[1.1.3]Liked EleCleave? Elemental Reave Templar (12 ApS on MANA | EB lv20+AA MoM 6Aura PANTLESS)

First of all, two words: NO. PANTS. Second, I really liked the way other builds (see influences) scale elemental Auras with high attack speed to achieve a constant flurry of hits, with decent damage per second. It just feels fun to attack fast. Now the cookie cutter build of the season uses Spectral Throw with a Blood Magic gem, which I really disliked a lot. Spectral Throw in itself requires you to run Lesser Multiple Projectiles, and being an elemental build, thus not being gifted by Chris to be able to achieve leech without using the gem, makes these Elemental Buzzsaw builds use up FOUR of their gems to make their skill usable (ST – LMP –BM – LL/LifeOnHit).
Earlier in the league I played a physical critical Reaver (see influences), which showed me the potential of Reave. But it also showed me the scope of the leech nerfs (mana!) on high attack speed builds that tend to miss and pseudo-miss (read: not crit) a lot, and with just 85% reserved mana (before Reduced Mana gem) I found myself in a situation of constantly being able to attack, at only 7 attacks per second with Multistrike.
The first build, elemental aura attack based builds, scale with attack speed. What’s the best AS buff in the game? Multistrike (107% MORE at level 20!) Which attack has uncontested synergy with Multistrike? Reave, to the point where there is no Reave without Multistrike. So, do we BM our attack? No, because Reave gets a whole boatload of nothing from levelling in the elemental damage department (unlike Spectral Throw!), we get away with using a level 4 Reave gem, keeping the base mana cost at 6, keeping the mana cost in total low even when 5L or 6L at way beyond 10 attacks per second. We do also, however, not utilise any form of Mana Leech. A 5L Reave costs us 27 mana per activation, at ~12 attacks per second this only equals to 108 mana per second! Am I bad at math? YES, but not in this case. Multistrike makes us only pay for every third attack, so its 27*12/3=108!
„But dood”, you might ask, „How do I into so many regenerations? Also Ele Buzz reserves all of mana for 5 aura, where is mana regenerated into?” First of all, good questions. First of all we are able to drop Purity of Fire easily. How? We get Eldritch Battery, run our main attack through pure regen (subbing in Mana Leech for Faster Attacks in no regen – half is still more than sustainable on regen alone!) So we have EB, what now? Arctic Armour! We sustain a level 20+ Arctic Armour. If you never played with a high level Arctic Armour, it is ridiculous. It mitigates all the damage of Flamedogs and Titty Bitches even in high level maps – not a hyperbole – even Cells (level 73 map boss) in a multi proj/minus max map deals ZERO damage through a Inner Forced lvl20 AA! The main reason Ele Buzzsaw utilises these auras is to deal with reflect (they’re super good otherwise too, but hear me out!). We still have the same Lightning Aura they do, but AA is actually better than Purity of Fire on Reflect. It negates it. Completely (in my case, with level 22 Anger, it actually does so – totally 0 Reflect from mobs with 0 Fire Res. And if they resist, it gets even less close).
So we have EB, and AA. We need Energy Shield to fuel our maximum Mana, but are bound to use an Alpha’s Howl. What do?
Discipline and Clarity are the answer, and Prism Guardian the solution to the follow-up problem. With a level 20 reduced mana gem, in Prism Guardian, using those 2 Auras costs us a total of 11% + 85 flat for clarity (level 21) of our Life. This Loss of Life, while not significant, is still pretty harsh. Oh, and by the way, an ES chest would pretty nice. Oh and by the way, while standing still AA drains next to nothing, and we stand still whenever we attack with Reave, which leaves us with a huge Mana Regeneration surplus. If only there was a solution to this… If only. There. Was. Some. Cloak with ES, and something to do with our excess mana… like granting us the Mind over Matter keynode, or a better version of it even - OH MY.

To build an Elemental melee attacker, that doesn’t need 3 support gems just to work. Everything after that logically followed, and quite beautifully fit to make this work of art that now tears the flavour of the month a new one. Reave is the heir of cleave, so in a way this is the good old Elemental Cleave updated to 2014 standards

Mathil’s Elemental Buzzsaw
Oosband’s Crit Reaver
Any Incinerator build, for making me instantly realize AA as a solution to dropping Purity of Fire and still handle reflect

- attack 12 to 15 times a second
- Provide hyperbuffed 6 auras + Vaal Haste
- Be cheap besides uniques (can be worked around; Rares look for unique stat combinations that are rarely sought after. For example, Jewellery with both WED and mana regeneration is not highly sought after)
- Travel superfast using Leap Slam/Whirling Blades
- Be immune to some of the most dangerous mobs in the game (Tentacle Miscreations, Farshot Firedogs)
- Versatile (can use Molten Strike, Lightning Strike, Cleave – HARD AS FUCK TO CHROME – needs a lot of adjustments, see „Skills” section! Also: Double Strike – Splash, and other –Splash consorts possible, but suboptimal!)
- High effective HP through 40% MoM
- High AoE by virtue of fast stacking of Reave (<0.8sec for full stacks)
- Does your dishes

At level 100, one probably has the gear level required to drop the 40 flat Life from Normal Oak for a skillpoint.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUABVuLjJ_f4XM8Be0g73xG14M4FE0Es6IA8B8yiQJxd-VX4uw4GjinhJBVwBpZ82aerKr60nKpFy826XzZZOeG0SSq42pV1iSwGYWApBpsna7z3acIuJOPRuvuDH3Q0Cj6eqoQf89lV8ma4MaeVcY8jkWdFm_qurQMkydGcRzc3FfhiIMJf8YelB2qb56ioyepEZasP8pKwfNabXC7wzqCHiQ82RObtVYt2wunXC9vUzUZiqx_SVFtbC2D-wm1SJcG9tptewX5Go9VSxXwJpX5YzpYGtsEfu4OTGDveiP2BLHTfu_wlWZ9dVpI_rqHGQ==

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUABVuLjJ_f4XM8Be0g73xG14M4FE0Es6IA8B8yiQJxd-VX4uw4GjinhJBVwBpZ82aerKr60nKpFy826XzZZOeG0SSq42pV1iSwGYWApBpsna7z3acIuJOPRuvuDH3Q0Cj6eqoQf89lV8ma4MaeVcY8jkWdFm_qurQMkydGcRzc3FfhiIMJf8YelB2qb56ioyepEZasP8pKwfNabXC7wzqCHiQ82RObtVYt2wunXC9vUzUZiqx_SVFtbC2D-wm1SJcG9tptewX5Go9VSxXwJpU6WAR-hxk=

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUABVuLjJ_fPAXvfIM4FE0Es6IA8B8yiXflV-LsOBo4p4SQVcAaWfNmnqyq-tJyqRcvNul82WTnhtEkquNqVdYksBmFgKQabJ2u892nCLiTj0br7gx90NAo-nqqEH_PZVfJmuDGnlXGPI5Fneq6tAyTJ0ZxHNzcV-GIgwl_xh6UHapvnqKjJ6kRlqw_ykrB81ptcLvDOoIeJDzZE5u12wunXC9vGYpJUfsJ9toajw==
This is quite the slump in powerlevel, in a way. At least it is in tankyness. Since we do need a lot of spread-out nodes, with the aura nodes and EB, and also Life of course, we are kind of struggling with the latter, since the first 2 are essential to our build, and the pathing takes up a lot of points too. Corsair spares us Dex nodes.

I would level as a generic 2h phys Spectral Thrower or Cleaver. Levelling as Ele is tiresome, and Reave without high AS is tiresome, even with Multistrike. The levelling trees show this: We pick up life while we path our way through the tree, rushing RT. Feel free to level as you like, it’s flexible by picking RT. You can also use Facebreakers if you want. There are a lot of levelling guides out there, just pick one, preferably weapon based. Use levelling uniques like Shiversting, Geofri’s Baptism, Rigvald’s Charge and Terminus Est to reach act 3 merciless, where it all starts to come together. Levelling is this builds biggest weakness, it’s rather tedious and prone to death, if you intend to play hardcore. Especially Dominus is a hurdle, get someone to kill him for you. This is also my judgment on the hardcore viability of this build: Definitely possible late game, but levelling is tough.

Take this trees as a general comment on the order to go for keynodes, instead of a levelling guide.

highly [un]optimized

I underestimated the total cost, so I kinda compromised on most of my rare gear. Flasks are suboptimal, Linkage on Boots and Gloves too (could switch it so that there is increased duration on the curses).

Ideal Boot & Glove Gem configuration: Vaal Haste - Elemental Weakness - Enfeeble - Increased Duration in one 4L; CWDT - Enduring Cry - Purity of Lightning - Reduced Mana in the other. It is possible to replace Reduced Mana with another link to CWDT upon entering zones, at least until snapshotting is fixed.

The uniques here are, more or less, mandatory. I dont want to waste time figuring out if there was a way to make it work without the shield or helm. Cloak can be substituted by MoM keystone, though this spreads the tree even thinner than it already is.

In general for armour pieces, capped Resists is a must, as is sustainability of Arctic Armour in terms of mana regeneration. Life is next on the priority list. No matter the slot, these three apply (where appropriate, regarding mana regen) – RESIST > MANA REGEN > LIFE > WHATEVER IS IN THE APPROPRIATE SECTION (if nothing to the contrary is stated. Pretty basic stuff, I guess). Keep in mind that degeneration effects bypass our Mind over Matter defensive layer completely. An extra emphasis might be laid upon chaos resistance for this reason, since it is the most common and dangerous form of degeneration in the game – luckily our tree helps us out, as does a certain unique that may surprise some people to be actually used – to great success, if I may say so myself – by anyone, and is dirt cheap.

Also, since Prism Guardian gives a lot of resist, and Alpha’s at least some, we are freed from the bane of most unique heavy builds. That is, needing a lot of resist on rare items to compensate, which makes our rares potentially cheap, and in the mid- to high spectrum of wealth potentially able to overcap to negate the Elemental Weakness mod of maps, or elemental curses of mobs, relatively easily.

All Star of the build. Counters the chaos degen issue of MoM. Counters curse immune, elemental resistant mob by effectively making 15% of your elemental damage surpass the elemental reflect. Since we have no leech (only LGoH unless 6L), its an added bonus, which can be used versus double elemental reflect to gain even more life back (chaos is not elemental damage, so it doesn’t get reflected, but we leech off it = higher gain of life without making the damage being reflected higher!)
To top it all off, its dirt cheap (few chaos in Ambush for a perfect roll!) and almost always up – which is good, since I spam it pretty hard. Need a dps boost? Flask. Fear incoming damage? Flask. Degen? Flask. Flask? Flask.

We use Elemental Weakness 20/20 for resistant mobs, and Enfeeble level 20 for hard bosses or map mods. Keep Enfeeble on the toolbar, you never know when you need it!

I started out with a 4L CWDT with EC-IC-Increased Duration, but the addition of Vaal Haste forces me to split this up and go with another 2L: CWDT – EC
Not essential, not particularly good, but pretty nice to have.

Sick. Up almost all the time, linking it with 20/20 increased duration brings it up to more than 10.5 seconds, which fills it 3/4th of the way pretty reliably already. Puts our APS to 15 or beyond, another 30 Movement speed. Amplified by aura nodes and IF. Must have. Makes our Boots and Gloves this strange 4x 2L though, but what gives.

Keep in mind, I am using rather subpar items.

There’s a caveat here: I was planning to spec into scion IAS nodes before I make the leap into ranger start, but acquiring the 6L unexpectedly fast, plus the drop rate buff of fragments have made me prepare for Atziri – in turn, I specced out of these AS nodes into Shadow Life (temporary until the big leap into Ranger Life can be completed – I dislike playing with inefficient builds in the high 80s, at the cost of a few regrets). The Screenshots therefore favour the 5L in terms of DPS, for comparison: My 5L DPS with the current tree and gear is 24.367