True, that would kill my hands soon.
Well, holding down three buttons is acrobatic also. 
1 Like
I’m absolutely loving this build. I’m only lvl 73, but man I’m flying through echoes. And I’ve only got one of the shadow dagger idols so far.
For anyone wondering, this build does just fine even without the idols and uniques (still haven’t managed to get any of the daggers… poignards so hard to gamble at lvl 50+ since they never show up on the merchant >.< ). I’ve been playing this build since I hit EoT around lvl 24, and I tore through the campaign in just a couple of hours, including all the side quests and while playing SSF.
So while I’m sure those uniques do add a lot to the build, it works very well even without them (though I’m looking forward to adding them on as soon as I find any). Did get lucky and find a very nicely rolled Undisputed, which did crank my damage considerably.
What I love about this build is the mobility. I mostly play melee builds. I’ve done a shatterstrike SB, Rive VK, Regifter pally, and a few others, but I think because the SS animation has your character jumping forward a bit, it just FEELS better. All the other melee characters I played required you to stand perfectly still to do the attack.
Bravo, great build sirs.
2 Likes
Thanks a lot for your feedback, i appreciate that!
I’m glad this build also does a good job in terms of leveling without the “perfect” gear.
Small trick on this:
Gamble for the unique daggers with a character who is lvl 52-53 (an alt maybe).
Doing it that way, only the equippable weapons up to lvl 52/53 (and therefore also poignards) will show up.
Next weapons start at 54. There are about 30 weapons from 54-75 that would share space with your desired type of dagger and which you can “skip”. This increases the chance on gambling for it a bit.
Edit: Ok, i see… kinda hard to do that when playing SSF… 
Never the less, this maybe a suited method for anyone not playing SSF but having the same gambling problems.
2 Likes
Crossing my fingers you guys are smarter than me, and manage to figure out a way to make this build work after the patch changes… can’t function the way it did before due to major mana issues now 
Too bad, really loved this build, lol.
Sadly i have to agree with you…
Tried out mana efficiency in all possible ways (idols, helmet, chest, amulet) but ended up mana starving. The interaction of SS and SC tends to be R.I.P. actually…
(at least in a spammable matter)
“plus to skill tree” affixes wont help either… There is no more mana refunding we could pick up…
As one of the first characters I built and synergy between skills I enjoyed, I’m sad to see it nerfed.
Best I can do to keep it ‘working’ is to remove the point from Wave of Darkness, and use Shadow Cascade itself, or to keep Wave, and remove Dark Allies, but both aren’t spammable.
Kinda frustrating, the build was quite fun and my progression and gear building for it felt great.
I really hope that in future the devs consider reversing it. I don’t care if they nerf the damage… hell, they could cut it in half. It’s more that playing this built FELT so good. The fact that you can move and attack at the same time really just made such a big difference in how smooth it felt.
As much as I hate to say it, playing any other melee builds just feels so clunky now. Which is sad because I mostly play melee
Ok, now here’s the workaround:
This build is still playable - smooth and spammable as it was before - ofc with a bit of a downside…
Changes to passives:
- Respec Excuberance (and some points of the linked passives also)
- Spec into Death’s Door.
Changes to gear:
- Equip the unique boots Last Steps of the Living.
Changes to skills:
- Dismiss the Dark Allies node from Synchronized Strikes. (sadly… )
Conclusion:
- We can play this as a LowLife-Build!
The node Swift Recovery from Shift tripples our mana refund when we are below 50% hp.
Without Dark Allies, the mana consumption is balanced when shifting every 1.8 seconds.
Yea… Downside…:
- 2 Shadows less, less flying Daggers, less ward gain.
But Hey…! We take 24% less damage, thanks to Death’s Door passive.
I’m gonna figure out, which new affixes to stack - and how to finetune the passives to make up the damage loss.
Damage is still fine, don’t get me wrong (i mean… it was overtuned before, no doubt).
So, hope this helps!
Good night 
5 Likes
Finally managed to go full Shadows while spamming SS and proccing SC without having any mana issues! Will update my build this week.
4 Likes
Have you tried Dancing Strikes? For all the crap it gets, the one thing it really gets right is the fluidity (once you get a CD reduction helm) and mobility. In terms of feel, I’d put it above Sync Strike.
2021-02-26T21:45:00Z
I owe you an update for my Frog build… so here we go! 
BUILD PLANNER:
-
Frog of War(d) 0.8.1c
Press S for Skills, press P for Passives.
BASIC CHANGES:
- This build can still be played with 4 Shadows and Synchrozined Strike spamming while proccing Shadow Cascade, like i already mentioned. To do this, we have to change our setup to run a “Low Life” version of this.
- The reason behind this is pretty simple: Shift gives us triple the amount of mana when being below half health. We need to sustain our mana, so this is our key node!
- Thus, we have to switch some passive points out of Exuberance and Asuvon’s Pact into Death’s Door.
- Mana sustain still won’t be enough by only changing these passives, we need to adjust a bit more.
- We need to swap affixes: Get rid of “Ward on Shadow creation” on helmet and body armor, instead go for “Mana efficiency with Synchronized Strike”.
- Add global mana efficiency to your amulet.
- Switch one Large Idol from “Shadow Dagger Effect” to “Mana Efficiency with Synch. Strike”.
Yes, if you already realized, this will bring us below the 200% Shadow Dagger breakpoint. To make this up, try to grap a T6 / T7 Shadow Dagger affix on your helmet or body armor… Easy, or not? ducks and runs (to be fair, i haven’t also got a good one yet) - Optionally we can equip the Chains of Uleros unique belt. If you don’t want, avoid every single healing potion you will see - they will be your worst enemy then! Potions are automatically consumed when a) you are on low life and b) your potion slots are full. If you decide against wearing the unique, pre-empty your slots and change the Emergency Flask node (Shift) to something else (dodge maybe).
CONCLUSION:
- This build is still OP af!
- Melting monoliths remains unchanged… fast, mobile, devastating.
- In arena, we suffer a bit from patch 0.8.1… We have way less ward than before, so we are sadly more vulnerable to one-shots. The -24% damage taken node from Death’s Door, or also the fact that we have more dodge and even more armor than before, doesn’t make it up cause we’re sitting on a significantly lower “EHP” pool.
- Oh… and lags are back - at least for me…
Managed to get to arena 250+ (with deadly lags), but i think this build is capable of doing somewhat between 300 - 400. Test it out and hopefully rank this one way better than i did.
OTHER STUFF:
- I’m currently pushing a paladin build in arena.
For anyone interested in such a build, keep and eye on the sentinel forum - i will post a build guide soon™.
Thanks for reading! I hope this update helps you.
Stay sharp out there. 
4 Likes
I just rebuilt my crit flurry rogue into this at lvl 80 and I really dig the gameplay, just can’t get a damn smokeweaver to save my life. Until then, which daggers help the most? Also, I am not quite sure I get the mechanics as I cannot get anything close to the ward you indicate, even with all the other uniques? My single target boss DPS seems a bit slow, but I am really fast! Thanks for a creative and fun build!!
1 Like
Sadly, dual Smoke Weavers are mandatory for this build to maintain your mana since they drastically lower the CD on Shift. Without them, you won’t be able to spam Synch. Strike all the way. In terms of gambling for Smoke Weaver, i posted a trick that might help you some days ago:
Other than Smoke Weavers, the weapons you use (since they will be only a placeholder anyway) don’t really matter. I would pick up / roll for high +melee physical damage and %physical damage Decide Swords.
Did something change on the way this is played? I have 61% Sync Strike efficiency and 26% mana efficiency and am running out of mana if I add decoy autocast. I have all the uniques in the builder and followed each skill and passive. I seem to barely manage it with shift and sync strike on autocast.
Hi there.
Please look up if the following conditions are true:
- You built this one using the updated version from 26th February (see 4-5 posts above)
- 90% Mana efficiency on Decoy skill is taken (3/3 nodes)
- 30% Mana efficiency on Synch. Strike skill is taken (3/3 nodes)
- You are permanently staying on low life
- Mana efficiency on Synch. Strike from gear is really ~60% (helmet, body, 1 idol)
- You have T5 global mana efficiency on Amulet
- You are using Shift every single time
If all of the above happens, mana should stay fine… at least 95% of the time. Maybe you need to Shift without using Synch Strike every now and then (for example when moving and no enemies are around).
We had better times managing our mana before 0.8.1, no question.
But since this build is a lot of fun (at least for me), we gotta make the best out of what we have.
1 Like
TEASER: 
2 Likes
If you like to run this build with 2 instead of 4 Shadows - less damage ofc, but also less gear dependency and therefore generally more tankiness - take a look at @boardman21’s updated version of his Shadow Dagger build.
Have a nice weekend!
1 Like
So, I got my first smoke weaver and this build is wicked fun. I went with the update you posted from boardman and it’s pretty great too. Got one-shotted by that necrotic dragon, but I shoulda zigged when I zagged lol. I wondered if you were going to update this build again? I really loved it and even if you don’t, thanks for the great work!
1 Like
I’ve been playing this with just 2 shadows on Synch Strike and mana sustain hasn’t been an issue. Can alternate synch → shift and just blow up everything. Great build!
Hello, why are you using the “Throwing Attack Damage and Mana Cost” ?
Is this for the added damage only ?
Thanks.