Chadmium's viable melee duelist build - dual wield, tanky, frenzy / endurance charges

GUIDE UPDATED 2/8/13 with some changes to the build, and some reworded tips. Thanks to all so far who have contributed!
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I've just finished Solaris Temple on Cruel with my level 51 duelist, and am going strong (interestingly enough, I've actually had fewer deaths on cruel so far than normal in acts 2 and 3). I tanked Brutus and Merveil, along with other big hitters like the big white bear in act 2. I've had a great time planning and tweaking my build over and over again according to challenges I meet in game as well as reading strategies and reasoning on the boards (particularly the two main build guides around atm by Wallach and seanmcdn).

Anyway, my build will be familiar but is sufficiently different that I thought it was worth pointing out and wanted to post a basic guide here and see if people are interested enough to discuss / try it out. As I continue deeper into Act 3 cruel (and of course I can't wait to see how I do in merciless), I'll update accordingly.

With this build, I set out to try and solve the biggest problem any melee character has in POE - how to melee and yet still survive. It's still challenging, but once I fully understood how important endurance charges are, it became significantly easier.

Playstyle
This turns out to be very fun for me. It's fast paced and requires a good amount of strategy which makes it really engaging (as opposed to facerolling lightning strike, minions, etc.)

Enemy packs:
Basically, if your charges have dropped, you'll whirl around the fringes of the mob avoiding attacks until you have max endurance charges. You'll then pick off key targets (ranged attackers, necromancers, etc.) with dual strike, whirling between them and hacking them up (grabbing a stack or 2 of frenzy as you can). As needed, you'll drop a totem to draw attention or around a corner to augment your life regen. Finally, you lob a warlord's mark bomb and wade in to cleave your way to victory (making sure you keep up all your endurance / frenzy charges, which is where much of the strategy and blood-pumping intense moments come in). Once everything is dead, you whirl to the next pack - most times, your charges will still be up and you can go town faster.

Bosses:
Whirl around dodging, using enduring cry when you can, until endurance charges are full, keep up frenzy charges, plunk a rejuv totem behind you (it will either help a lot with your regen, or the boss will focus it and thus not you - either is good). make sure to keep up charges, and otherwise dual strike spam the bastard. Chug flasks as well, of course (not needed much in cruel, but probably will be in merciless).

Passives
Note that these are pretty general guidelines about what to take when - your mileage may vary, and you may want to grab more health nodes sooner than I point out here, or other small variations to the order in which you get things. The big turning point in your life will be when you get blood magic - that's when the build opens up and begins to get awesome. Aim for it in the low to mid 30s (I'd go straight there after the 26 point build) you don't need the 2% life leech node or the 12% max life nodes near it first (which is something I wondered about early on).

EDITS:
* Gained one node by taking a different path near twin terrors (credit Sarai)
* Changed build to include resolute technique and +5% max resists
* Sacrificed sword nodes for dual wield / block nodes, so both swords and axes can be used

Early game - 26 points

Mid game - 56 points

Late Game - 83 points

Full build - 111 points

Bandits
Normal - help Oak (40 base health)
Cruel - help Oak (+12% physical damage)
Merciless - help Oak (+1 max endurance charge)

Skills
Whirling Blades (faster attacks, don't level this gem up, you won't use it for damage)
Frenzy (life on hit, faster attacks, etc.)
Cleave (life on hit, faster attacks, etc.)
Dual Strike (life on hit, life leech, faster attacks, etc.)
Warlord's Mark
Enduring Cry
Grace (do level this gem up, the gains are well worth it)
Rejuv Totem

Features of the build[/b]
* You do not need any niche unique for this build to work and work well.
* You will end up with 6 endurance charges (30% damage reduction on top of armor and 30% resists - this is H.U.G.E. to survivability, and synergizes really well with the armor stacking of the build via iron reflexes).
* You will end up with 6 frenzy charges (large bonuses to attack speed and damage, depending on your frenzy skill, and also another 24% evasion converted to armor from one of the nodes near the ranger area).
* With all charges up, you will have 5.2% life regen per second (4% with end. charges down)
* Includes two diamond skin nodes and elemental adaptation (+5% max resists), which combined with your endurance charges make elemental damage much easier to deal with than usual for duelists.
* Room for lots of life nodes.
* From the marauder area, you'll get 30% reduced crit damage from enemies, which (along with your endurance charges), really helps with those bursty heavy hitters.
* Great block chance (high 30's) to help replace the loss of evasion from iron reflexes.
* Terrific synergy in your defenses - you'll hover around the 50-60% damage reduction mark with grace up and frenzy charges, which goes up to 80-90% physical reduction with your endurance charges up. This is really the cornerstone of the build - those endurance charges make your armor stacking far, far more effective than it otherwise would be, and also provide you with another 30% elemental resists on top of your 2 diamond skin nodes. This completely negates the merciless -60% resist penalty (except for chaos)
* Not much room for damage nodes, but the ones you pick up are efficient and you will have enough damage (also keep in mind that 6 frenzy charges with a high level frenzy gem is a very large damage gain - in later gem levels, it's 10% attack speed and 10% physical damage PER STACK).

Tips
* For suicide mobs, kite around and drop your totem - they'll all run to it and blow up, then just drop another until they are gone and/or manageable.
* For huge mobs of weak ranged enemies, though it takes a while, you can whirling blades back and forth through them in relative safety. They will eventually die (just remember to stop long enough to refresh your endurance charges from time to time).
* Use whirling blades all the time - use it to close on ranged, use it to move around to the right place in front of the lumbering pack, use it to escape.
* Get a flask that cures freeze. Get a flask that increases elemental resistance. Get a granite flask.
* It's better to go for evasion on gear because of the bonuses and the way it scales - the conversion from Iron Reflexes will result in more armor.
* Put a really fast attack sword in your main hand, the offhand should be slower and high damage.
* When elemental damage gets high and you don't have maxed resists, carry some different rings with you. You can swap them out mid fight if needed when going up against fire, ice, or lightning guys (I did this in the Solaris temple a lot, and never died once).

Hi Chadmium,

I am totaly new to that game and tried some stuff until I got to dual wielding frenzy swordmaster on my own, which did the most fun for me. I also have life per hit with my cleave, what saved me from beeing toasted a thousand times, but I have to admit, that due to my missing expirience and knowledge of the mechanics in this game, I walked more or less without real goals over my passive skillboard. I had no Idea about the REAL tank-concept and that is somehow the bread and butter of a melee.

With your build you gave me the right direction I need to go. I want to thank you for your work and want to try your build.

Greetings,
Sairai

You're welcome, I hope it works out well for you Sairai.

Full build with 111 points and still you helped Oak in all difficulties? Could you please tell me how you managed to get that? :P

Build seems solid but I'm guess this is intended for Standard League? I find that (in hardcore at least) armor is not incredibly important considering that chaos damage in the higher difficulties is going to give you a lot more trouble, and with 6 potential endurance stacks you'll be sitting at an inflated amount of armor. I'd almost suggest dropping most of the armor nodes and picking up more of the HP nodes in Marauder or elsewhere.

Edit: Removed the armor nodes and moved them towards the HP nodes in marauder.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQABS0OPA6tEdUS4RQgFFIUcRR1Fx0Y2xkuGtshYCP2KLUppSyFMgk0kziWOlI67T7PQKBDnEd-Sn1QR1BQU99USVYEVvpXDVeXWGNY21oaWkhbr18_YEFgS2CIYVJjcGVNZ6B07XTxeu-E2YTvhmCHdozPkc6ZK5stm4OeuZ7Nn8ui6qcwq8W3F7ndu-295r6nxtjKkNIh1I_ZYd0N37_nUu4O7w7vTu_j7_DyL_ZI9775Y_zF

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Full build with 111 points and still you helped Oak in all difficulties? Could you please tell me how you managed to get that? :P

The 111 point build is mostly theoretical at this point anyway, and in addition there are actually more than 111 possible skill points in the game with the addition of act 3 (I believe it's 120 now, or 117 if Oak is helped each time). That number might not be right, but it's something like that.

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Build seems solid but I'm guess this is intended for Standard League? I find that (in hardcore at least) armor is not incredibly important considering that chaos damage in the higher difficulties is going to give you a lot more trouble, and with 6 potential endurance stacks you'll be sitting at an inflated amount of armor. I'd almost suggest dropping most of the armor nodes and picking up more of the HP nodes in Marauder or elsewhere.

Yeah, it's not a build for hardcore, and I do like your variant. Since I haven't gotten to merciless yet, I don't have the experience to say which works better there (in cruel, chaos damage is no big deal). As you point out, the 2 armor areas I took in the build are easily specced out of and re-allocated to health nodes (in addition to the marauder ones you included in your modification, there's a cluster I'd love to take near ambidexterity near a 30 strength node).

In the marketplace of act 3 cruel now, no deaths so far =)

I've been thinking of a variant to the end game full build - I have a while before I'll need to decide, but thought I'd post it here.

111 point variant

- 1 frenzy charge way up in the top right near shadow area
- armor cluster (50% armor) near unwavering stance
- sword accuracy / damage cluster near blood drinker
- life cluster (26%) on the way to that subtracted frenzy charge
- life node (8%) near ranger area
- 30% fire resist near marauder start

+ elemental adaptation (5% to max resists)
+ resolute technique (never miss)
+ life line near marauder start (37%, so net +3% from other build)
+ block nodes (6%) near twin terrors
+ celerity (8% movement)

It's a bit more defensive at the cost of a small amount of offense (mostly from the lost frenzy charge, but also a chunk of %damage to swords). Still, the defensive gains are pretty hefty and will probably be necessary. Resolute technique might well offset a fair amount of that offensive loss anyway, and will also be good defensively because of life on hit and life leech.

I don't really understand why you are spending 6 points on the armor nodes, which give you 102% armor all in all, instead of the big Leather and Steel cluster which, taking into account IR, would give you 128% armor.

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Snowcrash000 wrote:

I don't really understand why you are spending 6 points on the armor nodes, which give you 102% armor all in all, instead of the big Leather and Steel cluster which, taking into account IR, would give you 128% armor.

I used to think like you. I've read up on Iron Reflexes and found contradictory statements by the wikipedia, known players and the devs.

After testing it myself, I'm led to the believe that the wikipedia is right in saying that Leather and Steel will not affect your evasion twice.

If that's true that's certainly interesting... and kinda sucky. But I can easily switch those 6 points in my build, so no biggy, really.

EDIT: That should be a bug though, right? I mean, L&S gives evasion rating and IR converts evasion to armor, it's really pretty clear cut. Hopefully this will get fixed.