"Death is a banquet. It's up to the murderer to write the menu"

The Assassin is a offense-oriented class centered around critical strikes. The class offers enhanced crits on full or low life enemies and enhancing their power charges.

The build will use Toxic rain as the main skill and possibly a single target if you need to throw one in. It will be poison based and use the new Herald of Agony as well.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• -Utilizes the new Herald of Agony
• -Synergizes well with Poison and chaos damage.

Cons

• -Does not take the big life wheel so life on gear is important.
• -Does not kill all things instantly from off-screen I.e meta builds.

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

Points - Noxious Strike > Toxic Delivery > Opportunistic / Ambush and Assassinate

Bandits

Kill all for 2 skill points or Alira. Which ever you prefer.

Alira is always a good choice to take some resist pressure off gear, the crit is a bonus to the build as well.

Pantheon

These can be changed on a whim so use what you need.

Major - Soul of Lunaris
Capture Thraxia - Spider Lair Map
Capture Sebbert, Crescents Point - Moon Temple Map
Capture Lycius, Midnight's Howl - Lair Map

or

Major - Soul of The Brine King
Capture The Forgotten Soilder - Conservatory Map
Capture Puruna, The Challenger - Atol Map
Capture Nassar, Lion of the Seas - Reef Map

Minor - Soul of Gruthkul
Capture Erebix, Light's Bane - Cemetery Map

Passive Tree

Gem Setup

For Damage

-Toxic Rain > Faster Attacks > Vicious Projectiles > Swift Affliction > Mirage Archer > Free Slot

-Herald of Agony > Minion Damage > Vicious Projectiles > Damage on Full life > Faster Attacks > Free Slot (Since mana reservation only allows for a 5-link Herald use this slot for Vaal Grace, Arctic armor or Blink arrow.)

For Defense

-CWDT(8) > Immortal Call(10) > Ice Golem(10) > Despair(11)

-Vaal Grace

-Arctic Armor

For Utility

-Spell Totem > Wither > Faster casting > Free Slot (Consider totem resist Or place your Vaal Grace here)

-Blink Arrow

Gear

For gear as always in PoE the first goals you should have is getting resist cap and over 4.5k life pool for those unavoidable one shots and big boss hits. After that you focus on damage and a defense mechanic of choice. This build so far is using some evasion with acrobatics and phase acrobatics.

Overview

Worth Considering

• -Bow - Lioneye's Glare.
• -Chest - Consider Cherrubim's Maleficence, Six link Rare.
• -Quiver - Consider stat rare, Maloney's Nightfall.
• -Belt - Consider Stygian Vise, Doryani's invitation(Physical), The Retch.
• -Helm - Consider Starkonja's head, Rate's Nest, stat rare.
• -Boots - Consider Atziri's Step, stat rare.
• -Gloves - Consider Haemophilia, stat rare, The Embalmer.
• -Rings - Consider stat rare, Essence Worm, Mark of the Elder.
• -Amulet - Consider Carnage Heart, Impresence(Chaos), stat rare.

Enchants

They might have added some more Enchants in Delve I will update accordingly.

Helmet

• 30% increased Blink Arrow Cooldown Recovery Speed
• 30% increased Despair Curse Effect

Boots

• 16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently
• 0.6% of Damage Leeched as Life and Mana if you've Killed Recently
• 8% chance to Dodge Spell Hits if you've taken Spell Damage Recently
• 80% chance to Avoid being Stunned if you've Killed Recently

Gloves

Preference.

Jewels

Watcher's Eye

Rare jewel with

%life > Damage over time / Chaos Damage / Crit / Attack Speed / Damage / Phy with bows /

Flask

• -Witchfire Brew
• -Atziri's Promise 
• -One Mana or Hybrid flask.

For flask it's important to keep at least one mana or hybrid flask. For no/low regen maps

Leveling

Leveling a ranger can be really easy if you get the Quill Rain early. My favorite setup just for fun is getting a Quill rain and throwing split arrow and just blasting my way to Level 40. I like to use and experiment with skills that are fun while I'm leveling.

• -Make sure to have some of your end game skill gems in your secondary weapon slots.
• -Make sure to throw in Blink arrow.
• -Don't forget to add Heralds and Aura's as they become available.

Leveling Uniques to consider:
Quill Rain, Tabula, Goldrim, Blackheart

Expectations