Melee Build: Frenzy - Claw/Shield - Full Life

This build is based on staying on full life and avoiding damage as much as possible.
It can be done with both Ranger or Duelist. I prefer Ranger as she reaches Claw Raker Passives easier.

There are two approaches that works:
1. High Damage, Moderate Life, Vaal Pact
2. Moderate Damage with Multihit, **VERY** High Life

Build uses several uniques, not for their stats, but for the abilities they grant. Here is what you will be aiming with that build:

Evasion: %60~ Evasion
Block: MAX
Dodge: %46
Damage Mitigation: %16 + Diamond Flasks + %30 from Enfeeble (and soon Mana Shield Keystone will add another %30) + couple of seconds Phys Dam immunity when needed
DPS: Shitloads with AoE splash with **AMAZING** Life Leech


PROS:
- Very fun to play, always keep high attention to know when to use skills
- Relatively cheap endgame gear (less than 8 exalts total for endgame build)
- Fast paced
- Ignore almost all range enemies, and easy on Chaos Resist as most chaos damage is given to projectile mobs.

CONS:
- Several equipment slots are reserved for certain uniques, tough to get max resist/IIR/Life
- Being melee is much MUCH more riskier than being range/totemist
- Desynch unfriendly, as you move very fast and attack in melee.
- VERY mana demanding. Main skill (at lvl70 char) is 84mana with **very high** attack speed. Shift+Click empties mana instantly. Mana Leech Support Gem is a must on main skill.

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Main Skill: FRENZY
Supported by Gems: Mana Leech - MultiStrike(for High Life Builds) / Phy Dam on Full life(for Vaal Pact Builds) - Splash Damage
Supported by Bringer of Rain: Melee Damage - Faster Attacks - Blind
Max Charges: 8 (3 Base + 3 Passive + Bandit Reward + Unique Boots Darkray Vectors)

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Right Click Skill: Flicker Strike
No Support Gems, you need it for Mobility and taking out enemies first like; Necromencers, Corpse Exploders, Act3 Lightning Mages, Machine Gun Tentacle Woman etc.

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Auras
Hatred - Grace - Reduced Mana
Tempest Shield - Knockback - Chance to Flee - Culling Strike

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Other Skills
Enduring Cry (max charges 4 with passive + increased duration)
Immortal Cry (Preferably linked with Increased Duration Support)
Freeze Mine (Preferably linked with Cold Penetration & Increased Area of Effect Supports)
Enfeeble

Also you need to lvl up Viper Strike - Confusion Trap - Bear Trap - Fire Trap on your secondary (X) weapon set, and have Fire Trap linked with Increased Burning Damage & Multitrap Supports. Certain enemies will require these

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GEAR
Weapon : **VERY** High Physical Damage (NOT DPS, just pure damage) Claw
You can get something like these for 5 chaos if you look around
It has to be high physical damage rather than DPS for 2 reasons:
1. Benefiting Claw Raker Passives the most
2. Making most out of Mana Leech Support

Helm : Bringer of Rain
You can get one for 5-6 exalt
Bringer of Rain is great for that build:
1. Increases your DPS greatly housing your main skill
2. Enduring Charges gained from BoR refreshes the duration of your charges
3. Helps to reach MAX Block

Body Armor : None due to Bringer of Rain

Boots : Darkray Vectors
You can find one for 4-10 chaos depending on time
These boots are a must for that build for several reasons:
1. Increased DPS by 8th Frenzy Charge
2. %16 additional Dodge is priceless
3. %40 Move Speed during combat again, priceless

Amulet : Daresso's Salute
You can find it in Standard now that Anarchy has merged. It is generally 15 chaos for low rolls.
This Amulet is a must piece for several reasons:
1. Claws have horrible range of attack. You need both Master of the Arena Passive and +2 Range from Amulet for being able to Shift+Click Attack
2. This Build is based on staying on Full Life. It already has no ES to lose, and %60 Damage Gain is amazing

Shield : Anything is fine but I prefer Daresso's Courage as it has %120 Block Recovery + %20 Phy Dam + All Resist + Block Added to Spell Block on Low Life


Belt : If you can afford Meginord helps greatly with damage which directly helps increasing Leeched Mana and Life

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PASSIVE

Important Keystones & Passives are: Acrobatics, Phase Acrobatics, Ondar's Guile, Claw Raker Passives, Master of Arena, Heart of Oak

Here is what I use with Vaal Pact, Diamond Skin will be replaced with Mana Shield with Game Release which will help the build even more.

Passive skill tree build

And here is what I will test with Skill Tree Reset at game release for High Life build.

Passive skill tree build

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Bandit Rewards
Normal - Resist or Passive
Cruel - Phy Dam or Passive
Merciless - Frenzy Charge

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GAMEPLAY
It is really fast paced and fun.

Flicker in -> Flicker again to pick a better position or a critical enemy (Frenzy Charges remove Cooldown on Flicker Strike)

Use in order against dangerous situations:
If there is potential melee threat in room Enfeeble
If there is a crowd in room AND danger, use Enduring Cry before attacking
If danger is bigger than you want to risk, fall back lay a Freeze Trap BUT do NOT trigger right away! Pressing "D" is your Ace up your sleeve.

Devastate all with Frenzy/Splash

Against Bosses replace Splash Damage with Phy Dam on Full Health


Ask away any questions, thanks for reading!

I'm currently Running a similar character in Hardcore without Vaal Pact...

It seems to be working great (Currently Level 58), & Currently in act II Merciless and having no problems with mobs in Fellshrine/ Level 2 church dungeon(Level 62 area).

My passive tree lacks a bit with physical damage but I have a lot of survivability/life.

The stats I currently have with Grace and Tempest shield up are;

72% Chance to Evade.
52% Chance to Block.

This pretty much allows me to be untouched by anything unless a rare mob has Increased accuracy..

My passive tree; http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAAF4FtQguDI0NSRUgGYYZjhutHoEi6iP2JJ0s6TBxMHw1hjpCOrM94kBVSO5KfUt4S41NklFHVi1W-lpIYlpnoG9XdEF313iufVt_K4d2jX2Nv5LNm42btZ2qnyeqf6q4rEesf7TFt9O5zcLswzrGotN-1CPWitfL3Q3dqOKA6NbrFOss7YPuDu967_D8xf8c

I'm focusing mainly on Life/Evasion (My gear is basically all evasion so the % evasion nodes are benefited much more).

Without Vaal Pact I seem to be having no trouble at the moment... Not sure if it's worth the 10 points getting there if you don't need it.


(One problem with my build is I'm too poor to buy a Bringer of Rain so the chance of a 7 Link for me is very slim).

I could do with some advice if you could help me, thanks Danny/Motting.

Unless you can get good gear that will enable you to hit more than %150 of your max life at once, you should be fine without Vaal Pact.

With Bringer of Rain + Meginord and a good claw you can go over that unless you link multistrike (it splits the attack reducing damage for each hit). But you mentioned you are unlikely to outrank your life with your damage.

I can suggest a few things, like diminishing values on evasion rating vs % chance to evade are quite steep, so if you direct some of your gear evasion or passive evasion to something else, your loss in chance to evade will be quite small. And a good value for evasion in my opinion is around %60, that way you wont need to worry about range attacks even from bosses.

I would suggest you to drop evasion and mana gayser in top, and head towards duelist start area for master of arena and %6 block chance node. You can also get int+max mana in that area.

Passive skill tree build

I see that you dont have any frenzy nodes, so I assume you use double strike.
Frenzy with max charges is better for evasion builds in my opinion for 2 reasons;
1. It grant %16 dodge with Darkray Vectors.
2. %32 additional evasion with passive near acrobatics.

Also having %50 evasion %75 block is better than other way around. Evasion is mitigated against accuracy, while block stands as it is. Downside is when you evade you dont need recovery, but when you block you get recovery as if stunned. Good shields can offer block recovery % mods and Hearth of Oak helps too.

But Bears and Golems seems to have ignore block from my experience while it is not mentioned anywhere.

i love your build man. excellent.

its very close to what im doing right now in standard, but im using dual claw and dual wield block. also i incorporated critical hits in my build, since its basically the biggest physical DPS boost you can get as long as you can spare the points. Since i am going crit and dual wield i use dual strike as my main attack other than frenzy, thus i also use blood rage and cannot utilize melee damage on full life.

i was thinking about taking my build into hardcore to really put it to the test because right now i can facetank anything and everything. my friend thats been playing since beta started is still amazed at the things i can survive.
however i like the idea of using claw/shield and frenzy as main attack more-so for hardcore. since you're using frenzy as your attack you can pass up on blood rage and thus use melee damage on full life. excellent combination.

the bonuses on frenzy are absolutely incredible too, its great to see another build use it as a main attack. im also leveling a ranger to use it as main attack with the same foundation as my character (and yours), evasion/dodge based while using those boots. Absolutely great.


that amulet you show is fricking sweet too. i won't be able to use it since again i use blood rage to produce my frenzy charges, but how significant do you find the boost in range? I do not and was not planning on getting Master of the Arena (tho its only 2 points away), because i currently don't have a problem with the range. Is it that significant of a boost?


EDIT: also where you talk about damage mitigation, you mean 16% from granite flask, not diamond flask

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JunKx wrote:

i love your build man. excellent.

Thanks!!

"

JunKx wrote:

that amulet you show is fricking sweet too. i won't be able to use it since again i use blood rage to produce my frenzy charges, but how significant do you find the boost in range? I do not and was not planning on getting Master of the Arena (tho its only 2 points away), because i currently don't have a problem with the range. Is it that significant of a boost?

You know that desynch is a major problem with game, especially in places with walls and doors. If you dont shift-click the lone mob before you, in next second you may find it out that you actually clicked on a mob in the middle of a crowded room => Death.

But many mobs have longer than claws, so when you shift+click in their direction it is possible that you wont hit it, while it will hit you. And some mobs have even longer range than claw+2 (either from Master of Arena or Amulet) like bears.

With both Master of Arena and Amulet, I think there are no mobs that have longer melee range than you. Also I believe it effects the splash range too (not entirely sure though, you may want to check this out with others)

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JunKx wrote:

EDIT: also where you talk about damage mitigation, you mean 16% from granite flask, not diamond flask

That %16 is from 4*Endurance Charges form Enduring cry+ BoR %10 chance to gain at block.
Granite Flask is on top of that, and yes I intended to say Granite but mistook its name (again), just like I mistook conversion trap's name with confusion trap :D