Anyone have a build that can melee hardcore Maelstrom of Chaos without Kaom's?

This board is littered with glass-cannon builds and 111-point theorycrafting builds, but I'm looking for a build that actually works in hardcore melee, in typical Maelstrom of Chaos scenarios. I'd love to know if someone actually has one.

Shields are fine, but I'd prefer no Kaom's Heart, since it's rather difficult to obtain in Hardcore.

I was thinking doing something along these lines, stacking flat elemental damage items and using cleave with 1-handed swords as a main attack. If anyone has a better idea, please tell me.


Thanks a lot!

Hi there. I solo farm chaos with 100/200% mf using this spec

The top defensive skills for a duelist are the Evasion on Shield (r1 is by the frenzy charge) & Shield Defenses. Added % evasion skills amplify these values. A 1600 evasion Lacquered Buckler is effectively 4800 evasion once these skills are calculated. This is what allows me to farm chaos with severely gimped dps & defense.

I do not use IR & have much less HP than you will need. Then again, a lucky hit can 1 shot me & for you that is not an option!

The secret weapon is using Lightning Strike as you suggested. Notice how I went allll the way up & over to get the 60% Wpn Ele Dmg skills. My 5 link supports LS with Faster Atks & Mana Leech. The other 2 are mf gems.

With Wpn Ele Dmg & Life Leech its indefinite survivability. Decoy Totem supported by Remote Mine allows indefinite kiting. Max your resists & off you go :)

Thanks for the build!

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Tyranthal wrote:

A 1600 evasion Lacquered Buckler is effectively 4800 evasion once these skills are calculated.

Now that's strange, there's no way you are getting +200% worth of additive bonuses, and all "increased" bonuses are all supposed to be additive. Is there a bugged bonus somewhere that is multiplicative instead of additive?

"

Tyranthal wrote:

The secret weapon is using Lightning Strike as you suggested. Notice how I went allll the way up & over to get the 60% Wpn Ele Dmg skills. My 5 link supports LS with Faster Atks & Mana Leech. The other 2 are mf gems.

Yeah, I've considered going that way, but ultimately decided to go with the catalyze part of the tree because it has a much higher bonus than the Ranger's elemental damage nodes. Plus, you need the extra strength nodes there to use strength gems anyways, right? Is there any reason you chose the ranger side's elemental damage nodes instead of catalyze?

Probably did it for the dex for the extra evasion.

I like your build to a degree because i want to come up with a build that utilizes catalyze, The current build I am doing is with a ranger, but i didn't realize weapon elemental damage on weapons is so powerful, I am using fast weapons without ipd, and its insane mow much damage i am doing and that is without damage passives in my skill tree yet.weapon has added physical damage and added elemental damages, and have an upgrade weapon for my next level will see if its better. but have insane fast attacks. I use double strike with shockwave totem, and cleave rarely, i was expecting to spam cleave, but don't need to at this point.


I went to chaos with a marauder with a 2 hander, and with 1500 hp it was too hard, i could kill fine, but without kaoms wasn't happening, so i am hoping this character can do it, I level slow because i am on hardcore.

current build
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQIBBdzTvQjbctcUUvkIHplemSKryugsLtGHM4FEtjUBJ3Y24PjQN5cIRDuQyGRExjLpSFn880ncmRBP6YMgX9NDhWDw1q1kplC0aYVs3HGEKRx38rytkj68s5iq2n-dwoyXqI3Rw7BL8mW0KCn6voN84b9SOa7AiJLJwkD1osgj9GDUkxN41saPnNjdRc3eoK9N4CAnKekbNkbt9nkW-PsgyA==

end game build here, although next i want to explore options of getting catalyze or other weapon elemental passives, but i might save that for a dual wield build. only negative effect of ele damage is lack of life leech u get with high physical damage.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQIBBdzTvQjbctcUUvkIHplemSKryugsLtGHM4FEtjUBJ3Y24PjQN5cIRDuQyGRExjLpSFn880ncmRBP6YMgX9NDhWDw1q1kplC0aYVs3HGEKRx38rytkj68s5iq2n-dwoyXqI3Rw7BL8mW0KCn6voN84b9SOa7AiJLJwkD1osgj9GDUkxN41saPnNjdRc3eoK9N4CAnKekbNkbt9nkW-PsgyHAjd-DADNxhhuaFDz77mSokQp2g1isPuFR55wAG5smBNN9LPFvZNjg7xWUojqcuouWDW3TJeg_6W3nBl1NPbMI0Pr9SOhzTY7TWO-PKFg5ng76zrC7qTF4dCl1Lr1KUZi_x_e_v8CZn46Nnv-uY70xwvKC-ZaUyEWGKaiiJG-3cDvSWEQ==


and from this build you can add more damage passives pretty easily, or hold off on some of the hp evasion passives, or even add a frenzy charge with 3 points. I decided to get the hp reward in act2 as well each time. I won't be in chaos for a while, as I don't want to go to default, so will acquire gear and what i need to go there, and if it is ridiculous still I will stay out of chaos till i get kaoms, but game shouldn't be balanced around melee all having to get the same chest piece.

I know you hate this, but here is a 111 point build.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQIBBdzTvQjbctcUUvkIHplemSKryugsLtGHM4FEtjUBJ3Y24PjQN5cIRDuQyGRExjLpSFn880ncmRBP6YMgX9NDhWDw1q1kplC0aYVs3HGEKRx38rytkj68s5iq2n-dwoyXqI3Rw7BL8mW0KCn6voN84b9SOa7AiJLJwkD1osgj9GDUkxN41saPnNjdRc3eoK9N4CAnKekbNkbt9nkW-PsgyHAjd-DADNxhhuaFD1R55wAG5smBNN9LPFvZNjg7xWUojqcuouWDW3TJeg_6W3nBl1NPbMI0Pr9SOhzTY7TWO-PKFg5ng76zrC7qTF4dCl1Lr1KUZi_x_e_v8CZn46Nnv-uY70xhimooiRvt3A70lhFCTNa8FBUkV4Z9KbK55T-9x0GqlqoOCjD3y3AZiYOTJMoBrn13zwJZmx1JQAd3v20AlsXn5K_cDhvOTk2AyTPVqgU6VgqoMR0Xh5WHq2VV0j77mSokQp2g1isPuHC8oL5lpTIRgfZgTFnnKEWYxaObaC6RDM_P94Az_fsft47DQcQl-ji2s_Ht_bT8ebFXjNVTSrmcqQp_PJecw4lBvLJaOqvyJ_JDP36aOuLN

"

Tyranthal wrote:

Hi there. I solo farm chaos with 100/200% mf using this spec

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQQABubJgQs-64ALgqSmDxIfmxQVJFcZ7Z6AHQpdSx7vC7UjwCvbJEKdoC7qTF4v8f3vM4FEtjQ-v1I0QQZ4NN9LPDbg-NA3lwhEOhzTYzqr8ic7xWUoPvuZKkCjGtRBvLJaQiVZC0JM1rxExjLpRZcBdUhZ_PNJ3JkQT-mDIFR55wBVWjtsW9k2OGSmULRv80UXcCN34HGEKRzXzKP5jakY__WJw82z9dY3voN84Y6nLqLlg1t0tCgp-rTWO-PKFg5ng76zrJI-vLPY3UXNwAzcYYbmhQ_WKw-46Rs2RsJA9aKvUpRm71NMQZ3CjJeojdHDprrjorBL8mWvpswkgIIgVe_wJmfjo2e_44bAJ_PzVm6W_W-2xz_QpKkKfzyXnMOJmjrizfJDP37K3NwZh7pRQZMz87f9qWI_mBGIc4FuZky5N2FvidEnlvPdLI8=

The top defensive skills for a duelist are the Evasion on Shield (r1 is by the frenzy charge) & Shield Defenses. Added % evasion skills amplify these values. A 1600 evasion Lacquered Buckler is effectively 4800 evasion once these skills are calculated. This is what allows me to farm chaos with severely gimped dps & defense.

I do not use IR & have much less HP than you will need. Then again, a lucky hit can 1 shot me & for you that is not an option!

The secret weapon is using Lightning Strike as you suggested. Notice how I went allll the way up & over to get the 60% Wpn Ele Dmg skills. My 5 link supports LS with Faster Atks & Mana Leech. The other 2 are mf gems.

With Wpn Ele Dmg & Life Leech its indefinite survivability. Decoy Totem supported by Remote Mine allows indefinite kiting. Max your resists & off you go :)

I'm following your build,

I use Cleave and flicker strike as my main attacks, I use Viper strike when I fight boss's I find the poison helps kill them faster. Would you suggest using blood rage or just frenzy?

I use grace and hatred also for support gems, haven't tried lighting strike yet.

Blood Rage is what I use but I recommend Frenzy until you get a large HP base build. Regen brings that dot to a crawl.

Dont rely on Lightning Strike until you get that 5th Frenzy charge & are right next to the 60% wpn ele dmg. Then its lolwut powerful.

Is there any reason you didn't go for Iron Reflexes with that build? With the problems evasion based builds have I feel like that would add to your survivability a lot.

Iron Reflexes promises you get hit 95% of the time. I dont want to stack that much HP to eat that much dmg. 84% DR (which is what I got it to) still means you can get 1 shot.
IR worked really well with Kaoms, but this thread isnt about Kaoms :P

Still one-shottable, huh? Damn. Won't work for my HC goals, then.