(2.1) Captain Jack Special - Bleed/Poison ST DoT Shadow (HC)

Update! Still haven't found anything higher than a tier 3 map, I must be really unlucky this round. I've hit level 80 and made a few tweaks to the tree. It's becoming pretty clear that this build is just that-clear. Some bosses are giving me some trouble with their burst, but clearing maps is pretty much cake, especially for any map that funnels enemies. Even if there are not narrow hallways, just a couple of STs down any pack of mobs and they're pretty much done. Even things like rogues (Vickas is usually a nightmare for evasion builds) just run at me until they die. I'll be leveling an RF build for some of the scarier bosses!

I've been talking with some friends about more ideas for rapid-stacking poison as well as bleed. With the double-dip of poison with projectile damage the thought was thrown out that barrage may actually be a decent build idea paired with pierce and chain, the latter simply taken out for boss fights. The mid-way location of Ranger between the duelist (for bleed chance and DoT nodes) and shadow (for obvious DoT nodes and poison/physical nodes) would likely make it the best build option, so we're working on a tree. In the meantime I'm still in love with Jack and trying to think of fun ways to make it work (Cyclone/Double Strike standard variant?) in all aspects, not just really cool kite waveclear.

Why did nobody remind me about Cloak of Defiance as a defensive option? Shame on all of you.

On a serious note, I may actually invest some points into a little bit of extra mana and pick one up. I'm torn on exactly what it is I want to lose in terms of auras to support this. Dropping Discipline seems like the smarter choice, if only because I'll be gaining ~100 ES by upgrading, making it ~100 loss (before multipliers) as compared to losing ~1000 EV (before multipliers). I know that right now I'm sitting on 150 available mana, which would be all gone if I took a mere 500 damage. By turning Discipline off alone I'd be bumped up to 500 mana, which could sustain a blow of a little over 1600, and of course there's the ~100 mana I'll gain from the cloak itself. Still, a bit of extra mana/mana sustain would go a long way with MOM as a part of my defense, not to mention the 500 EV boost to boot.

Edit: And of course there's always one last shield node to pick up, which will increase my shield's defenses by 60% giving me another ~210 ES. We're talking something like 4 levels down the road but that's not too far away!

Edit 2: I'm also aware of the fact that MOM specifically takes damage away from life, not energy shield, but with a high amount of both I've basically taken to backing off the moment my ES begins to drop low (effectively putting me at 50% HP once it's gone). With Cloak of Flame gone it'll drop sooner, I know, which I have to consider when making the swap.

Have you thought about swapping your axe to a binos and using the poison prolif to help clear speed?

My build does something similar. I use Ice Crash to apply Bleed on hit AoE. I'm built really tanky with over 58% block and 70% spell block, this allows me to trigger Vengeance, Riposte and Reckoning; all of which also apply Bleed on hit, 25% chance to Poison on hit and Reckoning can also Blind. Ice Crash allows me to have a stationary play-style so I can take advantage of Arctic Armour's defensive damage mitigation.

I just switched to Low-Life mode to take advantage of Daresso's Courage. Ghost Reaver helps keep my Energy Shield up with Life Leech. I am still gearing up to boost my ES higher. My armor mitigation with Endurance charges, Tempest Shield and Granite Flask popped when iniating combat is over 80% reduction, but some mobs can still hit to hard in my current setup.

This is my current passive tree at level 83, but it is a work in progress.
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwAAAO4HHgkzDPcNfBFQFSAV7RjbGbQbrR1PHt8hYCmlKk0s6S0fLYMuIy_MNbk94j8nQKBDMUSeRnFHfkjuSVFKyEz_T1ZRTFO7VL1XVFxAXIpeE19qYVJlTWqTbRlvnnTxeK57w31bf8aC5IMJhNmGYIaziq-Ks4rwj_qQEZMnk5mTqJUglS6Wi6KjpyuplaxHrK-xs7M_tAy7nr02voq-p768v9XAv8GCwcXB88SCykrKkMrT0NDRNtN-1bnaweIs6UbquuwY707vevDV9qM=