Dancing Frenzybreaker Duelist [2.0]

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EmAitch wrote:

I understand what those Frenzy charges means to you. The more charges the better. The only reason I said what I said was because when it comes to the passive tree, you really have to ask yourself: All those points I use to get those 2 Frenzy charges, can I get MORE increase physical damage/attack speed than what those charges are worth? With the new changes to the passive tree, you can definitely get more than 24 increase physical damage and 10 attack speed with less passive points (and more life regen perhaps).

My build has 7 Frenzy charges as well, but only 1 comes from the passive tree. Instead of getting those 2 Frenzy charges from the Ranger area, I just put points into melee phy/increase melee/increase physical with shield equipped passives. At 5 charges I do more than 25k dps, and this is using Stone of Laz for amulet slot instead of a dps amulet while using Legacy BoR (18 melee/18 faster atk/18 blind). If you can afford it, get a corrupted amulet with +1 Frenzy charge and corrupted Blood Dance/boots with +1 Frenzy. Having more charges is great (and with your current build you can have 9 charges total) but the biggest issue I personally have is that I kill too fast and Frenzy charges expire before the next mob or when I get to the boss (Piety/dom phase 2/etc) which really hurts overall dps having to rebuild charges. This could be offset with blood rage/poacher's mark (but its quite difficult to get above 0% chaos res and gem sockets are really hard to spare), however these two methods only work for moving from mob to mob, it won't work for bosses if your charges expire. Having to rebuild 7-9 charges to be at max dps really sucks, honestly, but it does only takes a couple of secs to rebuild

It is very tough to replace an amulet like what I have, especially one that is legacy. Trying to find something like that includes that corruption would cost me a fortune. As for Blood Dance, there is one with a corrupted + 1 max frenzy charge with the sockets I want. I actually forgot about that, but I appreciate it you reminded me about the corrupted blood dance. That I can possibly pursue since I saw one for five exalts.



Though, I am curious, you managed to get 25k DPS with hatred? When I equip hatred, and is active, at 7 frenzy charges, I get almost 34k DPS. Just wondering.



Honestly, along the way, I managed to pick up stuff like +1 max cold res which is invaluable for this build, 2% life leech (blood drinker, on top of getting more life), herbalism, and the frenzy node that gives me more defense per charge. I actually took things into consideration what can benefit my build. If I can level up six more times, I can get Retaliation notable and I am set. My build already improved offensively and defensively from patch, it was kinda worse before it because Frenzy was nerfed at the start of patch 1.2, but now it is back to where it was before the nerf. Hell, I am overcap in res with Lioneye's Remorse which I thought was not possible.


As for keeping up the frenzy charges, I mostly do not have too much issue given that the duration is at 14 seconds. Since I am using Frenzy, I just need to hit the mobs to get more charges. Maxing it only takes a few seconds.


I appreciate your suggestions of improving my build, and I thank you for that. I will try to pursue that +1 maximum frenzy charge blood dance since that would improve me with no drawbacks.

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EmAitch wrote:

After patch 1.3 I've been experimenting a lot with my Frenzy Facebreaker. I started with Abyssus+6L but have recently changed to using BoR for less dps but 71/53 block with SoL. With Abyssus I was at 8x,xxx Frenzy splash dps and 12x,xxx single target frenzy dps using Hatred and HoA. It's great dps but reflect can be a problem if you're not careful. High dps is from using Melee on Full Life wearing Aegis. My life pool is rarely touched due to Aegis so I can take full advantage of Melee on Full Life.

Just to compare with your numbers, BoR dps with Hatred and HoA using Stone of Laz at 0 charges is 28k with melee splash. At 7 charges, dps is 52k. Without melee splash, dps is 71k. Using a dps amulet instead of SoL, splash dps is 62k and single target dps is 88k at max charges.

The build that I'm sticking to wears BoR+Stone of Laz(+1 Frenzy) and Rainbowstride(+1 Frenzy) for 71/55 block/spell block and 7 total Frenzy charges. Instead of using melee splash, I focus on getting the highest possible single target Frenzy dps, which not only is for killing bosses and rares faster, but also to proliferate higher burn damage through HoA. I'm currently running only Hatred and HoA+Ele Prof+Inc Aoe. Although my main attack does not do splash, I find that the burn proliferation along with Reckoning/Riposte more than makes up for the lack of aoe on frenzy. Actually, I find that my clear speed is faster with burn proliferation than with melee splash.

Well, hope you can take something from this. Good luck!

Your build style is slightly different from mines, you are able to stack block/spell block with the items you have, so there is no need for stuff like Grace and Vitality on your auras. You can focus straight up on offense since your defense is already solid. I alternate between Lioneye's Remorse and Saffell's Frame to absorb the damage, Grace to get more armor, and Blood Dance + Vitality to get more life regen (on top of what I already got from the tree). That is why I do not have the luxury to get more DPS. Though, 25k DPS is already good enough high-tier maps, especially soloing when I can still take down bosses relatively quickly. This build is never meant to be in a party since it relies on frenzy charges to deal a lot of damage and survive. In a sense as well, all my builds I made never take Atziri into consideration since I barely ever try to collect sacrifice pieces.

I am glad your build is doing great, but I just took a different route. Still tanky, and kill quickly. Hell I remember back the days, I reached up almost 60k DPS on single target, and for the most part it still felt like I was doing the same DPS at 30k single target. The moment I placed melee splash it was never the same again, killing even faster than with 60k DPS at single targeting. But now that there is Herald of Ash + Elemental Proliferation, maybe I can get back to single targeting, but still have the splash effect. Worth experimenting given that I am on winter break now. Though, I will be mulling over on what to do with the sockets placement since I placed the auras on one gear. Taking into consideration that I can easily swap shields without deactivating my auras.

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EmAitch wrote:

Oh and one more thing: I don't use blood magic at all, everything comes from mana after all the aura reservations. A bit of mana leech on your jewelry is all you need to sustain skill usage. Patch 1.3 now gives melee a passive circle of Reduce skill mana cost (19% total) AND increase Life. Take those! They're below the templar block passives. This is by far the biggest buff to Facebreaker Frenzy build. Before, Frenzy could not be sustained on mana due to it's high cost once you reserve auras, so that meant using blood magic and no using melee on full life. Now it's possible.

I will not have enough mana to sustain my skill because most of my auras has reserved it even with level 20 RM. I am not close to the Templar tree, so it would require a lot of changes allocation, and I am not sure it would benefit my build given that your gears are slightly different from mines. I will stick to your first post to which I answered.

Took out Vitality, even the cwdt setup to fit in HoA + RM + Ele Proliferation, melee splash for added fire dmg. Got almost 40k DPS at 7 frenzy charges. Include Hatred, but take out Grace, and I am slightly over 50k DPS at 7 frenzy charges. Of course, at that point, I am kinda squishy against ele reflect and overall defense, and that goes against the philosophy of this build. lol



Edit: I can probably tweak around the build more, but I cannot afford to right now since I already used full respec, and would still need that +1 frenzy charge corrupted blood dance. I will stick to my original setup for now since I am more comfortable with it.

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EmAitch wrote:

@MidniteCloud I'll post up tree and gear as soon as I'm able to.

@JohnNamikaze This patch has introduced a lot of life regen nodes to the tree. I never saw the need to run Vitality since it's just ~1.5% regen which a mere ~3 nodes can get. The mana it saves from not running the aura should more than make up for it. I never found reflect to be an issue at all since I changed from Abyssus to BoR. I'm only at 7k armor which is quite low but ok for Aegis ES regen. The only reason I invest into armor at all is just for Aegis ES gain on block. For tough fights I always manual cast Immortal Call. I would think you'd have more armor than that even without determination/grace due to using lioneye's remorse.

I run Spell Echo+Enduring Cry and Immortal Call (manual cast) for tough fights like against phy reflect/Brutus/Kole/Dom/Vaal/etc. I used to use a Cwdt set up but found it fails when you need it the most: you need to be immune to phy dmg before taking the big (potential one shot) hit, not after. Currently BoR setup limits my gem sockets, so immortal call is manually cast without Inc Duration. Even so with manual casts with no inc dur, I can still manage to keep IC up throughout a fight if I need to since Riposte/Reckoning can still kill for me while I'm busy casting End cry+IC. Biggest issue with Facebreaker this patch is the limited gem sockets with BoR due to new skills like Riposte/Reckoning.

I got pretty much almost all the life regen nodes from the mara and duelist tree, and the next life regen nodes close by happen to be Arsonist and Shaper notables which together would take nine nodes to accomplish.

I only have like 6.1k armor (37% phy reduction) with Lioneye, 3.7k armor (26% phy reduction) with Saffell. That is without Grace. With Grace, I got 10k armor (49% phy dmg reduction) with Lioneye, 7.5k armor (42% phy dmg reduction) with Saffell. That is enough for me that I will not have issue with physical damage mobs, with physical damage bosses, I use Lioneye, and I am good to go. Having life leech + insane life regen + BoR's blind + enfeeble when I actually get hit, really helps. Now for Vaal, when that hammer comes down, I have already gone behind it. I will never face head on. In this case, Immortal Call is necessary for this build. I built this build to withstand almost any physical boss in this game, same with physical reflect, and double reflect.


I will eventually get out of cwdt setup because spell echo will make my life easier to have up endurance charges, which is more damage mitigation in a sense I get more life regen and overall defense. It is also give me a chance to cast a higher level Enfeeble to further nerf the boss's damage. Just need to get FB's socket to be RRBB which I am not confident with only so few chromes in stock.