For Endless Delve, I decided to pick an unpopular ascendancy, and an unpopular melee skill. No reason other than being bored of chasing the meta, and being curious just how deep I could go with such a janky combo with no crafting, etc.

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Folks probably don't care, but I'm on a 45 minute train ride with nothing else to do, so here I am.

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The build is here: https://pobb.in/eHcUKXqdaPAZ

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I ended up reaching depth 112 before running out of time to play, but probably could've kept pushing while patiently working around bandit camps and rhoa nests. Whether or not I could clear a node essentially came down to if it had Toxic or Echoist mods on any rares. Higher chaos resistance might’ve helped with Toxic, but I'm at a loss on Echoist short of sacrificing a ton of damage to cap spell block.

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I was at a loss for what class my Ascendant should take a starting node from, so ended up picking some attributes and an extra skill point. In retrospect, going with Duelist or Maurauder might’ve been the better play, but respec points were hard to come by so I left it as is.

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I got lucky, 5 linking chest and finding a solid pDPS axe. Without that, I would've been hard stuck around depth 90.

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Chain Hook was ok-not-great for clear, if you have the AoE and can guarantee you won't get peppered down by ranged mobs. Echoist and Gargantuan screecher bats can eat my shorts.

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For taking out rares, it was ok but you need to really pay attention to what you're name locking, and hope a mob doesn't walk between you and your target, or else (as far as I can tell) you'll reorient to face that target, kill it, then gradually shoot off through the pack and away from the rare you wanted to focus down.

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Totems were invaluable, if only for the fact I could use them to distract mobs, form a bottleneck or wall on doorways to thin the pack approaching me, and to body block those slow moving blue orb nukes some mobs shoot out before they randomly explode on you while chain hook zooms you around.

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I've played chain hook before in trade league, and I'd say it still has a need to provide a damage or defensive buff for consecutive hooks landed, so you can more effectively tank on long, close range fights. It needs to go with something like fortify or *heavy* life regen so you can get hit while dealing zDPS during a long fight. Though you could pick those things up elsewhere, it would mean sacrificing even more DPS that the skill sorely needs in order to stand up for middling single target.

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Ultimately, I'd want to see the skill changed so it sits more confidently as a movement skill, map clear skill, or bossing skill. Currently it feels torn between trying to be a movement skill and a map clear skill, but fails pretty far behind builds that just use one movement and one map clear skill.

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Personally I'd want to see it interact more impactfully with Blood and Sand stances, toggling it between middling map clear and solid bossing. For bossing, I would want it to not fire the hook, and instead stay in place, dealing double damage, or some hefty damage multiplier that makes it feel like a fast-hitting AoE melee skill.