devmoon's | Armor & Evasion - Shield Duelist V 2.0

Sword & Board! (I am playing hardcore)

Skill tree progression (outdated)

Level 86 goal (updated with new tree)

DISCLAIMER
This is an experimental character and could probably have been made better by skipping nodes etc.. etc.. etc.. and having different types of gear but the main goal of this character is to grab all the leather & steel nodes while using armor & evasion gear (which I know is not optimal) together with a shield. (a very specific shield that is)
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Wanted to share my current project so here it is, I will be updating this as time goes on but here is the basics of the build.

I am currently level 74 but I have been creating similar duelists before in closed beta and already have 2 in open beta (to optimize progression and endgame)

My stats right now 624 mana and 3742 life (with the gear I want I am getting 4.4k)

* Armor & Evasion (no iron reflexes)
* 232% life
* decent damage (one handed sword)
* 6-7 auras
* 6 frenzy charges
* 3-4 endurance charges (notes below)
* 10k+ armor
* 16k+ evasion
* arrow dodging
* flicker strike for movement and escaping
* you only need 4 socket items
* 79% all resist

The reason for the few endurance charges is that I did not want to focus to heavily on having them up all the time since there is already a ton of stuff to keep track on with 100% close range melee.

Auras

* grace (on life with reduced)
* anger (on life with reduced)
* wrath (on life if you can afford it, and you have high int)
* determination (on mana with reduced)
* purity (on mana with reduced)
* hatred (on mana with reduced)

Must have things

* Atleast 610+ mana to keep up frenzy and leech per second
* I only have 1 granite and is not dependent on it
* you need high armor and evasion with your gear
* 2% mana leech minimum
* 2% life leech very minimum (I dont run life on hit)

Skill gems

* cleave = added fire + faster attacks + increased melee dmg
* frenzy = blind + faster attacks + increased melee dmg (23 mana cost)
* flicker = item quantity + culling strike (really good finisher)
* viper strike = faster attacks
* enduring cry (no need for faster cast with 6 frenzy charges)
* enfeeble (normally)
* vulnerability (for farming)
* bear trap = support with whatever
* all auras with reduced

Bandit rewards

* Normal +40 life
* Cruel +1 skill point (yea you can argue with 12% physical damage)
* Merciless +1 frenzy charge

Strategy

Watch my stream to see how I play it : )
http://www.twitch.tv/devmoon

Gear (was on hardcore)

The gear I am using is not the best you can get (everyone has that problem)
Whats interesting is the resulting armor and evasion values that this character is based around, after the patch respec when I grabbed all the leather & steel nodes my defensive stats looked like this

* 10k armor
* 10k evasion (with 6 frenzy charges)

* Helmet - you want to get you armor & evasion high (this item is really bad though)

* Chest - same as before you need a lot of increased on this one

* Shield - my shield is bad but the aim is getting a combined of 2.5k+

* Boots - just get life, resists and movement speed

* Gloves - same as above, you can grab life leech here

* Ring I - try to get accuracy rating, life and mana

* Ring II - same as above

* Amulet - i wanted to get my mana leech from my amulet, but 2% is enough

* Weapon - sword with as high flat physical damaged as possible (can be so much better)

* Belt - anything with high life and chaos (standard life belt)


Potions

I prefer warding and catalysed combined with bubbling (if alchemist) otherwise seething



R.I.P lvl 76

Yes he will rest in peace but rest assured I am already working on a new armor & evasion project that is more shaped to fit the new duelist passive tree.

You can follow the new main project using this link
Acassis - Armor & Evasion Duelist 3.0

reserved

Is this build very gear dependent? Im currently level 45 @ HC using your build and everything has been going smoothly so far. Im afraid i will hit a brick wall once i enter merciless.

When you say that your auras are on life. do you mean that you're using the blood magic gem with those auras?

I understand that you have mana leech on your amulet, but where did you get the life leech from when its not from the support gem?

And could you possibly link your current gear?

I know the details are missing but I will be adding more and more over the days : ), the life leech is from %2 gloves.

You can get life leech on gloves, rings, amulets and of course weapons.

You will need to take care of your gear in merciless but the biggest thing is having a decent weapon since the damage will be low otherwise with a one hander.

I will link my gear and describe my ideas later when I get back on sunday.

Cheers

Too bad i died on my 44 duelist. I was following this build and it was fun.

Nice to see it finally put down in an ordered manner :)

As you know, I'm was making something similar with DW, A few nodes changed around and im not planning on Flicker Strike (using Leap Slam to get out of range of things, somewhat more risky i guess).

Either way, I enjoyed watching the stream while this was being built, And its always good to see NON-IR Duelists around.

Kudos.

Hi devmoon, nice build

I have one question ;

Do you run grace, anger and wrath with blood magic ?? or with reduce mana

Hey!

I also have another question!

Im currently level 58 and having alot of mana issues with frenzy, it costs 20 mana with faster attacks and melee physical damage and with 4 frenzy stacks im almost at 4 attacks per second, so thats almost 80 mana per second when spamming frenzy.. I saw on your stream that you only have like 120 mana to use because of the many auras. So how do you manage the mana cost of frenzy so good? Is the 4% mana leech on your amulet really enough?

Edit: I actually bought an ilvl 74 onyx amulet and alterated it to 4% mana leach and suprisingly it solved all the mana problems :D

Im loving your build, but could you please link your gear. :3 Also i watch you on twitch, but still haven't subscribed, maybe later i will. Though now im level 54 and my gear have crappy armour and evasion, but good hp...

thanks for posting this build, I just found a super high evasion rating shield and was lookin for a build to actually use it.