2H Axe Spectral throw (Bloodlines HC) - feedback on tree please!

Hi everyone,

I'm currently building a spectral throw marauder (axe) on bloodlines and I've come up with the following tree.

http://poeurl.com/y86Luph

195% life, ~218% armour, 6.7% life regen (running Spectral Throw with Blood Magic later on) and 80% life flask recovery speed. 372% Phys damage and ~65% attack speed.

I have a few questions for the more experienced players out there.

- At the marauder start, can I justify this path instead of the Melee phys route (for a single target (Double Strike))? I figured it's just about okay since I will be using spectral throw to stay at range for like 95% of bosses, I feel like the melee phys nodes would go to waste in 95% of situations, where as the slightly inefficient armour and life nodes route will not.


- I'm looking for some advice on which auras to run. I have not played for quite a while and I'm rather unfamiliar with the heralds and such. I was thinking herald of ash + hatred. Any suggestions for this? And which extra aura('s) could I run if I start running spectral throw with blood magic?


- And lastly, a basic question, what support gems would I run with spectral throw to maximize this build's pure phys damage, besides LMP?

Thanks in advance. :)

http://tinyurl.com/nesy48o

This would be my personal tree for axe spec throw marauder. Melee nodes will be helpful for double strike so it won't completely go to waste if they happen to be available while you're making your way towards the big notables, but obviously you should never go out of your way to get them.


6L (in order of importance):

ST + LMP + Phys Proj + Faster Atks + Added Fire + Blood Magic (or WED if no mana issue)


You got the auras right with hatred and herald of ash.


Stat requirements and capping res should be done through gear, as points on the tree become more precious towards end game. However, if you do need to spend 1-2 points for stats, you have 2 +30 dex and 2 +30 int nodes available.

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated!

Funny story, I added almost the exact same tree a moment ago in my edited post, going in from the top like you did. :D

You added a lot more phys and gave up a lot of armour though. I do think the armor value in your suggestion is slightly too low (especially this early in the league where I want to be flexible with gear. On the other hand, I can run BM a bit faster and run double granites instead. It's viable I guess.

What third aura do you suggest btw?

You still get 163% armor... I guess it's not as high as it could be but in previous tree versions, that would be considered a significant amt of armor so I wouldn't exactly call it too low. As for auras, if you plan on using blood magic gem, you can use another herald (ice or thunder), or any 40% auras (vitality, purities). For another 60% aura, you would need to have 4% reduced mana reserved node on the tree or use a unique.

For more armor, skip hatchet master (6 nodes) and grab soul of steel/unyielding (7 nodes) for a whopping 130% additional armor (+ 4% phys reduction and 20% crit dmg reduction).

http://tinyurl.com/mcnshwx