[2.6] HC Cleave - Cheap, super tanky, good clearspeed. Perfect Leaguestarter

Hi,

I was looking for a cool hardcore build on the forums and as you probably noticed theres very few out there, so I decided to try my own build and share it with you.

This character can work on a very low budget (I used it to start into the HC League), can easily kill all bosses up to tier 13-14, probably higher ones aswell but I didnt try. It has good clear speed and it is INSANELY tanky. The most important part though is : it is FUN. If you like melees and scion, you have to give this build a try.

So lets get started and since I'm always looking for this first myself, here are 2 Videos of map runs :

Level 72 Zana Strand run on a 15 Chaos Budget :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3GSRhj2j9M

I'm using Wings of Entropy here since they were 1 Alch, the Legacy Version costs 1 Chaos

Level 92 Shaped Strand run :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlG3a8fHGZ8&feature=youtu.be

The map has quite a few damage mods, nothing I'm even remotely noticing. My gems in this video are still Level 16-17 with q20, so the damage can be a lot higher, my gear is very far from perfect aswell. So theres still a lot of room for improvement / even more surviability + damage.



So whats the core idea of the build?
The main idea is to get a very high amount of armor with Iron Reflexes, Grace and a decent amount on your gear (mostly from Bringer of Rain), to get even tankier with arctic armour since we don't need any mana the second we get our Soul Taker (before that we just run 2 auras / no arctic armour)
On top of that we have a decent block chance (which is not our core way of surviving since I feel like evasion / block is a nice mitigation, but only if you use it to support another main defense like high armor or very high life/es, the more reliable tools to survive. Another great defense this build gives us is the threshold jewel for cleave which gives us CONSTANT fortify for free.

Our damage comes from Herald of Ash, good physical dps axes and a lot of nodes on the tree, also the very cheap 7 link we get with the Bringer of Rain and 5 Frenzy charges and CONSTANT Onslaught. Very important for damage with this build is also the flat physical damage rolls on rings + amulet.



My Skilltree :



Gearing :



My gear




Gems :



Bandits : Oak -> Kraityn (I took Kraityn) or Oak -> Kraityn

Ascendancy :



If I forgot anything please let me know, if you think I did something wrong or could do something different please let me know aswell. Thanks for reading and have fun :)

Started ~2 weeks ago playing a couple of hours a day. Wanted to play the scion class where I could dual wield / melee and found your build. I'm level 84 atm and your build has been a blast for me. Thank you for sharing.

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ohnoesx0r wrote:

Started ~2 weeks ago playing a couple of hours a day. Wanted to play the scion class where I could dual wield / melee and found your build. I'm level 84 atm and your build has been a blast for me. Thank you for sharing.

very glad you like it :) let me know if you need help with anything

Hey, just wanted to stop by and tell you, really cool guide, loving the build so far!! just hit 67 and the bringer is doing work haha

just one question if i may, im fairly new to the game so i am unsure what to upgrade now, e.g. which gems should i get with quality asap? thanks in advance for an answer and keep it up! :D

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angelo_mierke wrote:

Hey, just wanted to stop by and tell you, really cool guide, loving the build so far!! just hit 67 and the bringer is doing work haha

just one question if i may, im fairly new to the game so i am unsure what to upgrade now, e.g. which gems should i get with quality asap? thanks in advance for an answer and keep it up! :D

Hey man glad you like it :) Yea the moment you get the Bringer of Rain the damage skyrockets and the moment you get Soul Taker + High Attack Speed Offhand your clearpseed gets a lot better since you're so much faster.

For quality gems I'd say just get the whole Link Setup ready and level them all to level 20, then when they hit level 20 vendor them with 1 gcp and you get the same gem with 20 quality level 1. If you dont want to play that much and just want quality gems instantly I'd say get faster attacks for more attack speed on leap slam and of course the 4 gems in the Bringer of Rain

thanks for your fast reply! :D

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For quality gems I'd say just get the whole Link Setup ready and level them all to level 20, then when they hit level 20 vendor them with 1 gcp and you get the same gem with 20 quality level 1.

huh, learned something new again, just like always with this game haha
well i got lucky with a drop (astramentis) so i had some cash to spare and bought some of the gems in the helm already, but i'll definitely keep that in mind for the future
and yeah, the axe is insane, next i'll look for a good offhand one :)

hey, i've got one more question, concerning stat reqs, in specifically int.
i have a lot of toruble getting the int to level up conc/aoe, is there a certain threshhold i should aim for, or should i just get as much as i can and level the gems accordinly? same goes for enfeeble.

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angelo_mierke wrote:

hey, i've got one more question, concerning stat reqs, in specifically int.
i have a lot of toruble getting the int to level up conc/aoe, is there a certain threshhold i should aim for, or should i just get as much as i can and level the gems accordinly? same goes for enfeeble.

Getting int is not easy because we dont get a lot from the passive tree, you should get the 30 Int node on the tree of course and the rest you'll have to get from your rings or your amulet. Look at my amulet as an example.

For enfeeble : you only level it to level 5 and then stop leveling it (you can right click it on the right side when it shows that you can level it up so it doesnt show up anymore). Cast when damage taken stays level 1 and immortal call is I think level 3. (look at my gems as an example again)

The reason for this is that you proc cast when damage taken more if it's on a lower level. Low Level enfeeble does almost the same as higher level ones. It procs on most packs and gives you nice extra mitigation.

now that you mention it, i kind of forgot about the +30 node casue im not there just yet, that should make thing a little easier, guess after you built enough chars you automatically remember these things :P

thanks again for your advice, i'll try to get my hands on an amulet like yours, or more likely a cheaper version hehe

Cheers!

Have you tried any end game like the ubers or shaper? this looks like fun, anything you would do different in normal league (not hardcore)