderswallow Urn Cinderswallow Urn paragraph, you need an Abyss Jewel with some sort of Fire damage on it. The two modifiers that work for you are “Adds # to # Fire Damage to Spells” and “Adds # to # Fire Damage to Spells while Dual Wielding”. Their rolls do not matter whatsoever. Things you otherwise like on this jewel is +# to maximum Life and the “#% increased Cast Speed if you’ve dealt a Critical Strike Recently”. Honestly, no other modifier is particularly great. Getting a jewel like the example one should be your focus & shouldn’t be too hard.

Rare Jewels

The remainder of your jewels (3 of them) will be filled with rare Cobalt Jewels. The most efficient stat (yet also, generally, the most expensive one) is definitely some sort of Critical Strike Multiplier. The build floats at around 500% which means it can definitely use another 100-150 before we start seeing diminishing returns. However, other modifiers like %increased Damage or “%increased Spell Damage while Dual Wielding” are also fine.

I would suggest, as usual, to find Jewels with some form of Critical Strike Multiplier and a 6% or better Life roll. Once you see what’s on the market, you can pick up whichever one has a useful 3rd affix.

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