[2.3] "Vulcan's Exemplar" Crit Dual Strike Slayer with Bino/Catalyst by fiqst

I've posted the tree I think will be final on the first post.

But I'll be online as soon as the patch lands and I'll be spending a few regrets to make sure everything is sound, including testing the disembowelling cluster in the marauder sector.

I anticipate there will be 25-33% dps loss in 1.3, which just means Bino dps becomes 120-150k instead of 200k. It will still be viable (fingers crossed)

Thanks for the tree mate.
Looking at it, there are some big changes.

Just an idea I had, throwing it in the air:
Now that you are traveling in the Shadow area, have you considered taking "Adder's Touch" and by that to eliminate the need for Snakebite gloves ?

Especially now that Accuracy is higher, the benefits of Snakebite gloves become lower.
Its a bit pricey in nodes, but those dagger crit nodes can boost Bino's crit damage a lot.

Yeah thought about addlers touch. But the nodes getting there work only for the dagger.

We could dual wield daggers but we'd lose the elemental bonuses from the catalyst.

Also, I wanted a tree with no specific weapon choices or playstyles so that you can use it with not only binos and snakebite, but rare dagger and acuity/maligaro, and also various other playstyles like dual catalysts, dual foil cyclone, crit blender, twin dagger dual strike, flicker, etc.

You know the funniest thing, I haven't even looked at your tree yet.

Btw, can I steal your immortal call trick as a possible defensive option in my guide? :P

Yeah absolutely go ahead

So we've gotten a decent look at how the tree's affected this build.

But for whoever has more knowledge than me, How would everyone say the changes affect most of the other popular builds?

Are the nerfs pretty universal to most builds or are there any popular ones that actually got buffed.

I've never really cared to play FoTM builds but im just curious how these changes pan out in the big scheme of things

All crit builds have lost dps. However, there will be no change in effective clear speed. My WoE BoR is nerfed to death unless the new melee gems turn out to be OP. My dual doryani build loses damage and gains life.

Bow builds lose slight dps, but are still very powerful. Spells gain damage due to ele damage buffs across the tree. They lose a bit of tankiness though.

Block melee builds look to be in a bad spot.

However, this is all speculation without actually playing and testing the patch :P

The 1.3 tree posted in the first post is sound!

I only had time to test the advanced spec but the lost in dps is only 7% (303k no charges, down from 324k).


This build survived unscathed!


I have to be offline for 24 hours and when I return I will begin to update this thread completely including:

- screenshots
- equipment guide
- levelling guide
- videos


Very pleased about 1.3

Very special thanks to Junaum for helping me theorycraft the new tree. I can't wait to see his personal version and I will put that up in the OP as well.

Hey there, I'm also very happy that the patch haven't brake this build!! The biggest hit was on my HP: lost 600 health points. Oh, and those Chaos resists we used to have from passives - I'll miss that too.

I'm playing around with Dual Strike mainly. Learned the hard way that I can't survive phys Reflect, so now I'm dealing with it by checking graphics on auras and using a low damage skill to hit that mob. I guess awareness is the only skill to deal with that :)

There are 2 gameplay variations I'm using which are basically based on switching between Grace + Enfeeble and Hatred + Assassin's mark. I run Hard Map Mods with Grace + Enfeeble (specially at parties) and run Hatred + Assassin's Mark on easy mods / Single player.

Current tree (106 pt - 89 character)

I'm testing with the disemboweling area. It turned out to deliver more base dps than the earlier tree (but less charged dps). I'm aiming at making the last blow as powerful as possible, and so, the Overkill from HoA.

Numbers before patch:

HP: 5.000
Dual Strike + Hatred: 159k
Dual Strike + Hatred + frenzies + Power charges: 219k
Dual Strike + Grace: 116k
Dual Strike + Grace + frenzies : 154k

Numbers after patch:

HP: 4.400
Dual Strike + Hatred: 162k
Dual Strike + Hatred + frenzies + Power charges: 211k
Dual Strike + Grace: 120k
Dual Strike + Grace + frenzies: 137k

Same gear as before.

Note that, now, the base DPS got improved, but the charged dpsnot - I believe that this is happening mostly because of the cri nerf (gems mostly) - Crit Multiplier was the one thing helping damage scaling.

For defenses, I'm using 2 immortal calls:

- CoC (corrupted on helm) + whirling blades + Immortal call + increased duration + increased critical
- Plus a low level Cwdt combo

I'm still very intrigued by the lower damage scaling when charges are up, so I'm not really done with testings here.

Our base block of 17% made the game a lot more dangerous. There is no room for distraction now. Got me thinking about dropping Iron Reflexes and geeting Acrobatics/Phase, but not for now.

Question for the scientists: How would this build behave with dual Bino's? Because that would be a good reason to get Adler's touch and a Maligaro =)

Nice testing jun. About getting acro/phase across I don't think it's a good idea. I don't like entropy based defense like evasion and picking acro/phase across would kinda force you to go full evasion and reduce block( which is a much better system). For ranged characters is an obvious option: acro+phase acro+ondars makes them tank anything this game will throw at them. They will be hit less times so it's perfect for them. Stay melee and you will be hit all the time