[3.4] Vaal Double Strike Champion

INTRODUCTION

3.4 Update: The build remains essentially the same with little to no change


With the changes to Vaal Double Strike in 3.3 giving almost double effects to the clones and with respectable damage from the normal gem itself, we can clear end game content on a meager budget.

Pro's & Cons


The Good
1. Decent damage & clear speed.
2. Vaal clones melt the boss's while you can sip tea.
2. Build is very cheap to start and get to end game with.
3. Doesn't require any specific unique at all, so very SSF viable.

The not so very bad

1. Pure melee build so need to get up close and personal.
2. Cannot do reflect maps. Every other mod is game.

SKILL TREE
Tree

POB Link
https://pastebin.com/SEwRGTU9
Lvl 95 Skill Tree

You can take Vaal Pact & Vitality Void over other nodes for better leech sustain.

Bandit: Kill All

Ascendancy
1. Worthy Foe
2. Unstoppable Hero
3. First to Strike, last to fall

If you find Adrenaline Unreliable you can go with Fortitude.

Pantheon
These can be switched according to the map mods/situation, but the ones that are activated most of the time for me are:
Major: Soul of Solaris
Minor: Soul of Tukohama



PLAYSTYLE
Spoiler
You jump into the mob using leapslam which applies Fortify buff and attack to clear them.
Release your clones (Vaal Double Strike) when facing high life/dangerous monsters to clear them safely.
Ancestral Warchief can be used to gain more damage or clear mobs from distance.
Make sure you use attack in place-Either hold shift or use the Num-Lock trick.


GEAR
Gear


My Gear



Important Stats you need on your gear
1. You need at-least 12-20+ dexterity on your gear.
2. Upwards of 70+ intelligence on gear.
3. #% of Phys Attack leeched as Mana (You can take a mana leech node on the tree until you can get this mod on your gear).

ARMOUR/CHEST

Any rare 5-6 link with Armour & life. A shaped +1/crit chance chest with those stats would be BIS.
Unique chest you can use is Belly of the Beast or Loreweave.


WEAPONS


Main Hand needs to be a One handed Sword with high PDPS
Other Stat's to look for:
1. Attack Speed
2. Crit Chance
3. Crit Multi

Offhand preferably a scepter(can use an Axe or Sword too) with gain phys as extra elemental damage. (This is a Shaper mod)
1. Gain #% of Phys Damage as exta fire damage
2. Gain #% of Phys Damage as exta light/cold or random element damage
3. Crit Multi


GLOVES & BOOTS


Any you want to to balance out your resistances/stats
Also best to stack some dexterity & Intelligence on these two to use some of our gems and gear.


HELMET


Once again any you want to balance your stats.

Enchant:

Any Double strike enchant is good but really not required if you can't manage one.



Highest DPS gain is with 15% Chance to double damage bleeding enemies.

The rest 3 give similar DPS but if we talk number's then the highest DPS in order would be from:



1. 90% Increased Double Strike Critical Chance
2. 40% Increased Double Strike Damage
3. 15% Increased Double Strike Attack Speed.


RINGS

Preferably Diamond for increased critical chance with whatever stats you require for balancing your needs.


AMULET


I use a Carnage heart for extra stats, some resistances, leech and damage. Any rare with the stats you require can be used too.


BELT


You can use Perseverance, since we have almost permanent fortify we get permanent onslaught with this belt too. The rest of the stats ain't bad either.


But you can use a rare Rustic Stash or Stygian Vise to give boost to your resis & health too.

FLASKS

1. A life Flask, Quicksilver & Diamond with Bleed/Freeze remove mods.
2. Lion's Roar Give's Huge Damage boost but knock-back can be annoying.
3. Sin's Rebirth is not really required but boost's both damage & defense. A cheaper alternative would be Atziri's Promise.
4. The new Soul Catcher Flask is great for our vaal clone's.




JEWELS


Mods to Look For

1. Increased Phys Damage
2. Critical Strike Multiplier
3. Attack Speed
4. Health

Sample search : http://poe.trade/search/iyehamahouohuk


If you have the currency I would recommend a watcher's eye with increased crit chance.
Sample Search http://poe.trade/search/udakiwokawoyen

This gives us a pseudo 7 link DS similar to adding increased crit chance gem. But it's quite expensive atm.



GEM LINKS
Links


CHEST

Color's required:-
1. 4 Red 2 Green
2. 4 Red 1 Green 1 Blue
3. 5 Red 1 Green

Vaal Double Strike + Maim + Melee Phys Damage Support [These 3 should always be in setup]

+ Ancestral Call + Melee Splash [For mapping]

Although you can clear upto T15 boss's easy with the above 5 links but for pure single target switch the above 2 gems with

+ Multistrike + Chance to Bleed (or even Weapon Elemental Damage Support)

6th link can be either
Increased Critical Strike support
or
Culling Strike
or
Chance to bleed (when used as 6th link then use Ruthless as switch gem for single target.
or
Ruthless

GLOVES

Blood Magic + Leap Slam + Faster attacks support + Fortify

BOOTS

Your CWDT setup, I use

CWDT + Immortal call + Increased duration + Enfeeble(can use Ice Golem or Blood rage instead of curse)


HELMET

Ancestral Warchief + Maim + Melee Phys + Conc

AURA'S


Hatred--Always on
HOI--- For mapping
HOA--- For single target

Arctic Armour can also be used for extra phys defense

You can generally run 2 Aura's but can go 3 Aura's with a lvl3 enlighten support.

About Adrenaline (First to Strike, Last to Fall)

You can proc Adrenaline using either :-
1. Righteous Fire (slow but use's only 1 gem slot)
2. Using a 3 link setup:- Blood Magic + Blasphemy + Any curse

Either scenario, Activate/Deactivate to get 20sec Adrenaline boost, you can use life flask to recover your health back faster.



LEVELING TIPS & GEAR
Spoiler


LEVELING SUMMARY

Leveling should be should be pretty easy considering we get to use all our 4 main damage gems before lvl 20.

I started with straight up double strike. Later added melee splash, then Maim & finally Melee Phys. This 4 link should get you to upto lvl 50.

Make sure you lvl up your Ancestral call gem with the rest too. You can also switch between Maim & Ancestral call for extra AOE.

SKILL TREE PROGRESSION

With Skill Tree we follow the 3 way pattern

1. Upto lvl 30 we head left towards Marauder section.

Lvl 30 Tree


2. Upto Lvl 60 we head a little down towards our own Duelist tree & then move right towards Ranger section.

Lvl 60 Tree

3. After 60 we fill in the rest of the missing nodes & jewels(4 nodes) as we level up.


IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE DURING LEVELING


1. We will have insufficient Intelligence or Dexterity while leveling either for some gems or gear. So stack them on your gear. If you still feel need for more Intelligence then grab the "Wisdom of Glade" node along right side of our tree path.

2. Mana Leech is required to keep our attacks. Best to grab a mana leech node along the minor dexterity node's on our skill tree path. This is only until you get this mod on your gear somewhere.

Finally some swords you can use while leveling, and even 70+.



I might add more to this leveling guide if I find I missed something. Keep in mind this is not a definitive guide, you are free to make your own changes wherever necessary.


FAQ & END NOTES
Spoiler
END GAME GOALS

1. A 350+ DPS Main Hand Sword with atleast 300pDPS on a Foil/Rapier base.
2. Offhand Scepter with 2 gain extra damage mods.
3. Helm with Double Strike Enchant.
4. Atleast 80k damage Tooltip for Double Strike with Aura's.
5. And finally atleast 5k+ Health.


FAQ







Last edited by vvamic on Sep 12, 2018, 1:57:33 AM
Last bumped on Dec 6, 2018, 3:28:43 PM
I've been fumbling my way around Vaal Double Strike for something along these lines, so I'll be giving this one a crack. SSF viable is an added bonus (not that that's stopped me before...)
Thanks for your build, is very interesting...a quick question: without Carnage Heart we can go with the Vitality Void?
Last edited by BeneTleilax on Jun 14, 2018, 12:43:24 PM
"
BeneTleilax wrote:
Thanks for your build, is very interesting...a quick question: without Carnage Heart we can go with the Vitality Void?


As I mentioned in notes, no specific unique required. You can even use a rare amulet. That being said Carnage heart not only gives us leech but also 30-40 to all stats and some resis too. And to top it all it's very cheap.

I wouldn't waste 3 points to grab Vitality Void, a better option is to use blood rage. Can even put it in your CWDT setup if you find it annoying to activate everytime.
Playing this build myself and it's insanely fun. I made some adjustments to my tree according to your suggestions.
Currently using Starkonjas right in hopes that I'll get the right enchant on them! I'm also using a curse on hit+assasisns mark with HOI on off-hand to get some power charges!


P.S I think you meant to put Ancestral Warchief rather than ancestral call in the "gem set up".
Last edited by Best_Mac_NA on Jun 14, 2018, 1:23:38 PM
"
Best_Mac_NA wrote:
Playing this build myself and it's insanely fun. I made some adjustments to my tree according to your suggestions.
Currently using Starkonjas right in hopes that I'll get the right enchant on them! I'm also using a curse on hit+assasisns mark with HOI on off-hand to get some power charges!


P.S I think you meant to put Ancestral Warchief rather than ancestral call in the "gem set up".


Thank you for bringing that up & it's corrected now. Yes, I also use the COH setup myself, but lately i have been using HOA fulltime.
nice ive been looking into a second character to mess around with after leveling BV elementalist. im new so waiting on more info about leveling and passive pathing
"
panikyr wrote:
nice ive been looking into a second character to mess around with after leveling BV elementalist. im new so waiting on more info about leveling and passive pathing


from the duelist area head left to Resolute Technique, go down get Juggernaut(3pts) and swords or axe for leveling, i do axe. Head to the life wheel get Constitution. Proceed right through Dervish, get Golem's blood(3pts) go right to ranger side get Herbalism get some crit, more life, get jewels later unless you've got something good early respec outta resolute technique when you get good gear
Last edited by SoM on Jun 14, 2018, 5:10:07 PM
i am gonna go into claws with this one. i like the bloodseeker. maybe have a stat stick? or are there crazy new mods i might be able to snag in temple?

yeah it's decided, i just checked the wiki for interactions and only saw this...

"

When a Bloodseeker is equipped in the main hand and using skills that attacks with both hands, such as Dual Strike, the leech will be instant for both weapons.
Last edited by bigpilgrim on Jun 15, 2018, 12:56:34 AM
"
bigpilgrim wrote:
i am gonna go into claws with this one. i like the bloodseeker. maybe have a stat stick? or are there crazy new mods i might be able to snag in temple?

yeah it's decided, i just checked the wiki for interactions and only saw this...

"

When a Bloodseeker is equipped in the main hand and using skills that attacks with both hands, such as Dual Strike, the leech will be instant for both weapons.


I don't follow what you are asking here but if you really want to use claws then you need to make some major changes to the skill tree as most of the damage nodes I took are for swords.

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