DW gladiator some block+acro

Was kind of lost in the skill tree with the ascendancy classes, this is the first thing so far that I think could work for me.

Offline planner tree link, thanks Emmitt



Basically I wanted to play some old school dual strike, but block nodes are just really bad for dw overall and the double nerfed BoR is not even worth using, so I combined some stuff.


From my experience, with life builds I have problem dealing with spell dmg on higher tier maps (11-13), some can just literally oneshot me with certain combinations of mods.

Now well if you don't want to check the tree that is fine, so I explain the things here.

Block from tree: 11% and +8% from gladiator and +8% for 4 sec if I take dmg (but let's skip this part for now).
15+11+8=34

Acrobatics +phase acro.
Means I have 40% chance to dodge 30 to dodge spells.
But reduces block/sblock to 24%.
Halves my armor, but I stick to IR, so with granite and endu charges I still get decent phys reduction, and I have enough RNG based defense already.
Roughly:
attacks: 1-(1-0.24)*(1-0.4)=54.4%
spells: 1-(1-0.24)*(1-0.3)=46.8%
chance to block/dodge, if I calculated it right, however no idea if this is right or not.

Maybe using an enfeeble too.

Variants from equipments:

Chest: a BotB or a LC, or I could just stick to BoR to keep is cheap and no chestpiece in thsi case :/

Boots: rainbowstrides or atziri's steps, depends on if I need that 20% all-resist or not.

Dmg scaling from the tree generally is really low, 267% inc attack dmg and 79% inc attspeed.

Weapon: no idea yet, the tree also is very generic at the moment.

IR+Acro is useless..... they counter act one another... If i were to ever run acro putting points into block or IR or armour wont get you very far... those points are better used elsewhere.

You are actually better off just using running basalt flask (20% physical reduction) + 5 endurance charges and then stacking up on evasion/dodge or evasion/block.

Block is one of those mechanics that needs a lot of investment because every point is stronger than the next, i wouldn't run it with acrobatics if you are getting it off the tree.

Case and point:

Block/Evade/Dodge:
30% evade
24% block
40% dodge

Chance to take damage versus hits: 31.92%
Math: (0.7 * 0.6 * 0.76) = 0.3192

Higher Evasion with Dodge:
40% evade
40% dodge

Chance to take damage versus hits: 36%
Math: (0.6 * 0.6) = 0.36

So you wasted an Ascendancy class & passive tree points to end up with a really small buff to your evasive tactics.
This doesn't take spells into account but most of the enemies use attacks anyway.

An added bonus is that high evasion makes crits highly unlikely to happen versus you since enemies have to roll an extra roll versus your evasion.

Unless you are near to capping block (60%+) it is generally better to just take acro+phase acro and run grace for high evasion.
In your case the clear solution is to either stack more block or use the Champion Ascendancy to sport permanent boosted fortify for the hits that do pass through your evasion/dodge rolls.