Writeup and Showcase: CI Trickster - Dual Strike of Ambidexterity - Ephemeral Edge

I had a ton of fun this league min-maxing my EE DS Trickster, and wanted to share a writeup and showcase now that it's nearly complete. This isn't my own concept of course, I borrowed inspiration from many different builds I saw on PoE Ninja. This was my third character of the league, going from PS Locus Mine Trickster > Ice Nova Archmage Hiero > This. I'm not sure what the total investment was, but I'd estimate around 2 mirrors, +/- a bit.

The build has incredible defenses, single target damage, clearing ability, and mobility.

Key points of defense/QOL/Highlights for the build:

• 16k ES
• 100% Spell Suppression
• 84% max Elemental Resistances
• Immune to Chaos Damage (includes Poison)
• Immune to Elemental Ailments (Stormshroud)
• Immune to Bleeding (Ring implicit)
• Immune to Corrupted Blood (Jewel implicit)
• 90% evade chance

• 3k ES gained on killed

• 7.7k ES Leech w/10% instant
• Blinds Enemies (2x Tattoos)
• Stun Immune (Mageblood)
• 106% reduced effect of curses (Mageblood)
• Fortified (Weapon implicit)
• Up to 3 endurance charges (Warlord's Mark)
• Drops sapped ground (Boot implicit)
• ES Overleech
• Ghost Dance
• 108% Action Speed
• Strikes 3 nearby targets (Glove Implicit + Attack Mastery)
• Melee Splash (Settlers Enchant on OH claw)
• Extreme mobility
• Culling Strike (Doedre's Gluttony via Megalomaniac)
• Zero visual clutter

One of the great things about the build is that it offers a lot of flexibility for different playing conditions. There's certainly no need to swap these things around regularly, but it can make sense at times.

• Voice's Amulet can use Sione's Ambition for more range/comfy mapping, or Ambidexterity for single target. I have one amulet with each anoint, but I only swap to Ambidexterity for Uber bossing, and it's absolutely not necessary.
• Attack Mastery can be swapped to "Monsters cannot block your attacks" for T17 map mods
• Mark Mastery can be swapped to "Marked Enemy cannot deal Critical Strikes" for more defensive gameplay
• Grace can be swapped to Haste for T16 mapping (I did this for breach)
• Damage on Full Life can be swapped to Awakened Ancestral Call for +3 additional targets and +13% range (I did this for breach)
• Can scale block with Megalomaniac passives like Mage Bane, Deadly Repartee, Rote Reinforcement
• Can fill suppression in via Hit and Run, Aerialist, and Elegant Form notables on Megalomaniac
• Can take "Chilling Presence" on a Megalomaniac to chill all nearby enemies

I'm not sure how much further I'll push it, but if I do, the next upgrades are:

• Mirror-tier chest
• Better gloves (+100 ES)
• 3x Double Damage node Lethal Pride
• Upgrade a few gems to 21/20
• Better boots (+75 ES, could also go for triple synth implicits here)
• Better helm (+75 ES)
• Perfect Anathema w/Bleeding Implicit (+7 INT)

This build has been able to handle everything I've thrown at it. The only things that really feel lethal at this point are super juiced T17 maps with tons of altars clicked. Titantic Exile T17 farming, I'll occasionally run into a soul-eater Xandro that is hard to kill. Catarina can get me if I run a bunch of nasty mods, like boss attack speed + AOE, etc. This build can tank volatile cores on T17 as long as you don't have -max resistances mod. The only true bricking mods that I have to ignore are:

• (T17) Rare and Unique Monsters remove #% of Life, Mana and Energy Shield from Players or their Minions on Hit
• Monsters cannot be Leeched from

Everything else is doable, albeit some are very annoying. If you want to run ele/phys reflect, you have to socket in things like Void manipulation/Brutality on travel skills, change around minor pantheons, etc. No regen and less defences are not a problem, as long as you don't combine it with tons of other lethal mods. Personally I skip mods like Unstable Tentacle Fiends, Unique Bosses are Possessed, and sometimes -Max resistance if there are a lot of other nasty mods rolled in combination with it.

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Here's a showcase vid of a fairly juiced T17 with Titanic Exiles, as well as all of the Ubers :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7FVo3Yv1pM

As far as POBs go, it's hard to give super accurate configs, because it's situational, but these three should give a good idea of the variance. Also worth noting that the showcase vid was recorded with a slightly worse claw. Pinnacle/Guardian option was selected on all of the POBs, despite that not being displayed through Pobb.

https://pobb.in/_5aIkLJ_MwYq - zero configs checked

https://pobb.in/muO7h7Z8izsN - realistic mapping config

https://pobb.in/9og6vEO_Diw8 - ideal conditions / single target burst