Path of Exile 3.13’s Nightblade Build

Silencing the Echoes!

Path of Exile patch 3.13, Echoes of the Atlas, has finally hit Wraeclast. You know what that means: new challenges, skill gems and passives getting tweaked, and new items, including POE Currency. In turn, this means new builds, as well as revamped old ones. Among them is one with a simple yet cool and fitting name: The Nightblade.

What Is The Nightblade?

Before anything else, you need to know two things. First, the Nightblade is an assassin build. In fact, because of its core skill, the build feels like it’s made for the class. Second, it is not a meta build. That means it’s not as competitive as most builds. As such, you’ll be able to run less content. But hey, you sometimes just have to forget all that rigidity related to the “what’s meta” business and just have fun with the game, and the Nightblade is the perfect build for that.

Not being meta, however, doesn’t mean bad. In fact, it’s a boss killer and can run all sorts of content either way. Plus, it’s beginner-friendly, which also means it’s budget-friendly.

The fact that it’s a melee build means you’ll be having much fun with it. At the same time, it’s the same fun factor that puts you at risk, as you’ll be up close and personal with mobs and will die more easily than AOE spam builds. But hey, no risk, no reward; no pain, no gain; no guts, no glory. You know the drill.

It’s also not a simple hack-and-slash build: you have to use a couple of buffs and other supportive skills to ensure survival and peak DPS. However, since you’re reading this and therefore want to try out this kind of build, which isn’t spam-based and requires constant attention and activity, this could be a pro to you rather than a con.

The build also has considerable clear speed, but it’s not the fastest, given its mode of attack–a compromise for the rather enjoyable gameplay. Last but definitely not least, while the build starts out cheap, it can become pricey. Thankfully, it won’t cost you as much as a meta build. Plus, cheap builds becoming more expensive in the endgame is a universal “problem”, if it can even be called as such, considering it’s simply a natural progression of most builds, if not all.

Learning the Skills

This particular assassin is, ironically, straightforward. As the name suggests, the build employs the namesake gem as a support to Blade Flurry, which is the build’s bread and butter offensive skill. Nightblade increases the supported skill’s critical strike chance by 23%, and grants Elusive, a buff that increases attack and spell dodge as well as movement speed.

Conversely, the gem grants the supported skill a 1.1% increased critical strike chance as well as a whopping 100% global critical strike chance when Elusive is active. The gem, however, comes with a condition: you need to use a claw or a dagger. Rather fitting weapons for an assassin, don’t you think?

Aside from Nightblade, Blade Flurry should be supported by Vile Toxins, Infused Channeling, Fortify, and Energy Leech gems.

As for the build’s other skills, they are as follows:

• Secondary DPS: Divergent Whirling Blades with Faster Attacks support gem
• Buffs: War Banner, Flesh and Stone, Blood and Sand
• Utility:
  • Ancestral Warchief, Ancestral Protector, and Summon Skitterbots with Multiple Totems support
  • Frost Shield with Second Wind support gem
  • Immortal Call with Cast When Damage Taken, Precision
• Movement: Withering Step, Phase Run

Gearing Up

Finally, let’s go to gear. They’ll mostly be Rares, save for two POE Uniques: Starkonja’s Head and Shaper’s Touch. You can get them either through farming or POE Trade. The former is for increased life, attack speed, global critical strike chance, dexterity, and evasion. Meanwhile, the latter is for cursing enemies with Despair on Hit, as well as increased armor, accuracy, and stat bonuses depending on the attributes you have.

For the Rares, they are as follows:

• Weapons: Daggers/Claws with increased physical damage, attack speed, critical strike multiplier, accuracy, and % of physical damage as extra chaos damage.
• Body: +1 to level of socketed gems, evasion, life, dexterity, and Frenzy charges on hit.
• Belt: Stygian Vise with increased life and elemental resistances.
• Boots: increased life, elemental resistances, energy shield, armor, and at least 20% movement.
• Accessories: amulet with increased intelligence, life, mana, and elemental resistances; rings with increased attributes, physical damage, life, mana, evasion, and elemental resistance.

That’s pretty much it for The Nightblade. Now that you know how to build this assassin, you can literally start hacking and slashing your way through the new challenges you’ll be facing!