65 Mara sucky char. Assistance would be appreciated.

So, here´s the problem. Im lvl 65, but cant even knock down lvl 50 docks in a reasonable way.

I´ve tried building the skilltree in a sensible way, but have, in desperation, changed specs during the game which ofc takes a toll on the game. But!- I would like to think that i should be doing a lot better than i am for some reason. So any ideas to my skills?

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAdwB5w6tE1sUIBiRGNsZLho4G0Ub-h0UIQIhVSXfJ-0pLimlKvY26DpSPfxDnEZpR35OKlBHUFBVtVcNWGNYr1nzW69fP2TnZU1mnmoeapNuaXKpdud4DXuMfLiE2YcpjM-Ov5BVmSuezaQZpzCnhKgYq8WsqrZBvYG-ir6nwA_AGsEExPbG2NIh0k3V7dlh37_z3fZI97760g==

I am (now) going for lightning strike, but despite elemental damage, faster attack, fork, chain, im struggling to keep dps above 900 which seems ridiculous for a mara at my lvl.

Admittedly i am new at this and a bit reluctant to having to ask for help. But hours of reading online, looking at guides, tutorials and kripparians sleepy eyes, have gotten me nowhere fast.

Im using a twohanded axe with 150-255 physical, 6-13 fire, 5,57 crit and 1,20 base att speed.
I would like to link to my gear, but havent found a way to do that.

Any thoughts, advice or (constructive) criticiscm would be much welcomed.

Check your PM. I can't seem to post shit here. Everything I've typed out, only less than a quarter appears.

Why would you skip taking Butchery and the small damage node to link the chain. If you're so in need of more DPS, why dump it into two Strength nodes? The same two points can be used to still link the chain, giving more benefits instead.

Are you taking Resolute Technique? I can't give advice if you don't tell me what build you're doing. If you are, ditch Iron Reflexes and everything on that side. Go full armor with high life points, but have at least 100 Dexterity to be able to equip Dex based Skill Gems.

Forget everything Dex based but still keep the minimum Dex at 100. Go Str/Int based and run for Static Blows near the top of the tree.

Ditch the Int based node, Savant.

You'll still keep missing even if you try to go Dex anyway. Take Resolute Technique. You can't do Crits now, but you have Static Blows.

Your tree is currently messed up all around. Maybe you're in the midst of rescpeccing and transferring points using Respec Points and Orbs of Regrets, but I have never seen so much confusion in a tree before.

Your build sucks.

This is my build. Take away LAVA LASH AND ANOTHER TWO POINTS to enable you to get STATIC BLOWS. Take Resolute Technique. Run for survivability and DPS after that. Run 40% Auras in the mana pool. Run Determination Aura. Grab a Blood Magic Gem and link it to Lightning Strike. Reduced Mana Gem. Added Lightning Damage Gem. Lightning Penetration Gem. I can guarantee you that this is better than what you've planned with your current build.

Nevermind. Fixed.

I started out having the idea of making a phys damage tank to soak up damage and compliment a witch i play with. Little did i know that is a deadend build, so my skills are the result of atleast two different directions taken.

The build has also changed during play out of desperation, from onehanded, to twohanded, from fire to shock and resolute/no resolute in an attempt of mainstreaming the build into a more standardised build, but it obviously doesn´t work. I had taken the butchery node, and have no idea as to why that isn´t the case anymore.-It goes on as the next node.

I used to do resolute, but seeing as it had no clear effect, i figured i had to go shock+crit like everybody else. Guess that goes back on.

The varius dex and int has at some point been a necessity in order to either use a better weapon/armor, reach something or lvl up gems and i have obviously been too reluctant to respec those.

If i take resolute, i loose crit ability, but isn´t that essential in shock/elemental damage? Reasoning behind that idea is that it is a lot of hits which each deal low damage but with high crit chance it wins in the end. Have i got that wrong?

I´ll be fixing my build in the next couple of days with your advices as reference, so thank you for now.

Honestly....Reroll.


-The skill tree path is super inefficient. and It would take around 2 Exalts worth of regrets to fix.

With your build: Chance To Miss and Low DPS, but High Crit Chance, so I'll hit with a pretty big amount every now and then because of Crit.

My idea: Resolute Technique, "Okay" DPS, low Chance To Cause Shock, so I'll hit EVERYTHING for an "okay" amount of damage, and every once in a while, though not that many times, I rape with crazy damage.

Even when you take Resolute Technique, you can still cause Shock if you have deal high enough damage per hit and have "Chance To Shock". You can get it through the "Static Blows" cluster. Some Lightning Support Gems also give "Chance To Shock" through Quality. Although you won't be shocking everything on screen as much when having "Crit" enabled, you would still hit everything and not miss a single shot at all times, and still have a chance to cause Shock. Unless you're ending up with 250 Dex with at least two Accuracy Nodes by the time you reach Level 70, you're gonna miss hitting too many times, and that is unacceptable in a game like this. I do not have any evidence for this though, but that is roughly how it goes. So unless you hit that criteria, I suggest Resolute Technique.

Now to fix your Lightning Strike problem you'd have to have..

1. High Base Damage. I suggest you go two-handed from start to finish. These weapons deal the most damage. Added with a few Damage Nodes, you'll be hitting for quite a sum of raw damage.

2. Elemental Damage Multipliers. You want Lightning Strike? Grab those sons of bitches.

3. MULTISTRIKE. < HUNT THIS THING DOWN TILL' THE ENDS OF WRAECLAST.

4. Which kind of Gems you link to your main Skill Gem is crucial when stacking DPS. Getting Fork and Chain linked to an already low DPS skill is useless as it only "hits much more people for much much much less damage". What you want instead is a solid single attack. Stack up damage to high heaven so that those three lightning projectiles are worth what they are. I'd rather have three solid arrows causing damned damage rather than a million multiple projectiles causing nothing but a glancing blow to everyone hit. One crucial Support Gem is a QUALITY Added Lightning Damage. The added Quality gives Chance to Shock.

5. When it comes to Lightning Strike, INCREASED PHYSICAL DAMAGE is better than INCREASED MELEE PHYSICAL DAMAGE. Linking Chain and/or Fork or any other "Added Projectile" Gem will only make the projectile weaker, and you still hit for the same amount of damage for the initial hit. You need to stack for the projectiles that come out of the initial attack as well. So that's why you stack Elemental Damage for the Projectiles alone, and Increased Physical Damage for BOTH the melee portion of the hit and the projectiles as well. Add the right gems and you should be off with high DPS. Watch Kripp's explaination for the related topic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FFti8bjVlM

Different players have different views as to what suits them better. Maybe you took this path because you have a different style of thinking and obviously a different playstyle as compared to mine. Like what Epsilon2012 has stated, restart. Do not feel like you're wasting time and all. I myself had made and rerolled seven Duelists, ranging from Levels 30 to 80, and most were because of minor cock-ups. I'm running with a Marauder now, which I have also rerolled two times. It's worth the reroll. You start afresh, and you take your past experiences as a huge lesson that'll help you for the current character's future.

yeah I hate to say it but that looks like a reroll to me. There's atleast 20 odd points wasted into things you don't need for example all those starting maruader damage nodes none of them are needed lol, physical damage takes forever to scale so your its an unwritten rule almost don't bother stack elemental damage nodes, they scale of your auras and skills oh so much more. The fact you have 900 dps is quite crazy to me I dunno how you've managed to even get it that high with those nodes but hey, 900 dps really isnt that bad what is causing your deaths is the lack of hp nodes and I imagine resistances I mean why take the 2 fire nodes but skip the all elemental resistance one? It should be the other way around take the elemental skin and skip the other 2. Also how much health do you actually have? Like i'm not being nasty but i have more hp nodes on my marauder and that's currently lvl 33 lol with 1.2k hp.

Here is just my starting build and I'm planning to go LS too, I already have max res in normal and merciless and 1.2k hp its a survival tank atm. You should really flesh out your hp nodes first then progress to damage after because you can practically run the whole game until maps with only 300+ dps.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAnEEsxRNGS4aOBznJ-0yiUTnUFBUSVfiWGNZ818_cql35XzZjM-QVaIAp4SsqrndwBrE9sbY1I_nUuw47w7wH_Iv8932SA==

"

yeah I hate to say it but that looks like a reroll to me. There's atleast 20 odd points wasted into things you don't need for example all those starting maruader damage nodes none of them are needed lol, physical damage takes forever to scale so your its an unwritten rule almost don't bother stack elemental damage nodes, they scale of your auras and skills oh so much more. The fact you have 900 dps is quite crazy to me I dunno how you've managed to even get it that high with those nodes but hey, 900 dps really isnt that bad what is causing your deaths is the lack of hp nodes and I imagine resistances I mean why take the 2 fire nodes but skip the all elemental resistance one? It should be the other way around take the elemental skin and skip the other 2. Also how much health do you actually have? Like i'm not being nasty but i have more hp nodes on my marauder and that's currently lvl 33 lol with 1.2k hp.

Here is just my starting build and I'm planning to go LS too, I already have max res in normal and merciless and 1.2k hp its a survival tank atm. You should really flesh out your hp nodes first then progress to damage after because you can practically run the whole game until maps with only 300+ dps.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAnEEsxRNGS4aOBznJ-0yiUTnUFBUSVfiWGNZ818_cql35XzZjM-QVaIAp4SsqrndwBrE9sbY1I_nUuw47w7wH_Iv8932SA==

Yes. You'd want to build someone who can survive a beating first, before being strong enough to beat others.

This is really helpfull! I´ve been quite frustrated today, and despite respecing quite a lot of points, i still dont feel "comfortable" when playing. The mechanics of this game is far out compared to D3 and my main issue is probably that im used to that, where you cant really go wrong. Also the different terms and gems does honestly not make much sense when i do my logic reasoning. I guess it mostly comes down to experience.

But here´s what im gonna do.

I´ve been looking for multistrike since it came out, and i will base my NEW build off of multistrike and lightning strike. So, the hunt continues.

I will do resolute technique, which in my reasoning always were the way to go, but just didn´t work because of my other choices.

I will stay pretty much clear of the bottom tree and leech off of the templar part, gaining his life, resists and in the end static blow. (well maybe not in that order, but i havent played with the tree just yet)

Starting from scratch with elemental focus and loads of hp nodes will make a big ass difference!

I went with chain in the first place because i wanted to keep a distance between myself and the mobs. That wasn´t my initial idea, but i had to try. I was reading up on the gem and it states that if the the initial hit is succesful, then the subsequent projectiles can not miss. But i prefer doing a distanced attack (shift). Does that then mean that projectiles will miss? This regards chain if i am succesful in getting high enough damage for it to be relevant.

When stacking damage,as pr krips video, i suppose i should forget all about melee and go physical. I think i have gotten that wrong so far. Balls!

I came to the conclusion that restarting is the only way to go. Im playing with a buddy of mine, but the joy of the game was all gone. There is no point in playing when there are no succeses and the only fun comes out of dying in a funny way.

Reading you posts, especially Wehrmachtbear, is extremely helpful. I get frustrated for not understanding the mechanics despite the many (MANY) hours i´ve spent on it, but i guess, as i said in the beginning that if i get the terminology right from the beginning, it will be alright.

But, a couple of questions.. Should i give a shit about dps? Is it relevant in any way? I could do 2000+ dps with pure melee, but that was single target and rather useless in mobs. When i then did 1000 aoe, it didn´t seem to get half the job done. I guess that also has mob armor/dmg effect. Hmm.. There are ways of exceeding the tooltip dps, so is there ways to go the other way? Question being, can i trust it?

With lightning strike, i can pretty much forget about str, right? Since they add physical melee, and LS counts for physical only, it shouldn´t matter? (just making sure here)

I´ll keep the post open and later add an update on the progress, but for now, thanks guys! I do appreciate it!