RT Marauder with axe and shield

I just died again @ lvl 60 with a one handed crit melee build but I think I now want to try a RT build. My crit build used a dagger and it feels I needed to sacrifice too much damage picking general one-handed nodes. Also it would be great not having to worry about missing.

Again I want to use BM support gems for my active skills, while running 4 auras with RM support gems. I'm thinking maybe the new unique "Soul Taker Siege Axe" would work nice

-EDIT-
I am planning to choose weapons specific nodes as lately as possible so the axe specific nodes can be replaced with a different weapon type if necessary

Here are the stats of the new build I planned, suggestions and advice are more than welcome


Base stats
+380 to Strength
+144 to Dexterity
+144 to Intelligence

Spell
+112 to maximum Mana
18% increased Effect of Buffs on You
8% increased maximum Mana

Defence
+300 to maximum Life
Evasion Rating: 53
104% increased maximum Life
145% increased Armour
2% increased Movement Speed
10% additional Shield Block Chance
40% increased Defences from equipped Shield
+34% to all Elemental Resistances
2% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched back as Life
3% of Life Regenerated per Second
+28.8% Energy Shield
28.8% increased Evasion Rating

Charges
*no change

Weapon
43% increased Melee Physical Damage
120% increased Physical Damage with One Handed Melee Weapons
7% increased Attack Speed with One Handed Melee Weapons
30% increased Fire Damage with Weapons
188% increased Physical Damage with Axes
6% increased Attack Speed with Axes
Your hits can't be Evaded
27% increased Attack Speed
20% increased Elemental Damage
40% increased Elemental Damage with Weapons
30% increased Cold Damage with Weapons
+2 to Melee Weapon and Unarmed range
+76% increased Melee Physical Damage
+288 Accuracy Rating

Crit
You take 30% reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes
Never deal Critical Strikes

Other
Cannot Evade enemy Attacks
Cannot be Stunned

You lack defense. In fact you have 0% defense. That's why you're dying in merciless. Very low physical resist, very low elemental resist, very low life, very low life regen, and very low life leech. That's why you're dying. Getting more DPS won't solve the problem.

Shield is a very good defense but it can't do it alone.

Also your passive tree is a mess.

"

deadlylag wrote:

You lack defense. In fact you have 0% defense. That's why you're dying in merciless. Very low physical resist, very low elemental resist, very low life, very low life regen, and very low life leech. That's why you're dying. Getting more DPS won't solve the problem.

Shield is a very good defense but it can't do it alone.

Also your passive tree is a mess.

Now I don't think that is true but maybe I'm wrong:

145% increased Armour
40% increased Defences from equipped Shield
+34% to all Elemental Resistances
+300 max life
104% increased maximum Life
3% of Life Regenerated per Second
2% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched back as Life

And then this is only the passive tree, my gear will have a main focus on life and for example I will be using Determination and Vitality.

Also I known that I can easily max resists in Merciless with these passives.

Are you sure we are looking at the same tree? And also what are your suggestions? Where is the tree a mess??

I took another look at my tree but don't really understand where you are coming from, it is mainly focusing on defense and I think it is quite balances instead of a "mess".

BTW: I hope you understand I spent quite some time configuring this tree so maybe you need to take a closer look because it sounds to me you didn't took it very seriously.

Actually maybe it is better not to ask for your advise because I posted the following stats:

Defence
+300 to maximum Life
Evasion Rating: 53
104% increased maximum Life
145% increased Armour
2% increased Movement Speed
10% additional Shield Block Chance
40% increased Defences from equipped Shield
+34% to all Elemental Resistances
2% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched back as Life
3% of Life Regenerated per Second
+28.8% Energy Shield
28.8% increased Evasion Rating

And you responded with "In fact you have 0% defense", man then you are clearly joking and I'm trying to get serious feedback instead of some troll response.

It is 0% defense. Currently there are only two viable defense for melee. Endurance charge or Iron Reflex, maybe evasion but my current testing on it does not look good. No Iron Reflex no Endurance charge = dead melee. You will keep dying and dying. Having a higher DPS will not change the fact.

Armor nodes are crap because it does not scale well. It base on your armor and your armor is always behind the lvl curve. That's why every good melee build go either endurance charge or IR or both.

The really bad thing about your passive is you used 120 points. There is only one lvl 100 character in the game and he didn't used 120 points. A reasonable number is around 80.

...

I apologize in advance for probably bad english and not so constructive criticism.

Deadlylag is right, sorry to burst your bubble Startkabels.
Spending 120 points is unrealistic, especially if they aren't well spent, I guarantee you, you would give up on that character before hitting lvl 80 , unless you like getting carried.


You got a lot of defensive stats, okay, but the problem is you got a little bit of many things, instead of focusing one or two things. Armor gets less effective the higher the monsters damage gets, to the point where 10k armor may provide 15% damage reduction against trash mobs but bosses will oneshot you with your small life pool.
10% increased block chance won't help you much either in that scenario.

"

Startkabels wrote:

Weapon
43% increased Melee Physical Damage
120% increased Physical Damage with One Handed Melee Weapons
7% increased Attack Speed with One Handed Melee Weapons
30% increased Fire Damage with Weapons
188% increased Physical Damage with Axes
6% increased Attack Speed with Axes
Your hits can't be Evaded
27% increased Attack Speed
20% increased Elemental Damage
40% increased Elemental Damage with Weapons
30% increased Cold Damage with Weapons
+2 to Melee Weapon and Unarmed range
+76% increased Melee Physical Damage
+288 Accuracy Rating

^All of this is useless if you can't survive monsters fighting back, the occasional misclick, desync, lightning thorns , shock stacks, curses and whatnot. Oh, and chaos damage of course, I wouldn't bet on maxing your resistance against that.

Making your own endgame viable build isn't easy, you want to fit in as much stuff as possible , especially damage, but you should focus on a 60-70 points core which gets all the major keystones you want and as much life (or es) as possible, if damage nodes can be picked up along the way then that's just the icing on the cake.
But, before you start making a build you should think about what you wanna do with it, looking at the damage list up there doesn't tell me anything about your build except you want to use a 1handed axe and you're not too sure yourself what you gonna do with that axe.
Take a look at the skills that work with 1handed axes and decide which one you want to use, and then find out if that skill works better with elemental damage or physical for a 1handed axe (or is cheaper/easier to gear), and then decide which damage nodes are truly beneficial to your build, which auras and supports you need, how you gonna sustain the skill costs etc.
Take a look at some of the popular life based melee builds , especially at their lvl 50-70 trees, to get an idea of how much life is neccessary, and how few damage nodes are taken compared to life nodes.

Edit: Just found this thread, it may be of interest to you, a 1 handed melee build with sufficient aoe dps, high resistances and good block chance, although tough to gear it seems:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/384141

Thank you for your detailed response, I get what you all are trying to say.

Basically, the build you referred to doesn't focus on offensive nodes at all and only picks a couple notable offensive skills on the route.

He does not focus on armor but on shield, life and resistances instead.

However, if this is mandatory in order to be able to survive, melee is unbalanced as hell. They rebalanced monster defense and life so that life would be less mandatory and thus melee could focus on other things instead.

This is nice in theory but practically this means melee should focus on nothing but defense and should be happy if he could pick up a few offensive nodes on the way.

This makes me very unhappy, I have put a tree together that is (read should be) balanced. With both defensive stats and offensive stats, but in the end this will mean I have NO defensive and thus cannot use offense!

@GGG: Can you finally do something about melee, this is totally ruining my experience!

Looks good.. except that if you are taking unwavering stance then its better for you to take iron reflex.. Use grace and determination and purity.

Oh get elemental adaptation since you are there

Here is mine

Items

Helm, jewelries, body and one of the sword is self found and crafted.

The others i bought. Shoes 2 gcp, gloves 2 ex and sword 2 ex.

"

deadlylag wrote:

It is 0% defense. Currently there are only two viable defense for melee. Endurance charge or Iron Reflex, maybe evasion but my current testing on it does not look good. No Iron Reflex no Endurance charge = dead melee. You will keep dying and dying. Having a higher DPS will not change the fact.

Armor nodes are crap because it does not scale well. It base on your armor and your armor is always behind the lvl curve. That's why every good melee build go either endurance charge or IR or both.

The really bad thing about your passive is you used 120 points. There is only one lvl 100 character in the game and he didn't used 120 points. A reasonable number is around 80.

I have to 100% disagree with you unfortunately. End charges are viable, with armour support. IR is less viable than solid hybrid statistically. If you play smart as a hybrid you will come out on top and its all i've done melee. This build needs more life. Res looks fine and with a Lioneyes Remorse youll be looking at 15k+ armour with determination. Youll still be getting hit hard so you need to play smart, thats what separates us.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEBAecCcQSzBS0OrRLhFCAUTRjbGS4aOCFgJ-0otSmlLdIyCTKJNYY26DiWOlI6szrYQKBDnEd-Sn1QR1BQU99USVWpVgRXDVfiWGNYr1jbWfNbr18_YEtgiGFSZU1lp2egbmlyqXTtdPF253fleu97jHzZhNmE74Zgh3aMz5BVkc6Vm5e0mSubg52qnrmezZ8-n8uiAKLqpzCnhKvFrKqsr6y6tPm3F7nNud277b2BvqfAGsS4xtjSIdSP1fjZYd0N4driYedS7DjvDu9O8B_yL_Pd9kj3vvzF

I tried to keep in the original spirit of the build but added much more defense in the form of health, endurance charges, and Iron Reflexes. At the same time, I don't think you'll be lacking too much in offense. Don't forget - if you deal too much damage while not being defensively capable, reflect will annihilate you.