[2.0] 1h Wild Strike Critter aka "Ele Everywhere"!

This is a Dagger + Shield Wild Strike Build

Defense:
We rely on a lot of different defensive mechanics.
- Three Endurance Charges (90% up time at least on mob packs)
- Fortify (100% up time, 20% phys reduction)
- 190% increased defense from shields (leading to 3.000+ armor and a lot of phys reduction)
- high evasion
- Arctic armor (13% phys reduction)
- Life
- Block (35%++)
- Warlords Mark (life and mana leech)

Offense:
- 6 frenzy charges (100% up time on packs)
- fast hitting AoE attacks
- Brutal crit (60%+) and crit multi (400%+)
- Freeze everything
- a lot of shock and ignite
- auto curse and fast movement with whirling blades
- ice golem

Wild Strike was added with the new expansion. Its basically a melee skill that randomly creates one of three different AoE effects on hit. The AoE effects are either fire (explision - AoE), cold (projectile) or ligthning (arc - chain).
This leads to the first problem. Since there are three different types of effects, we can`t use any gems that add AoE, chains or projectiles.
Another very important fact about Wild Strike is, that even the three elemental effects still do phys damage. Thats why we can leech from phys attacks even from those effects that look like pure elemental.
The third, very remarkable point is that if you add elemental damage conversion like hatred or Herald of Ash, the elemental AoE effects also do that kind of damage. This means, that our arc effect can freeze or ignite mob packs.
As many other skills the tooltip DPS of Wild Strike is "wrong". It only counts the initial attack. The real damage is much higher!

You should play this build when you like fast moving builds, when you like a screen full of elemental effects and if you prefer melee builds.
You shouldnt play this build if you want to play mf style (magic find) or if you are too lazy to use flasks.

pro
- Great damage
- kill monsters on the whole screen (no need to follow single monsters)
- fun to play
- works early on
- no expensive equipment needed (actually you can fill all slots with 1c rares
- works on a 4l (but ofc more fun on a 5l)

con
- you might have mana problems
- need to use potions frequently (e.g. mana potions)
- relatively low life when starting to map (like 3.000 to 3.300)
- cant play "no curse" maps

This is the final Skilltree at Level 75 (with 1 or 0 Skillpoints from bandits): Skill Tree

Bandits
Normal: 40 Life or Skillpoint
Cruel: 8% IAS or skillpoint
Merc: Frenzy Charge

Leveling
15 Skillpoints
35 Skillpoints
58 Skillpoints
79 Skillpoints

5L/6L (main skill): Wild Strike - Melee Phys - Faster Attacks - Multi Strike - Ice Bite

4L (movement/curse): Whirling Blades - Fortify - Curse on Hit - Warlords Mark

3L (Defense): CwDT (lv2) - Molten Shell (lv11) - Tempest Shield (lv8)

3S (Aura): Hatred + Arctic Armor + Ice Golem

Those links are the most important! You can add other 4L/3L just as you want, e.g. Ice Golem with blind. Also take a look at phase run. I would also suggest to add reposte/vengeance for additional healing.

Why no WED? You might think that WED would be mandatory even in a 4L but its not. The other gems will give a better damage boost. Only 60% of your damage is elemental!

Why Ice Bite? Like I wrote earlier due to the nature of this skill, you can do a lot of cold damage even on your fire or lightning AoE effect. With the 10% freeze chance as well as your very high crit chance, you can easily maintain 6 frenzy charges with Ice Bite. 6 frenzy means 24% increased attack speed and 24% MORE damage. Additionally it gives 24% increased evasion, what should increase your chance to evade attacks by 2 or 3%.

Why Warlords Mark? Shouldn`t Ass Mark be better? Before you dont have a 6L (whats most likely to never happen when you are as lucky as me) you cant use Blood Magic without a major loss of damage. Thats why we use Warlords mark: To leech life and mana. The endurance charges also give a nice boost for survivability.

The gear is the easiest part. There are no build-defining unique items!

Weapon: You have to use a dagger. PDPS is the most important part here, followed buy base crit. I would aim for a dagger with 220+ PDPS and 8%+ base crit. Crit Multi, IAS, ele damage are a nice bonus. You should also aim for the 80% global crit item type.

Unique? Binos will be great, but I think great rares will be even better.

Chest: You should aim for a 5L Evasion chest with high evasion, life and the res you need. Better dont go for hybrid chests or Armor chest, you need the evasion. Since we add about 120% evasion from tree and with 6 frenzy charges, this is your main source of evasion.

Unique? You could aim for Volls to add Power Charges but I wouldnt recommend it. We dont have much skillpoints left to spend them for additional Power Charges. Actually I wouldnt use a unique in this slot.

Shield: Here comes some magic. With the 190% additional defense from shields, your normal 1.000+ armor shields will give you 3.000 armor. This helps a lot with phys reduction! You should also look for high life rolls, additional block and if you need it also for res. You can craft +flat phys damage on shields, this is a nice addition to our damage.
I wouldnt recommend to use any other type than armor bases.

Unique? Lioneye's Remorse would be a good shield, if you get enough strength with your other items. It has very high life, armor and block chance.

Helm: High evasion, high life, res if needed. Accuracy if you want. Another nice bonus is IRR.

Unique? Your two typical melee helms are Rats Nest and Abyssus. Both are viable, but remember that we dont have much life. Therefore Abyssus will lead to some deaths. But the damage boost is amazing!

Gloves: You should aim for high evasion and life and guess what? RIGHT! Res if needed :) IAS and flat phys are a nice bonus here. You could also take some IIR or even flat ele damage.

Unique? Quite some options here.
Surgebinders look interesting but couldnt test them so far.
Atziri's Acuity.
Maligaro's Virtuosity.

Boots: Go for evasion boots with life/res. You dont need MS if you dont have the currency to buy some. We will move with whirling blade anyway. Other good mods are strength (you will need a lot to use warlords mark), mana or int.

Belt: Use a rustic sash with high life, strength and res rolls. Elemental damage with weapons is also very nice. Since we will get huge hits (huge as in they take a lot of % of our life) any flask nodes will also help. Some rare belts have 300+ armor, that helps too.

Rings/Amulet: Just go for your typical crit rings (flat crit/diamond ring) and amulets (crit and crit multi mod). You will need res from rings and also some stats like strength and int to use all your items. Always aim for high life. IAS and flat phys are a nice bonus.

Jewels: Just add what you need. Mana on hit gems will help, other nice mods are life (get 2x 8%), crit/critmulti and melee/phys/1h/1h+shield mods. There are also block mods that help.

Potions: Start with two Life potions (one for fast recovery, one for bleed), one mana or hybrid potion and one jade/granit flask for survivability. 5th flask could be quicksilver or again jade granit. If you want to, you can add your typical unique flasks later.

This is an easy to play build. You can move around the maps with whirling blade. As soon as you see a pack, whirl into it to apply fortify for yourself and to apply warlords mark on some mobs. After the first pack is down, you should have full frenzy and endurance charges. Use whirling blades to go to the next pack and wreck them. Thats all :)

From time to time you will have to use a mana potion, keep on in your slots.

You can play this build for a long time. After some days into the league, items get cheaper and you can buy a whole set of item for this build for far less than an ex. So its cheap, its viable, it looks cool.

Have fun!

Id like to thank Brandonkav for helping me with some questions :)

Initial hit:
60% of Physical Damage converted to random element: so elemental conversion scaling apply (HoA, Hatred, WED)

Secondary effect:
Fire,Ice,Lightning effect: Is it like a spell? or Is it a 100% conversion of the physical damage to that element?
I assume it is a 100% conversion to random element.