2H Crit Axe Marauder - Simple Cheap and Flexible

I tend to like the more oddball stuff so this probably is not of a whole of interest to anyone but I'm liking this guy a lot so here goes.

This isn't so much of a guide as just sharing something I've done and enjoyed. Suggestions and critiques are welcome, I don't claim to be good at PoE.

PROS

CONS



GEAR

Alternate gear

PASSIVE TREE

VIDEO - 7 minute Gorge is not impressing anyone but does show lots of crit freeze and shatter, little or no flasking used during the map and good uptime on Onslaught. Also seeing the power charges flashing off and on a lot seems to indicate that the Romira's ring is doing a good job here. I feel that with better play skills and some gear upgrades gear this character could really shine. Still hoping to 6 link my axe one of these days!

Thoughts on the gear...
I had slightly worse version of this axe drop so I decided to try it out. It seemed promising so I bought the one I'm using for 1ex+10c. I see them available on poe.trade frequently so I don't think anyone attempting this build would have too much trouble getting an axe similar to mine.

I'm currently using Maligaro's gloves because a friend had them drop and offered them to me at a great price. They are very nice, but the upgrade from facebreakers (for the crit multiplier) was not huge. Facebreakers are a very good and cheap alternative. I've also run some rare gloves with high armour, resists and accuracy and they worked just fine.

The amulet slot is pretty flexible and depending on your resist requirements a good rare may be the way to go. The amulets shown in the "alternate gear" spoiler section have also worked well on this character, and I especially like the move speed from the warped timepiece.

Romira's Banquet I feel is a key item for this build. Try to get one with good rolls.

Boots, belt and one ring pretty much need to be rares with good resists to offset several uniques I am using that have no resists.

For the body armour I really like Daresso's Defiance. With the Iron Reflexes keystone it gives a lot of armour rating and I feel the the added dodge is also quite helpful. The onslaught buff and endurance charge generation are just icing on the cake. That said, I feel that a good rare chest would also work well, particularly an astral plate, as that would east the resist requirement on some other gear and possibly allow Atziri's Step boots, which I also would like. Carcass Jack would work well and you could run it mostly blue to save chromes. I have tried a tabula rasa with links including increased crits, increased crit damage, increased area of effect and concentrated effect and it looks very good. Maybe better than what I currently use. Belly of the Beast or lightning coil of course would be solid choices as well.

My choice in hats is Devoto's Devotion for the move speed and excellent armour rating, but Abyssus gives a very nice damage increase. I don't often use abyssus though because it seems like I die every time I wear that hat. Also the reduction in move speed is somewhat painful. If you're good at manual dodging stuff (unlike me) and prefer to leap slam around, abyssus may be the best choice for you.

Bandits - Oak, point, Kraityn
Currently I have the extra endurance charge from Oak, but seeing as how Daresso's Defiance is always consuming that charge I'm considering respeccing to the frenzy charge, which is almost always up.

Gem Links- Here's where you can really see how lazy I like to be. Put everything on auto!

Cyclone I like with faster attacks, Melee Phys damage, added fire and Increased area. I really like the one blue support because I can swap it for conc effect, increased crits, or rarity depending on the situation.
Leap Slam with Fortify and Faster Attacks. Put whatever feels good on any additional links.
CWDT - Immortal Call, Increased Duration, Molten Shell
CWDT - Blood Rage, Summon Ice Golem

I also like to have Smoke Mine for popping the death boxes and Decoy Totem for Elreon missions.

Levelling - to start off I would recommend heading towards Art of the Gladiator as soon as possible, then Amplify and then Slaughter. That will build your basic tree and you can add life or damage to suit as you go. Also pick up Resolute Technique until you get your crit axe. I used Kaom's Primacy and Hezmana's Bloodlust for quite a while. You could also use just about any two handed weapon until you get into the axe damage wheel but I prefer axes because of their longer range.


Additional general comments - The passive tree features good amounts of life, life leech, life regen and armour, making for a very tanky feeling character. Some move speed helps him not feel like a slug, and plenty of damage on the tree along with some crit makes him fun to play IMO. A little mana leech on gear is all that's required to support cyclone on mana. Hatred and Herald of Ice really help get stuff frozen and shattered, which is something I really enjoy.
So far I have not had issues with any map mods. No life/mana regen is easy because of the leech, and the Juggernaut node really helps in that situation. Temp chains/frozen ground doesn't seem so bad with leap slam. Phys reflect can be dealt with by using phys to lightning, ele reflect by swapping haste in place of hatred etc. The only map mod I hate is bloodlines and that only because of heralds of the obelisk. Those specifically would be much easier with Carcass Jack. I always find myself hunting around for that last damn mob and the extra area damage would be a huge help in that case.

Any feedback on this one guys? Too wierd? Too weak? Boring? Have I screwed up by not taking something important? Bad writeup?

If it looks weak and boring to you that's fair, I'd like to hear some thoughts on this build.

Actually was using Maligaro's gloves, don't know how I accidentally got those Sadima's gloves on there. Was running about 50K DPS before charges and really wanting a 6th link somewhere. Messing around with a tabula and abyssus I had 97K tool tip in the hideout so there's some good potential on a pretty tight budget. Except for the 6 link in a good armour (or on the axe). Was working hard on 6 linking something but had enough of that BS and have stopped playing.

If you're on TSC let me know and I'll hook you up with my fleshripper. Pretty much all other decent gear has already been given away.

That's pretty weird that I got my gear all messed up like that. I put on that stuff maybe two times to run around Crypt level 2 seeing if I could get a celestial justicar to drop (didn't drop =P). In that situation I wasn't worried about high damage, just IIQ and move speed. I could have used a quicksilver for that too but I was being lazy and mostly just moused around without even having my left hand on the keyboard.

Here's his actual stuff and I have a rat's nest on standard league that I'll try if I get back to playing PoE. I'll play around with flasks as I rarely use the mana flask anyway except on -regen or no regen maps and could play with the gems too. I kind of like the versatility of a blue gem in there somewhere because I can swap out increased area/concentrated effect/increased crits/phys to lightning depending on map rolls or bosses. Increased crits seems to give a decent boost to freezing higher level enemies and I tend to favor that over increased area on higher tier maps. Used with Herald of Ice, the shattering damage helps a fair amount.



But after all this I suspect that if I were to get an Atziri axe and go RT, I could swap some straight up damage gear in place of the crit stuff and be much better off. Kind of feels like I got myself into a newb trap there.

Maybe we'll see how it plays after Ascendancy hits or maybe not. I haven't had a lot of interest in gaming for a couple weeks now, no telling if it will come back around.

Thanks for the feedback by the way!