[2.1] Talisman CI/life viper strike build

Update!

Gear:


Passive skill tree build

Would a Death's hand really improve my DPS over dual Bino's? It doesn't really make sense in my mind (I'm still quite new to this game). I'm also tempted to try Ming's Heart as I do have one in my stash, but I don't think I can afford the health loss (lvl 84).

What would you guys invest in next? I'm thinking a belt with high health so I can use a ming's heart, and Death's hand if you guys think that's a good idea.

Hey guys you really think the "Written in Blood"-Cluster is worth picking it up? You get 20% max life and 10 strength out of these 4 points since our ES is close to nothing anyway. So i thought about picking up 2 jewel spots instead. With the posted dual wield crit tree we would also spend 4 points for those 2 jewel spots and 2 out of 3 possible (10str 10dex 10int) nodes. So if i pick up the 1 with the 10str ahead you aready balanced out that. Because as i noticed strength can be a problem without any on gear. So with the 2 jewels we can easily get 14% max life what is only 6% less than the cluster gives us and in addition we have already 10 more int or dex and still plenty of potential on the jewels we can roll more attributes or resistances or even crit or phys damage. I know life is a problem on this build but since most of us play softcore anyway i think we can get much more out of the jewels than the Cluster gives us.
Please let me know what you guys think about that

Xyrre i just saw that you don't have any manaleech on your gear how can you sustain your mana pool? Seems like you don't use any flask either.

"

HalloMrBush wrote:

Hey guys you really think the "Written in Blood"-Cluster is worth picking it up? You get 20% max life and 10 strength out of these 4 points since our ES is close to nothing anyway. So i thought about picking up 2 jewel spots instead. With the posted dual wield crit tree we would also spend 4 points for those 2 jewel spots and 2 out of 3 possible (10str 10dex 10int) nodes. So if i pick up the 1 with the 10str ahead you aready balanced out that. Because as i noticed strength can be a problem without any on gear. So with the 2 jewels we can easily get 14% max life what is only 6% less than the cluster gives us and in addition we have already 10 more int or dex and still plenty of potential on the jewels we can roll more attributes or resistances or even crit or phys damage. I know life is a problem on this build but since most of us play softcore anyway i think we can get much more out of the jewels than the Cluster gives us.
Please let me know what you guys think about that

Xyrre i just saw that you don't have any manaleech on your gear how can you sustain your mana pool? Seems like you don't use any flask either.

I use 1 0.4leech node above IR down from the 10dex

"

Pikabanga wrote:

Would a Death's hand really improve my DPS over dual Bino's? It doesn't really make sense in my mind (I'm still quite new to this game). I'm also tempted to try Ming's Heart as I do have one in my stash, but I don't think I can afford the health loss (lvl 84).

What would you guys invest in next? I'm thinking a belt with high health so I can use a ming's heart, and Death's hand if you guys think that's a good idea.

It's a free power charge generator eliminating the need for PCoC or AssMark, and the unholy might is just an extra ~25% damage increase through chaos damage. It's a bit pricey, and has a couple of alternatives

Soul Taker, if you want to reserve all of your mana (still expensive)
Relentless Fury gives you culling strike and onslaught on cull (hard to utilize end game)
Brightbeak for res and fast leap slam
Doon Cuebiyari for increased armor and extra 4 link (I guess?)
Or a rare stat stick if you want res or something

Realistically Death's Hand is the biggest DPS increase but something like Brightbeak or Relentless Fury can be a cheaper alternative with some utility if that's what you're going for.

Glad to see some update in that post.
I'm playing a VP build DW crit, following mostly one of the tree in the replies. I got couple questions/comments:

- while using an incompatible off hand, do we keep the attack speed / block bonus ? This means you hit as fas as dual dagger with hitting only with the main hand ? That seems pretty broken mechanism to me, but if it works, why not ! I will change immediately my setup which is dual dagger.

- I found the AOE not really good, a guy says he is using reaver to clear pack, kinda sad since this is supposed to be a VP build. I have only half quality on melee splash, will try fix that later.

- I'm running artctic amour + temporal chain with blasphemy + low level clarity for comfort as i normally don't need with a 0.2 mana leech, but i can't reserve anything else. I'm heading for iron reflex then I will switch to Grace. 10k armour sounds sweet.
But one question about iron reflex, If I use eva pot, this will increase my armor even more than granite (because of tree node) ?

- The leveling was painful in normal and merciless difficulty. Cruel was piece of cake with multistrike available.

- How do you stun in your build with Death's hand ?? I don't get how you can generate PC. That's pretty sweet since I could get rid of assassin's mark

"

reliq wrote:

- How do you stun in your build with Death's hand ?? I don't get how you can generate PC. That's pretty sweet since I could get rid of assassin's mark

I'm wondering the same thing actually!

"

reliq wrote:

Glad to see some update in that post.
I'm playing a VP build DW crit, following mostly one of the tree in the replies. I got couple questions/comments:

- while using an incompatible off hand, do we keep the attack speed / block bonus ? This means you hit as fas as dual dagger with hitting only with the main hand ? That seems pretty broken mechanism to me, but if it works, why not ! I will change immediately my setup which is dual dagger.

- I found the AOE not really good, a guy says he is using reaver to clear pack, kinda sad since this is supposed to be a VP build. I have only half quality on melee splash, will try fix that later.

- I'm running artctic amour + temporal chain with blasphemy + low level clarity for comfort as i normally don't need with a 0.2 mana leech, but i can't reserve anything else. I'm heading for iron reflex then I will switch to Grace. 10k armour sounds sweet.
But one question about iron reflex, If I use eva pot, this will increase my armor even more than granite (because of tree node) ?

- The leveling was painful in normal and merciless difficulty. Cruel was piece of cake with multistrike available.

- How do you stun in your build with Death's hand ?? I don't get how you can generate PC. That's pretty sweet since I could get rid of assassin's mark

Xyrre,
LOL I wish I could worry about a 6th link already ;) Definitely go with AoE as your main clearspeed-limiting factor will be range. With your gear and damage I would consider using AoE even in the 5L for better clearspeed.
Again, very happy that my theorycrafted tree is working so well endgame and hoping I'll be able to get there as well in HC Talisman (had a couple close calls already hehehe).

reliq,
yes the incompatible offhand is kinda "broken" but it has been known for a long time, and (ab)used by any DW reave build out there, so it's standard operating procedure really.
Kazamieras has listed some good alternatives too!
I'm not sure if they have fixed it yet (don't think so), but in case your offhand weapon is actually faster than your dagger, you get the APS from it too! Assuming Bino's at 1.4 and a Death's Hand or Relentless Fury at 1.5, it actually behaves like a 1.5 APS Dagger as well.
However this only counts base weapon APS, so something like a 1.7 APS Axe in offhand doesn't boost dps any further (I tested this in 2.0).
With all this, keep in mind your tooltip doesn't reflect any of it! Not the faster APS from offhand weapon, and your tooltip damage will also be low because the damage is calculated from both weapons, when in fact you are only attacking with one.

If you are new to this game, the first thing you need to understand is that tooltip DPS is - in most cases - fairly useless. It's all about clearspeed.
If you are on a low budget, just get a Relentless Fury Axe for 1c and you will already see the difference, especially if you have a slow dagger.

Here's answers to the rest of your questions, in random order :)
- You automatically stun monsters just by having enough damage. Any type of damage can stun, and we a re getting a shitton of it ;)
- Yes, Jade flask is nicer because both EV and AR nodes apply to it. However for ultimate armor during high phys boss fights, you can use Jade + Granite as the effects will stack!
- Yes, you keep all normal DW boni like block and attack speed by equipping an incompatible offhand. There really is no downside
- For mana sustian I am currently using one 0.4% mana leech node, that is enough once your phys damage is high enough. You can also get it from gear, or jewels. Or use +2 mana gained on hit jewel. I will soon craft my gloves with mana leech to save that point
- I'm using Reave for AoE/map clearing mostly because of Vaal Reave just being too OP not to use. YOu basically get full screen range, or a bit more even. I can attack dangerous bosses as if I was ranged, once I have my 8 reave stacks from Vaal Reave I just hold the "attack in place" key and hit the dangerous mob/boss from afar. In hardcore, this can be neccessary. If you are playing softcore you can just use Viper Strike - melee splash - melee phys - multistrike - increased AoE to get better range (needs 5l though)

Hope I got em all, lot of questions :P

Have you tried added chaos? Given that many of your nodes are giving both phys AND chaos bonuses and that chaos bonuses will double dip on any added chaos base damage, added chaos is currently my strongest support gem. My gear is junk but if you have a fast hitting weapon it's probably the same for you. Check your tooltip with added chaos. The tooltip may be inaccurate, but it's pretty accurate for the pre poison calculation. My physical damage is about 500 per hit, using melee physical damage gives me ~30% more of that (166ish), but added chaos gives about 400+ damage per hit with increases which is nearly double to triple the bonus of any other gem.

And really, given that added chaos gives the most dps, it's almost better to scrap phys entirely and go full chaos with the new poison/chaos supports. And use the fastest hitting weapon you can find.

"

Legatus1982 wrote:

Have you tried added chaos? Given that many of your nodes are giving both phys AND chaos bonuses and that chaos bonuses will double dip on any added chaos base damage, added chaos is currently my strongest support gem. My gear is junk but if you have a fast hitting weapon it's probably the same for you. Check your tooltip with added chaos. The tooltip may be inaccurate, but it's pretty accurate for the pre poison calculation. My physical damage is about 500 per hit, using melee physical damage gives me ~30% more of that (166ish), but added chaos gives about 400+ damage per hit with increases which is nearly double to triple the bonus of any other gem.

And really, given that added chaos gives the most dps, it's almost better to scrap phys entirely and go full chaos with the new poison/chaos supports. And use the fastest hitting weapon you can find.

Have you compared it to Void Manipulation?

Void manipulation is really good, but still won't beat added chaos unless you are doing like 1000 base damage per hit before crits. It's going to take either a 2hander, or a ton of flat phys on gear (and im not sure such an amount is possible). I think no matter what you do added chaos will be your best first support, but I haven't done extensive math yet.

It does depend on your tree, but if you're getting chaos on your tree then you should always be better with added chaos as your first gem. It buffs the initial hit, similar to the way melee phys damage would, only in much larger amounts in most (almost all) cases.

Anything after that is only affecting the dot - IE, you have VS, melee phys, melee phys on full life, and you can now choose between added chaos or void manipulation. Added chaos adds BASE DAMAGE, which is then doubled, at the least, by the poison application. Void manipulation put in that slot instead of added chaos would buff ONLY the dot.