[Fun Build] Viper Strike, Block, PURE attack speed...Scion!

EDIT: Made it to act 2 merc tonight and WOW! The difference between chaos res upto this point is so insane. I had to grind Ledge from 48-53 for rainbowstride's and the cannibal's in there have a pretty high chaos res but they died in a few hits. Went to the shipyard and I wasn't doing much damage to the flicker's. Onto act 2 and I do no damage, 90% of the thing's in act 2 counter this spec, VERY high chaos res, bears and golems. Don't even bother trying act 2 if you don't have a 20% gem and Empower atleast level 2 in your 5L. You'll do no damage at all. I think act 3 will be easy, alot of lightning res in act 3.

EDIT 2: Forget it, patch 1.0.2 will probably destroy my spec.

I need to say this before I type out anything else...
Gem level is EVERYTHING with Viper Strike!
Okay, knowing that, let's move on.

The build

Once you get to 75% spell block you can drop some of the extra 2% block node's for whatever else you want.

Gear
example gear(what im using to level)
You don't need any damage on your weapon's because the hit is basically an auto attack that's modified to cause a chaos dot. Damage on your weapon will help, but it's not required at all.

Mod's that you should look for, in order.
1. Attack speed
2. Life on hit
3. Mana on kill
4. +gem level
5. resits
Your obviously wondering why Mana on Kill" is in there. Well, the life pool is closer to a kiddy pool than an Olympic diving pool. If you BM this skill, it'll cost alot, and when you do 2 attack's per second without leech you WILL kill yourself. Therefore you need all the shady tactic's to acquire mana that you can get you paw's on.

Different weapon possibilities, in order of attack speed
1. Jewleled Foil
2. Spiraled Foil
3. Fancy Foil
4. Corsair Sword
5. Eternal Sword
6. Ambusher
It's not a good option because of the attack speed, but if you feel your lacking healing...
7. Tiger's Paw

Unique's

40% block is just too valuable to not use. You can use a different shield, but the MINIMUM block you need is 34, 33 if you got perfect Rainbowstride's.

Gem's, in order.
Q Viper Strike
Q Multistrike
Empower
Life Gain on Hit
Q Faster Attack's
Q Increased Duration
Now, if you have a 20% Viper you don't have to have duration, but you will notice when you don't use it. LGoH is there because the way leech work's, your actual attack will probably hit for like 200 damage at later levels, and leeching a few percent of that is meaningless. Plus, your going to be hitting 6+ time's a second, so each hit give's you 40+ life, that's alot of healing!
Another option is Enhance, you get more speed out of multistrike and more duration/speed out of viper. I'm not using this right now, but it look's very strong.

Aura's
Tempest Shield + Mana Leech and/or anything else that's free
Haste, I know no one use's it, but unless your REALLY needing a specific resist, use this.

Playstyle
This spec is kinda a "hit and run" style spec, more-so if your using duration, just attack a few times and walk away, it'll die from the 20 second chaos dot, trust me. Even Chaos resistant mob's don't stand a chance if you got a level 2/3 empower, the dot is just to big and lasts too long. Because Melee Splash and Prolif doesn't work with Viper, Multistrike turn's it into a pseudo-AoE attack. Conveniently, multistrike give's the best attack speed to make it so you can stack Viper to 4 stack's before it start's ticking.

Personal note's
1. Big mob's, Golem's, Bear's etc, will give you a little more trouble than chaos resist mob's. They just have so much hp... D:
2. Double Regen + more Life mob's....ANNOYING as all hell, they nearly nullify your dot without empower. I swear, the exact mods to counter you show up more often when you play a specific spec, like unwavering with a stun spec. Game's out to get us, man!!
3. Because your a block spec that uses viper strike, killing small groups of monsters is SO easy. So when in a group, try to find people who better at killing large group's, like a Discharger.
4. When it rain's it pour's...Once one monster hit's you, be sure 3 other's will also. You might not have been hit for 10 minute's then you'll randomly be at 1hp, that's just a thing of playing a "chance to not die" spec. That's why we have granite's tho right? :D

I know this doesn't seem impressive, but it's actually very strong. I'm on cruel Vaal right now and I have been leveling with this spec since level 19 with great success. Only recently when I got my block capped has the spec really been taking off, I'm only at 48% spell block but that's enough to almost never be hit.

Any question's, comment's and constructive criticism will be greatly appreciated!

Level 45 and starting the Ledge grind to 53 for Rainbowstride's. Right now the fact that my Viper Strike is so much lower level than the zone is showing, but with nothing resisting chaos I still do plenty of damage.

Piety hit me 5 time's in a 2 man group and I never stopped attacking her. That's just showing how OP Block spec's are if you ask me. And with my life being so low(1.3k in merciless) I thought she was going to 1 shot me if she hit me one time in ice form. Well she hit me 2 time's in a row and that didn't kill me.

Except for fire/chaos alchs and degen bears nothing really hurt's me enough to be scared. I'm not seeing any down side to this build yet. Except how far I need to go for block, that's the obvious downside.

Quick side-note. I messed around with this chest and it give's roughly 3% life regen with the consecrated ground effect. That alone nearly nullifies chaos damage if your positive resist. And with this chest giving 50% resist it won't be hard at all to get above 0. I'm going to be trying the opposite chest and see how hard the desecrated ground effect hit's.

have you tried Vulnerability curse?

Enfeeble would be a much better choice for a curse I think.
I'm not sure if Vulnerability will give more damage, I think that's meant more for bleed's. I'll try it out when I get some time to play, but personally I don't like to use curse's.

Like I said, I think Enfeeble would be better, you don't need to worry about damage. Unless you run into a Chaos resistant, double regen, life, large mob(bear/golem), your damage will be more than enough to get through anything. What you need to worry about is being 1 shot, you have a VERY low health pool and 'only' 75% CHANCE to not be hit. At the end of the day a chance is a chance.

EDIT: I just tried Vulnerability for 5 Ledge run's in merciless and I didn't see any difference. With the gem being 40% increased damage I should see a HUGE increase in damage. If it is working then it's not 40%.

This build looks interesting.

Can you post a video of it in action?

I gave it a try and the effect does no damage to white skeleton's, so it's safe to assume it'll do no damage to anything else.

The desecrated ground does % health damage, its great on mobs with huge HP pools, and sucks on regular little skeletons.