Gameplay
The gameplay and skill rotation is very rewarding and fun to use. Depending on the situation and enemies you either dash into or away from combat with Aerial Assault following up with Synchronized Strike to generate 4 Shadows. After that you spam Shurikens (Chakrams) to deal massive damage and to generate mana back with Sapping Strikes 4/4. While the Chakrams are flying around dealing dmg to the enemies you immediately follow up with another Synchronized Strike once your mana pool is back up again. This will constanly bring you down to negative mana but since we have 0 mana cost Chakrams PrefixThrowing Damage and Reduced Mana Cost we can easily generate it back. Repeat the combo while you repostion with Aerial Assault. Use Aerial Assault whenver it is off cooldown.
We only need to cast those 3 skills in combat. Umbral Blades are not required to cast since the skill will get procced by Aerial Assault and Synchronized Strike.
Offensive Playstyle
Use Aerial Assault and Synchronized Strike into enemies for the attack speed bonus on Art of the Blade 5/5 and to proc Umbral Blades for additional Shadow Daggers stacks. The close combat situation allows Umbral Blades to explode quicker from nearby enemies. Spam Chakrams to generate mana back so that you can contantly generate Shadows with Synchronized Strike for additional Chakram projectiles. Just tap Falconry to instantly kill bosses below 16%.
Shock and Shred Armour are very important damage multipliers that we want to craft on our amulet (orFulgurite Shard with 3 or 4LP). In addition to that we use Shred Lightning Resistance on Grand Mysteries of the Deep.
Mechanics
The Shurikens skilltree provides alot of strong mechanics. First of all we try to get as many Shurikens (3) as possible from Li'raka's Claws (+2), Fan of Blades (+2) & Flip of a Coin (+2) getting a total of 9 Shurikens. Chakram will only let you throw one projectile but with Keen Throw we get up to 108% more dmg for a single projectile.
Jagged Edges 4/4 allows us to get another 4% base crit chance. Combining that with a Fulgurite Shard and Dragonhide Coat we reach a base crit chance of 16% making it very easy to reach an effective crit rate of over 70-80%.
Entry Points 3/3 is the strongest mechanic within the skilltree. For single target damage we focus on stacking Poison chance from Li'raka's Claws and Bleed chance from Crimson Storm 2/3 being able to have a permanent uptime of 15 stacks each to reach a brutal 180% more multiplier.
Mana Sustain
By default Shurikens cost 3 Mana. Synchronized Strike is a very mana intensive skill. Sapping Strikes 4/4 can help us out to get mana back quicker with the amount of throwing attack speed that we scale. Therefore we only need one PrefixThrowing Damage and Reduced Mana Cost affix on a ring. Tier 1-5 already provides us with -3 Mana Cost to sustain Shurikens. If you can manage to seal a T4 you have more room for prefixes like Dexterity to scale more flat dodge, Throwing Attack Speed, Lightning Dmg, Crit Chance etc.
Technically you could also use Scintillant Steel 3/3 but then we miss alot of strong dmg multipliers in the tree.
If you manage to get T6 and T7 exalted rings to get a total of -9 Mana Cost you could abuse Ricochet 1/2 for additional 100% Crit Multiplier. Chakrams will not lose their piercing ability.
Defense
Falconer is the reason why Lightning Chakram really reached a new level of tankiness. We don't have to dual wield Fulgurite Shards for the additional -9% increased damage taken. We can now benefit from alot of armour, block and glancing blow mechanics in the passive tree.
We can reach very high block chance with Cradle of the Erased. To benefit from both defensive layers, we only put 4 points into Deflect and Weave 4/5 to not convert the block into glancing blow chance. We can reach 90% Glancing Blow (35% reduced damage from Hits) with Deflect and Weave 4/5, Poise 5/5, Dodge and Parry 5/5 & Cloak of Shadows 8/8 (45% x 2).
With dexterity scaling and the Falcon, we can reach high Armour numbers from Stymphalian Feathers 6/6 and Grand Body of Obsidian + Grand Bulwark of the Tundra.
Ontop of that we have very high life sustain from throwing leech Grand Wrath of Rahyeh, Health Gain on Crit from Chakrams and Shadow Daggers Finesse Them 7/7 + Sapping Strikes 4/4. We can get additional Leech Rate from Siphon of Anguish.
In addition to that we reach over 2.5k HP, capped resistances, 100% Crit Avoidance, 60% Endurance and high movement speed from scaling Haste effect.
Defensive Ailments like Frailty, Chill, Slow & Silver Shroud all come from Skills or Passives, therefore we don't have to use it on gear.
Never underestimate the power of Stun provided by Shock and lightning builds in general!
Knowing boss or monster abilities while also being able to kite a lot will greatly improve your survivability.
