2-Handed Duelist Lightning Strike Build Critiques?

I would like some feedback on my build because I'm fairly new to this game and the Duelist as well. I'm planning to make a lightning strike duelist that uses faster projectile,fork,life gain on hit,weapon elemental and mana regen to clear maps fast and farm easily. I'm going to post a before build of what I currently have and my end build and I just wanted some positive feedback on what should be looked on or raised, or anything that'll help me become stronger thanks.




What I Currently Have

End Game Build

I know I probably won't reach that level but it's just for demonstration purposes.
I personally just don't like using Mana on a Duelist. We have very few good Mana nodes and taking Int just isn't worthwhile. Using a Blood Magic gem, or just pushing further to the left and picking up Berserking + Blood Magic would accomplish the same thing without having to gear an additional stat that does nothing for offense or defense. Iron Grip definitely increases Lightning Strike projectile damage, but it wasn't as noticeable as I assumed it would be when I tried it on my Duelist. However, combining it with Point Blank on the right side of the tree made it feel quite a bit better.

Have you tried using Fork with Lightning Strike yet? Since the projectiles generate from just passed the actual Lightning Strike target I didn't find it terribly effective. I'd probably use Chain if you can get your hands on it instead. Faster Projectiles/Penetrate also work pretty okay with Lightning Strike, but due to how the lightning paths on the floor I didn't like the results of pairing it with Fork, especially in tight spaces.
1. You won't have enough mana with 24 intellect and no mana regen nodes to spam lightning Strike, that's for sure.

2. Why did you take so many speed boosts nodes. Are you going to kite and LS? If so a bow Lightning Arrow would work probably better. But even so, you don't need so many speed nodes, and especially not so many little 3% nodes. You got 70-80 points, you want the get the most ouf of them.

3. Same goes for Attack Speed, a 3% node is just NOT worth spending in, let alone 3+. There's an attack speed support gem that gives 25% at lvl 1, THAT is worth it.

4. Your HP looks ok, although you again took too many 8% nodes that are probably not worth their price. Try to get more +flat HP boosts, those work better with the % nodes.

5. Resistances and especially armor/evasion/es, or whatever gear based defenses you use are nonexistent. There are 3 nodes, worth 52% armor very close to the starting area, those will make your game much smoother in Cruel+.


This is what I could came up with in 10 min. It's not polished, but could work. I took a Resolute Technic solution to the accuracy problems, since it's much more reliable with LS. The next set would be to go all the way up, 10 nodes away, and get Static Blows to help LS even more. The good part, I think, is that the spec is make around any 2handed weapon, so you have a wide variety of things to choose from. If we wanted to go into a specific weapon, mace would probably be better, since there is a 18% node 1 point away in the templar zone.
I took both Armor/Evasion nodes for defense, since I had in mind an armourish/dodgy duelist.
I also took some Endurance charge nodes, but those are experimental, It's possible it will be very hard in Merciless still, so Enduring Cry skill and gain 3-5 endurance charges would make your gameplay much more enjoyable.

Molten Shell is also probably a must have, and Blood magic support gem for LS. Keep mana for molten shell, leap slam(mobillity) and enduring cry. If mana is not enough, there are a few 30 intellect nodes close by.
As for elemental resistances, there are good i think. 60% for all 3 of them, that will get you to atleast 0% once you enter merciless.

But in the end, the build is more of a guideline, you actually have to spend points where you need them most and when. If you end up with 50%+ armor early on and keep it that way, it's safe to drop a few armor nodes from the marauder zone, etc.
thank you for the feedback I've actually reconsidered how to build my Duelist based on the thoughts you guys have gave me. The build you have in just 10 minutes is pretty good compared to mines and you gave me some good advice. I'll look into more flat hp nodes than %. And I wasn't sure if I should have gotten any armour or evasion since it wasn't so good in many peoples opinions. But thanks for the feedback and thoughts.
In my experience lightning strike fails hard in the late game with 2H swords....but it may be that I just really need to find a better weapon.

I havent tried it with point blank but with literally everything else. I guess it can be hard to balance dps nodes with survivability nodes when we are playing 2H but if the dps can't clear maps idk seems useless to me in comparison to leap slam doublestrike and flicker strike. I only resort to LS when I absolutely can't melee. It's about 1k dps on the tooltip with lmp pierce irongrip and I bet the projectiles are doing even less seems like such a disappointment especially considering the resists of mobs in merciless. But again maybe I just need to upgrade my weapon that badly as I'm still usong terminus est.

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