[1.1.X] Do the Deeps! Dual Sword Guide
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1.2 tree (100 points)
Click me Pretty much all dual wield block is taken, plus some nice damage, life and other useful stuff. ;) I'll not update the rest of the guide, so there'll be some things in it that were only true before 1.2. --- Excuse spelling mistakes and stupid phrases, I'm not a native English speaker. The guide *Basic Build Ideas *Skilltree and Explanations *Bandit Quest *Gems *Gearing up / my gear *Character screens 5L / 6L *Maps, Bosses, Exiles, Nemesis Mods, Strongboxes Basic Build ideas: This is basically a Dualwield Variation of my Sword and Board Marauder guide, that seems to help and please a lot of Readers. I try to write it as noobfriendly as possible, while still including some stuff that may or may not be of interest for veteran players. 1. I want to dualwield swords. Swords have pretty nice passives, and I generally like swords. I want to dualwield them because I already have played several sword&board characters, and I was interested if the reduced block compared to a shield still is enough (spoiler: it is). Dualwielding gets us double DpS compared to one hand, so hey, let's go! I wanted to do serious DpS because it... a) keeps you alive as you don't have to tank so long, b) let's you clear/loot/level faster, c) makes you more valuable in party play. 2. I want to run my main attack on mana. A lot of players will use a blood magic gem. This solves all mana issues, let's you run 2 auras easily, and is generally considered superior to anything else. However... Reserving a skill gem slot in your main attack that could also be a global damage multiplier is a HUGE drawback in terms of DpS. I'm talking about jumps from 20k to 27k or from 30k to 40k DpS here. You don't want that big damage jump just for not having to min-max your mana supply? Ok... I actually like having to min-max a bit. It makes gearing more challenging, but also more interesting. 3. I'll include a tiny bit of crit. A dual sword Ranger will not have accuracy issues. Going full on crit however was not really my intention. Just a bit, for some sweet damage spikes. I'm sitting at ~10% crit, ~300% multi with my current gear and skillset, which is overall a "15% more damage multiplier" if you do the maths (somewhere below in third or forth post, if you are interested), it's out-DPSing Resolute Technique with ease. You can totally skip that crit part, but I kinda like it. 4. I'll go mostly Evasion-based. This is not Acrobatics, it is just focussed more on Evasion than Armor. With granite flasks I still get 10k armor, I still have some armor passives (mostly because they also grant life), I still have armor gear... I just rely more on Evasion than on Armor. This legendary "xyz will oneshoot you" stuff so far didn't happen, not in any level of map. Or - to put it the other way around - stuff that pretty much oneshoots me would have also oneshot me with Iron Reflexes and 20k armor and should be avoided anyways. ;) 5. The tree will be all over the place. I don't like pure life node trees (after all, I'm not playing hardcore), and I was not too interested to make this build 75% block, 75% spellblock or some other extreme. I still have a lot of life, some other mitigation (armor, block, evasion), some points in mana, some in Damage. It is just not going nuts on it, it is a "balanced" tree, not an extreme tree. If you don't like this, again, your choice, but for me it works. --- Skilltree
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Current tree Lvl 90 Click me Why Ranger? You can do the same from Duelist and Marauder. Doesn't matter at all. Ranger gets a sweet 8% attackspeed node for free, but that's not that big a difference in the end. I took the girl because I haven't played one in a while, and because her start allows you to start as a dualswordwielder right away, with a Marauder this is a bit more difficult (Dex requirements, slow attackspeed,...). I'm not a huge fan of "Levelling builds", I want to dualwield from Lvl 1-90. How you level this? Pretty straight forward. You walk the line to Duelist, grab health nodes along the way, save damage nodes for later. Then you make it to Marauder, same story. You can spec in and out of the 12% Elemental Resist and Iron Reflexes whenever you so choose, and can take damage nodes whenever you feel like it. Where are further points going? There's still a couple of 6% life/6% armor nodes to take. And +1 max resist for fire/lightning would be kinda nice. And then maybe a bit more damage, but I will most likely not reach that point (Lvl 95+). Why no Iron Reflexes? I used it till about Lvl 83, then I dropped it. It has advantages and disadvantages to have less Armor and more Evasion, but for me, the Evasion benefits my tank more. And whenever I fight something hard, i pop my granites anyway. And I'm using the "Melee Damage on full life" gem, which benefits a lot from Evasion. Why the Crit Multi? Why no Resolute Technique? I took the two Crit multi nodes mainly because there is a 24% damage node behind them. And with quality Dual Strike, you get to ~10% crit chance, which isn't too much and I would NOT call this a "crit build" at all, but it really hurts the monsters once they get crit-multistriked. ;) You have absolutly no Accuracy issues as a Ranger, if you have 2-3 nice Accuracy affixes on your gear, so RT seems to be a waste. Even if it says only "88-90% chance to hit", it feels like 100% even in 78er maps. Why no capped block? I again don't feel this is really required. You can invest in more block, wear a Bringer of Rain etc, I've done it all before, but... it kinda feels the same. Same stuff still kills me, same stuff I survive. Why so few/many damage nodes? This amount of damage gets me to 30k DpS, without Hatred (with Hatred, it's ~40k). I don't even have very good swords, just decent ones, while still being able to survive most stuff. Why the Mana / reduced mana cost nodes? For a long time (until Lvl 90, actually), I only ran a 5L, and I will NOT ruin my damage with a bloodmagic gem. The 4 damage support gems I use are pretty much set, removing them... No. Simply no. This setup (-10% manacost, +40% mana, +50 Int) allows me, with minimum gear investment, to do two allout damage 6L Dualstrikes on mana. That's enough time for the manaleech to set in, ergo for constant attacks without any breaks, and it is enough for "wasting" some attacks (monster already dead, desync, stupidity) and not running out of mana. It is also nice that mana leech "lasts" for a while after attacking. This let's you waste attacks without consequences. The ranger keeps bitching around "I have no mana, need more mana" sometimes, but as long as you can hold down the rightclick button and constantly attack, all is fine. This is called "min-maxing". Why Marauder zone? Marauder zone sucks! You can find life elsewhere, I only go there for the 2% liferegen and the "20% Reduced Crit damage taken", and while we are there, why not grab all the life, armor, damage etc? --- Bandit Quest Reward
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Normal: Oak +40 life. No questions asked. Cruel: Kraityn or Oak. Both should deliver about the same damage, Oak saves mana as you attack slower, I took Kraityn this time... ;) Merciless: Oak for more survivability, Kraityn if you use Frenzy charges with Blood Rage, or just the skillpoint. Your choice. I took the point, but I will maybe respec into one of the two if I ever get my last lifenodes taken. --- Gems
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Main attack (torso): Dual Strike + Melee Splash + Melee Damage + Multistrike + faster attacks + x Those five are required. In a 4 Link, drop faster attacks. Do not even think (!) about the blood magic gem, life leech or even mana leech. That's such a waste of DpS, do this in your 6th link. ;) Use mana flasks until you can support it via leech, and once you have high levelled reduced mana, you can even use two auras plus this. Your 6th link can be... Added fire: reliable Dmagae multiplier Concentrated Effect: will require you to get more Int on gear, your splash will do more damage than your singletarget. Kinda funny. Melee Damage on full life: doesn't work with Blood Rage, but very high physical Multiplier, 99% uptime. 20q Culling Strike: DpS at no mana cost Blood Magic: now you can take it, as the important gems are taken. Auras (RRG and RGG sockets in your swords): Reduced mana + two out of Hatred, Grace or Determination. You can swap the gems around between the swords and try different combinations. Hatred gives you crazy DpS, but you don't really need it. And whenever you play in a party, you can be pretty sure someone has Hatred running anyways. Determination is "more armor", cool stuff, and Grace is a huge boost to Evasion rating. Mobility (iE sword, gloves): For crazy jumpers: Leap Slam + Blood magic + Faster attacks For more occasional jumpers: Leap Slam + Faster attacks + culling strike + item rarity (as high as you can level it) Option one lets you jump whenever and wherever you want. Who needs movespeed on boots? Option two gives you a nice magicfind option to finish of bosses, but not as many jumps as you run it off mana. This is used for evading dangerous stuff, jumpig over obstacles and through doors/cell walls etc. Or just to be quicker. Trigger gems I find this setup ideal. Lvl 1 Cast when Damage taken + Lvl 5 Enduring Cry, Temporal Chains Lvl 20 Cast when Damage taken + Lvl 20 Molten Shell, Immortal Call, Increased Duration The lowlevel setup triggers all day, it gives endurance charges and it curses monsters. The highlevel setup comes in when shit hits the fan, and that's the only time you need it, and both IC and MS really profit from high levels. In the lower setup you include: Blood rage for life leech, if you are not running "Melee Damage on full life". Increased Area of Effect, if you are. You can cast most of this stuff manually, without the trigger gem, but I am lazy as hell. ;) Rest of Slots/Swap Set Level sexy gems and sell them once they are 20. That's the easiest and safest way to make curreny (~20 chaos each). --- Quality on Gems If you got the currency for it... Your main attack gems of course all profit, it's simply more DpS. Temporal Chains, Immortal Call and Blood Rage should have quality, if not 20%, at least 10%. You can buy this pretty cheap. Your auras don't need Quality. --- Gearing up!
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The swords Whenever you feel too weak and you got some moneys: Open poe.xyz.is, select "1h swords", search, arrange by physical DpS and scroll down until you can pay the price. You get decent 200 pDpS swords for 2-5 chaos each, a lategame sword with ~250 pDpS will cost you about an Exalted. 300+ pDpS will cost a fortune, but is NOT required! Crit chance and crit multi would be nice, but make it at least twice as expensive. Fuck that. The Jewelry Life > Resists > physical Damage > Mana > Accuracy > Intelligence (if you want to run Hatred) In that order, unless you get a very sweet ring in all aspects expect life... Well, then do it. 2% mana leech somewhere here and/or on gloves (If you have both, you actually leech enough mana with standard attack if you run out). The Belt Rustic Sash with 60+ life, 300+ armor, resists. Armor Pieces You probably want a Dex/Str body armor to get RRRGG colors. Can be done with pure armor too, but may cost some Chromatics. You can use pure armor or mixed armor/evasion or pure evasion on the rest, doesn't matter too much. Stats: Life > resists > %protection > Accuracy > Str, dex, int You'll see in my gear that I wear 3 pieces without Life rolls, which is a shame, but they are so pretty damn sexy (and selffound!), that I can't get rid of them. --- Gearing while Levelling (for Beginners)
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There's two ways to play this game: 1) spend your moneys on poe.xyz.is whenever they come in and have a nice time throughout, but be poor at the end of merciless. 2) bite your teeth and save up, buy only if really needed, and then be the big spender in the end. I usually waste all kinds of currency while levelling, but try to hold on to Alchemys, Fusings, Chaos (and the more valuable stuff, of course). Trade currency in trade chat once it gets too much, but only up, not down (iE jewellers -> chaos, not chaos -> jewellers). You will be piss-poor in the beginning, and you will NOT sell your stuff, you will only buy. Spend, spend, spend, gimme your chaos orbs, n00b! And even if you sell after hours of Trade chat spamming, you will feel cheated. And you probably were cheated. That's the way of PoE. So: Treasure the sweetest stuff you find, reach a Ladder Position, open a shop with buyouts, and from that moment on, the chaos start flowing in. Without you investing any time or effort. It's literally a Day and Night scenario. Don't ever try to craft more than a 4 Link on a pretty piece of gear. Don't use chaos or Exalts on items. There's 100% someone in the internet who gives you a better item for the same price, without the chance of failing! Can't stress this enough! Talk to people, use poe.xyz.is, get familiar with it. You will NOT succeed on your own! And if you waste your Exalts on your gear, feel ashamed! ;) To get really rich, you will have to work in PoE as if it was a real job, grind and grind and grind, or totally luck out and chance a Soultaker or find a Crown of Eyes. You've seen threads about it countless times. But: No, this will not happen to you. I was lucky to find a Bringer of Rain, which got my economy rolling. But you should be prepared this could never happen to you. I already got stuff, what shall I do? Click me Here's what I did. Equip each and every damage piece I had in stash, two mightflays, and 3-5k DpS Dominus Normal down like there's no tomorrow... ;) --- My Gear (Lvl 89) I leave it in as it is more realistic.
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All selffound/selfcrafted except for weapons and helmet. Currently trying to get some chaos resist up, and to get a 6 Link. With this setup, I can do most content in facetank style, but there's still a lot of stuff I have to manually dodge or completly avoid, and some fights are 50:50. But that's also because I yolo in all day long. ;) 6L Gear (Lvl 90)
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See I finally added culling+rarity to get some more items (helmet) --- Required Uniques None. Nothing. I had a Belly of the Beast for a long time, because I am too poor to invest in sexy cosmetic stuff (or because I find it ridiculously overprized), and the Belly is one torso that looks pretty damn cool. That's about the only reason, the 30-40% life are great, but not that much better than a flat life roll, combined with more armor, more resists... If better at all. i doubt. ;) --- Flasks Get 2 Bubbling Hallowed Life Flasks of Remove Freeze/Chilled/shocked (as this is annoying). Get 1-2 Granite Flasks of Iron Skin with 90+% armor. Pop whenever in danger. Get a Hybrid flask of "Removes Bleeding", with Corrupted Blood introduced, this is 100% required. Situationally you may want to use Resist Flasks, too. My flasks:
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--- Character screenshot 5L setup
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Screen with Defenses with Determination + Grace. Armor with granite flask. DpS in normal setup with and without frenzy charges, DpS with Hatred and Frenzy  Character screenshot 6L setup
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 That DpS! --- Concerning Maps, Bosses, Nemesis Mods, Exiles, Strongboxes
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Map Mods: Obviously dangerous stuff is obviously dangerous. Handle with care. (minus max resists, cursed with vulnerability, dangerous double bosses...) Obviously annoying stuff is obviously annoying. Better don't handle. (monsters fracture, temporal chains, chilled ground...) Half/no regen/Blood Magic: run zero or only one aura, use your hybrid flask a lot more. Reflect: not too big of an issue, before charging into large packs, better pop a granite flask. Chaos damage, burning ground: fucks up the melee damage on full life gem. Another reason to go for added fire, at least on maps with this mod... ;) Usually I go for pack size, double bosses, extra exiles, rare or magic monsters. Add some "difficulty" you can handle, and you are set for some sweet level experience. If you want it challenging, it can be done as well, but of course it requires more awareness and reactions/decisionmaking. --- Map bosses: *Voidbearer (73 Cells): Without damage mods - facetank, with: jump around a little and refill flasks maybe. *Shock and Horror (72 Torture Chamber): Once you have 4k life and 20k DpS you can easily do her. Go in, break her laser by hiding behind a pillar, jump to her and murder her. Topaz flask is nice to have against the rest of her stuff, but not required. *Fire witch (76 Crematorium): I'll be honest, I can't handle her. She just explodes me. Skip. *Dominus (Merciless, 74 Residence, 78 Palace): Learn the Pattern, and it's also a Gearcheck because you have to eat some of his stuff or it takes forever. *Vaal (74 Maze): Avoid lasers and smash, kill minions, facetank the rest. *Kole (71 Colonnade): Facetankable if not cursed with Vulnerability. *Dominus' Generals (78 Courtyard): Tough when fighting all 3 at the same time, but if you walk in slowly and lure them to you one after the other, very easy facetank fight. *Spider Queen (72 Jungle Valley?): This fight is usually facetankable, but if you are unlucky you will get a "Storm Herald", a "Allies can't die" or a "physical reflect" spider hero somewhere in this huge crowd, this can be very deadly. *Piety (71 temple, 77 shrine): Her lightning spells can quickly mount to some serious damage, use dispells shock flask. Her ice and fire form are no problem whatsoever. *Gravicus (77 shipyard) and all the rest I have forgotten: Facetank. --- Nemesis Mods: Usually all Nemesis Mods are welcome, I'm always happy to see the map affix. It's more about "what monster has it?". Storm herald - dangerous on very beefy monsters. Pop "dispells shocked", murder him. Corrupting blood - the same, but with "removes bleeding". Nullifier - can be very dangerous in extreme elemental damage situations. Inner treasure - avoid those, they are brutally hard. Run as fast as you can! ;) The rest - pfff, nothing to care about. --- Rogue Exiles: Hunt them down and murder them all. They are very easy with their lowered life. You want to avoid Magnus Stonethorn's Flameblasts with Leapslams, you want to be very careful about the Summoner Exile's exploding Minions, and the Immortal Call Lightning Warp Idiot is super-annoying to kill (ignore him until you cleared the map, he will most likely not follow you as he breaks vision himself. Don't chase him before clearing the zone, this can easily get you killed if you follow him into whatever monster mobs). --- Strongboxes: 1. Always identify! Realize dangerous stuff! Even reroll/craft the box sometimes (for loot or to avoid stuff). "Revives dead monsters with onslaught" can be brutal if there are a dead map boss and an exile next to the box. 2. Leapslam away right after clicking if it says it explodes or detonates corpses or contains 3 rare/blue packs. 3. Dispell strongbox effects like "freezes you" with the right flask. 4. Murder them all and loot. --- Well, that's it. I appreciate comments, ideas, critique, and would love to hear from your experiences with dualwielding. 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519 Last edited by Peterlerock on Sep 22, 2014, 3:26:34 AM
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I'd really drop Cruel Blade - you're only getting 8% damage per point out of it, and the crit multi is almost useless.
The two Melee Physical Damage nodes at the Duelist start could give you 27% increased melee physical damage and 12 life instead, or you could get another 24% damage and 6% increased attack speed from the other Duelist Branch, and then there's like a ton of other free 10% melee/1H nodes strewn all along your path. Personally the available nodes for Dual Wield and Swords/1H in this part of the tree always drive me near insane because there are too many options to pick from for optimizing - for example, Blade Master and Wicked Blade are two excellent noteables with good returns per point, and I could see myself pathing somewhat like this if I did this build: And I suspect it would end pretty much the same (maybe marginally better) DPS-wise. Really infuriating. |
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Your tree (going through bottom of Duelist and the sword nodes) is kind of what I ran initially.
Then I did 20k Dps with my 200pDpS levelling swords and midlevel gems. That's when I started to drop all the sword damage nodes. Then I dropped Hatred for Determination. Still do enough damage. ;) It's rough to do a dualwield build. So many pretty nodes. You have excellent Sword nodes (Blade Master, Wicked Blade). You have excellent Dualwield nodes (Dervish, Blade Barrier, Gallantry, Bravado, Duality, hell even Ambidexterity that I never saw in any build). And then there's also excellent onehanded damage nodes (the Marauder stuff, Fencing, Aspect of the Panther). You will just end up with too much damage if you take all these sweet nodes, so you got to choose some. I think it's pretty much equal where you get your damage from, just don't take too many of these nodes. ;) Direct comparison: You skip 3 nodes in marauder, 40% damage, 20str You skip 3 crit multi nodes, 24% damage, 40% crit multi You skip 2 nodes for Fencing, 24% damage, 3% attackspeed You skip 3 nodes in Duelist, 28% damage, 3% attackspeed. 116% damage, 6% attackspeed, 40% critmulti, 20 strength in 11 nodes. Instead you take: Wicked Blade 3 nodes: 36% damage, 10% attackspeed. Blade Master 4 nodes: 48% damage, 10% attackspeed, 8% accuracy. 2 nodes at Duelist start, 27% damage, 12 life. Still got 2 nodes to spend, let's say on Fencing: 24% damage, 3% attackspeed 135% damage, 23% attackspeed, 8% accuracy, 12 life. You probably win in the overall DpS department. Main reason: Both the left marauder onehanded damage node and the Duelist exit onehanded nodes are nothing compared to Blade Master and Wicked Blade. I might actually just change this and leave the rest as it is. Edit: Just respecced into this. Costs 1 point more, ergo lost 6% life and armor, grants 900 Dps and Frenzy duration. Ty. :) --- About the Crit multi. These are actually not "useless". Let's say I have 1000 damage and 150% critmulti, 90% to hit, 10% crit. Average damage: 10% no hit: 0 80% normal hit: 1000 10% crit: 1500. Average: 950 Now add the two 20% nodes, ergo 210% crit multi: 10% no hit: 0 80% normal hit: 1000 10% crit: 2100. Average: 1100 This is a damage increase of ~15%, but these 15% are not like "+15% increased physical damage" from some random node, this is multiplicative. If I got some normal damage instead, it would probably disappear in the 400something increased damage I'm already using, even if it were +30% damage, it would make for maybe a 2-5% DpS increase in the end. But math aside, the main two reasons I use these two nodes still are: 1. I found - really found on the ground, no strongbox - a 20% dualstrike. It gives me +80% crit chance, and I want to use these 80% crit somehow. ;) 2. I like how my crits hurt. I appreciate this much more than overall faster attacks. I already attack too fast, it looks kinda silly. 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519 Last edited by Peterlerock on Apr 30, 2014, 4:47:32 PM
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http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYAAv4MfRB_EZYVIBXnFy8ZhRmGGYoabBqPHNwdFB2qHpQkPCSqJpUnqSj6KaUqTSpbLOktRy2DL2826TyOPydFnUZxSVFKfUrITipQQlVLVcZV1lYtV8labVuvZOdnoG-ecLtzs3qqf8aApIIegseDCYPbh3aIQow2j0aTJ5cGmuCbtaEiokCnCKdcrD-sR6x_tAy0OLiTwcXDOsSixp7KSs9l0NDSGdVP1tHZE9sL3FfdDd5334ThiONq5Rnquuss6-7wa_F28h3z3fT49tr56PrS-wn8xQ==
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Finally saved up 14 Ex and got my 6L chest, not the greatest, but a 6L.
A decision has to be made on gem number 6. Dual Strike +Melee Splash +Melee Damage +Faster Attacks +Multistrike Those are set in stone. 1. I could go for Bloodmagic. This saves me 6 skillpoints, "mana flows" in Duelist (2) and the reduced mana nodes and Versatility in Marauder (+ the sweet 20% damage node on the other side of it, that would have to go as well, that makes 4). How much damage will I get out of 6 skillpoints? Where would I ideally spend them? 2. I could go for Conc Effect. It doesn't change the tooltip DpS, but it actually makes splashed monsters take more damage than the main target. Problem: mana multiplier of 160%. Quality Bonus -10% mana cost helps, my gem is only 19.7 at the moment, will test it once it is done. 3. I could go for Added Fire. I'm still not very interested in Elemental Damage though. 4. Melee Damage on full life. Another crazy DpS multiplier. Not working in Chaos damage maps, and not working with Blood Rage. Blood Rage can be substituted by an increased AoE gem in my Lvl1 Cast when damage taken setup (with 20q temporal chains and Enduring Cry in it). I gain 2 skillpoints for the Frenzy charges, which are needed for the mana nodes in Ranger to get at ~120 mana. Need a life leech ring as well as I lose 8% life leech. --- Did I miss something? I'm currently doing option number 4. DpS goes from 18-20k before to 28k, and melee full isn't even truly leveled yet. I doubt BM gem + Blood Rage +6 skillpoints (all Int/mana related stuff (8) gone, 2 Frenzy charges in again) would make for such a DpS increase, but if someone convinces me otherwise, I'll carefully listen. :) Current tree: Lvl89 The +30 Int node is in there only temporary, to finish levelling increased AoE, Item Rarity and Conc Effect. In 40 million xp, those will get quality, and if I keep iAoE in my CwDt, I'll probably not level it up to 20 (to save the Int). 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519 Last edited by Peterlerock on May 3, 2014, 4:02:33 AM
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For DPS I'd go for Added Fire Damage - basically 39% more damage that scales with all your physical nodes and it has a reasonable multiplier at 130%, no strings attached. What exactly don't you like about elemental damage?
Defensively, I'd take Blind into consideration - a blinded mob has 75% less chance to hit, which is huge considering you have decent evasion from the get-go. It also has no mana multiplier. |
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It's the animation I don't like too much...
I want it to look smooth and natural, I'm not a huge fan of all these explosions I get once I have fire damage on me... If you check my gear, you will note that I have not a single source of elemental damage (except for Hatred, which is only there to show damage potential). I actively don't use jewelry with flat elemental rolls. If i find a good one, I do not use it, I put it in my stash and try to sell it. If I could redesign the visuals of the game, I would cut like half of the on screen skill effects, I would remove the annoying floating bubbles you get from charges, I would add 2-3 attack animations for each skill instead of just one... (I would also give the templar pants, remove 80% of Scion's clothes and recolor rainbowstrides from pink to brown). ;) I know there's a lot of players who actually like to set the whole screen on fire, who find huge satisfaction in endless explosions where you don't even see the monsters or your character. Good for them, but that's not for me. --- I know added fire damage is probably superior to melee full (mana multiplier, reliability). But I played around 10 maps (72 - 77) with my current setup, and had a close look on my health bubble while doing so. That thing doesn't move. I have full health throughout almost any situation, most time even my pitiful 35 Energy Shield doesn't move (must be due to Evasion). The rare times I actually do take damage, health regen + leech, splitsecond later, full health. The rare time I actually get hit pretty hard, bubbling flask + regen + life leech, a second later, full health. To put it in numbers, I'd say: melee full works 99% of time. 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519
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Lvl 90 now.
Current tree Still some Int nodes involved, as I'm still levelling blue gems to 20. Will be removed one day (I don't even have the regrets to do it atm). Screens:
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Defense with Grace+Determination:  Not too happy with the armor value, but that's mostly a gear problem. And I still have two granite flasks. ;) Absolutly happy with the evasion. I'm on full life 99% of time in combat. Pure physical Offense 6L Dualstrike:  (melee full is 16/20, each level I get about 300 DpS, so I can expect 1200 more in the end with this gear) Just for the lolz, removed melee splash for Lvl 16 added fire, and activated lvl 19 Hatred:  Quite impressive for my not-so-great swords, I must say. Current gear
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I "crafted" (chaos-yoloed) this amulet: Would love to use it because of the flat life and the high phys roll, but then I have to swap some other parts of gear, and it all gets me nothing in the end... I would lose armor on belt, or life leech on ring, or whatever. ;) This is still my main project: get freaking life rolls and chaos resist on missing items. ;) 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519 Last edited by Peterlerock on May 4, 2014, 7:45:16 AM
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Yee know, I have a similar problem as you ...:
" ... all those physically/anatomically impossible melee attack animations, like Dual Strike with swords ... Maybe I could use Claws and pretend it's a dual stab, rather, but I'm a total noob, so I have no idea if it would be feasible ... what tree changes would you suggest? | |
" I would not use claw nodes, they are actually pretty bad. Lot of point investment for very little return. Even the 12% life leech cluster (who the hell needs like 30% life leech?). I'd modify my tree like this: Click me Removed the life nodes, got generic Dualwield and onehanded weapon nodes instead. Also took 6% more dualwield block to compensate for the loss of the 6% sword/life and the By the Blade nodes. If you want more crit (as claws are actually crit-based weapons), I would suggest a completly different approach, making use of the shadow zone instead of marauder. 3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519 Last edited by Peterlerock on May 4, 2014, 9:03:35 AM
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