New to Game-Building a 2H Marauder. Some Advice Needed!

1) Introduction
2) My Goal
3) How Am I Gonna Reach My Goal?
4) Skill Tree
5) Playstyle
6) Stats
7) TL;DR

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1)

Hi everybody,

I've rolled a Marauder, because I love Melee Chars and do like to deal a sh** load of damage.

I'm on Ruthless Act 1 as of now.

2)

My Goal:

- Play with a 2 Hander. (Preferable with a Mace)
- Deal high DPS
- Highest possible survivability
- Highest possible kill-speed
- Highest possible movement speed
- Easily play endgame maps
- farm the sh** out of the game ;)

3)

How Am I Gonna Reach My Goal?

- Roll a Marauder -> Done
- Make intelligent use of the Passive Skills -> Work in Progress
- Make intelligent use of Skills, Gems and Support Gems -> Work in Progress
- Try to obtain best-in-slot items (Even in lower levels) -> Work in Progress
- Get in touch with the community and ask for feedback and advice -> Done

4)

These are my current Passive Skills:

- Skill Tree -

5)

Playstyle:

Single Target Dmg:

- Heavy Strike

--- Added Fire Damage
--- Added Lightning Damage
--- Faster Attack Speed

AoE:

- Curse -> Vulnerability
- Leap
--- Added Cold Damage
--- Blind
- Sweep
--- Added Cold Damage
--- Faster Attack
--- Life Gain on Hit

Other Skills:

- Phase Run
- Warlord's Mark
- Enduring Cry

6)

My Stats:

D E F E N S E

LVL: 43
Life: 1003
ES: 30
Mana: 250

Armour: 1177
Fire Resi: 58%
Cold Resi: 32%
Lightning Resi: 40%

O F F E N S E

- Heavy Strike: 1349.8 DPS
- Leap: 426.8 DPS
- Sweep: 473.8 DPS
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7)

TL;DR

When you look at my above posted Skill Tree. What advice can you give me considering my goal listed above? Which path should I take with future passive points?

Did you have problems with cruel or normal? Did you die anywhere?

I personally don't like armor build, as it works only for low- and mid-damage. And only physical one. I prefer health-heavy build. Don't you have problems with elemenatal ones?

Why sweep over ground slam?

You take 3x 10% armor nodes (10% per node), while you can take Body and Soul by Templar to get 28% armor (14% per node)

You take some strange mace nodes by the Resolute Technique, and don't Smashing Blows nor Bone Smasher nor Reckless Abandon

You have no regen! Wtf?!

"

Did you have problems with cruel or normal? Did you die anywhere?

Actually not. I have died a few times here and there, but never because of my stats. More so because of my own foolishness.

"

Why sweep over ground slam?

There are a few reasons for that. I do not like the animation of Ground Slam. And with Sweep I can also hit enemies behind me. Combined with Leap I can kill monsters pretty fast.

"

You take 3x 10% armor nodes (10% per node), while you can take Body and Soul by Templar to get 28% armor (14% per node)

Yes, you are right. At the time I'm posting this reply I already took the points.

- Current Skill Tree -

"

You take some strange mace nodes by the Resolute Technique, and don't Smashing Blows nor Bone Smasher nor Reckless Abandon

That is true. I didn't choose those skills, because I primarily wanted to focus on survivability rather than dmg. But I will take those nodes very soon. Thanks!

"

You have no regen! Wtf?!

Again, you are right. That is something I noticed myself. And I will change that asap.

Thanks so far!

I have pretty much the exact same goals for my mara, I'm hoping you continue to get useful advice here.

Yeah, I hope so, too. But it's Christmas time, so I need to be patient to get some more helpful advice ;)

Any help is very much appreciated though.

Perfect thread. Exactly what I was looking for. I have the same goals as you do. And here is my current build, I'm level 41.

Click me!

Note the main nodes right now are Blood Magic and Resolute Technique.

Now, I'm a bit puzzled by what is the best way to proceed building my character.

Here is what I am thinking would be good:

Click me!

However, I really want this character to proceed up to a high level and farm everything and become godly, and I'm not sure if this is the ideal way.

I was considering building around Endurance Charges to further expand the tankiness, but I don't know how to effectively build up and maintain stacks...

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and I hope my thoughts help more people.

"

My Goal:

- Play with a 2 Hander. (Preferable with a Mace)
- Deal high DPS
- Highest possible survivability
- Highest possible kill-speed
- Highest possible movement speed
- Easily play endgame maps
- farm the sh** out of the game ;)

With THIS BUILD (84 points) you will have High DPS, Very High Survivability (6 Endurance Charges, Good Life Pool, High Regen, Good Resistances, Good Armour), Relatively High Kill Speed (Berserking), Movement Speed as high as you an get (Armour Master).

At your level you should have the FOLLOWING NODES (62 points).

For survivability, the best option is having a high life pool, high regen, endurance charges and good elemental resistance. Armour comes after that, and improves your survivability against normal mobs. (The Key are the endurance charges, you can maintain 6 charges easely (with enduring cry, casting it often, and leveling it up) and they give 30% resistance and improve your armour exponentialy. For more survivabiltity, maybe you could get additional Knockback distance and chance (not really needed, but if you wanna leap and swipe that might be a good option considering that you will be surrounded by enemies).

The damage, if you want more damage you must sacrifice some surivibability. Although with that build you get access to excellent Notable nodes that increase your damage greatly, and 100% chance to hit with RT, also since you are gonna use elemental damage support gems, i added 50% additional elemental damage from Templar starting points.
After level 70, you may also wanna get increased AoE Range (Aplify is two nodes away, templar starting points).

You can get Unweavering Stance, but with a high life pool you do not really need it.
You can try to reach Iron Reflexes and add the +15% resistance in the path but after level 70, unless that you want to sacrifice something in exchance.

@Vold316

Thanks man.

That was exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Now I know that I am not completly off track. Quite the contrary, I am pretty confident that the choices I made in the Passive Skill Tree are actually very good so far.

I still have a question regarding "Blood Magic" though. How exactly does the skill work. I mean, sacrificing life for any skill sounds suicidal to me. How much Lifepool is the minimum for this skill, and how much Liferegen do I need?

About Blood Magic, with a good life regen% you will not even notice the life loss when using a skill.
With my marauder, as soon as i get Resolute Technique, i go down to Blood Magic, i usually get it at the end of act 2 normal or around that level.
Life Regen unlike mana regen nodes, is a % over your total life, what i mean is that if your life is 1000 and your life regen is 2% per second from nodes, then you get 20 life each second.
So, don't worry about survival, because you will not even notice the loss of life when using a skill (the most of the times).

Glad i could help, have fun with your build.

"

Vold316 wrote:

With THIS BUILD (84 points) you will have High DPS, Very High Survivability (6 Endurance Charges, Good Life Pool, High Regen, Good Resistances, Good Armour), Relatively High Kill Speed (Berserking), Movement Speed as high as you an get (Armour Master).

No agility/savant nodes. How will you use gems that require dex/int.