Are poison Shurikens back?

That’s perception then 'cause having multiple stacks would help your single target just as much because you’ve now got X number of stacks of Shurikens hitting the single target instead of 1.

It depends on how you’re playing. If you build up stacks before approaching the boss, then sure, being able to stack gives you a damage boost. But on the whole, you’re more likely to hit with each stack as you gain it and then that stack does nothing more for the rest of its duration. So if its replaced with a new skill use (old behaviour) or a new stack is added to it, there isn’t any difference at that point.

When I’m clearing echoes, enemies are more likely to be hit by multiple stacks of Shurikens at once since I’m maintaining stacks between mobs and generating new ones with Shadow Rend and Dancing Strikes while moving. I find it very noticeable how much quicker clear is compared to single target.

If each Shuriken could hit the target multiple times, then I agree it would make a massive difference for bosses, champions, etc. As it stands, I’m using Bladestorm to help with the single target damage.

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That’s a fair point.

With Bladestorm, how do it’s shurikens work? Do the circle you (because of the Blade Shield node), do they circle the Bladestorm or do they just ignore the Blade Shield node & fire off at mobs?

They circle the Bladestorm and persist even after the Bladestorm ends. You can see the effect in this TriKster video. Interestingly, he’s apparently switched to Dancing Strikes/Blade Shield like my build (also using Shadow Cascade), but sensibly going crit and not relying on Flow. I’m finding Flow management a significant cognitive load that is making it harder to stay alive! :laughing: Still enjoying the challenge though.

I’ll probably switch to the crit + Shadow Cascade build at some point.

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For a hit version, I’m wondering whether Chakram might be better 'cause it gets several additional more modifiers, including one based on # of Shuriken plus you get 2 hits (outgoing & return), it has longer range than the Blade Shield & not taking the Blade Shield section of the tree frees up 4 points.

I suggest watching his Day 2 video as well as the end of the one I linked. He tried Chakram, Deadly Aim and Blade Shield and he talks about the differences. I think he basically says Chakram was good for clear, but Deadly Aim had better single target. Both are safer than the Blade Shield version, but once geared the latter with Dancing Strikes has a better “feel” and better synergies (and kills stuff fast).

It honestly looks like you can get quite a few different builds out of Bladestorm + Shurikens, each sufficiently different from another to actually feel different. And that’s quite cool.

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Yeah, that’s how I’d imagine it would be.