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

Hi Habeo. Looks like a really cool build idea and one I'm going to give a go as soon as i six-link my cospri's. That's the thing though; I want to go the poison variant of the build, and I read your brief overview on page 4. But could you give me an idea of how to change the skilltree to go with the soul takers? I'm no poe expert by any stretch and I'd appreciate the guidance if you've got the time.

Also as someone thats not accustomed to power levelling with melee classes; whats the best levelling skill(s) to use?

Thanks guys.

I just leveled with cleave, if going for dualwielding swords from start, like i did, otherwise you can spec into those nodes later and just use two handed+ sunder, eq, depends on what you preffer.

Now that I'm @ my pc i can update the storry behind my slayer.
Currently lvl 91

Gear


current flasks


so far did: atziri- deathless, uber itzaro- deathless full key run, minotaur- deathless(no crazy mods), hydra- one death(bad play on my part).
Even though hydra is poison immune, our dps is still up to par because we use vuln, it takes a bit longer, but it is doable.
Will try shaper in a day or two.
Breachlords all down deathless, except chayula(i need to get a nice chaos resist breach ring before i dive in).

BoR+ varunastras got me up to tier 14 without any struggle.
I made the switch to cospiri's at level 86 and it feels even better, you have so many otions.
I run vuln +temp chains+ enlighteen and HoF.but HoF can be changed for arctic armor if you want extra deff.
I used to have iron reflexes node, but then decided to spec out and take more life and a jewl slot.
Evasion seems a bit better than armor.

Overall it's a great build and it feels amazing from start to end.
biggest con to it it's melee. Yup, sometimes volatile mobs will fuck you up if you don't pay attention.Lion roar is great to keep you safe against those, as it knoks thir explosion our of our range.

It's a fun build, where you actually feel like playing a game instead of jsut mindlessly farming with VP + vinktar and high es.

So, if you just want to farm and facetank everything this build is not for you.

Cost wise if you go for cospiri's it's not as efficient and safe like going for high es + howa or something like that for the same budget.

Good positioning is highly required when doing harder bosses.
Some tips would be to use a wyrm jar in bosses that don't have ads, it will proc the "on kill" effect, giving a nice juicy bonus to the dps. When fighting map bosses, position yourself to push the bosses agains a wall when you knock them back, you don't loose dps this way.

All in all, thanks for the guide, i will try to think of things to improve to my current setup.
Do you think soultaker+ good rare axe would be better?
Thanks!

The reason I don't particularly like Cospri is because of the cost for a 5 off color cospri is absolutely unnecessary, as I would always love to restrain my builds to work on much lower budget and achieve good result.

However, Cospri just make all problem go away and Soul Taker + high PDPS are axes are, in my opinion much stronger than Varunastra. The higher frontal dmg input (not crit based thus crit chance and crit multi does not factor in at all) is much more consistent.

For power leveling with Slayer, this is my tip, in my opinion the BEST leveling method using bunch of fancy uniques:

The Warden Brand x2
Limpsplit -> Wideswing -> Cauterizer (in order of level requirement) (fit in 1 more like geofri baptism or something if you want)
Tabula/Wall of Brambles (use Bramble if you have 5l Cauterizer which is worth it)
Deidbell/Goldrim
Merginod, Lochtonial, anything really.

Use Flicker strike as soon as you can equip Warden Brand at level 30, or wait until levle 38 for Multistrike. Infinite Frenzy charges with Warden ring, even without Bloodrage. The moment you equip Cauterizer you will flash farm all areas including Merc lake.

Wall of Bramble = physically immortal while leveling.

This way doesn't matter what build you are going for, your slayer will kick ass.

Poison Variant of the build with Soul Taker:


With the remaining points you can spend 2 to get a nice jewel socket, 3 more for an additional jewel socket in Ranger area. 1 Cleave jewel + 2 rare jewel with Area dmg, life % and atk speed. Skittering Runes also is a good node to take if you are using Cospri.

I'm giving a shot to soultaker +rare axe



So far so good, bosses seem to go down even faster than before, even though the tooltip dps is a bit lower(I'm not using HoF either, tryied to go a bit more deffensive with AA) i'll have 2 lvl 3 enlighteen soon and i'll try to run HoF, AA, vuln and temp chains. Replaced diamond flask with taste of hate also.
I replaced the inc crit strike gem with added chaos, not sure it is the best replaicement, have any suggestions? Also you could have a look @ my passive tree and feel free to add a suggestion if you have any, thanks!

You can try Melee dmg on full life. Right now Melee dmg on full life, Daresso amulet and such all give bonus to tooltip dps even with bloodrage active. Chaos dmg gem is not worth in my opinion since the value is too low to factor in poison anyway. Added Fire gem for extra dmg is also not a bad choice.

Vaal Lightning Trap also will make short work of bosses.

I would suggest Soul Taker builds to take Hematophagy instead of Vitality Void as source of leech, because it is the more superior leech cluster for physical dmg/ poison scaling, when you don't need mana leech anymore.

The explanation is, Vitality Void works with "Attack" damage and thus your extra elemental dmg from Hatred and Herald of Ash also get benefited from the leech. However with Cospri, you are relying on mainly Physical dmg, boosted through Vulnerability (even more phys) so "Attack" damage leech doesn't have the same benefit. On contrary, Hematophagy gives more percentage leech (2.2 % phys leech through 3 nodes) with 8% max life added to leech rate compare to 5% of Vitality Void and 20% increase dmg while leeching that double dip to poison (same with Carnage Heart dmg while leeching). You get more damage, more defense from the same cluster, amazing.

Scriptorium

A video of me doing t13 Scriptorium, under hazardous internet condition, on a dinosaur Laptop. SeemsGood.

Thanks for the reply Habeo. I'll take that into consideration when levelling. Are bandits oak-oak-kraityn for the soul taker poison route? And what about the skill gems, are the skills largely the same to your setup also? Thanks again man.

For bandit, either Oak or Kraityn in Cruel will be fine, your choice.

For gem:
Cleave + Multi + Faster Atk + Melee phys + Melee on full life/Added Fire + inc aoe/ conc effect.

With cospri: Vuln + temp chain + blasphemy + Enlighten. Enlighten allow you to have Arctic Armour for extra mitigation.
Vaal Haste + Vaal Grace (optional) + Vaal Lightning Trap + Duration
Same totem setup.
Same CWDT setup.

For flask you don't need DIamond, so Sin's Rebirth, Taste of Hate are pretty good.

You can even run with 5 unique flask setup, but freeze immune not reliable on Taste of Hate, so if you use Taste of Hate, having a instant flask with Freeze immune is still better.
Writhing Jar + Lion Roar + Sin's Rebirth + Taste of Hate + Atziri' Promise.

Sin's Rebirth will be last thing you look for, however the power of this flask for phy/poison build is unmatched.

Hey reading the strategy with RT soul taker and Cospris and such, doesn't RT makes poison less effective? I really do like the idea of running 5 uniques flasks for mapping, but then again even with a shield the build already outputs a lot of DPS. In your opinion what is the best-in-slot amulet ignoring budget? Carnage heart is brilliant as you said but isn't the best is it. I've been trying out abyssus as well huge dps boost with a huge risk it seems, but the + all attributes on it is pretty solid.

Poison applies on hit, RT = 100% hit thus poison is applied consistently. There's no downside to RT interaction with poison.
Soul Taker or axe in general have no real way of scaling accuracy due to not having implicit mod, no real way of scaling crit due to horrible base crit. RT will always be the best choice for them.



I imagine something along the line of this would be better than Carnage heart, with better phys roll of course.