Where to go From here? Help w/ Phys ST/DS Build

Greetings!

A little background:
I played POE at initial launch and stopped after the first league (that introduced Scion) ended. I started back up about 1.5 months ago. I wanted a casual and inexpensive build as I was starting the league from scratch. I went with this build: Say_Ten's Double Strike/Spectral Throw Melee Scion.
I modified it a little and overall I like it. It's fun and fairly effective on a low budget.

I recently broke the piggy bank and purchased an Atziri's Disfavour 5L/6S. After losing the free blood magic from Hezmana's, I was at a crossroads with the build. My temporary solution, which may end up being the perma solution, was to simply add a 0.29 mana leech jewel. It is working as I only reserve Hatred + HOA - leaving me with about 150 or so mana. As long as I hit 1 mob, I regen all mana. Other than that, I swapped out Added fire on my Double Strike 5L for Bloodlust.

I'm moving onto t12+ maps. Doing OK with rare/corrupts, but still die to some bosses as I learn their tendencies.

What I ask from you guys is recommendations where to go from here.
Should I explore adding poison? buff up bleed damage? Focus on defense/damage mitigation? Swap some skill/supports? Change Auras (add a 3rd) etc.

I'm on a budget of about 250c (if I sell my other currencies)

I'll post my stats when I get home (at work atm), but I roughly have 150-200K dps with DS and 35-50K dps with ST. About 5.4K life. I forget my armor but I'm at about 45% phys reduction unbuffed.







Thanks, fellas! (and ladies)

Bump because I want immediate results.

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Jooksone wrote:

Bump because I want immediate results.

If you insist :P

Have some opinions!

I don't really like using Unwavering Stance, ever, in the current game version, because it un-enables Blind. I would personally spec out of it so I could save +3 passive points and enable use of Stibnite Flask to double EHP vs Attack DPS.

This may be expensive but I would rather remove the resistances at Scion bottom-start, and use the Projectile Damage path through instead; this means you'd have to find more resistances on gear or jewels.

Your further passive points should probably just go towards more Life; when Life nodes are touching your current path, they're very tempting because they have no loss of efficiency from pathing.

I would also personally cut a few damage nodes (or wait until you can get more passives) in favour of getting up to 5 max end charges (+1 near Mara area, +1 near Duelist area), and grabbing the little Life/Resist notable called Barbarism to the left of Marauder start.

5 Endurance Charges is guaranteed 20% PDR, or 25% more EHP against physical. Compared to 3 ECs for guaranteed 12% pdr,, or 13.64% more EHP against physical.

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adghar wrote:

Have some opinions!

Thanks for your input! Curious, are you suggesting I also drop Iron Reflexes if I drop US? And what about dealing with stuns?
Also, would I then want to utilize a blind ability? Ancestral Protector + blind?

Thanks.

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Jooksone wrote:

Thanks for your input! Curious, are you suggesting I also drop Iron Reflexes if I drop US?

No, there is some curious rules-lawyering going on there. Blind is a modifier to Chance to Hit which means it doesn't affect or depend on any Ratings. The only thing that Iron Reflexes affects is Rating; it converts Armour Rating to Evasion Rating. However, it doesn't touch Chance to Hit nor Chance to Evade.

This means that with Iron Reflexes, you can still reduce an enemy's default 95% chance to hit to 47.5% chance to hit using Blind. However, Unwavering Stance directly says you cannot Evade, so enemy Chance to Hit will always be 100% if you have it.

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And what about dealing with stuns?

Life builds generally don't have to worry about stuns at all; by default, Stun Chance is based on Hit Damage divided by your maximum Life, which means that a "proper optimized" endgame Life build will not get stunlocked; it won't get stunned except by the heaviest of hits, which are usually telegraphed and include a pause afterwards where you can catch your breath. Also, you seem to have quite a bit of Armour built up and despite what General Discussion and Feedback and Suggestions will tell you, Armour helps against big physical hits too when you combine it with Endurance Charges and have a ton of it, as you seem to do.

If you were to take my suggestion but find that you're still having issues with stun, you could switch to a Cloth Belt for stun recovery, use Flasks that have stun recovery, find Gauntlets with stun recovery, or, worst case, switch back to your old setup and take Unwavering Stance again :P

I doubt you'll have a problem though, especially if you get to 90 taking only Life nodes for your next few points, and spring for 5 ECs like I said before.

Thanks, buddy. I will consider all of what you said. What's your recommendation for incorporating blind in my build? Totem + blind seems popular.

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Jooksone wrote:

Totem + blind seems popular.

Certainly! Ancestral Warchief + Faster Attacks + Blind would work pretty well.

It might sound kooky, but a Level 1 CwDT + Firestorm + Blind might work wonders as well. Or of course you could add it to your current Lv. 6 CwDT setup.

Now that we're talking gem logistics, I'm not sure what you meant by EConMStun vs CwDT. CwDT always triggers Spells: ECoMS can only support Melee (Attacks); there are no skills in the game right now that are both Spell and Attack. Maybe you were thinking of Vengeance + ECoMS? But I heard that works fine.

And yeah, I'd agree Cyclone is expendable, and that CWDT IC is... not as useful as it looks at first glance. Decoy Totem is up to you; it's great for defense but like you said if your defenses are set then a melee Totem would be more useful.

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adghar wrote:

Now that we're talking gem logistics, I'm not sure what you meant by EConMStun vs CwDT. CwDT always triggers Spells: ECoMS can only support Melee (Attacks); there are no skills in the game right now that are both Spell and Attack. Maybe you were thinking of Vengeance + ECoMS? But I heard that works fine.

Thanks.

I meant that I read (and experimented) that enduring cry on low level CoDT doesn't really work? at least not effectively like it used to? My ECoMS is what I have been using to generate EC on my leap slam.

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Jooksone wrote:

I meant that I read (and experimented) that enduring cry on low level CoDT doesn't really work? at least not effectively like it used to? My ECoMS is what I have been using to generate EC on my leap slam.

Oh, well then! Shortly after CWDT was added to the game, everyone was using it for Enduring Cry. Then, soon after that, the game developers changed Enduring Cry so that it is no longer a Spell (they added the Warcry skill type). So it is literally impossible to trigger Enduring Cry with Cast when Damage Taken in the current game version, no matter what levels the gems are.

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adghar wrote:

Oh, well then! Shortly after CWDT was added to the game, everyone was using it for Enduring Cry. Then, soon after that, the game developers changed Enduring Cry so that it is no longer a Spell (they added the Warcry skill type). So it is literally impossible to trigger Enduring Cry with Cast when Damage Taken in the current game version, no matter what levels the gems are.

Ah, I see. Now I know. Thanks!