[1.1]Reave Duelist - Cheap, Effective, End Game Farm

Levels
Changed from 72 to 78 for ‘core’ build
Health
+8% health
+10 to maximum health
+2% of Life Regenerated per Second
Mitigation
-24% increased Evasion Rating and Armour
+40% increased Defences from equipped Shield
-10% to all Elemental Resistances
+1% additional Chance to Block with Shields
Damage
+59% increased Physical Damage with One Handed Swords
-22% increased Attack Speed
+30% increased Accuracy Rating with Swords
Other
+40 to Dexterity
+50 to Strength
-10 to Intelligence

All in all it was a nerf. It now takes more levels to get comparable stats (compared to before I have less health, same damage, at the same level). I am keeping my eyes out for how to optimize further.

Also to note, all leech builds took a bit of a hit with the change to life leech. This build largely relies on HP regen with blood dance. Passives changes resulted in +2% regen. You wont really notice a difference in sustainability from life leech.

The core level 78 build

As you can see the core build can expand in many areas. If you are doing armor, there are several HP armor nodes available (maru area), if evasion then health evasion nodes (ranger area), several block chance nodes, and the awesome Diamond Skin node, and there are plenty of damage nodes still to get.

The reason to pick up versatility is for the int (required for reave and hatred) it is simply as cheap to get that as the +30, but it also gives you accuracy, and since that is a nice added bonus it is preferable. If you can get the int from your gear, you may want to drop that node and go for resolute technique.

Health
206% increased maximum Life
52 to maximum Life
4.5% of Life Regenerated per Second (another 6% from Blood Dance and Frenzy Charges)
2% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Life (5% with Perandus)

Mitigation
32% increased Evasion Rating and Armour
90% increased Defences from equipped Shield
12% to all Elemental Resistances
21% additional Chance to Block with Shields

Damage
337% increased Physical Damage with One Handed Swords
67% increased Attack Speed
58% increased Accuracy Rating with Swords
4% increased Movement Speed

Other
230 to Dexterity
210 to Strength
50 to Intelligence
18% increased Frenzy Charge Duration
8% increased maximum Mana
2 to Melee Weapon and Unarmed range
1 Maximum Frenzy Charge

Lots of messages about people trying to do this without item X or item Y. If you are unable to figure out how to adjust the build to incorporate your changes, then don’t change it. So to that end, this build requires 2 items. They are 1 chaos each, so if you are new this is extremely cheap and you should find your first chaos after a few hours of play.

Crest of Perandus
You want this shield because of the following reasons; Life leech (the build requires life leech so if you don’t have some awesome rings and amulets you will need that), good life role, resistance (it has 1 OK res role), and 40% block.

And

The Blood Dance
The big thing about these boots is that each frenzy charge = 1% health regen. This build pushes 10% life regen per second at the end. That is nuts, that is so crazy that you will think you are potting when you haven’t.

The pots that I have listed in my gear. Most attacks aren’t going to hit you. Literally. You will be pushing 60% block. The big thing that will kill are spells. So you will want resistances pots (you want them mostly for the max resistance but if your gear sucks they can compensate) with curing of a specific ailment (e.g. lightning res pot gets rid of shock). The other thing is the ‘emergency pot’. You will want a big pot with -25% restored, instant recovery on low life. If something makes it paste your dodge, block, and isn’t mitigated much by your armor you will need something to get you enough health that your regen and leech can finish off.

I am now also using Stone of Lazhwar to get spell block chance. To help cover the major weakness of the build. It isn't required but it will make some areas much easier, such as dominus. This item is also very cheap and costs ~1 chaos. It is also a good target for using vaal orbs, as you get block chance, spell block chance, and +1 frenzy charge. Also it doesn't require currency to upgrade (socket or quality).

If you are doing MF you will need the appropriate MF items(The Peregrine and Aursieze). I have all the items linked below.

Normal - Oak +40 health
Cruel - Kraityn +8% attack speed (Oak works equally well).
Merciless - Kraitn for Frenzy Charge (endurance charge or skill point)

Weapon swap for more MF

With the above items at the time
Tooltip DPS for frenzy is about 9.2k.
60% chance to block, 40% evade, and max res

Running your skills on blood magic skill gems (instead of the passive) allows you to use your mana for running auras. If you want to compare DPS to DPS, running blood magic gems generally increases your damage. If you compare Frenzy DPS with blood magic + Haste and Hatred to Frenzy with More Melee Damage gem, the auras come out ahead. The other of this is that you can split the auras for defensive and offensive.
The auras to consider are; Hatred (the biggest increase in DPS), Haste (increases DPS and the faster run walk is a nice quality of life upgrade), Grace, Determination, and Purity of Elements. Once you have grabbed all the attack speed nodes in the build Haste’s DPS upgrade becomes rather small and it largely is used for the move speed (if your attacks are fast enough due to base weapon speed you could try Wrath, but you will need to be hitting around 10 attacks per second). So for hardcore leagues I recommend Hatred + Grace, for softcore Hatred + Haste.

Just as the build is completed early on, the skill gem requirement is fairly low and can be accomplished just from rewards for the duelist.

Frenzy - Attack speed, Melee Physical Damage, and Blood Magic
It is really easy to get a 4 link, and since you can get the helm and gloves early on, its a great place to invest a bit of currency to get that. As with 1-handed builds you only get 1 5+ link, I would save it for Reave. If you disagree other gems could be; Life Leeche, Life gain on hit (you hit the leeche cap quick), blind (easier boss time), multi-strike (I didn't use it because I wanted frenzy to focus single targets, and multi-strike can lower that), added fire damage.

Reave - Attack speed, Multi Strike, and Blood Magic
Other gems that would work well; pretty much the same as frenzy for the same reasons, but now also melee physical.

Leap Slam - Attack speed, and Blood magic
Used almost 100% for mobility. You can keep it level 1 to keep the cost down. The speed of leap slam is only dependent on the change in attack speed (not the base value) so increased attack speed support works well.

Reduced Mana Gem - Hatred – Haste (or Grace)
If you are doing a hardcore league, you can drop haste for either grace, purity of elements, determination, or tempest shield (linked to blind!)
Cast when...
In my displayed items I have 'cast when stunned'. This is a cheaper version of 'cast when damage taken' which allows you to level up the support gems (a big deal for curses and molten shell). For hardcore leagues I would suggest using 'Cast when damage taken' and linking to enfeeble, molten shell, and enduring cry. There is lot of room here for doing what you want, you could also put on something like cold snap and blind. I use 'cast on stun' because a shield block that would result in stun still counts and casts the linked skill. It allows you to level up molten shell and what ever curse. You can change out either 'cast when' for the other. The build does not require them, and I was running Piety without them. Having said that, you can pick up both on the same char. (library in normal for 'on stun' and merciless for 'on damage').

This is some pretty basic concepts, but as this is meant for new people I wanted to include it. The rough explanation for how Increased Item Quality works is that if there is a 5% chance of dropping a rare, and you have 100% Increased Item Quality, you now have 10% chance of dropping a rare. What you also have is Increased Item Quantity. Quantity affects the number of items dropped, so here we use the term MF to encompass both added Quantity and Quality. Quantity has been removed from some of the new leagues (you can only get it on a few uniques). So adjust what I say if you are in one of those leagues.

Between the helm and gloves you are going to be sitting at about 70% increased item quality. We can get a little bit more by using a weapon swap (default ‘X’ will switch to a second set of weapons for you). Grab any old 2-hander with 4 links and put in Increased Item Quality, Increase Item Quantity, Leap Slam, and Culling Strike. Damage on this 4-L is not important, or even the stats on it. You will go around with your sword and shield like normal wacking everything till it dies. For bosses what you will do is right before you would kill it (when it is under 10% health) switch to your other 2-hander, leap slam, ‘cull’ the boss (culling strike kills anything with under 10% health), and get some increased MF due to gems. When soloing you can even use this to finish off rares.

Play style between solo and group play is pretty much the same, but with two minor differences. In solo play you can maintain your frenzy just from Blood Dance, in party play you may need to throw in some extra frenzy attacks. Culling is generally less of an option in group play, or harder to coordinate, though you may also have a dedicated culler. I suggest you keep an extra pair of non-MF pair of gloves and helm for those cases.

As for how it plays, it is pretty straight forward melee build. You jump in, frenzy up some charges, and reave everything till it is dead. You keep note of your charge stacks, the damage type you are taking (have 1 emergency life flask and 3 resistance flasks), and mindful of your reave stacks. Positioning is key as you can double or triple your DPS. You want to be in such a way that the mulistrike reave is always attacking in the same general direction, so that everyone gets hit by all 3 attacks. Frequently I will hold space and simply attack from a good distance away to make sure I am hitting everyone. When you do get hit, running is a great option. You have between 5-13% of your max health regen per second. Worst case scenario you wait about 10 seconds to be full again. I find this guy more engaging then similar duel wielding cleavers that I have made.