[3.10] Budget and SSF friendly Bladestorm Berserker in depth guide. Uber Elder on 5l.

"

Bezmageddon wrote:

Been looking for a decent Bladestorm build guide gonna test it out for next league cheers

"

Integrosel wrote:

Hello, friend, I did not find this information in your manual, but please answer how this assembly feels in the uber lab? Thanks you

"

MichaelBay wrote:

Hey man i'm loving the build as my starter in 3.8. Probably the smoothest start of any league i've had. What anointment you recommend?

"

incredibie wrote:

Bladestorm Berserker



Morning guys Moorhuhn here.
in this guide I want to share my Bladestorm Berserker with you. I currently am top 1 Bladestorm Berserker in SSFLegion and on pair with the trade league.
This Buildguide is a constant work in progress so everything is subject to change.
If you have any questions, ideas or anything else catch me live and just talk to me:
https://www.twitch.tv/moorhuhnschlaechter

---

Build explanation
So first of all
What is the build about:
We Berserk. We hit. We kill.
This character glances at insane speed, crazy damage and nice surviveability. With very little gear requirements and lots of potential you can reach endgame and destroy it on a budget and in ssf.

---

3.8 update
As far as we know there are no significant changes for 3.8
>>>> If anything changes on this I will update this line. <<<<
The only current known change to melee we care about is Pulverise.
While it gives less area than before it provides more damage. Should go unnoticed. Maybe less swapping for higher bosses even.
Berserker got nerfed by quite a bit. The exact values are not perfectly clear but we might loose about 15% damage.
For anointments there are multiple options. If you have the resources and just want damage go for "ambidexterity" or "disemboling". As an early cheap version go for "Diamond Skin". If you need life later in the game go for blood drinker. If you have more ideas for good anointments let me know.

---

Content Played

Spoiler

All content that contains a videolink has been done
Bosses:
Shaper + Guardians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaLeEXOTWlU
Elder + Guardians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQhR-oTMH5k
5l Uber-Elder + Guardians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDZsKa9F39U&t=
5l Deathless Uber-Elder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVAGBQAiHBY
6l Uber-Elder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aUjQ10AxFU
Delve Bosses:
Abyss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95F5pZCXL1Y

Vaal: https://youtu.be/WjYzdNqi5Cw
Uber-Atziri

Others:
Timeless encounters:
3 Faction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBLsB8Hco0g
4 Faction www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7MIaVDtmV8&t
5 Faction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5MDgu3rkRs&feature=youtu.be

---

Multistrike yes or no

Spoiler

DISCLAIMER: This entire section might be missleading. All of the experiences I wrote or said came from my personal opinion which relies heavily on my muscle memory.
After further testing and talking to people multistrike turns out to be a quite viable support gem.
My muscle memory however does not like moving before leap slamming which heavily contradicts to the multistrike playstyle.
Multistrike might be fine for you as is for many others.
TLDR: No except for uber elder
Videoexplanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZsBSNyTKgU&feature=youtu.be
Reddit explanation:https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/c2v8ww/multistrike_analysis_after_72_fixes_under_the/

---

Blood stance and Sand stance

Spoiler

This build uses the Blood and Sand stances very actively.
Bladestorm has 2 different stances,
the bloodstorm and the sandstorm stance.
The sandstorm provides a larger area and movement speed while you are walking inside. It is moving towards enemies
The bloodstorm provides a massive attack speed boost but a smaller area. It is stale and does not move
Changing the stance does change our auras as well.
Blood and sand gives more AoE in the sand stance and more damage in the blood stance
Flesh and stone blind's nearby enemies while in sand stance and inflicts a powerful maim when in blood stance. This gets even stronger with the maim support

---

Pro's and Con's

Spoiler

Pro's:
+ Good clearspeed
+ Bugdedfriendly
+ Very good bossing
+ Clears legion encounters nicely
+ Is capable of all content on a 5l and decent gear
+ Has HUGE potential for investment into the lategame
...


Con's:
- Not able to run phys reflect at all
- Has to go quite melee
- Needs a short ramp up time due to rage which can suck on some bosses
- The build is much better if you commit on actually using your whole skillbar.

---

Skilltree and gearing

Spoiler

Bandits
Alira/ kill all
This depends on the state of your build. At some point you can take 2 skill points to use a jewel which gives a lot more stats than Alira ever could.

Path of Building

https://pastebin.com/4w0Akrpw
If you use your own PoB you need a flask with "105% more damage" to simulate impale and a flask with "50% more damage" to simulate closecombat. Do not put these on the same flask
Leveling trees are in the PoB. You can access them by clicking on the button at the bottom left.

Gear discussion

All stats in the discussion section are ordered by importance
Current gear

Weapon

For the weapons we basically have two valid options.
We either use a rare foil like:

On the rare foil we want:
Attack speed 1.9+
Crit 7+
PDps 200+
Crit multi 25+

You can create a verry strong weapon by alterationcrafting an Ilvl 83+ jewelled foil.
You are looking for the "dictator's" mod. This is the t1 hybrid phys/accuracy mod.
If you hit this one you want to regal the foil.
If you do not hit high attack speed or crit chance (Higher than craftable values) you go for the annul.
If you have your plain dictator's rare now you can multicraft (2ex).
Now you add the mods:
Flat phys damage (4c)
% phys (1ex) OR % phys + impale/blind/bleed/poison (8c)(mostly blind/impale) is best depending on your setup.
Attack speed + Quality (1ex)
Critical strikes + Quality (1ex) OR critical strike chance (4c)
The quality options always are better but more expensive. For the crafts only you need 3-5 ex for the crafts only. The alterationcrafting can easily take up 2-10k alterations aswell so do not underestimate the crafting process.

For the unique variant we want the Paradoxica.

On the Paradoxica we want one crit OR attack speed roll (You can not have both) and a %phys damage roll.
The paradoxica currently is the best weapon for the build and outclasses 400-500 pdps swords even

A budget sword currently is the Scaeva

The Scaeva is a fairly cheap alternative that can compete with up to 250 pdps foils. Scaeva should have 3 green sockets and always be in your main hand.

Shield

On this variant of the build we are not using a shield.
Dual wield gives a bonus of 10% MORE attack speed and 20% MORE attack physical damage
You can use a shield but need to do quite some tree changes for that and I would not recommend that personally.

Helmet

For the helmet we have multiple options aswell.
For the rare variants we want

You are looking for:
Life
%life
resistances
accuracy

The life+hybrid mod is craftable with pristine fossils
If you can get your hands on one you can use a "physical damage taken as x element" as well.

For the unique alternatives you can go with

or another helmet of your choice. However I would suggest a rare helmet for the best tankyness.

Bodyarmor

For the Bodyarmour we have a wide variation of possibilitys

Are the current ones I am using or am planning to use.
On a high end crafted rare you want:
Elder base
Life
%life
Hybrid life
%life craft
%physical damage taken as x element
attacks have x% increased critical strike chance
Socketed skills are supported by maim
resistances

For uniques we have many options again

Carcass Jack is my current favourite due to the huge AoE we gain from it. Since we do not have other significant sources of increased AoE, the Carcass Jack works as a more multiplier pretty much.
Other options are Kintsugi, which requires some investment into evasion
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Kintsugi
or belly f the beast, which provides us with a decent lifepool and resistances
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Belly_of_the_Beast

Gloves

For the gloves we once again have some options.
For rares you look for something alike

The stats you are looking for are:
Life
Accuracy
Attack speed
Flat phys
Resistances

Unique options are:

Haemophilia gloves
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Haemophilia
Oskarm
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Oskarm

Boots

For rare boots look for something like

The stats you want are:
Life
Movement speed
Resistances
dodge (temple mod)

Unique alternatives are

Kaom's roots
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Kaom%27s_Roots
Atziri's steps
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Atziri%27s_Step

Belt

Rare belts are a good option in this slot

The stats you need are:
Life
Strength
Resistances
Increased life recovery rate (elder)

Unique belts are kind of special and aside from headhunter you do not have many options here (except you want to change up a lot)
The one option I did test and enjoy was Gluttony
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Gluttony

Rings

Rings are very important slots for this build. In the endgame setup we rely on our curse on hit from the rings to maintain a good chunk of our damage

Here you are looking for
Assassin's mark on hit (shaper)
Life
resistances
dex/int

This ring is supplemented by

The mark of the elder (Uber elder drop) gives us lots of damage and quite some life

Other unique ring options are

Amulet

The amulet is our statstick. Try to get most of your nessessary stats on there.

You are looking for
Life
Int
Dex
Resistances

The only unique amulet I could recommend is Impresence
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Impresence_(Physical)
This however makes it hard to cap stats

Jewels

Jewels have the potential do give huge amounts of dps

Are kind of weak examples but give good dmg already
For jewels I prepared 2 trade searches:
Budget: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/pQ32WbC0
Expensive: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/pQ32MWC0
Go through my search parameters to understand how to search for jewels

Your rare jewels you can supplement with a watcher's eye

There are so many possible mods that you should check for yourself what you can afford and what you want

Flasks

Most of your flaks are going to either be life or utility flask and not many uniques

Look for
Immune to bleed
Immune to freeze
Immune to curse (On a very long lasting flask)

Unique alternatives are

And the Taste of Hate
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Taste_of_Hate

---

Defence

Spoiler

In this build we use different layers of defence
Some are included in the normal buildguide, while others are added on top for the level 100 push.
I will go over the basic defences first:

Evasion/Armour:
This build does not utilise these to a huge extend. You have some of it but it does not matter too much.

Dodge/Spelldodge:
Dodge and spelldodge are important resources we use to build up our biggest layer of defence. With Acrobatics + Phaseacrobatics we reach 40/30 dodge without further investment.
Through our boots we gain 12% dodge or spelldodge. Whichever you prefer.
The Quartz Flask provides an additional 10% dodge and spelldodge.
We can now incorporate the boot enchant "8% spell dodge if you have been hit by a spell recently".
We end up at 50/60 or 62/48 dodge and spelldodge.
This is huge.

Block
We gain 17% chance to block from the tree and dual wielding which gets reduced to 12% through acrobatics. Its something yo.

Flesh and Stone
Flesh and Stone blinds enemies that are close to you and reduces the damage from enemies you don't blind. Great.

Life
Well yea... we stack life you know. 6-7k are possible on this build without many changes.

Fortify
We use fortify on our leap slam
That's a net 20% reduced damage taken from hits

Leech
Leech is a great way to keep our life full.
Vaal pact helps here but is not necessary if you hit good life reg through other sources.

Shatter
Since we do not use the Brutality Support gem we can shatter enemies due to the cold damage of Mark of the Elder and the Taste of Hate. This avoids on death effects on enemies.

Taste of Hate
Taste of Hate provides us with 20% of physical damage taken as cold damage which nets in 15% reduced physical damage taken at 75% cold res.

Pantheon
For Pantheon we choose Lunaris and Ryslatha which provide different kinds of useful defensive utility.
From pure damage reduction to better flasks you have everything in here you want

That's it pretty much for the normal build.

To push level 100:
Changes in video format:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKXq7TOCgaM&feature=youtu.be

Change out the Melee Physical Damage Support gem for Fortify in our main link. We do want 100% uptime on this.
Change the level 95 tree to http://poeurl.com/cuvI
We loose some crit for 20% increased effect of Fortify which results into 4% damage reduction.

Use a better defensive armour than Carcass Jack. I did just 6-link my body armour so now I use:

Add Endurance Charge on Melee Stun Support to your Leap Slam.
Leap Slam stuns all enemies that are full life. So we can keep up 3 endurance charges fairly easily. This is another 12% physical damage reduction.

Look out for a Lethal Pride Timeless Jewel that adds "Physical damage taken as fire damage" and/or effect of Fortify. This gives some more damage reduction.

Add "10% of physical damage taken as fire damage" to your helmet.

These are my changes for the level 100 section.
If you have recommendations for more defence let me know.

---

Gems

Spoiler

Offensive Setups:
Bladestorm single target

When you are using a Lion's roar instead of atziri's promiseyou can utilise the

insteaf of melee phys or close combat
Bladestorm clearing

When you are using a Lion's roar instead of atziri's promiseyou can utilise the

insteaf of melee phys or close combat
Ancestral Warchief

Unavailable

In the Warchief the gemsetup is not as important. I often use the gems I swap out for bossfights in my main setup.

Movement
Leap slam linked with "Fortify" to gain another defensive layer

You can use

in addition to fortify to get another layer of defence through endurance charges.

Defensive/utility setups
Cast when damage taken linked with Steelskin gives a good amount of bonus hp
Vortex will slow enemies and the offering gets rid of dangerous corpses

Auras and Buffs
Precision helps us getting the necessary crit and accuracy

Blood and Sand gives us aoe for clearing and damage for singletarget

Flesh and stone blinds enemies during clear and maims bosses. With the maim support it does give a nice damage boost as well

The dread banner helps us capping our chance to impale. We basically never place it

berserk is mostly used to kill off very dangerous enemies like shaper, elder or legion generals

---

Leveling

Spoiler

Created leveling trees and gem setups for leveling
Below the skilltree in the main PoB you can select the tree for your current level.
In this pastebin you will find my personal favorite leveling uniques only.
https://pastebin.com/LiyS2UtC

---

FAQ

Q: Do you think Paradoxica is pretty crucial
A: I would not call it crucial. But it is the straight up best weapon. Most important stat is attack speed.

Q: The leveling PoB seems to not work properly
A: The leveling PoB only shows leveling uniques I like. The actual leveling section is inside the main PoB

Q: Why Blitz over Aspect of Carnage
A: Blitz provides us with lots of speed. The damage difference is about 20%. However the main reason is that we do no take 10% increased damage which is a huge deal in legion

Q: Multistrike?
A: This part is covered in a sepperate section in the build now.

Q: Why path all over to acrobatics?
A: This question now is featured in the "defence section" of the build

Q: How easy is this build to level?
A: I currently do not have a detailed leveling section. However:As soon as you have heralds and the rage support you should have enough flat damage to go through most content. Look for good axes during leveling. Those have better base damage than swords.

Q: What about your mana issues?
A: With my current aura setup (Precision, flesh and stone, dread banner and blood and sand) I do have over 200 mana left which is more than enough to keep jumping and attacking for a while. However if you squeeze down some more mana you will indeed need blood magic on leap slam.

Q: Pantheons?
A:For Pantheon I use a fully upgraded Lunaris and Ryslatha. Both are defensive choices.

Q: What about Champion ascendancy and HC?
A:

Spoiler

I am not that into playing champion but let me take a look.
Master of Metal should be used 100%. The 2 impale stacks and the flat phys are too strong to not take them. In addition to that the 1k armour helps and provides enough armour to justify molten shell over steel skin with some more investment.

Conqueror and Worthy Foe would be my next favourite. The reduced damage taken from enemies is pretty nice and the lifereg helps as well.
While Worthy Foe is purely offensive it might open space for defence where you would need accuracy otherwise. (I look at you helmet slot with 10% phys as fire)

First to Strike, Last to Fall seems like a good option to get out of sketchy situations combined with a level 20 cwdt molten shell.

Unstoppable Hero is another really good contender for defence since the 1k armour and 1k evasion can be 2k armour with iron reflexes.This way you would go with 3k armour just from ascendancy which is huge.
The stun immunity as well helps even though you should hit a good life pool that barely gets stunned. But you never know.

Fortitude and Inspirational are no goes to me. While the banner shenanigans seems nice it is inferior to the other options in my opinion.
Fortitude is straight up useless. You do not even gain additional fortify effect and in HC I would always use fortify in my main setup.

I personaly would go for Master of Metal > Conqueror > Worthy Foe > First to Strike, Last to Fall.
I would go with armour equipment and armour flasks (Basalt+Granite) and Unwavering Stance. This way you do not need Unstoppable Hero for the stun immunity and have more space for defences. I would still go for Acrobatics+Phase acrobatics probably. The 30% reduced armour hurt but 60/60 dodge with some investment + a decent armour rating seem the best way to me.

If you go this route you should aim for 2 rare foils in the end. Paradoxica's seem nice with the flat damage from Master of Metal but they might feel too slow without blitz charges.

In addition you should check out my "level 100 push" section in the "defence" section. There are some additional defences layered you can utilise.

Q:
A:

---

Other Guides:
Purifying Flame Inquisitor
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2459840
Storm Brand Occultist
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2301699
Winter Orb Totems:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2272177
Molten Strike + Support
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2116480
Molten Jewel Brightbeak Raider
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2067539

---

Thanks for reading

---

Changelog
1. 12.6 Created the Bladestorm template. This build is work in progress officially now.
2. Updated content played and added picture
3. Updated current gear and pastebin with 6l
4. Updated gear section weapons - armours
5. Updated Path of Building and gem section
6. Updated Path of Building, gear section and gem section
7. Updated the "blood and sand" section with explanations to the mechanic
8. 24.6 Updated Q/A section and added "Defences"

"

Troelsfk_93 wrote:

"

incredibie wrote:

Bladestorm Berserker



Morning guys Moorhuhn here.
in this guide I want to share my Bladestorm Berserker with you. I currently am top 1 Bladestorm Berserker in SSFLegion and on pair with the trade league.
This Buildguide is a constant work in progress so everything is subject to change.
If you have any questions, ideas or anything else catch me live and just talk to me:
https://www.twitch.tv/moorhuhnschlaechter

---

Build explanation
So first of all
What is the build about:
We Berserk. We hit. We kill.
This character glances at insane speed, crazy damage and nice surviveability. With very little gear requirements and lots of potential you can reach endgame and destroy it on a budget and in ssf.

---

3.8 update
As far as we know there are no significant changes for 3.8
>>>> If anything changes on this I will update this line. <<<<
The only current known change to melee we care about is Pulverise.
While it gives less area than before it provides more damage. Should go unnoticed. Maybe less swapping for higher bosses even.
Berserker got nerfed by quite a bit. The exact values are not perfectly clear but we might loose about 15% damage.
For anointments there are multiple options. If you have the resources and just want damage go for "ambidexterity" or "disemboling". As an early cheap version go for "Diamond Skin". If you need life later in the game go for blood drinker. If you have more ideas for good anointments let me know.

---

Content Played

Spoiler

All content that contains a videolink has been done
Bosses:
Shaper + Guardians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaLeEXOTWlU
Elder + Guardians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQhR-oTMH5k
5l Uber-Elder + Guardians https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDZsKa9F39U&t=
5l Deathless Uber-Elder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVAGBQAiHBY
6l Uber-Elder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aUjQ10AxFU
Delve Bosses:
Abyss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95F5pZCXL1Y

Vaal: https://youtu.be/WjYzdNqi5Cw
Uber-Atziri

Others:
Timeless encounters:
3 Faction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBLsB8Hco0g
4 Faction www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7MIaVDtmV8&t
5 Faction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5MDgu3rkRs&feature=youtu.be

---

Multistrike yes or no

Spoiler

DISCLAIMER: This entire section might be missleading. All of the experiences I wrote or said came from my personal opinion which relies heavily on my muscle memory.
After further testing and talking to people multistrike turns out to be a quite viable support gem.
My muscle memory however does not like moving before leap slamming which heavily contradicts to the multistrike playstyle.
Multistrike might be fine for you as is for many others.
TLDR: No except for uber elder
Videoexplanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZsBSNyTKgU&feature=youtu.be
Reddit explanation:https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/c2v8ww/multistrike_analysis_after_72_fixes_under_the/

---

Blood stance and Sand stance

Spoiler

This build uses the Blood and Sand stances very actively.
Bladestorm has 2 different stances,
the bloodstorm and the sandstorm stance.
The sandstorm provides a larger area and movement speed while you are walking inside. It is moving towards enemies
The bloodstorm provides a massive attack speed boost but a smaller area. It is stale and does not move
Changing the stance does change our auras as well.
Blood and sand gives more AoE in the sand stance and more damage in the blood stance
Flesh and stone blind's nearby enemies while in sand stance and inflicts a powerful maim when in blood stance. This gets even stronger with the maim support

---

Pro's and Con's

Spoiler

Pro's:
+ Good clearspeed
+ Bugdedfriendly
+ Very good bossing
+ Clears legion encounters nicely
+ Is capable of all content on a 5l and decent gear
+ Has HUGE potential for investment into the lategame
...


Con's:
- Not able to run phys reflect at all
- Has to go quite melee
- Needs a short ramp up time due to rage which can suck on some bosses
- The build is much better if you commit on actually using your whole skillbar.

---

Skilltree and gearing

Spoiler

Bandits
Alira/ kill all
This depends on the state of your build. At some point you can take 2 skill points to use a jewel which gives a lot more stats than Alira ever could.

Path of Building

https://pastebin.com/4w0Akrpw
If you use your own PoB you need a flask with "105% more damage" to simulate impale and a flask with "50% more damage" to simulate closecombat. Do not put these on the same flask
Leveling trees are in the PoB. You can access them by clicking on the button at the bottom left.

Gear discussion

All stats in the discussion section are ordered by importance
Current gear

Weapon

For the weapons we basically have two valid options.
We either use a rare foil like:

On the rare foil we want:
Attack speed 1.9+
Crit 7+
PDps 200+
Crit multi 25+

You can create a verry strong weapon by alterationcrafting an Ilvl 83+ jewelled foil.
You are looking for the "dictator's" mod. This is the t1 hybrid phys/accuracy mod.
If you hit this one you want to regal the foil.
If you do not hit high attack speed or crit chance (Higher than craftable values) you go for the annul.
If you have your plain dictator's rare now you can multicraft (2ex).
Now you add the mods:
Flat phys damage (4c)
% phys (1ex) OR % phys + impale/blind/bleed/poison (8c)(mostly blind/impale) is best depending on your setup.
Attack speed + Quality (1ex)
Critical strikes + Quality (1ex) OR critical strike chance (4c)
The quality options always are better but more expensive. For the crafts only you need 3-5 ex for the crafts only. The alterationcrafting can easily take up 2-10k alterations aswell so do not underestimate the crafting process.

For the unique variant we want the Paradoxica.

On the Paradoxica we want one crit OR attack speed roll (You can not have both) and a %phys damage roll.
The paradoxica currently is the best weapon for the build and outclasses 400-500 pdps swords even

A budget sword currently is the Scaeva

The Scaeva is a fairly cheap alternative that can compete with up to 250 pdps foils. Scaeva should have 3 green sockets and always be in your main hand.

Shield

On this variant of the build we are not using a shield.
Dual wield gives a bonus of 10% MORE attack speed and 20% MORE attack physical damage
You can use a shield but need to do quite some tree changes for that and I would not recommend that personally.

Helmet

For the helmet we have multiple options aswell.
For the rare variants we want

You are looking for:
Life
%life
resistances
accuracy

The life+hybrid mod is craftable with pristine fossils
If you can get your hands on one you can use a "physical damage taken as x element" as well.

For the unique alternatives you can go with

or another helmet of your choice. However I would suggest a rare helmet for the best tankyness.

Bodyarmor

For the Bodyarmour we have a wide variation of possibilitys

Are the current ones I am using or am planning to use.
On a high end crafted rare you want:
Elder base
Life
%life
Hybrid life
%life craft
%physical damage taken as x element
attacks have x% increased critical strike chance
Socketed skills are supported by maim
resistances

For uniques we have many options again

Carcass Jack is my current favourite due to the huge AoE we gain from it. Since we do not have other significant sources of increased AoE, the Carcass Jack works as a more multiplier pretty much.
Other options are Kintsugi, which requires some investment into evasion
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Kintsugi
or belly f the beast, which provides us with a decent lifepool and resistances
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Belly_of_the_Beast

Gloves

For the gloves we once again have some options.
For rares you look for something alike

The stats you are looking for are:
Life
Accuracy
Attack speed
Flat phys
Resistances

Unique options are:

Haemophilia gloves
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Haemophilia
Oskarm
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Oskarm

Boots

For rare boots look for something like

The stats you want are:
Life
Movement speed
Resistances
dodge (temple mod)

Unique alternatives are

Kaom's roots
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Kaom%27s_Roots
Atziri's steps
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Atziri%27s_Step

Belt

Rare belts are a good option in this slot

The stats you need are:
Life
Strength
Resistances
Increased life recovery rate (elder)

Unique belts are kind of special and aside from headhunter you do not have many options here (except you want to change up a lot)
The one option I did test and enjoy was Gluttony
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Gluttony

Rings

Rings are very important slots for this build. In the endgame setup we rely on our curse on hit from the rings to maintain a good chunk of our damage

Here you are looking for
Assassin's mark on hit (shaper)
Life
resistances
dex/int

This ring is supplemented by

The mark of the elder (Uber elder drop) gives us lots of damage and quite some life

Other unique ring options are

Amulet

The amulet is our statstick. Try to get most of your nessessary stats on there.

You are looking for
Life
Int
Dex
Resistances

The only unique amulet I could recommend is Impresence
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Impresence_(Physical)
This however makes it hard to cap stats

Jewels

Jewels have the potential do give huge amounts of dps

Are kind of weak examples but give good dmg already
For jewels I prepared 2 trade searches:
Budget: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/pQ32WbC0
Expensive: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/pQ32MWC0
Go through my search parameters to understand how to search for jewels

Your rare jewels you can supplement with a watcher's eye

There are so many possible mods that you should check for yourself what you can afford and what you want

Flasks

Most of your flaks are going to either be life or utility flask and not many uniques

Look for
Immune to bleed
Immune to freeze
Immune to curse (On a very long lasting flask)

Unique alternatives are

And the Taste of Hate
https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Taste_of_Hate

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Defence

Spoiler

In this build we use different layers of defence
Some are included in the normal buildguide, while others are added on top for the level 100 push.
I will go over the basic defences first:

Evasion/Armour:
This build does not utilise these to a huge extend. You have some of it but it does not matter too much.

Dodge/Spelldodge:
Dodge and spelldodge are important resources we use to build up our biggest layer of defence. With Acrobatics + Phaseacrobatics we reach 40/30 dodge without further investment.
Through our boots we gain 12% dodge or spelldodge. Whichever you prefer.
The Quartz Flask provides an additional 10% dodge and spelldodge.
We can now incorporate the boot enchant "8% spell dodge if you have been hit by a spell recently".
We end up at 50/60 or 62/48 dodge and spelldodge.
This is huge.

Block
We gain 17% chance to block from the tree and dual wielding which gets reduced to 12% through acrobatics. Its something yo.

Flesh and Stone
Flesh and Stone blinds enemies that are close to you and reduces the damage from enemies you don't blind. Great.

Life
Well yea... we stack life you know. 6-7k are possible on this build without many changes.

Fortify
We use fortify on our leap slam
That's a net 20% reduced damage taken from hits

Leech
Leech is a great way to keep our life full.
Vaal pact helps here but is not necessary if you hit good life reg through other sources.

Shatter
Since we do not use the Brutality Support gem we can shatter enemies due to the cold damage of Mark of the Elder and the Taste of Hate. This avoids on death effects on enemies.

Taste of Hate
Taste of Hate provides us with 20% of physical damage taken as cold damage which nets in 15% reduced physical damage taken at 75% cold res.

Pantheon
For Pantheon we choose Lunaris and Ryslatha which provide different kinds of useful defensive utility.
From pure damage reduction to better flasks you have everything in here you want

That's it pretty much for the normal build.

To push level 100:
Changes in video format:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKXq7TOCgaM&feature=youtu.be

Change out the Melee Physical Damage Support gem for Fortify in our main link. We do want 100% uptime on this.
Change the level 95 tree to http://poeurl.com/cuvI
We loose some crit for 20% increased effect of Fortify which results into 4% damage reduction.

Use a better defensive armour than Carcass Jack. I did just 6-link my body armour so now I use:

Add Endurance Charge on Melee Stun Support to your Leap Slam.
Leap Slam stuns all enemies that are full life. So we can keep up 3 endurance charges fairly easily. This is another 12% physical damage reduction.

Look out for a Lethal Pride Timeless Jewel that adds "Physical damage taken as fire damage" and/or effect of Fortify. This gives some more damage reduction.

Add "10% of physical damage taken as fire damage" to your helmet.

These are my changes for the level 100 section.
If you have recommendations for more defence let me know.

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Gems

Spoiler

Offensive Setups:
Bladestorm single target

When you are using a Lion's roar instead of atziri's promiseyou can utilise the

insteaf of melee phys or close combat
Bladestorm clearing

When you are using a Lion's roar instead of atziri's promiseyou can utilise the

insteaf of melee phys or close combat
Ancestral Warchief

Unavailable

In the Warchief the gemsetup is not as important. I often use the gems I swap out for bossfights in my main setup.

Movement
Leap slam linked with "Fortify" to gain another defensive layer

You can use

in addition to fortify to get another layer of defence through endurance charges.

Defensive/utility setups
Cast when damage taken linked with Steelskin gives a good amount of bonus hp
Vortex will slow enemies and the offering gets rid of dangerous corpses

Auras and Buffs
Precision helps us getting the necessary crit and accuracy

Blood and Sand gives us aoe for clearing and damage for singletarget

Flesh and stone blinds enemies during clear and maims bosses. With the maim support it does give a nice damage boost as well

The dread banner helps us capping our chance to impale. We basically never place it

berserk is mostly used to kill off very dangerous enemies like shaper, elder or legion generals

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Leveling

Spoiler

Created leveling trees and gem setups for leveling
Below the skilltree in the main PoB you can select the tree for your current level.
In this pastebin you will find my personal favorite leveling uniques only.
https://pastebin.com/LiyS2UtC

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FAQ

Q: Do you think Paradoxica is pretty crucial
A: I would not call it crucial. But it is the straight up best weapon. Most important stat is attack speed.

Q: The leveling PoB seems to not work properly
A: The leveling PoB only shows leveling uniques I like. The actual leveling section is inside the main PoB

Q: Why Blitz over Aspect of Carnage
A: Blitz provides us with lots of speed. The damage difference is about 20%. However the main reason is that we do no take 10% increased damage which is a huge deal in legion

Q: Multistrike?
A: This part is covered in a sepperate section in the build now.

Q: Why path all over to acrobatics?
A: This question now is featured in the "defence section" of the build

Q: How easy is this build to level?
A: I currently do not have a detailed leveling section. However:As soon as you have heralds and the rage support you should have enough flat damage to go through most content. Look for good axes during leveling. Those have better base damage than swords.

Q: What about your mana issues?
A: With my current aura setup (Precision, flesh and stone, dread banner and blood and sand) I do have over 200 mana left which is more than enough to keep jumping and attacking for a while. However if you squeeze down some more mana you will indeed need blood magic on leap slam.

Q: Pantheons?
A:For Pantheon I use a fully upgraded Lunaris and Ryslatha. Both are defensive choices.

Q: What about Champion ascendancy and HC?
A:

Spoiler

I am not that into playing champion but let me take a look.
Master of Metal should be used 100%. The 2 impale stacks and the flat phys are too strong to not take them. In addition to that the 1k armour helps and provides enough armour to justify molten shell over steel skin with some more investment.

Conqueror and Worthy Foe would be my next favourite. The reduced damage taken from enemies is pretty nice and the lifereg helps as well.
While Worthy Foe is purely offensive it might open space for defence where you would need accuracy otherwise. (I look at you helmet slot with 10% phys as fire)

First to Strike, Last to Fall seems like a good option to get out of sketchy situations combined with a level 20 cwdt molten shell.

Unstoppable Hero is another really good contender for defence since the 1k armour and 1k evasion can be 2k armour with iron reflexes.This way you would go with 3k armour just from ascendancy which is huge.
The stun immunity as well helps even though you should hit a good life pool that barely gets stunned. But you never know.

Fortitude and Inspirational are no goes to me. While the banner shenanigans seems nice it is inferior to the other options in my opinion.
Fortitude is straight up useless. You do not even gain additional fortify effect and in HC I would always use fortify in my main setup.

I personaly would go for Master of Metal > Conqueror > Worthy Foe > First to Strike, Last to Fall.
I would go with armour equipment and armour flasks (Basalt+Granite) and Unwavering Stance. This way you do not need Unstoppable Hero for the stun immunity and have more space for defences. I would still go for Acrobatics+Phase acrobatics probably. The 30% reduced armour hurt but 60/60 dodge with some investment + a decent armour rating seem the best way to me.

If you go this route you should aim for 2 rare foils in the end. Paradoxica's seem nice with the flat damage from Master of Metal but they might feel too slow without blitz charges.

In addition you should check out my "level 100 push" section in the "defence" section. There are some additional defences layered you can utilise.

Q:
A:

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Other Guides:
Purifying Flame Inquisitor
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2459840
Storm Brand Occultist
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2301699
Winter Orb Totems:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2272177
Molten Strike + Support
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2116480
Molten Jewel Brightbeak Raider
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2067539

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Thanks for reading

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Changelog
1. 12.6 Created the Bladestorm template. This build is work in progress officially now.
2. Updated content played and added picture
3. Updated current gear and pastebin with 6l
4. Updated gear section weapons - armours
5. Updated Path of Building and gem section
6. Updated Path of Building, gear section and gem section
7. Updated the "blood and sand" section with explanations to the mechanic
8. 24.6 Updated Q/A section and added "Defences"