Velyna's Spectral Shield Throw Raider (PoE Necropolis 3.24)
Due to the Raider ascendancy getting reworked to Warden, this build is no longer playable and will only serve as a refrence point on how this skill could be build.
Introduction
Throw your shield around like Captain America, shattering enemies as it bounces and splinters within packs! 
Spectral Shield Throw scales DPS based on the armour value of your shield, meaning you don’t need to buy an expensive weapon like most attack-based builds.
Fully converting to cold allows use of 
Hatred, one of the strongest auras in the game, while also taking full advantage of the Raider ascendancy. The result is a well-balanced ranged attack build capable of all uber bosses.
Below is a video guide I made for Youtube. This is a good place to start and goes over gearing as well as Pros/Cons. The PoB’s and guide may be more current so make sure to check!
Overview
Pros
✔️ Easy leaguestart and Scaling – Use the provided leaguestart PoB with poisonous concoction to easily get through acts, and transition into SST with only a few cheap uniques required.
✔️ Safe Ranged Gameplay – This build is Ailment Immune with 100% Spell Suppression, Phasing, and 25k+ Armour. We also freeze almost everything, including many bosses. Even with HP around 5k we can tackle Uber bosses.
✔️ Something Different – Not your usual ranged attack build, we completely ignore the main-hand weapon. This makes min-maxing much more interesting!
Cons
❌ You have to aim
❌ Transition Required – Although the swap from poison concoction into SST is cheap and easy, it’s still an extra step that turns off many people. I will do my best to streamline the process.
❌ Uber Bossing Investment – You can progress into endgame without them, but to clear all content will require a crafted helmet.
How Does it Play?
SST throws a spectral copy of your shield, which chains a few times before shattering into several shards with also deal damage. As your damage scales, you can expect to fully shatter most packs with 1-2 button presses for a very satisfying mapping experience. Because we are crit and cold based our required defenses are lower because mobs are always frozen or at least slowed. As a raider we have perma-phasing, preventing deaths from being body blocked.
Damage and Defensive Scaling
The damage of shield throw scales based on the armour value of your shield, with every 15 armour granting 5-7 physical damage. Being fully converted to cold, we benefit from Raider ascendancy exposure and can stack elemental/cold pen as well. Frenzy charges and attack speed give a nice amount of DPS, and at the top end we approach 100% crit chance.
Defensively we are running 25k+ armour, capped suppression, ailment immunity and Fortify from shield charge. In addition, we keep most enemies perma-frozen until they die.
Resources
Crafting and Upgrading for Beginners
Using this Guide
For build imports head to the PoB and Skills page.
Pobs and Skills
Gear
Ascend and PantheonThe build is designed to work through stages, explained next to the imports. The same page contains leaguestart tips and gem setups for leaguestart and endgame.
The gear page contains info about the endgame setup, links to help you search for items, and sometimes crafting tips as well.
Leaguestart
- My Leaguestart PoBs go step-by-step to place your talents during act 1-10.
- There is also an act-by-act guide for which gems to use, you can find it on the Skills page.
After the campaign get your lightning/cold/fire resistances to 75 and get life on every slot. You can wear a blue ring if it has life and resistance, that’s fine. Also start shopping for uniques.
The leaguestart is meant to grind out immediate upgrades in early maps, some builds can push into reds immediately and some not. Grind where you are cozy while upgrading.
When you can easily farm low maps, start looking to buy items for the next stage.
Midrange/Transition
Some builds require a transition stage because levelling with our desired skill is not viable. If transitioning is required there will be a list of items to gather before doing it, and then you build towards the next PoB like always.
You will probably unlock most of your atlas while gearing out this stage, so don’t be afraid to spend on incremental upgrades. The faster you kill monsters the faster you make money.
Midrange will add more expensive uniques and any build-defining items. Usually not much crafting yet, but all rares should have the required life/resists/attributes plus good other mods. Flasks should also be decently rolled.
Check the gem setup in PoB, it usually changes slightly from leaguestart.
Endgame
Pushing past the final atlas bosses and into the post-campaign content, this is where you add those final millions of DPS to finish off the build.
Upgrades will become more expensive overall, and may require some basic to intermediate crafting. If a difficult craft is required, instructions will be given on the Gear page of the guide.
The cost of this stage is different for every build and changes with every patch. If a build is generally very cheap or very expensive I will mention it in the Pros/Cons section.
