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Character is Gyft lvl 63 Hardcore wand/conduit Marauder.

I theorycrafted this build based on liking the idea of wands and group play. I was looking for ways to make wands comparable to bows in terms of damage but that just wasnt happening due to lack of solid aoe skills, useless innate on wands, and missing out on quiver stats. I found that this build works out very well for HC due to keeping the defensive nature of being fully ranged, while still allowing for a shield which provides great defensive stats(especially block).

Passives:

The character is very hybridized with high str, int and moderate dex. Before I go on I will say that this worked very well because I had a pretty insane Wand(http://imgur.com/Gqjh7). Without this, it would have been alot tougher though still doable. I had horrible item drop luck and ended up using this with only 3 linked skills up to Lvl 59.

For passives I went with alot of HP(since its hardcore). I opted out of some of the extra regen and armor because I didn't find it necessary as ranged with the evasion, block and utilities I have. I grabbed a couple of the big Int and Dex nodes I was near to fulfill gear and gem requirements. Iron Grip was worth it due to my strength and will be moreso if/when I go up and get the Wand Lighting Damage/Fire Damage nodes. I made it a point to get Static Blows and Chance to Shock as it augments my personal dps quite a bit since I now have around 2 attacks per second and high lightning damage(multi stacking mobs permanently with Power Siphon). It also provides this bonus to party members along with my sharing of charges and auras. Conduit was chosen because it was one point away(from the int I needed) and provides massive dps output to a group if you keep the charges up, which this build is innately designed to do.

For skills I use Grace, Anger, and Wrath auras like most blood magic builds. Attack skills are Frenzy linked with Life On Hit and Greater Multiple Projectiles for defensive aoe and building charges, plus Power Siphon linked with Added Fire Damage, Increased Elemental Damage, and Faster Attacks for single target(delicious culling strike) and Power Charge upkeep. My main curse is projectile weakness for its enemy evasion debuff, pierce, and 'more' damage. Utility skills are Enfeable for very nasty mobs and some bosses, Enduring cry for supplementing the armor I lack and passing out Endurance charges, Phaserun for mobility, and Conversion Trap. Conversion trap is probably my favorite utility skill and extremely underrated.


Here are some lower level videos demonstrating the build a bit. Excuse the quality on both and the second one was supposed to be alot longer but theres an error in the video that doesn't let it fully upload.

Lvl 44 farming Cruel Felshrine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuhSc1x-dQg
Lvl 54 going through Merciless Dark Forest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KFrOgwISKQ This one was cut off but it still shows some good Conversion Trap use.

*Do note that the character has changed dramatically since adding a 3rd support to Power Siphon(faster attacks) and upgrading my wand(after these videos were made).

**Edit: Here is a quick demo I made at current level. Pyramids is a terrible place to demo this build so I played a bit nutty to keep it interesting. Sadly, I cant record maps on this computer in HC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVYLehTcPtI&feature=youtu.be


Edit#2: I've since leveled a few times and replaced immortal call on my bars with minionlife zombies and grabbed minion instability. Works so so well.



All in all I love how this build turned out and I'll definitely rebuild on release assuming things dont change too much with it. I think this would be a good build to show the Culling Strike mechanic off and good Conversion trap uses. I still have a long way to go on gear as the build stands now and I'm looking forward to getting more near perfect gear soon. <3 new wand http://imgur.com/FnFgI

Name: JanBertil
Class: Duelist
Level: 45
Style: Fast-hitting tank with focus on life leach and chagres.
Skill Tree: http://bit.ly/Qo95un
Gear:

Skills:
Heavy Strike (with faster attack and mana leach gem)
Main DPS skill. Used for single targets or pushing enemies into traps and buring ground.

Cleave (with faster attack and life leach gem)
Main AoE skill. Used on close and grouped up mobs, both to kill them and to leach back life.

Leap Slam (with faster attack)
Getting in and out of battle skill. Used to get in the middle of mobs, travel between ranged enemies or to get out of tricky situations. The faster attack gem is pretty much required as the skill otherwise is too slow.

Fire Trap
This skill is used on ranged units whiles fighting melee mobs. It can also be thrown right were you're standing if srounded, in order to kill the mobs faster. It's also goo to use in case you need to kite (for an example the Act 2 boss).

Warlords Mark
Is casted on mobs before attacking them. Increased the life and mana leach, refils falsk faster, and finaly grants endurance charges.

Blood Rage
Is casted before meating mobs (not worth casting if you're only facing single enemies). Because of my passive life regen and my Vitality aura, Blood Rage doesn't actually drain any of my life. It does however give me frenzy charges evry time I kill an enemy, and there for increase my attack speed by a bunch.

Vitality
Increases my life regen and therefor helps me bypass the life drain of Blood Rage. Also looks dashing.

Phase Run (with increased duration)
Used to cover big areas, grouping up mobs or running away.

Play-style:
Start with casting Vitality. Use Phase Run to group up mobs, then cast Blood Rage and curse the mobs with Warlords Mark. Use Cleave on close mobs and throw traps at ranged mobs that are too far away. In a few seconds you'll have 4 Frenzy Charges, and depending on how big and weak the mob, a number of Endurance Charges. All flasks recovers instantly when low on life, so keep hitting until (or rather if) you get low on life, and then use a falsk. The Warlords Mark curse should fill up that falsk within a few seconds. Also, remember to drink tons of mana flasks, as this build does eat pretty much mana, and Warlords Mark will refill those mana falsks quite quickly.

Incase you'll find a bunch of annoying ranged units that refuses to group up, cast traps on a few of them, and then use Leap Slam to get close to the rest of them. Repaet until everyone is dead.

If you find a particularly harsh enemy (Like the Act 2 boss), throw traps at it and then kite around it. If you want, you can also use Phase Run to increase your kiting speed.

Notes/Final Words:
This is a very fun and fastpaced char to play, and I've really enjoyed the time I've had with him. He is a tad ill-equiped at the moment, but that didn't stop me from level grinding in an area three levels above my own, so I'm not too sure about how much it matters.
One thing with the build that's good to remember is that with out his frenzy charges and heavy strike, his DPS goes down by a ton. That means that sometimes you'll meet enemies with super high life that'll take so long to kill that you'll run out of mana flasks and Blood Rage will time out. An example of these enemies would be Oak. These bosses rarely kills you as long as you've got a steady look out on your health and take falsk when you need to, but they can be a bit boring to fight, as the battle will take ages.

Hey i just wanted to submit a build that I tried and made of video of. Feel free to take my footage and comment on it yourself.

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Auradin by Greendude120
[Aura Build with Duelist]

http://youtu.be/X2xvbBTmSjE
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Hello POE Developers, players and fans

Character Name: xCrystalx

This character is a high dps wand-based witch that uses power siphon, blood frenzy and warlord's mark to gather all three types of charges (power, frenzy, and endurance) and then passes them unto her lucky and thankful party members through the conduit node or the unique item Lochtonial Caress.

In order to kill mobs and gain charges, the build focuses on elemental damage that can be gained through auras (anger, wrath) and gear (rings, amulets, gloves). The innate high critical chance on wands (8%+) is also taken advantage of by boosting both the critical chance and the damage multiplier through gems, nodes and the six maximum power charges you can obtain from power siphon.

Defense is handled through high energy shield gear, the discipline aura and chaos inoculation (also used to cancel out blood rage's negative health drain).

Aoe Gem Setup: power siphon - multiple projectiles - pierce - weapon elemental damage

Single Target Setup: power siphon - increased critical stikes - increased critical damage - weapon elemental damage - item rarity (optional for more loot on rares)

Note: Attempts are made to gain as much accuracy as possible in gear and dex nodes, as accuracy is the primary weakness of the build. The build holds its own very well on merciless difficulty but I recommend teaming up especially when facing big boss fights *cough* act 2 boss.

Okay well he's done (mostly). The beta's first ever tri-element Blood Mage Marauder.
Character Name: Kekerlawls
Level: 60
Concept: Caster Marauder.
Current Build: http://tinyurl.com/8uhpf28
Endgame Ideal Build: http://tinyurl.com/8nc5zfo

Let me explain. As a marauder, you start very close to the Blood Magic Keystone passive. But I have noticed something over the many weeks I have played this game. Its called. Blood MAGIC..... Yet I have never seen a caster marauder. Ever. So I took it upon my self to make one.

He has no real focus, But I play him as a tank.

As a concept I thought it would be total trash. But I was able to level him to 60, do all four difficulties, and a few maps.

His main skills are Freezing Pulse and Molten Shell.

Cool down skills are Cold Snap, and Enduring Cry.

Utility skills are Lightning Warp totem, and Elemental weakness.

Auras are Grace and Discipline.

Now I'll explain the gear setup.

A 3link with faster casting on my curse and shout, not much to explain there.


Using my 4link helm I am able to nearly maximize my damage on Coldsnap.


Same thing as the helm, but for molten shell. Although apparently Culling Strike Does +damage? So I might look into that.


4link gloves to use my totem gem, might look into using chaos damage instead of cast speed though.


Here's where it gets interesting. Using this shield gives my molten shell a chance to explode vs spells, which is huge for me because my freezing pulse damage is kinda crap. And the gems are my auras.


I know its old school, but it was my only option to make coldsnap viable for regular use. Obviously I'd love for it to be 5-6 link to added chaos and added lightning damage to freezing pulse. Maybe lesser multi? But I doubt it since I lags my game.

And here's my crapy accessories.


Flasks I am currently using.


So let me explain a little about how I play him, and why I picked blood magic/hp/armour.

I wanted to set a handicap for my self. "I must use at least one spell of each element." So I did, originally I was using normal lightning warp, but as I gained more health and armour, It made more sense to just cast molten shell over and over, and let the totem bounce around. It doesn't shock as much as I would like. But it deals lightning damage regardless.

How I handle a normal group.

Enduring Cry-Elemental Weakness-Moltenshell-Totem.

Spam freezing pulse and or coldsnap if its off cooldown, cast molten shell if it pops (which it does btw, almost instantly). And then just keep a 6stack of endurance charges up, keep molten up, my totem out, and just kite and or spam freezing pulse and coldsnap. Simple as that.

And since I have blood magic, some decent life regeneration. I don't need to use mana flasks. It may sound like a suicide mission. But I have only died a few times on him. And by a few times I mean 14. Which really is not that bad considering the build was a shot in the dark.

I am very happy with the character, although it is very annoying to have ironwill on everyone of my spells. And maybe a keystone that changes life leech into ES leech or something would help, that way with a 5-6 link on my freezing pulse I could add a life leech gem and keep my puny 800 ES up. Which would MASSIVELY reduce the damage I would take, because my armour is so high from my 6 charges. I think.. 87%? Even 800 ES can take 10-15 hits. And then I have 100 Life per second, with 80% resists. I take very little damage. (curse you poison archers!!)

So yea. Pretty please put my silly stupid little caster marauder in the build the week. He was such a pain the ass to gear up.

A mini update about my melee caster from page 9:

i've added Culling strike to my sweep - so sweep is now used for 2 situations (as i've explained in my char description it is only a utility for me and not meant to deal damage):
- when i need some health desperatly (it is connected to life gain on hit)
- when i want to finish something off (culling strike)

Low-life Ethereal Knives Marauder

Character: Vismajor (default)
Build @ level 31:

Natural instinct is to go for stacking ES when trying to make a low-life build work, but this runs into the issue of being unable to deal with chaos damage. Instead, this build attempts to simply brute force its way into HP viability by focusing entirely on HP nodes & gear. Furthermore, because effective HP is cut to a third, all percent-based regen is almost three times as effective, and 'Cautious' flasks can freely be used to double flask effectiveness.

For damage, the build relies entirely on having three uniques:
Double Redbeak + Crown of Thorns, along with Added Fire + Hatred, provides a pretty substantial scaling for Ethereal Knives.

Some stats:

Current Level: 31

Max HP: 1441
Effective HP: 493, low but comparable to ranged builds at this level
Life Regen: 47.7 per second, almost 10% of effective HP

EK Listed Damage: 49-73
EK Final Damage: 292-435, an almost 6x scaling that will improve as support/aura gems level
EK DPS: 447.1, 563.3 with Projectile Weakness

Skills:

To reach low life, the build uses Blood Magic with Reduced Cost Vitality & Hatred. A third aura is used to reach the final number as close as possible (currently using Anger with it's 40 cost). The high regen combined with Cautious flasks allows for over 28% of effective life to be regenerated every second, never putting the character in any significant risk.

EK is linked to Faster Projectiles, Added Fire Damage, and Faster Casting. The slow 1s casting time of EK is my biggest gripe about the skill, and Faster Casting helps to partially offset that. While the cost is somewhat high, at 56.4 hp/s, the high regen makes it a non-issue.

Projectile Weakness is current curse of choice, but I suspect Warlord's Mark may be better in higher difficulties for the additional life leech & endurance charges.

An unexpected benefit of EK is that it is much easier to deal with mobs with unusually small hitboxes, like cobras & snake constructs. The shotgun nature of the spell means you simply need to aim in the general area and you are guaranteed to hit.

Further development:

Final end-game marauder builds can reach 3-4k HP, meaning this build could end up with 1,300 HP with 200 hp/s regen, which is more than viable for maps.

A few points shy of being able to use Haste instead of Vitality, so my next point will probably be in a +30 dex node.

I'm working towards the Golem's blood cluster which will allow another 9% of effective hp regeneration in addition to 28% more hp. Following that, the large +hp circle will be filled out. At level 50 build would look something like: Beyond that, I may either go for armor passives, or the life regen nodes in the center, or the hp + regen nodes in the templar area.


P.S.: Can we please fix light radius reduction when reserving life with Blood Magic :<

Edit: Updated stats

"

Vipermagi wrote:

"

gastank wrote:

Projectile Weakness is current curse of choice, but I suspect Warlord's Mark may be better in higher difficulties for the additional life leech & endurance charges.

Warlord's Mark is item-type Leech, and as such only works with Attacks. Eth Knives is a Spell.

The Mana and Life Leech supports however, work off all damage dealt. They should work with Eth Knives, but I haven't tested it yet.

Besides that; amazing. Wow.

That does make it less attractive. But I may end up having to work it in for the endurance charges. It's pretty hard to gauge the survivability right now, and the biggest reason is that you see such a small part of the HP globe due to the reservation. I would actually prefer if the full globe represented the full the non-reserved HP, instead of sectioning off a portion as it does with mana, and the reversed amount could just be shown as hover text.

Several times I've seen my globe almost empty, and was certain I would die, but regen + cautious flask kept me alive even with multiple rare mobs beating on me. It's possible that with the additional regen from Golem's Blood (which would get me to effectively regenerating full life in 6 seconds) I may find survivability to be a non-issue until end game.

Character: GiselaHoch
Level: 52
Quest State: Immediately post-merveil, merciless.
Class: Witch
League: Default

I don't think my build is hyper unconventional, but it is quirky and at times challenging in a very fun way. Is fairly viable solo, though had a lot of trouble with the bandits last time and ended up partying to deal with them. I will list my primary skills, ordered from most to least interesting.

Skill 1, the diversion

Lightning warp+totem+knockback+minion life. When cast the lightning warp totem will teleport into groups of enemies, do some damage to them, potentially knock them around, and draw their attention. While it is flimsy and dies pretty fast, it can be quickly recast and often is instrumental in keeping enemies distracted and not attacking me.

Skill 2, the finisher

Shock nova/frost nova+culling strike+item rarity. I use it as a finisher, either on bosses or on large packs of weak monsters, and get somewhat better loot as a result. Culling strike gives me a greater window of opportunity to hit them with this, and is quite handy against really big bosses, such as merveil or the oversoul.

Skill 3, the mangler

Ice spear+lesser multiple projectiles+faster casting. I'm sure I'm far from the only one using this combo, but freezing pulse seems much more popular than ice spear. Engaging enemies outside of it's mode-change range means I crit a lot, and stun/freeze most enemies to death.

Skills 4+5+6, the seasoning

Elemental weakness is used to make enemies more vulnerable to all my attacks. Discipline is always up for the extra survivability at an ignorable cost. Purity is on standby, but is rarely needed so doesn't get used much.

Gear

Not much special. two wands for maximum spell damage, five mana flasks because I have chaos inoculation, chosen so I have a run speed buff and freezing/burning clears available. My ideal flask loadout would have the recharge-on-crit property on all my flasks, as with ice spear I'm always critting.

Play style

stay at range and lob in ice spears. If the enemies look rough enough, throw in the totem. Keep the curse going as much as possible. When large enemies are low on health, dive in and hit them with the loot nova. Run speed flasks let me get out hair situations pretty handily most times, and combined with the totem for distractions it's usually possible to recharge and keep fighting. In parties, any sort of meat sheild increases effectiveness wildly. I run through mana quite quickly, spending over 100 every second, but even without flasks my deep mana pool and fast regen give me a fair amount of endurance.

Passives

I got Chaos Innoculation quickly, and in the level 40 region I dove over to the templar area to grab prestidigitation and elemental damage buffs. Now I'm just collecting up loose ES and frost damage boosts.