[Newbie] MARAUDER LIGHTNING STRIKE BUILD

New to PoE? New to Marauders? Want a fun build with better range and damage than boring old Ground Slam? Want to super buff your elemental damage to take full advantage of weapon mods and auras? This is it!!!

This guide will aim to provide new players with a framework for building a Lightning Strike (skill) Marauder either in 2H (offensive oriented) or 1H+Shield (defensive) style. Also, you could adapt the 1H build to hardcore if you wanted, with it's emphasis on increased mitigation and conservative play.

One thing I found a little befuddling about other guides is when players are given a passive skill tree with 100 pts spent on it, and no direction on how and when to go where. This guide will offer the passive tree in snippets, with 2H and 1H versions where applicable.

HALEZOR'S LIGHTNING STRIKE MARAUDER GUIDE

%%% A work in progress! Adding more when I can! %%%
### DISCLAIMER: Play Melee at your own risk. It isn't glamorous and you won't clear screens like a witch, but it is fun. Merciless and onward is very weapon dependant. You need to drop big numbers on mobs in order to live long enough to kill more. ###

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TL;DR Passive Tree Progression:

First 12 Points: http://tinyurl.com/c72wfrx
Resolute Technique (17 pts): http://tinyurl.com/c952c6h

Shield Builds #1 (28 pts):http://tinyurl.com/bojc2tu
2H Weapon Builds #1(31-32 pts):http://tinyurl.com/buoevb6
Shield Builds #2 (37 pts total)http://tinyurl.com/chtt6ao
2H Weapon Builds #2 (44 pts total) http://tinyurl.com/cuo8w8d

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Gear and Desirable Stats

Early on, just focus on armor. If you need to use a piece of gear that has armor and evasion on it, that isn't bad either. Ultimately though, armor is your bread and butter as a melee character, armor and of course life. Always take life as a mod when you can. If you had the choice between two pairs boots (for example) that both had good sockets but where boots1 had 100 armor and no life and boots2 had 50 armor and +30 life, I would take boots2 every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Armor is no good if you don't have a life pool to absorb the damage that armor doesn't mitigate.

With respect to weapons, the primary concern is +X% to physical damage. That is your only concern early on. The higher the percentage bonus to physical damage, the higer range of damage your weapon will deal. Your skill damage is based off your weapon damage, so the higher damage weapon you can get, the better. Secondary concern on weapons is Attack Speed tied with Elemental Damage. Having a 20% attack speed increase on your weapon results in much more damage being dealt over time. So does added elemental damage. It is hard to say exactly which is better without having specific numbers to look at, but suffice to say that after a mod which boosts the % physical damage of the weapon, attack speed and elemental damage are the next most desirable.

Beginning the Passive Tree

First 12 Skill points: http://tinyurl.com/c72wfrx (12 pts total)
The first 12 points are spent on the life branch which, all told, will give:

+37% Max life
+1.9% of max life regen per second
+30 HP
+30% reduction in extra crit damage from enemies
+15% to all resistances (great for 1 point!)
+40 Strength (Strength also boosts damage (1% per 5 STR and life)

Why life? Why not armor? Armor will be more useful later, when the armor you find actually has large armor values that are worth buffing. Why not damage nodes? Well, this early in the game weapon and skill damage is all you need to wreck mobs easily so don't worry about the damage nodes below the life branch, you would just end up re-speccing out of them later for better nodes. Save your regret orbs and just ignore them.

Starting Out

First things first, kill the zombie who ate your fellow survivor and claim the Heavy Strike gem offered as a reward. This gem will literally always be equipped from here on out. It is an essential. Proceed to Hillock and beat him down, and choose the Cleave gem as your reward. In the early stages of the game, Cleave is going to be your bread and butter attack skill.

Proceed with the game while keeping an eye out for any gear you find that has +Maxmimum Life and +Strength. If you can get both mods on one item (belts come to mind) go for it. You might want to pick up a Dexterity amulet so you can equip a wider variety of axes and swords, which you need to equip in order to use lightning strike (though early game any weapon will do).

***Note: If playing 1H build, be sure to take Shield Charge gem as a quest reward when you complete "Breaking Some Eggs" quest. It is great for taking out casters and general mobility including getting out of the middle of a pack of mobs.

When you beat the first "boss" of Act 1, the Warden Brutus, you will be given a choice of gems as a reward. You can take either Lightning Strike if you want another damaging attack right now, or (especially if you are a 2H marauder) you can take Leap Slam if you want a skill that will give you some mobility and the ability to get out from the middle of a group of mobs. Whichever gem you don't choose, you will have a chance to pick up in early Act 2 ("Intruders in Black" quest reward). Even though this is a "Lightning Strike" guide, you don't really end up using the skill until you are leveled up a bit, so early on you can take Leap Slam if you prefer, and 2H weapon users would be well advised to make sure they pick it up at some point early. It will get you out of some jams.

***Note: See all quest rewards here if you like: http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Quest_Rewards
This is useful for planning out when to take which quest reward gems, such as auras, totems, and life gain gems.

The other quest reward gem you NEED to keep an eye out for is Life Gain on Hit. You receive this as a reward for beating the Siren, Merveil. It is tempting to take the Added Fire Damage (and you should definitely take one the next chance you get) but early on getting life back from Cleave will help keep you alive easier (especially 2H builds) and we will be wanting a high level Life on Hit for our Lightning Strike combo later on.

Honestly, at this point, just keep playing and getting a feel of the skills you have: Heavy strike for single targets and wearing down blue/yellow/boss mobs, Cleave for taking out large packs of trash mobs, and Shield Charge or Leap Slam for getting out of trouble and getting to casters quickly. You will be able to get the first "keystone" node of the build at level 17 (16 pts from leveling up, 1 pt from quest reward) as shown below:

Passive Tree Update

First major stop: Resolute Technique http://tinyurl.com/c952c6h (17 pts total)

Whether 1H build or 2H build, you want this node. Why? Resolute Technique, while not mandatory for any build, is a ridiculously awesome skill. It guarantees that your attacks will hit every time (chance to hit = 100%) at the expense of losing the ability to deal critical hits. While this sounds like a big loss, if you aren't making a build designed to boost crit damage, the loss is not a great one. In reality, hitting all the time will usually boost your dps above what the occaisional crit will do. This is especially useful for Lightning Strikers since, as the tool tip says, when the main attack of lightning strike hits a target, the projectiles are also guaranteed to hit their targets.

Passive Tree Update for Shield Builds

http://tinyurl.com/bojc2tu (28 pts total)
Take the shield nodes first, and notice that two of them grant +15% resistance each (30% total) when using a shield. Combined with the diamond skin node taken earlier, you have base 45% resist against elements before any gear. This will serve you well all the way through Cruel and the resists you get on rings and other gear will top you up to 75% easily.

Passive Tree Update for 2H Weapon Builds
http://tinyurl.com/buoevb6 (31-32 pts total)
This path will set you up for a ton more life and a +50% buff to ALL elemental damage dealt with your weapon...this includes +dmg on your weapon (ex. "4-8 cold damage"), damage from auras, and damage from skills...like Lightning Strike! It also buffs the damage from the Added Fire Damage support gem and the Weapon Elemental Damage support gem. In short: It is three points well spent, and leads into another nice life cluster. The 2H damage node (+12%, 20 STR) is optional and you can take it if you want to. If it was just 12% I would say skip it, but the +20 str is nice too so I leave the choice with you.

Passive Tree Update for Shield Builds

http://tinyurl.com/chtt6ao (37 pts total)
At this point, you're going to want to add some damage with your life and blocking beefed up. Since it's on the way and since life regen = win, we will take the 5 health nodes after Catalyze as well. Pretty simple.

Passive Tree Update for 2H Weapon Builds
http://tinyurl.com/cuo8w8d (44 pts total)
Now, after taking that elemental damage and life boost in the last update, we are going to take another DPS node only it (a) requires some travelling and (b) isn't apparent that it is a good node for us...but it is. This skill we are going for, Static Blows, will help clear large packs of white mobs much faster, and if you can apply shock to a blue/yellow/rare mob and then hit it with Heavy Strike, you will deal a ton more damage to it. Also this path, even though we won't take the node now, puts us in a position to later take Inner Force and two related nodes which will buff ALL of our auras by 30%. We don't take it now because our auras are weak now, but later on getting a 30% buff to lvl 10+ auras is a huge DPS increase...especially when you run all 3 elemental damage auras, and especially since it factors in to our "Increased Weapon Elemental Damage" nodes and whatnot. Culmulative bonuses for the win!

Will u be posting an updated skill tree for higher levels ??