Dex Stacking, CI Warden - Plug and Play any attack skill for 3.25 (It's another LS build)

G'day - wanted to post a build i've been working on for the past few weeks and have been really happy with how its progressed.

I've been wanting to play a Dex Stacker for the past few leagues but have played a Shadow for the past 4-5 leagues and absolutely hate levelling so never got around to it. Having league started Warden I figured this is probably the best time.

There's a few choices that stemmed from one another in this build which lead to where it is now.

POB : https://pobb.in/P9UbZR0V3id1 - Damage is more along the lines of 40m~ Melee hit, POB double dips on tincture quality counting as increased effect when the numbers have already been increased by it. I want to say damage is in the 100m range with return proj with LS mechanics without being unbound.

It feels very tanky for a ranger, even on a smaller than usual ES pool for a CI character. I have died maybe twice from 97 to 99 using this set-up doing 8 mod Jungle Valleys / Toxic Sewers running ultimatum. I'm sitting at 90% currently to 100.

Build Overview

• Defenses

Suppression Capped through Magebane.
Chaos Immune.
Endurance Charges through Grand Spectrums (Please let me know if there's an easy way to generate these so I can drop these jewels)
Flat DR from Chest Implicits.
Flesh and Stone for further close range DR.
Very close to evade cap (92/93% with Evasion on Flask Suffix over Rarity crafted)
Ailment Immune (Purity)
Ghost Dance Recovering 1k ES (closer to 1.5k with Evasion on Flask Suffix)
Frost Shield can be popped for even more EHP in Ultimatums / bossing to sit still and hold down right click.

• Damage Scaling

We use Synth mod 2 - 4 cold damage per 10 dex. You can use a crafted elder weapon if you don't want to use a synth base but will a little harder to craft. We use flat lightning on the dagger combined with Stormrider boots with our huge amounts of accuracy to apply shock and proc trinity.

Tinctures carry this build extremely hard, you drop to 11m in PoB with these off with the right config. These have near perma uptime with the current set-up.

Esh mod on the chest scales your attack speed to crazy amounts. Generic dex scaling everywhere else on the gear.

Fractal Thoughts also provides 230% increased elemental damage.

Return Proj allows the monster to be hit by the outgoing proj, and also the proj that hitting them generated so its something like 80% more damage.

• Why CI?

Attribute stackers are staved for suffixes, being able to completely ignore Chaos Resistance makes gearing a lot easier. The Light of Meaning being added in 3.25 means you can grab a ton of ES through Unnatural Instinct in the Scion Wheel area. I was initially going to use the sword enchant "Energy Shield Leech Effects from Attacks are not removed at Full Energy Shield" which also contributed to going CI but later realized Power Runes are 6d each and figured it wasn't worth it.

• Doesn't seem budget friendly

Unfortunately attribute stackers are always pretty currency hungry and this one is no exception. I think you could get a decent set-up that isn't CI going for a lot less. You'd probably be looking at more like 15-20m damage with probably just as good survivability if you can manage the chaos resist problem.

I'd personally build it around permanent flask uptime with a Hunter Influenced Distillery Belt for % attributes and essenced dex. You can take a lot of the tincture nodes and pretty comfortably sustain mana burn as a warden with veiled life+mana regen on gear. Garukhans Flight would make up for a lot of missing life.

• Can you really use any attack skill?

So far i've tried Smite, Blade Flurry, Frost Blades and Molten Strike, these all feel pretty good and would be really surprised if you couldn't slot in most dagger compatible attack skills with this sort of set-up and have moderate success. There's also probably consideration for using 2h sword with return proj and going zenith too.

I tried Spectral Throw but it felt underwhelming without Fan of Blades clusters.

Closing thoughts on the build is the only downside is its pretty button heavy with needing to continually turn on tinctures is my only gripe. I had a lot of fun crafting all this gear from scratch.

uber eater - molten strike

uber maven - molten strike - uploading

8 mod toxic sewer with ultimatum - uploading