Frenzy / Cleave DW Duelist Build

Nice build.

Quick question though.. What do you think about incorporating a blood magic support gem for your mana intensive skills, so you will be able to incorporate more auras?

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Anruijin wrote:

Nice build.

Quick question though.. What do you think about incorporating a blood magic support gem for your mana intensive skills, so you will be able to incorporate more auras?

if you read back a few pages, some people do. However using the gem version increases the cost of using your skills. 250% increase at the start, and about 200% increase towards about lvl 60.

I noticed you only have 4 points in sword specialization and forego all the other ones. How much would this build suffer by moving those 4 points to more broad talents to allow more varied weapon choices?

Has anyone done any proper testing of "Grace" with "Iron Reflexes" the tooltip in your defensive stats update to show the increased armor that Grace gives you but i'm honestly not seeing any effect in game with it on. I seem to take the same damage from physical attackers with it off as I do when I turn it on. Are we certain it is functioning correctly under Iron Reflexes?

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Oddgurth wrote:

Has anyone done any proper testing of "Grace" with "Iron Reflexes" the tooltip in your defensive stats update to show the increased armor that Grace gives you but i'm honestly not seeing any effect in game with it on. I seem to take the same damage from physical attackers with it off as I do when I turn it on. Are we certain it is functioning correctly under Iron Reflexes?

Of course it works.

Go ingame and turn off grace, press C and DEF tab and see your armor then turn on grace but remember its off when your in a city.

So with this build what is the best armour to be getting? I noticed on your video you run with the hybrid sets that are evasion + armour. However isn't full evasion gear better for this particular build?

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Oddgurth wrote:

Has anyone done any proper testing of "Grace" with "Iron Reflexes" the tooltip in your defensive stats update to show the increased armor that Grace gives you but i'm honestly not seeing any effect in game with it on. I seem to take the same damage from physical attackers with it off as I do when I turn it on. Are we certain it is functioning correctly under Iron Reflexes?

Definitely works, and in my experience is both cheaper mana/health-wise than determination aura, while giving around the same boost, which is kinda sad actually :D

I just wanted to post how much fun I've been having with this build. I'm level 43 and having a great time right now, and I don't have any special gear or anything because this is my first character I've played in Cruel. My Marauder friend and I roll through most things at the moment, I don't die very often at all. My first character that I picked was a Witch, and I pretty much failed my through the game and died anytime anything looked at me (in normal, no less) and Duelist right now is a great change to that. I'm super tanky, have tons of life on hit/life leech, and it's just really fun.

The one thing is at the moment I do pretty crap damage compared to my Marauder friend, but it's still fun anyway. I switched to Blood Magic in the 30's and it was incredible, and right now it's no problem to Frenzy and spam cleave/dual strike. Maybe that will change in the next difficulty, I don't really know. At the moment I'm just using whichever weapons have the most damage/best stats because I haven't put any points into a specific weapon type. For now I'm using mostly two axes because their damage is big and I can still use Cleave with them. I wish I could cleave with maces!

Thanks for posting this build, I really appreciate it!

@thebetteromy - I actually don't think it really suffers at all and you're more than fine moving those 4 points wherever suits you. Part of why I am very happy with this build is that it is branched into a wide variety of strong options to shuffle points around. I only have those 4 points there because I really enjoy Whirling Blades, so I'm tied to swords if I want to keep it in my build, and those 4 points are really strong as far as weapon nodes go. They're far from a necessity.

@Oddgurth - Evasion armor should definitely be given preference once you have Iron Reflexes. In my videos I'm wearing the best stuff I've been able to acquire, that's all. The variance on mods means that it's possible a piece of pure Armor will be the best thing you have access to, and you shouldn't worry too much about sticking to Evasion that you pass up stronger pieces of gear. You might miss a good upgrade if you ignore everything except raw Evasion.

@onimike - Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Quick question:
Why would you choose Frenzy over Blood Rage? I can understand that it can be unnecessary damage your hero takes, especially if you are using auras that will take away from your max HP. But if you are looking for keeping your frenzy charges at max charge, I think its a little more feasible than to add in all the extra button presses of a different skill.