[3.0] Slayer DW edition - crit Lacerate/BF - Guardians/Shaper/Uber/Lab

BF - t15 Kaom with 49% more life

INTRODUCTION

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I got bored playing in 3.0, but still had some unrequited feelings towards Lacerate. Played 2h sword Lacerate, and it wasn't bad, but something didn't feel right.

Might've guessed it.

Leap Slam.

That skill just doesn't feel good.

So that makes 2h unusable. What's left? Sword'n'Board. No thank you.

Dual Wield - that's the spirit. High ias, dmg, stat-stick and Whirling Blades.

What makes this even better is the fact, that by swapping 1-2 gems, and maybe your offhand into another 1h sword, this build is compatible with a variety of skills. Lacerate, Blade Flurry, Flicker Strike, Viper Strike, Reave, Cleave, Wild Strike...

What worked best for me was Lacerate and Blade Flurry though.

The build is great for general mapping and doesn't lag behind on bosses.

VIDEOS

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OVERVIEW

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Pros:

+ About 2m dps on shaper/guardians
+ Cheap to start (few ex)
+ Has a lot of room to grow (Acuities, GG weapon, rings etc.)
+ Not-so-bad clearspeed (not wander speed, but still decent)
+ Able to switch into BF to get 50% MORE dmg on bosses
+ Decent Lab farmer
+ Tons of attack speed
+ Reflect safe

Cons:

- Not the tankiest character - around 6.3k hp at 90
- Can have problems with Int (as every Slayer/Duelist build)


SKILL TREE

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Pastebin

The leveling trees are not set in stone. If you feel like you need more dmg, go with dmg nodes, if you're lacking life, you go outside.

The 104 point tree is pretty much the basic tree. What you pick after that, solely depends on your preferences. Be it dmg/life nodes (the last tree has pretty much all nodes that I'd consider picking up)

Ascendancy Points: Bane of Legends -> Endless Hunger -> Brutal Fervor -> Headsman

Bane of Legends is one of the best (if not the best) 2 point ascendancy you can get. Onslaugh + 20% cull.
Endless Hunger with cruel lab as you should be getting leech around this level.
Then I pick Brutal Fervor, as it's just so good. +10% leech cap, stun/bleed immunity.
Headsman is the last one. 20% MORE dmg, 15% increased AoE.

Bandits: I chose Alira simply because I am lazy and needed the resists, plus crit multi is really nice.
2 skill points are also a valid option.


Pantheon

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Major god - Arakaali with Soul of Thunder captured. This has interesting interaction for this build, as you use Blood Rage (you take phys damage over time) and Immortal Call (immune to phys dmg). This skyrockets your leech from 35% -> 52.5% life leeched per second. Nuts right?

Minor god - Yugul before you get your Uber ascendancy, after that Gruthkul (capture the soul too)

JEWELS

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You'll most likely need to cap your resistances with these.
Try to get a %mana leech on one of these, as that will save you a skill point.

AS/Dmg mods:


Ideal Jewels:
Life%
Double res/all res/Third dmg mod if your resists are fine
2x AS/DMG mod

Those can be quite expensive, so you can settle with something like this:



GEAR

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LINKS AND GEMS

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Main DPS Setup

Lacerate - Multistrike - Melee Phys - Damage on Full Life - Inc AoE/Conc effect/Crit damage - Maim

Blade Flurry - Melee Phys - Damage on Full Life - Inc AoE/Conc effect - Maim - Crit Damage/Ruthless

CWDT Setup

CWDT - Enfeeble/Vulnerability - Immortal Call

Keep the CWDT low lvl. As for which curse, you can choose whatever you want. I prefer Enfeeble for some extra defense.

Mobility Setup

Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Blood Magic - Fortify

No order on those, you need all links (you can take out FA, but you move way slower)

Aura Setup

Hatred/Grace - Herald of Ash/Arctic Armour

Again, depending on how dps/tanky you want to be. Consider Grace only if you have Iron Reflexes.

Extra gems

Inc. Duration - Vaal Haste/Vaal Grace - Blood Rage

I don't use a golem, those fuckers die way too fast.
If you want it, then Ice Golem.

Enduring Cry is debatable since you have IC on pretty low CWDT, so it's not that useful. Replace with Leap Slam if you don't use it.

LEVELING

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However you want.
DW Sunder is the most optimal, just take DW nodes and avoid sword nodes until you transfer.
DW Lacerate if you're a masochist. (grab Wildslash for offhand before Death's Hand)

ATZIRI'S ACUITY

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So you got these, eh?

Why Acuities on Slayer? Why the hell not! They are pretty good!
You get the benefits of VP without ANY downside! You can use Blood Rage without slowly killing yourself and your overleech is still 100% active.

And that my friend, changes some things!
First of all, if you don't have Versatility, then with 77+ int roll, you don't need ANY int from gear (you'll need perf 80 int roll for 21 gems though)

Second, you no longer need Brutal Fervor. What to take instead of that you ask? Impact! 30% AoE!

With Increased AoE gem, your on-kill AoE, Impact, you have close to 100% AoE!
This works pretty well for Lacerate (you can either drop the Inc AoE gem for Crit Damage, or enjoy the wideness of the slashes)

Furthermore, BF becomes viable as a mapping skill. Yep, you heard it. I was pretty surprised myself.

You can also do some shenanigans with Flicker (with the dmg you have you can clear red tier maps with Blood Rage alone (if you go this way, you can try the enchant "Blood Rage grants additional 30% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on kill"))

You can also opt out of the Arakaali-Blood Rage-IC interaction, and get a Lunaris/Solaris instead, and if you'd rather have endurance charges, take out the CWDT and keep spamming Enduring Cry.

Changelog

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2017/9/27 - Creation

reserved

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The PoB link is with Atziri's Acuity right? How would you suggest to deal with the intelligence problem without the int from acuity? And is the tree different without acuity or is that the same?

Would be nice if you could post the build without acuity aswell.
Thx

"

Tonkan92 wrote:

The PoB link is with Atziri's Acuity right? How would you suggest to deal with the intelligence problem without the int from acuity? And is the tree different without acuity or is that the same?

Would be nice if you could post the build without acuity aswell.
Thx

Without acuities you need to get int on rings/tree (I was without acuities for 90% of my playtime)

Build without acuities... you just take haemophilia/victario's/rare gloves, some int nodes, Brutal Fervor, and call it a day. (the tree is the same otherwise)

I've planned this with unique gloves in mind, to not be bound by potential resistances when switching into acuities, as I wanted to try them on Slayer, and boy do they work well.

The build works perfectly fine without them, but with them you get access to 30% AoE, better leech overall, and bye-bye Int problems.

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Esord wrote:

"

Tonkan92 wrote:

The PoB link is with Atziri's Acuity right? How would you suggest to deal with the intelligence problem without the int from acuity? And is the tree different without acuity or is that the same?

Would be nice if you could post the build without acuity aswell.
Thx

Without acuities you need to get int on rings/tree (I was without acuities for 90% of my playtime)

Build without acuities... you just take haemophilia/victario's/rare gloves, some int nodes, Brutal Fervor, and call it a day. (the tree is the same otherwise)

I've planned this with unique gloves in mind, to not be bound by potential resistances when switching into acuities, as I wanted to try them on Slayer, and boy do they work well.

The build works perfectly fine without them, but with them you get access to 30% AoE, better leech overall, and bye-bye Int problems.

Ok, I figured as much and found some rings with flat phys and somewhat decent int rolls in my stash that I slapped on and it's working quite well. :) Still in the process of lvling but it feels great.
Lacerate feels much nicer when mapping than BF, I was playing a BF scion which got me quite frustrated and mapping didn't feel smooth. So this was much nicer and just changing to BF for endgame bosses.

Really glad to see I'm not the only one running DW Slayer...I really think a lot of folks are sleeping all over slayer for DW. Like they automatically think slayer = 2h, glad = 1h/DW no exceptions.


I just recently changed my DW sword crit cleave gladiator over to slayer and never looking back. I miss the bleedsplosion but my god the slayer leech is just soooo comfortable.

Mostly using cleave cause it, IMO, has one of the strongest threshold jewels in the game and I really like how cleave works with crits in general. It makes for some crazy burst dmg. But I think I will try out lacerate and BF eventually, I really like the idea of deaths hand in the offhand for a set up like this.

Anyways thanks for sharing the build, looks solid as hell.

Hello,

Really appreciate your build (versatile, end game and farming capacity, uber lab runner, ...) and looking it to be my main (and perhaps my only one) build for Abyss league.

Just few questions, in regard of 3.1 patch note :

- exit acuity for sure. Real inpact for end game ?
- welcome new VP, especially since this node will be in gladiator area ?
- focus on artic armor since the buff, with a damage boost aura
- Ruthless will not work whith channeling skills, so focus on critical damages for BF, or have you an idea for another support skills ?

Multistrike seems to be buff, good news for the lacerate part of the build.


Any other considerations ?


Please, apologise me for mistakes, not native/fluent in English :)

Thanks for your responses,

Ulren