Viper Strike Pathfinder

Since melee classes are all the rage in Legion, why not try out a Melee Pathfinder? A good example is the Viper Strike Pathfinder. Aside from the fact that it can take out numerous enemies from a safe distance, her core skills stand out among the best poison skills in the game.

Skill Tree

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Skill Gems

• Core: Viper Strike with Ancestral Call, Melee Splash, Deadly Ailments, Added Chaos, and Vile Toxins support. Some support gems can be replaced with Melee Physical Damage and Multistrike.
• Secondary DPS: Herald of Agony with Minion Damage, Pierce, and Maim support.
• Mobility: Whirling Blades with Faster Attacks, Fortify, and Blood Magic support.
• Cast When Damage Taken setup: CWDT with Summon Lightning Golem.

Utility

• Vaal Double Strike with Withering Touch, Faster Attacks, and Increased Duration support.
• Vaal Blight
• Ancestral Protector
• Arctic Armour

Gear

Head:

• Starkonja’s Head (Unique) for increased attack speed, dexterity, critical strike chances, life, and evasion
• Any Rare helmet that has bonuses to elemental resistances, life, and Viper Strike damage.

Armor:

• Belly of the Beast (Unique) for increased Armour, Life, Elemental Resistances, and Flask Life Recovery rate; Extra gore.
• The Perfect Form (Unique) for increased life, cold resistance, lower mana reservation for Arctic Armour, Increased Dexterity, Evasion uncapped by cold resistance, phase Acrobatics.

Weapons:

• Wasp’s Nests (Unique) for increased physical, poison, and chaos damage, critical strike chance, and accuracy.
• Rare Gemini Claw with bonus  200 Physical DPS, 20% Attack Speed, and 60% chance for Poisons inflicted with this Weapon to deal 100% more Damage; preferably with added Potion Duration and Added Chaos Damage.

Gloves:

• The Embalmer (Unique) for increased chaos damage, life, chaos resistance, and poison duration.

Boots and Belt:

• Any Rare boots with bonuses to life and elemental resistances. The former is preferable with Increased Attack and Cast Speed if you’ve killed recently; the latter is preferable with increased Physical Damage (Rustic Sash)

Accessories:

• Any Rare rings with bonuses to life and elemental resistances; any Rare amulet with bonuses to life, intelligence, mana, strength, accuracy, and physical damage.

Jewels:

• Growing Agony (Unique) for more Viper Strike Damage.
• Any rare jewels with bonuses to life, chaos damage, and global accuracy rating.

Flasks:

• Coralito’s Signature (Unique) for lucky critical strike chance, increased poison on hit and poison duration; grants Perfect Agony during flask effect.
• Witchfire Brew (Unique) for 100% increased Evasion Rating, Smoke Cloud on Use, 50% increased Charges used, (25-40)% increased Damage Over Time during Flask Effect, and Grants Level 21 Despair Curse Aura during Flask Effect.
• Atziri’s Promise (Unique) for huge DPS boost and life leech.
• Bubbling Divine Like Flask of Staunching for recovery and bleeding removal/immunity.
• Ample Silver Flask of Heat for movement speed and cold and freezing removal/immunity.

Melee combat, poison, and great DPS – just some of the great things about the Viper Strike Pathfinder. While melee classes are in, the best time to make one is now.