Path Of Building Download 3.24
Bok Mull
Our Path of Exile (PoE) builds for the Necropolis 3.24 league provide a step-by-step guide to building your character successfully. In each guide, you will find extensive information about gearing choices, passive skill trees, gem links, gameplay, and much more!
Cobra Lash is one of the most overlooked skill gems in Path of Exile. Other players would usually gravitate to building a character centered around Spark or Tornado Shot because of their insane damage scaling in the late game. However, Cobra Lash is such a good skill to use, especially if you want a good build that can clear entire maps without a problem.
For one, it has an innate physical damage converted to chaos damage modifier that you can scale by putting flat physical and % physical damage mods on your weapon. The gem itself grants you a chance to poison enemies on hit, which is quite useful since you're going to choose Assassin as the ascendancy class for this build.
Despite not having a Transfigured Gem in Patch 3.23, the base version of Cobra Lash has been buffed considerably. Instead of getting only a 5% "more" damage multiplier with hits and ailments for each remaining chain, that number has increased to 8% in 3.23 Affliction League. On top of that, increasing the gem's quality to 20% gives you plus two additional chains, meaning, the projectiles will chain up to five times for even more damage!
In case you don't know, "more" multipliers in Path of Exile are calculated multiplicatively with other similar mods that you have on your gear. This translates to an overall higher damage output, which is why the Cobra Lash gem has become more popular today.
To maximize the inherent chaining projectiles, you are going to use Large Cluster Jewels with the Fan of Blades notable passive. This allows your Cobra Lash to fire an additional projectile when using a claw or dagger, so if you can put two of these on your passive tree, you can destroy enemies in maps more quickly!
In the endgame, you will also be using four Medium Cluster Jewels, with each having Follow-Through as one of the mods. This notable passive skill increases the damage of your Cobra Lash projectiles by 15% for each remaining chain. If monsters are bunched up together on the screen, you can eliminate them with ease if you have all of the cluster jewels just mentioned.
On the budget version of the build, you will rely a lot on chaos damage over time. For this reason, you will complement Cobra Lash with Plague Bearer as well. This is a skill gem that works similarly to Righteous Fire when dealing damage.
In the end, you will reallocate your passive points to accommodate multiple cluster jewels. You will also equip a much better weapon; one that you can craft using the Imperial Claw as a crafting base. You can refer to our ultimate crafting guide for more information.
So, how exactly do you play a Cobra Lash Assassin build? Well, it's actually fun and easy. Spam Whirling Blades to move in and out of packs, proccing Tornado linked to Power Charge on Critical support for those extra Power Charges. Then, just use Cobra Lash on enemies and see them disappear within seconds!
On stronger enemies, you will drop an Ancestral Protector totem to make you attack faster. Furthermore, the totem is linked with the Withering Touch gem that gives it the power to inflict Wither on each attack. Wither is a debuff that causes enemies to take more chaos damage.
How about the budget version? The playstyle is a bit different. Whirling Blades does not proc Tornado, so you just use it to traverse the map. Additionally, you activate Plague Bearer whenever you have dealt enough poison damage with Cobra Lash. Once the stored poison damage has been depleted, deactivate Plague Bearer and attack with Cobra Lash again. Rinse and repeat.
There are two ascendancy classes that are viable for a Cobra Lash character in Path of Exile: Assassin and Deadeye. This article is focused on the Assassin version, but the Deadeye is a very good alternative.
Ambush and Assassinate is a must-have as it boosts your chance of dealing critical strikes early on. Once you get this, your clear speed will skyrocket because the critical strikes you deal also have culling strike, which instantly kills enemies that are below 10% HP.
The next ascendancy passive you should allocate points into is Unstable Infusion. This enables you to gain a Power Charge whether you're dealing a critical strike or not. On top of that, it increases your maximum power charges by one.
For the third ascendancy passive, go for Noxious Strike. This increases your chance to poison targets on hit by 40%. Additionally, the poison duration on enemies is increased by 5% for each poison you have inflicted in the past four seconds, up to a maximum of 100%.
Your last passive is Toxic Delivery. The poisons you inflict with Cobra Lash critical strikes deal 25% more damage. Besides that, it adds 0.5% critical strike chance per poison affecting the enemy, up to 2%.
Mistwalker grants Elusive on critical strike. Elusive is a buff that provides you with a 15% chance to avoid all damage from hits and a 30% increased movement speed. Keep in mind that the buff decays over time. Don't worry! Your high critical strike chance ensures that you'll gain Elusive again shortly after it reaches 0%.
The Deadeye has access to Endless Munitions - an ascendancy passive that grants two additional projectiles. With an increased number of projectiles fired per shot, you'll see enemies dying immediately due to Cobra Lash's projectiles piercing through them. With the new Returning Projectiles gem introduced in Patch 3.22, Cobra Lash's projectiles deal damage twice at the cost of 61% lower damage output on the return.
The downside of the Returning Projectiles gem can be mitigated with Deadeye's Far Shot passive due to its 60% "more" damage multiplier against distant targets. You see, the returning projectiles always go to their maximum distance before they come back to you, so you'll always take advantage of Far Shot's damage modifier.
Ricochet is an ascendancy passive exclusive to the Deadeye that allows Cobra Lash's projectiles to chain one additional time. Because the said skill gem takes advantage of chains to deal more damage, Ricochet effectively increases your damage output, most evident in enclosed spaces.
So, which class should you choose? The Assassin focuses more on dealing poisons and utilizing damage over time, while the Deadeye is more of an "in your face" approach to killing enemies. This is a matter of preference. Do you want to slay enemies using damage over time? Go for Assassin. Do you want to fire as many projectiles as possible to clear enemies? Pick Deadeye.
The Cobra Lash Assassin is a good league starter because it can work with a minimal investment. Of course, this build shines even further the more PoE currency you invest into it. Do not worry, we will provide you with budget and endgame options so that you will know your upgrade path later down the line.
However, to maximize your damage output with Cobra Lash, you need to craft a weapon using an ilvl 85+ Imperial Claw or Eye Gouger as a base. These claws have implicit modifiers that enable you to gain life on hit with attacks.
Remember that the Cobra Lash skill gem only converts 60% of your physical damage to chaos damage. If you have the Hunter mod, you can easily reach 100% with the help of the implicit modifier on the gloves. This will result in much better damage output!
To craft the endgame chest, you need to have two different influenced body armors, preferably with Triumphant Lamellar or General's Brigandine as a crafting base. One should have a Shaper influence and the other a Hunter influence.
On the Shaper/Warlord-influenced body armor, use an Orb of Scouring and Orb of Transmutation to turn it into a magic (blue) item. Then, spam it with Orb of Alteration until you get the mod, "+1 to Level of Socketed Skill Gems." You want to elevate this by using an Orb of Dominance, but it can only work if the armor itself has two influenced modifiers. So, to add the other one, go to your Crafting Bench and put "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed." Then go to your Harvest Bench and select the "Reforge Caster" to get "% to Spell Critical Strike Chance," which is another influenced mod.
After getting two influenced modifiers, use an Orb of Dominance and hope that the gem mod gets elevated. If it's successful, it will turn into "+1 to Level of Socketed Skill Gems, (5-10)% to Quality of Socketed Skill Gems."Once you have this mod, set the body armor aside for now.
Now, for the Hunter-influenced body armor, follow the same process above by spamming it with Orb of Alteration until you get the mod, "You Can Apply an Additional Curse." After that, you are ready to combine the two influenced armors into one. You do this by using the Awakener's Orb and then clicking on one body armor and then the next. Make sure that the Triumphant Lamellar or General's Brigandine is the last one you click so that it will be the final base.
You're not done yet! Go to your Crafting Bench and put "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed" again. If you don't have an open suffix, use an Orb of Annulment and hope that none of the influenced mods get removed. In the event that they do get annulled off, you need to start the process all over again!
Anyway, after putting "Prefixes Cannot Be Changed," go to your Harvest Bench and choose "Reforge Attack." This guarantees the suffix, "Attacks Have +(1.1-1.5)% to Critical Strike Chance." Now that you have all of the mods you need, just use an Exalted Orb or the Crafting Bench to complete the craft. When you follow all of the steps, you should have something like this:
The rest of the gear for this build can easily be crafted with essences. Basically, use essences to fill in the gaps. Do you need more attributes? Use Essences of Sorrow, Spite, or Rage. Struggling with resistances? Spam Essences of Hatred, Anger, Wrath, or Envy. HP too low? Rectify that by utilizing Essences of Greed.
d3342ee215