2.0 Tanky frost blades blades build feedback

I was playing a one-hand weapon (was using a mace, just because I found a really high dps one) and shield duelist on tempest league. Got him to level 70ish and started mapping before ripping to the flameblast exile. Not sure if I had a lag spike, but seems like he 1 shot me. I really liked the character and I'm thinking of rebuilding him from scratch, but I want to make sure I don't get insta-gibbed late game again, so I'm looking for any feedback on how to improve my build.


My build was using 3 unique items: Surgebinder gloves, Daresso's Courage shield and Taste of Hate sapphire flask. Everything else was rares with as much life and resistances as I could get.

Links:


Below is my proposed passive tree laying out most of what I want to invest in. I've purposely left out the increased damage with X weapon because I haven't decided which one I want to go with.
What I'm hoping people can give me is some advice on which nodes are worthwhile and which are not, as well as how to boost my general tankiness but especially my HP pool efficiently. Also, if you feel one weapon type is far superior to another please explain why.


Passive tree


Thanks for the help!

Melee phys only boosts the damage of the initial hit, not the remaining blades (which are projectiles and not melee). Weapon elemental damage will boost both, but only the elemental portions of the hit.

Hi I am playing a 2h FB and I wish more people used the skill it's amazing!!

I also have a LL EK shadow that uses Daresso's courage...it is only really useful if going LL and unless you use a Crown of Eyes you will want to use spells for the low life pain attunement bonus...so not very good for attacks!

I highly recommend chain. I tried both fork and chain and liked the feel of chain much better although I was going for freezing everything so chain allows me to freeze if I don't freeze the first time.

Duelist has access to lots of Jewel nodes which can be very very strong.

I'm currently at work so I can't say much but I'll try to think of more stuff later!!

"

SilverSequence wrote:

Melee phys only boosts the damage of the initial hit, not the remaining blades (which are projectiles and not melee). Weapon elemental damage will boost both, but only the elemental portions of the hit.

To avoid misinformation I want to point out that the projectiles scale off of the initial hit (I think it is 60%, but that may be wrong, so do not quote me). So anything that increases the initial hit also increases the projectile damage.

I think what he meant was that it won't double dip...melee phys damage will affect the initial melee attack and therefore the projectiles (i think) but the projectiles themselves do not then also get the boost.

Hope someone can clarify!

Either way there are a lot better supports than melee phys for this skill :0

"

Hantastic wrote:

"

SilverSequence wrote:

Melee phys only boosts the damage of the initial hit, not the remaining blades (which are projectiles and not melee). Weapon elemental damage will boost both, but only the elemental portions of the hit.

To avoid misinformation I want to point out that the projectiles scale off of the initial hit (I think it is 60%, but that may be wrong, so do not quote me). So anything that increases the initial hit also increases the projectile damage.

From testing, this is not correct. Frost blades works like lightning strike. There are 2 different hits, the initial strike (a long range melee hit) and the ice blades. The ice blades scale off attack damage, but not MELEE attack damage as they're not melee. This is totally different from wild strike, which only has a single hit. It would be great if the projectiles scaled off the initial hit, but this does not seem to be the case at all.

I really like the frost blades skill, I may at some point make a build for it but haven't yet. It's usually my go to skill for lvl'n up a fresh character because at low lvl it's like having a free LMP skill right off the bat.

While not advice for the tree, a couple changes to your automagically casted things could help. I've never used reckoning to apply my curses, so if it works out for you, great, but I do run CoH linked to herald a lot and know how fantastic that works so that's how I'd do it personally.

Cast when Damage taken Lvl1 - Warlords Mark lvl5 - Summon Ice Golem lvl3 - Blood Rage lvl7

Cast when Damage taken Lvl 11 - increased Duration - Molten Shell lvl16 - Immortal Call lvl13

curse on hit - poacher's/projectile - herald - aura

this last one is just for mobility and the occasional free end charge to help fuel imm. call.

Leap Slam - faster attacks - Riposte - Endurance Charge on Melee Stun

As far as the tree goes, let me preface this by saying I'm FAR from an expert, but according to threads I've read, stacking the leech nodes isn't worth it. Taking 1 for mana and 1 for life is generally sufficient. I think having both vitality void and hemotophagy is overkill and not worth it, if you're really set on having a life leech node I'd keep hemotophagy between the two, simply because it at least comes with a damage boost too.

I'd move the 3 points in that vitality void node, and take the other side of the block wheel under duelist leading to tetsudo.

Also, I don't know what type of weapon you plan on using, will probably depend on what you find, but most of the weapon specific nodes are just +phys damage, which should affect frost blades.

Here's a SLIGHTLY tweaked version of the tree you linked.

Passive skill tree build

Hope that helps, and post again to let us know how the build works out. Curious as to the viability of mapping with frost blades.