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

so the only reason not to going loads of evasion multipliers and iron reflexes is stunlock by block chance? i guess unwavering stance wont solve this issue?

Anyone still rolling this build? Just hit Act 3 Merciless with it, lvl 70. Here's my gear:

im running it and i have to say it's a very fun, in your face, build. kudos to devmoon for bravely conceptualizing this on hardcore. in my opinion this is the true man mode melee build as you can jump in a middle of a pack and get out without a scratch.

here are my items.


build


i over killed the resists but it allowed me to free up a skill point on diamond skin. also notice i stacked chaos resist, mainly because im running blood rage. the 6% life leech really helps a lot and in my opinion a better way to stack frenzy charges.

the only problem i run into with this build are spell casters. the flame sentinel that cast multiproj fireballs and the blackguard mage that casts arc lightning still hurts me especially when they are grouped up and cast at you at the same time. anyone has a suggestion mitigating this damage? the only way i can think of is raising my hp.

How much HP are you at? Can't be more than 2.5k with all those auras, and a few less HP nodes than I. I'd consider dropping a couple of block chance or leather/steel nodes to grab the HP above the frenzy charge on the right. Also, no mana flasks? Or are you at such a low pool due to auras that the implicit regen on your amulet is enough?

PS I died :( Gonna rebuild it though, might try a claw > sword though, we'll see!

i just hit 3k hp at level 68. as devmoon said, i put the non-percent based reservation auras on my life. as mentioned above posts, a trick you could use to lower the life cost of the auras is to use malachi's simula or covenant silk robe for their blood magic item attribute instead of linking the blood magic gem. using these uniques, you will avoid the 200% mana cost increase from using the blood magic gem. what i do is i put on malachi's then cast anger, wrath, and grace, then remove malachis and replace again with my original helm. only spent 300 life to run those three auras.

i don't use mana flask mainly because of the 2% mana leech from one of my rings. the mana regen on my amulet are good bonuses but doesn't affect mana management as much as the mana leech. stay above 600 mana and get at least 2% mana leech and you'll be fine.

Thanks for the reply, I just sold a Covenant as well... didn't think of using it like that! I could only really manage Grace / Determination / Purity on my dude, Grace on health and the other two on Mana. I had a huge mana regen problem, couldn't get any decent mana leech gear. Was running Warlords Mark all the time to help with that, and up to like lvl 65, Clarity.. not ideal.

Also I recognize your username... do you frequent dev's stream? I'm porydan2 on there :D

glad i can give insight man. yeah i frequent dev's stream - usually when im at work, hehe.

looking at year gear, part of your mana problem are the 5 support skill gems on cleave. each gem would raise the mana cost of cleave significantly. as a comparison, my cleave only cost 16 mana (with the reduced mana cost passives). in my opinion, remove the life on hit and/or blind, at least until you get better mana regen. as an alternative, you can get life leech on your gear or maybe try running blood rage. blind is useful for hard-hitting single targets (bosses). for normal to magic mobs just use enfeeble.

Well he's dead now so oh well :D Hoping the next patch brings a "Cleave" for Claws so I can re-make the build with that. Might give this another go with Cyclone or something gimmicky until then. AFAIK, Blind doesn't actually add any Mana Cost (according to the gem, could be an oversight). Could have done with dropping the Added Cold but the real Mana problem was from using Frenzy. Cleave was always manageable Mana-wise, but the Frenzy cost was huge.. I think I might have levelled it too far :D