Has my build gone totally wrong!? - Leap slam tank marauder

Hello.

At first, since I didnt know much about the game, I just used all my skills nods on the things that I wanted to, and it seemed pretty fine until I came to merciless.

I was actually a all arounder marauder until very recently I got a bunch of regret orbs and did some majour fixing.

However, still I find it very hard to solo hard bosses in merciless. Well, I can solo docks and etc but I do find it quite challenging to do, and with my iir gear, I stand no chance to it. So it's not really farming.

I'm currently level 66 and my gear is as follows:

My gear


and my current passive skill tree looks like



Oh and my res in merciless is all 77% with the aura, apart from chaos resistance, and my max HP is around 2k, I can't figure out how to get it more higher than this as well..

Like as I said, my main skill is leap slam, and I'm trying to achieve good life leech with nice dps with it. It doesn't seem to work that well..

What is my problem? and for further levels upcoming to level 80s what should I need to focus on?

Thank you.

Build is quite feasible. I would recommed getting Iron Reflexes and Endurance Charges. Defenetly Endurance Charges.

The real problem (hopefully - easly solveable) is your gem allocation.

Primo: Primary, most important and most damage affecting support gem is "Melee Physical Damage". Throw out Multistrike and use "Melee Physical Damage" instead.
Second Primo: I don't suggest using Multistrike. DPS tooltip lies. Multistrike higly decreases armor pierce, therefore decreses your dps.
Tercio: Don't use Knockback along Heavy Strike. It's has this unpleasent feature already build-in
Second Secundo: Your main curse should be Warlord's Mark. It grants plenty Life Leech along with wonderful Endurance Charges.

Life problem is simple. None of your equipment has life mod (except helmet, but ~50 life at 66 level is pathetic). Every single piece of equipment has to have life mod. The highest - the better. I think 60 is minimum. There are only two exceptions: First is weapon, second are rings, but only in case the serve as resistance gear

~~nas

Multistrike higly decreases armor pierce, therefore decreses your dps.

What do you mean by this?

"

jsn006 wrote:

Multistrike higly decreases armor pierce, therefore decreses your dps.

What do you mean by this?

I will try to explain this.

As far as i know, it is better to hit less often but harder than faster for less damage.

Armor gives a sort of flat damage reduction (not true, but is similar to that), so if you hit 3 times you get the reduction 3 times, getting a lower dps overall.

"

alqui_gp wrote:

"

jsn006 wrote:

Multistrike higly decreases armor pierce, therefore decreses your dps.

What do you mean by this?

I will try to explain this.

As far as i know, it is better to hit less often but harder than faster for less damage.

Armor gives a sort of flat damage reduction (not true, but is similar to that), so if you hit 3 times you get the reduction 3 times, getting a lower dps overall.

OK thanks, I know what he meant now :) That monsters have the same diminishing returns reduction as players since they have armor rating too.

But (1) heavy strike will still hit super hard with its 150% DE and you also got a further 150ish% more from melee support, so the hits will hit very hard anyway. And also, (2) I think monsters dont have huge amounts of armor, so the reduction will be very very small unless they have endurance charges too, or that reduce physical damage mod.

Anyway, saw a video of this multistrike splash heavy strike on youtube and it totally rocks, melee is in much better shape now thanks to these support gems :)