1.3 Blitz Diarrhea | Static Strike | Feb 3. Major Update!

My experience is, people who bash actually armor never played armor. They always come up with numbers like "blue mob X deals Y damage in a 77 map, you can't survive that with armor!" with mob X usually being Vaal Fallen. I almost exclusively play armor and never died to physical damage endgame speaking. I never really got capped block and usually ended up with 35-50% block and 3-4 e-charges. This build is basically the first time I'm using Immortal Call, which I mostly don't cast because 12,000 armor with 32% block in Standard is enough to mitigate most of incoming physical damage. But we're speaking about 1h/shield which is 60% block in Torment (69% in Standard) and also has 12,000 armor...

Is Iron Reflexes important? Depends. It gives you a lot of flexibility. But, if you're playing 1h/shield and your gear (except BoR) is solely armor-based, I wouldn't take it. And I would do something like this:
+24% attack speed.

But, keep in mind you'd need godly armor on other gear pieces.

BTW, level 90 melee in Beyond is crazy good. If you're gonna reach level 85+ in Bloodlines with my build I'd happy to see it.

Once you're going shield with no IR anyway, does it make more sense to go Abyssus and armor body?

Shield is an alternative for dual-wielding, nothing less, nothing more. It's meant especially for those willing to play hardcore. Skipping IR isn't recommended by any means, if you feel like doing it, sure, you can do it. My point is, I don't wanna restrict you to play the build exactly as I'm playing it. If you wanna bring some changes, sure, go for it, someone already asked about Abyssus. But going Abyssus/6-link isn't and won't be included in the guide. I don't see the point in going shield to max your physical damage reduction and lower the cost of the build (Lioneye's is way cheaper than Doryani's) and then recommening Abyssus and a godly 6-link chest.

I did the Molten Strike 1h/shield build last season and I loved it, Excited to give the dual wield route a try this time around once my Temp hits 85.

How is this build as a starting build for the new Leagues?

There is no armor in your equipment section. can you add it please.

@Denzo: so far, so good, at least for me. You might struggle getting a good Doryani's early in the league tho.

@Durch: you can't wear a body armor with Bringer of Rain.

Ok so i have reached lvl 85 in Bloodlines today.
I did with bit diffrent build becouse I don't have:
Bringer of Rain
Catalyst
quality gems
40k dps :P

I play with old good 280 dps sabre with 19k dps right now. 5800 HP/16000 armor/34% block.

The biggest problem in Bloodlines are... maps. This kinda discourage me to play more. Maybe i will continue after christmas.
The skill itself is very strong for starting characters. It works well even with weaker weapons.

The skills looks stronger than Reave.

Yeah, there's still very little top tier uniques in temp leagues, so getting a BoR or a Catalyst will take some time. We simply need the market to settle a bit.