[2.6] Varunastra Cleave Slayer. Starting Legacy league couldn't have been easier.

People whine about 2.6 and dead of melee. I wanted to play melee in 2.6 as starter since I played Ranger bow in 2.5 already. As cleave gets a nice threshold jewel and the availability of Varunastra I come up with an effective league starter build using 2 Varunastra and cleave.

Why Slayer and not Gladiator, even though I'm dual wielding. Slayer is cheap, effective and good lab farmer.
Carnage heart was buffed in 2.6 to become one of the best Amulet for Slayer.

With Slayer I don't have to invest into block chance like Gladiator, and can go all out on offensive while still having reasonable defense from huge leech rate. Varunastra, with proper investment on skill tree can be very powerful, taking it up to endgame without any trouble, and is much easier to access this league compare to "league starter" Soul Taker builds ( Soul Taker is about twice the price of Varunastra in Legacy which is pretty fucking crazy when you think about it)

So lets get to business here with how the build works:

Cleave uses 60% of combined dps from both hand while dual wielding. With 2 Varunastra, scaling crazy phys dps from "By the Blades" and "Deadly Dilettante" I can have very good DPS with the ability to have decent crit chance as well. Before obtaining Varunastra, I used 2 Scaeva and even then, clear speed was super good, damage was solid. A setup of Scaeva in the main hand and Varunastra in the offhand is also very strong with the high base crit of Scaeva. In general, the transition from Scaeva to Varunastra feels very subtle and the build doesn't require 2 Varunastra to work.

Slayer Ascendancy provides extremely high leech rates, 20% culling, reflect immunity and good AOE boost. All makes for a very cheap and effective build, able to map comfortably even on a 4 link cleave.

The new threshold jewel provides fortify on hit and aoe boost for cleave which is very good quality of life.

Downside of the build is that it's life, melee so many things can kill you if you are not being careful, or have good flask setup and reaction.

Gearing:


Skill tree:


Gem links and gem setup:


Leveling, Variant with different weapons:


General Mapping



So far with this build, I've done Normal Atziri, Xoph Breach Stone and up to t12 maps all smoothly. Killed Abaxoth in a t7 Catacomb map with some nasty rolls too. All seems going quite well.

I hope this build guide helps lost souls to find the ways to melee in PoE.

Catch me die trying to do Phys reflect maps on my twitch channel at https://www.twitch.tv/habeo123. I dont stream too often though and quality is questionable.

If you have suggestions or questions feel free to ask, I'll do my best to answer them.

Ghazzy's project build of the week:


Changelogs:

Updated Skill tree section.
Updated Gear section with additional information about 6l chest vs BoR.

Hyype!
Could you make lvling section with trees step by step?

Edit: is it viable to play with lacerate instead of cleave?

Updated to include Leveling and build variant section.

About Lacerate, it operates in a different way than Cleave that it uses each weapon for 1 swing. Lacerate also has a Less atk speed multiplier, and much lesser base dmg multiplier. Technically it will only achieve half the DPS of Cleave, but cover a larger area.

In conclusion, for novelty purpose you can use lacerate on lower tier maps but don't expect it to achieve the same range of DPS as Cleave.

This build looks fun! What is your crit chance on cleave and what is your life pool?

How would blade flurry work with this build?
Thoughts on going abyssus with a 6l chest?

Currently I have 45% crit chance, 250% crit multi. With diamond Flask crit is quite consistent still and you can feel the differences when diamond flask is up.

Life is at 5k right now with really bad gear. Basically with more levels and better gears I can achieve 5.5k life.

An Abyssus and Lightning Coil can be very good option, however I wouldn't count on Abysuss too much, unless you go Iron Reflex, use Grace instead of Hatred.

A Soul Taker variant with Resolute Technique can reserve the last 25% mana for Arctic Armour, and I think that is the much better choice if you wanted to go Abyssus.

I think at this point, good steel ring is much stronger option compare to Abyssus.

Bringer of Rain is by no mean the Best in Slot for the build, since there are other options. It just happens that I got BoR dropped from mapping and its an effective 6l earlier on in the league.

Been playing this since yesterday. Level 52 right now. I feel incredibly overpowered so far. Using two: currently just because I had them in my stash. Pretty ok damage.

I bought 2: but I think I realize now why you'd only want to use one of those.

Gonna use this: in the other jewel slot instead for now. Any chance on an update to the tree? Curious to see what nodes you'll be grabbing. Thanks for the build, by the way.

What gear would you say this build would ultimately use? Would it be viable for all the end-game content save for Shaper?

Hi, I have updated some more information in skill tree and gear section that hopefully will help.

For your question about endgame, I am confident that the current gear can take me to t16 maps without much struggle. Uber atziri is doable since it's mostly mechanical and my conc effect combined dps with totem is over 400k which will be sufficient.

However to truly be endgame smooth poison is probably still better. Especially when the build reaches attack speed of 0.12 with a level 12 faster attack from Bringer of Rain. A 20/20 faster attack will take it to 0.1 or 0.09 so poison stacking become even stronger.

So, for endgame you will need a 6l chest, if going Poison then Cherrubim Maleficent is best in slot, otherwise 6l Astral Plate that fill up neccessary resistances with t1 life to free up 2 steel ring with good phys roll.

Other ways would be going with Vinktar and The Retch and capitalize on the huge leech to damage mechanic from The Retch.

Or like someone above mentioned Abysuss is crazy good given you can provide sufficient defenses, like Lightning Coil (legacy Variant even better).

Thanks for the update! Glad to hear this build will run easily into higher tier maps since that's all I ever planned on using it for anyways.

I will try to record a video when I get my hand on some interesting content like high tier map or normal atziri.