Duelist guide using Acrobatics/Phase Acrobatics/Arrow Dodging

Note: This is a build in progress. I will test it and update/go more in depth as I progress.

Preface:
A few days ago, if I was asked if someone should take Acrobatics, Phase Acrobatics, or/and Dodge Arrow, the answer would have been a resounding hell NO. I have made a character to test these keystone and they are just not viable and cannot carry you until you have enough evasion for it to be good especially Acrobatics. However, checking out Kripp's theory crafting and build yesterday has given me some ideas to think outside the box. Why not turn my most disappointing keystone and character into an unconventional beast?

Keystones:
Acrobatics with it's supporting nodes will give about 30% chance to DODGE attacks while removing all defense and energy shield.
Phase Acrobatics will give 20% chance to dodge spells (normally spells always hit)
Dodge Arrow doubles chances to EVADE projectiles. I think this node takes into account what your evasion stat is at the moment and double it (No, not Jay Wilson style! Sorry I can't resist).

Why did I capitalize Dodge and Evade, well as far as I can understand, when the game takes into account your avoidance stats as a whole, Dodge will be rolled first, and then Evasion will be rolled, giving your character 2 chances to try and avoid an incoming attack.

Since the Acrobatic keystone removes all armor and energy shield, I feel that stacking life, resist, and block is important for survival. Hence, this build will not work for range as I initially thought, but more so for melee. The melee build can be play with sword & board, staff, or dual wield as these give chances to block and can varies depending on your play style. However, my style is the fast attacking dodging type, and so I go with dual wield to take advantage of the dual wielding bonus (10% attack speed and 15% chance to block from http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707/page/1). Plus the shadow has access to attack speed nodes readily.

The crux of this build will be stacking Evasion, the above keystones, block, and Blind.
Yes, blind. Blind as a status effect reduces the opponent’s chance to hit by 75%. Meaning that while affected by blind, they only have 25% chance to hit you. It is a green support gem that as you level increases chance to blind and duration of the blinding effect. Quality on a blind gem will increase duration, but is not necessary as you will be constantly hitting the enemy and reapplying blind.

One can also (I recommend having both a blind on your aoe skill and a blind on a totem) attach lightning or frost nova to a spell totem, linked with blind, and that spell totem will cast fast with the fast attack speed of this build, and blind those in the area as well. This will increase the totem’s life making enemies not being able to hit it and blinding those in the area, making it easy for you and your party. I have not decided whether to use frost nova or lightning nova, but I’m leaning towards frost nova for the slowing/freezing, and it hits the area immediately around the totem as oppose to lightning nova (that don’t). Adding a chaos damage support gem to this will make some damage bypass energy shields, able to blind all mobs.

Progression:
One can do this with a Shadow or a Duelist (other class too but I will focus on these two for now). I will use Duelist as my test char as Duelist needs some love right now and they are the natural class to take to dual wield. Duelist will be able to get more block, Shadow will get more resist.

Here is the core passive for both classes. Note only about 70 points are used. Leaving the rest open to customization in elemental damage, physical damage, more life, more mana, more resist, more accuracy, more life/mana leech, and more crit chance, whatever you need while you are leveling because of gear variability/RNG and style of play.

Duelist
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQABbUM8g5IEZYR1RRSFx0b9hzcJDwnqSyFLOkwcTB8NJM2PTgbOkJDMUd-SVFKfUt4UUdW-leXWhpabVs9YEFjcGVNZ6Bqk20Sbml0QXTxd9d_K3_Ggh6DvYd2iGuNv5stnrmio6XLp1y2Qb6nwfPEuMai1CPVHNX41orbC90N3ajd5-OE5ojv4_F2_MU=

Shadow
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYABbUTnhmKG_Yc3B4aJDwmlSepKCotRzBUMHEwfDIBNkI4GzpCSTpJUUt4TLFQQlFHUzVVS1ptYeJh620SbWxte3pTfyt_xoIeg72HGYfbjDaNv5HPk_yZV5smm7Wio6dcqBqqf6q4rs-yGbVIwfPGos3qz3rUI9Uc1orbC92o3efe9uQR5ojndOjW647xdv-T

These two trees have Eldritch Battery in it, but right now I do not know whether EB will use the energy shields you have and convert them to mana or does the acrobatic keystone remove all hope of doing that. I hope it is the earlier as the extra mana will help in running more auras.

Leveling:
From level 1-30, I would not recommend picking up the acrobatics skills: you don’t have blind yet, it is faster to level as bow, and armor helps early on. It is ok if you pick up Dodge Arrow as it does not have any penalties. I would recommend poison arrow, bow of your choice, LMP/Fork for leveling in the early levels. Once you have spell totem, I would recommend you attach a blind to the nova spell totem and let it rip.

You will able to pick up spell totem at the Siren’s last dance quest in Cruel. Added chaos gem you will have to trade for.

Once you are able to use blind and are around ~900-1000 HP, I would then consider picking up the acrobatics nodes.

Gears/Skills:
I will not comment on this section for now until I have time to make and test this character out. I will update at a later date.

Any comments/criticism/suggestions/help is appreciated of course.

-J

hi well i'am impressed but i myt say u myt wnna try strting in the rangers area we do have the same theory staking resistance is a must USing enfeeble is good to but i prefer using REflect curse punshment since we do recieve a full amount of damge 100% wthou reduction it would be better to use punishment curse this is how we mitigate damage from mobs i use Wb +blind +cignite + WElemntal damge + ICridamage this is my last roll character strted with all classes duelist is also good to start at but with ranger i dont waste most of my nodes and has good access to atak speed as well well nice theorycrafting

btw here's my build link i myt suggest for you to try ranger dffntly i have rerolld a lot of characters for this node and i can see that the ranger has a more agressive nodes the duelis is very near to Blood magic though i kinda like to really make good use of both evasion and atak speed BM is the way to go iam not so sure if iam to take the increased buff effect but it will definitly affect the increase EV of grace buff

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIBAbwDxgUtBbUGDg48FCAUcRUgGJEY2xmKIWAj9iaVKLUs6S2DMHEwfDIJNZI2ezpCOlJAoEp9S3hMsU7IUEdRR1M1VUtWBFb6WkhbPVuvYEtgiGFSY6dnoGqHbWxte3K7dEF07XTxdud313rvfyuGYIcZh3aMNo2_ks2XBpuNm7WeuZ7Nnyeksacwqn-quKxHr-uzDrTFtUjC7Maiy0HOqNN-1CPWit0N3UbdqN-_4oDljufq7g7vTu967_D5M_xO_MX9Cw==

Yes thats how i do it.

Don't forget you have 41 % chance to block added to that as well.

EB does not work with Acrobatics btw. 0 Energy Shield = +0 to mana :( it makes me so sad

I assume tree will be redone without EB.

Might make more sense to go through the Frenzy Charge + Frenzy Evasion (4% per charge) to get to Arrow Dodging keystone rather than around the bottom, a few nodes more but life close by and make sense to use additional evasion with potential for high frenzy charges currently.

I unspecced acrobatics on my lvl 77 EV/DW. Its a trap. It should give 40% dodge AND phase for 1 point to be costs efficient end game . Because you have to get tons and tons of HP in order not to get 1 shot . Good mark is 5k HP(4k min) if you dont have armour/endurance charges and you not gonna hit it with acrobatics point waste. Granite flasks are so good that you cant pass em

what if you have high block? using shield you can actually cap your block (75%).
with some good evasion rate (you are going to use evasion gear anyway), and acrobatics

from wiki
Interaction with Dodge
Chance to Dodge bonuses granted by sources like Acrobatics function similar to evasion, but are rolled separately. Phase Acrobatics grants a chance to dodge spells.
Assuming a character has a 40% chance to evade and a 20% chance to dodge, a character has a 52% chance to avoid taking damage.
Chance to Avoid Attack = 1 - ( (1 - Chance to Evade) * (1 - Chance to Dodge) )

if you have 75% block how does it calculate with this? I'm sure we cannot just take 52% + 75% together and not getting hit at all...

Let's see how much %life from passives do we really need.

I will take level 80 for reference.

Base Life = 50
Life from level = 80*6=480
No Strength points = no life from STR
Assume all items have 90 life except weapons = 90*8=720

TOTAL BASE LIFE = 50+480+720= 1250

That's kind of low because we have no str in passives, could have in gear but not very much.

Let's we somehow manage(kind of hard for a ranger/shadow) to get 200% increased maximum life from passives.

1250*(1+2)=3750 HP with the best life gear...

I will put up a build that goes full evasion and as much life as possible, no offensive nodes.

I managed 250% evasion rating and 250% Life: here

250% Life:
1250*(1+2.5)=4375

I managed to achieve this while ignoring anything else. I don't think it's that viable.
Not to mention that there's no DEX based AoE, one would have to go ranged.

Also I didn't have points left to spare for block chance.

how about using 6+ endurance charges (2-3 passives and merciless oak) with immortal cry supported with increased duration and possibly skill duration passives? also enfeeble always comes to mind when building all dodge.