Death's Oath CI

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Zanyu wrote:

Novalisk the point of an ES build is usually to have a larger amount of "health" pool and if you do take a large amount of damage, there's at least a larger buffer than melee life builds. I'm guessing that was the logic GGG had when they were nerfing the life nodes.


I've talked to some CI friends, and I know of recent CI melee builds, other than the a very very item dependent high dependent crit dagger shadow build. CI melee is just a "fun" and unique build that isn't as competitive as other sides of the spectrum. But they are definitely viable.

Even with a crit shadow dagger build, you are usually playing a "ranged" melee with lightning strike.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/422432/page/1

Is one of the CI "melee" builds that I am mentioning that is completely viable.

But I almost know absolutely no one that can easily (it's usually extremely expensive and high level) be a "melee" with CI and by this I mean, actually going in and say cycloning around for leech and damage (or cleave, heavy strike, cyclone is just an example). Most CI melee use lightning strike in conjunction of their build. They are just making up for a weak portion of their build, CI wasn't supposed to be in the middle of the fray to take consistent hits and "tank."

Even your build is taking use of lightning strike, and like I said, you could easily do this build with a regular ES or even a hybrid chest. Hell if you really want offensive melee stats on an item, use thunderfists, it helps lightning strike, has ES, and can opt out for a real chest.

I've done the math and some extensive testing with death's oath and I simply cannot justify using this chest piece in any real niche build without saying a rare chest with near above average stats to serve the same use and perform better.

As I have said and as well as others, test out the build, get the items and actually do it. At the moment, everything you've said is just in theory and seriously I know no one else, except me who has seriously try this chest to see if there is something special about it.
I've easily thrown like maybe 20 ex or more just to screw around with this chest and spec with certain things, clearing out all types of content with it. And my conclusion came down to, this chest is just not a truly viable option. I would rather use a 400 es chest for a CI melee build, or just a random glorious plate with resists and life or just a bringer for a life build.

I would love to be proven wrong about this chest. I welcome it. I even offered to give you exalteds to make a build with the chest that isn't out-shined easily by some mediocre chest in most cases. I'm practically sitting on currency while I'm not playing this game as much as I used to.

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@Zanyu, Invalesco actually had a CI build up which used a rare Astral for a chestpiece. Not sure how long it's been since updating or anything, but my understanding is that it's at least viable.

I did a quick search, only found him doing I think a level 67 map and very slowly clearing it, and I think coming close to death.

Possible =/= viable.

What I consider viable in this game is being able to consistently execute something with near amount of the same effort.

If I were able to fully clear a level 67 map with death's oath within say 2 hours, and almost experiencing death 3 times, versus say a normal clear in 30 minutes and never coming close to death is a difference of what is viable and isn't. Because to make an item to even become usable it required high tiers of gear to make another item usable, with a crappier clear speed and higher risk with no higher reward gain.

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dr0p wrote:

By using blood dance instead of dark ray I will be losing a lot of dodge correct, but it is more beneficial for me to block then to dodge in this case due to the anvil neck piece.

Combine with tempest shield and punishment it should be a reasonable amount of damage being done.

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Gaizk wrote:

So you will mitigate Deaths Oath with the Blood dancers? Good luck on that.

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Harmster wrote:

I did some testing Novalisk.

In my opinion this chest works best with pure physical builds due to the fact that you benefit more from the 5% life leech.
However it could work with Glacial hammer since you can stand there and freeze the mobs forever and let the aura do its job - its a bit safer than lightning strike and infernal blow.

I'm just suggesting that CI inspired builds should pick an ES chest if you go with either of the 50% abilities. The biggest reason is that physical damage gets cuts in half the monsters armour will mitigate more damage and you will leech less ES.

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Novalisk wrote:

Armour doesn't really come into play since sceptres aren't that fast to begin with. and with melee physical damage and melee damage on full life your damage per hit is quite high (even with multistrike).

Physical life leech with quality blood rage and death's oath is 15%, which is 7.5% after conversion (pretty good). Double Strike might be better for life leech, but with glacial hammer multistrike on a crit build, you can freezelock most mobs.