[3.17] strTrader Max Block Bleed Lacerate Gladiator -- League Start & End Game v3.17.03.17.22

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strTrader wrote:

Something like this:
Determination/Malevolence + Herald of Purity + Tempest Shield + Enlighten
Pride + Blessing
Flesh and Stone
War Banner

Pride+Blessing disables all other Auras for me?!

I have to level another Enlighten now to get more then 4 Auras.

My Aura Setup right now:

Herald of Purity-Pride-Tempest Shield-Enlighten

War Banner-Maim

Getting items with reduced cost of skills is essential now.

Quick question, does the life leech from blood rage give us our leech cap already or others % life leech on others items helps us ?

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Ald3rak wrote:

Quick question, does the life leech from blood rage give us our leech cap already or others % life leech on others items helps us ?

It very likely does, but the definite answer depends on your stats, namely:

- Max Life (maximum recovery is based on it's percentage)
- Damage done

So you need to check in PoB. Just enable blood rage in config and play around with leech nodes or custom stats and you'll see.

+ as I've mentioned in my Simulacrum tip - it also depends on enemy damage reduction. So in the 100% delirium situation you usually need MUCH more leech just to leech your normal amount.

What are the benefits of this build over a more classic bleed bow? The obvious being more block and so on, but running Lacerate you also put yourself in harm's way far more frequently compared split-arrowing half the map from a distance.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

What are the benefits of this build over a more classic bleed bow? The obvious being more block and so on, but running Lacerate you also put yourself in harm's way far more frequently compared split-arrowing half the map from a distance.

There are several differences when playing a melee builds in terms of defensive layers:

1. Leap slam stuns enemies on full life. Normally the stun duration is enough to kill the pack off (in a more closed off environment). In an open area, this obviously do not protect you against other packs.

2. Life leech from Blood Rage, Thirst for Blood in melee range (from Jack, the Axe).

3. Life on block from Surrender and life gain on hit from Reckoning.

4. Blind from Flesh and Stone.

I generally do not find Lacerate at a disadvantage in terms of safety. It does however do not map as efficiently compare to split arrow. I personally find Lacerate builds to be cheaper than bow builds (10-15ex for all contents except the Feared).

If you need a mapping video (you can choose the level of difficulty), I can do some show case.

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strTrader wrote:

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

What are the benefits of this build over a more classic bleed bow? The obvious being more block and so on, but running Lacerate you also put yourself in harm's way far more frequently compared split-arrowing half the map from a distance.

There are several differences when playing a melee builds in terms of defensive layers:

1. Leap slam stuns enemies on full life. Normally the stun duration is enough to kill the pack off (in a more closed off environment). In an open area, this obviously do not protect you against other packs.

2. Life leech from Blood Rage, Thirst for Blood in melee range (from Jack, the Axe).

3. Life on block from Surrender and life gain on hit from Reckoning.

4. Blind from Flesh and Stone.

I generally do not find Lacerate at a disadvantage in terms of safety. It does however do not map as efficiently compare to split arrow. I personally find Lacerate builds to be cheaper than bow builds (10-15ex for all contents except the Feared).

If you need a mapping video (you can choose the level of difficulty), I can do some show case.

These are great points, thank you. I was under the impression that you had switched from The Surrender to Dawnbreaker though. Did that not pan out?

I would also add that an Elder axe can currently hold 3 support gems (prefix Brut/Melee Phys for ~120% added physical, suffix multistrike for ~15% AS, suffix Chance to bleed for bleeding stuff) for technically 2x 6L at this point if you are willing to give up high tier +%phys (which never rolls anyway). That could potentially open up finally for sticking Corrupted Fever in there.

However, what I was looking for was more a difference in strengths. Bleed bow works wonders for clearing, and so-so on most bosses. It works pretty well for harvest, and does exceptionally well on for instance Twisted memories. It sucks hard on the eater of worlds goo boss. I have so far found that lacerate and block works better for harvest (especially the chimerals), not so great on delirium (though that might be an issue with my spell block being too low), and is deeply satisfying on harbingers. It's seriously starved on passive points so there is limited freedom in setting up the build, mostly as a result of bleed support nodes being so few and far between. I feel pretty low on life using Dawnbreaker and Ceaseless Feast, but that might be a me issue. The added charges do free up some passive points though.
The reason I'm asking for bleed bow is that both builds are available for a glad, and surprisingly cheap to switch between. I would like to know what lacerate does better, so that I can do more of those things.


There are also three gear issues that bother me. Getting a decent bleed bow is as easy as 1-2-3 and rolling harvest phys will often result in getting 2 out of the 3 mods needed; rolling a decent axe is nigh impossible and can only be done in reasonable time with 3+-socket resonators, making the weapon a bit more expensive (aiming for +%phys, +phys, +bleed multi, +%AS). I am buying every corroded fossil I can get my hands on at 3 chaos or below, and that's only because I can't afford to roll faceted+sanctified yet (or ever).
Finding a good amulet is damn hard, requiring +spell block, +dot multi, and +life. There are currently no good amulets on trade.
How do you recommend that we advance our gear in those areas where we can't well target the mods we need? Gloves and amulet comes to mind as both have great but hard to target mods that we need.

This turned into a long post, but I'm interested in the build. I love bleeding and blocking and running rearguard with a bow just isn't the same.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

These are great points, thank you. I was under the impression that you had switched from The Surrender to Dawnbreaker though. Did that not pan out?

I haven't experimented with it yet. I am using other Eldritch implicit modifiers instead of maximum resistance so might need to wait on trying it out. Based on feedback from other users, it might be a challenge to get going so I am holding it off for now.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

I would also add that an Elder axe can currently hold 3 support gems (prefix Brut/Melee Phys for ~120% added physical, suffix multistrike for ~15% AS, suffix Chance to bleed for bleeding stuff) for technically 2x 6L at this point if you are willing to give up high tier +%phys (which never rolls anyway). That could potentially open up finally for sticking Corrupted Fever in there.

My thoughts on CF is that it scales with spell power and gem level so I doubt it will deliver enough extra damage with an axe 6-link. I agree there is no deterministic way of crafting an end-game axe and therefore continued to use Jack, the Axe. Axe craft is mostly a side crafting project when I have extra Harvest reforge physical.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

I have so far found that lacerate and block works better for harvest (especially the chimerals), not so great on delirium (though that might be an issue with my spell block being too low), and is deeply satisfying on harbingers.

I find 75/50 block to be enough for most contents (with Surrender). Some mechanics need to be manually dodged like volatile dead.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

I feel pretty low on life using Dawnbreaker and Ceaseless Feast, but that might be a me issue. The added charges do free up some passive points though.

Yes, definitely switch from Dawnbreaker to Surrender. I think Dawnbreaker requires a lot of over capped block (so that even if you are taking damage you are still block capped). I think your build is barely attack block capped. Ceaseless Feast is an interesting item, but bleed damage is not reduced by enemy amour so Corrosion only really just amplify our hit damage which is less than 5% of our overall DPS. The glove slot is very competitive with flat physical and DoT multiplier (or max Frenzy/culling strike) so I don't think this glove will cut it.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

I would like to know what lacerate does better, so that I can do more of those things.

I think this is a difficult question to answer. If you are looking at league content, the only thing I generally avoid (or don't invest in the atlas passive) is Legion. Lacerate is great indoors (i.e. Cage, Bone Crypt etc.). In open areas, Lacerate lacks the reach to clear efficiently and you often need to jump back and forth to clear stragglers (which isn't an issue for bow builds). Bossing wise, I find Lacerate to be enough to handle everything (with some knowledge of mechanics of course). Lacerate is great in Delve and Heist because of mobility and closed off areas.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

There are also three gear issues that bother me. Getting a decent bleed bow is as easy as 1-2-3 and rolling harvest phys will often result in getting 2 out of the 3 mods needed; rolling a decent axe is nigh impossible and can only be done in reasonable time with 3+-socket resonators, making the weapon a bit more expensive (aiming for +%phys, +phys, +bleed multi, +%AS). I am buying every corroded fossil I can get my hands on at 3 chaos or below, and that's only because I can't afford to roll faceted+sanctified yet (or ever).

I don't think this is the right approach if you do not have a lot of resources. As you said yourself, rolling a decent axe is difficult (although Harvest reforge Physical can produce some good results). I think you can focus on other pieces of gear first. I did notice you didn't mention Jack so I do encourage you to try it. The 10% life reservation is well worth it.

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Dessembrae_ wrote:

Finding a good amulet is damn hard, requiring +spell block, +dot multi, and +life. There are currently no good amulets on trade.
How do you recommend that we advance our gear in those areas where we can't well target the mods we need? Gloves and amulet comes to mind as both have great but hard to target mods that we need.

For amulet, I am doing something different this league because gem levels have moved to non-influenced pool. Traditionally, I would buy a Elder/Hunter amulet with T1-2 flat physical and DoT multiplier. With just those 2 modifiers, it is not too expensive, normally within 50c. For this league, I bought a fractured T1 DoT multiplier (for 4ex, price depends on the base and Turquoise Amulet was definitely up there). My planned next steps were to reforge Physical until I hit flat physical (and potentially +1 Physical Gems). Instead, I hit physical and intelligence and decided to stop at that time since I was pushing for challenge completion. If I were to hit either physical + life or physical + gem level (and hopefully filling all prefix), I would then prefix cannot be changed and Aisling for hybrid attributes or resistance and bench craft to finish.

For gloves, you can either use High Templar or Awakening orb DoT multiplier and culling strike. Lots of options with new Eldritch implicit as well.

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Ald3rak wrote:

Losing determination isn't a huge nerf for us in terms of tankiness ?

I was really tanky when running Determination with Pride. Kinda sad now this combo is gone.

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Girafferl wrote:

Getting items with reduced cost of skills is essential now.

Correct, or Elreon craft.

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Ald3rak wrote:

Quick question, does the life leech from blood rage give us our leech cap already or others % life leech on others items helps us ?

Block builds normally give you enough time to use Enduring Cry or life flasks to recover. I wouldn't say Blood Rage gives enough life leech but more investment into life leech only provides marginal improvement in survivability given our hit damage is not really high. I would argue %Life on Kill is the best "leech".