Reduced Cold Tank Assassin: Off-meta Depth 1000 Delver

Path of Building PoB: https://pobb.in/d9iHvZ8T8cV2

This is an assassin build that achieves high tankiness against targetable enemies by stacking the stat "reduced damage taken". The core items to achieve high tankiness only cost about 40 divines in the current market. I used it to delve to depth 1024 (rank 2 assassin on poe.ninja) with no prior experience in delve.

At a glance, here are the build stats:

• 40m DPS (dot capped, so unfortunately not fun for depths 1000+)
• Phys max hit: 48k*
• Ele max hit: 420k*
• Chaos max hit: 92k*
• Recovers 100% of hp per second in combat
• Life recovery when hit via Defiance of Destiny

*PoB averages max hits across attacks and spells. This build takes significantly less damage from spells when using Kongming's Strategem, which inflates these numbers.

The key mechanic of the build is converting almost all elemental damage taken to cold and then stacking reduced damage taken. The conversion is achieved by using Purity of Ice Sublime Vision (30%), Watcher's Eye (20%), and Taste of Hate with 65% increased effect (49%) for a total of 99% lightning/fire taken as cold. We get to 90% cold resistance, then add the following sources of reduced damage taken:

• 6% reduced elemental damage when hit recently (Soul of Lunaris)
• 15% reduced damage (Born in the Shadows from FF jewels)
• 6% reduced cold (chest corruption)
• 30% reduced cold (reverse chill with bonechill support)
• 5% reduced elemental when stationary (boot essence mod)
• 30% reduced spell (Kongming's Strategem)

This effectively gives us a consistent 62% reduced elemental damage taken while stationary and 92% reduced elemental spell damage taken.

30% reverse chill with Bonechill is required to get the huge -30% cold damage taken. We achieve this by stacking 200% increased chill effect via passives, then using Icefang Orbit + Winterweave. We gain the "unaffected by poison" stat using a Bound by Destiny with 2 hunter items equipped (Ring and Helmet). On a budget, you can either use the Assassin's "Shadowed Blood" ascendancy node, or use Hunter influenced boots without the essence mod.

Because we are a reduced damage taken stacker, sources of increased damage taken make the build take a lot more damage. Marked with Death, Intimidate, Unnerve, and some less common sources can be scary. We are shock immune, so we don't have to worry about that.

To further add to the tankiness, we throw in some other less damage taken modifiers:

• Cursed ground enfeeble (effectively blasphemy without reservation)
• 15% less phys/cold damage taken from Breachlord Bloodline
• Endurance charges + Phys Damage Reduction when Stationary
• Arctic Armour
• Doppelganger Guise
• Infused Channeling
• Progenesis with recoup

Offensively, this build utilizes the assassin's "All Damage from Hits can Poison" node to play elemental claws. Claws have good synergy with Elusive effect, also obtainable from Assassin, and can achieve much higher recovery than pneumatic daggers because of Life Gained on Hit implicits and passives. For delve, I switched to using Soul Ascension gloves since it takes a while to kill enemies anyway. I don't recommend Soul Ascension for general mapping - you can get to dot cap with rare gloves by removing some tankiness on the tree in favor of damage. Also, Reave is much better than Blade Flurry for easy mapping.

If you are doing content where spell damage is not an issue, I swap out Kongming's Strategem for a high evasion shield with max res. When coupled with a Jade Flask, you can get to 78% evade chance.

The starting budget is about 40 divines. Make sure to get the reduced cold corruption on Doppelganger guise. Progenesis is the next biggest upgrade, costing another 120 divines. You then finish the build by looking for higher rolled versions of your uniques and getting desirable corruptions on gear.

Unfortunately, as a dot capped build with small aoe, Delve gets very slow around depth 1000. I have tried pobbing some hit based versions of this build with the same defensive setup, but none have looked that amazing. I was able to push to about 70m hit dps playing a spell like Incinerate of Venting on Saboteur, but the build loses a lot of HP recovery compared to poison claws. I think someone better versed at the offensive endgame could potentially make this setup viable for Deep Delve.