Help with a 2handed Axe Duelist

Hey all you lovely people on the forums: I've got a dilemma I'm facing with my main character and it troubles me greatly, I messed him up horribly early on, and thanks to Awakening, I managed respec him SIGNIFICANTLY better, but as it turns out: still not strong enough or survivable enough, as it stands, he has ALL physical Attack/Axe Damage/2h dmg/so on and so forth along the bottom side of the tree, but he's BARELY breaking 10k w/Hatred and Herald of Fire. After grabbing all the Dmg nodes I could around lvl 60ish, I've realized my error that I'm not even reaching 1k HP, so my damage is crap, my HP is crap... I've been getting the "it's my gear" comment a lot so I'd probably like to work on that, but it's catch 22, cause as my strongest character, he's the only who "should" be able to farm the high areas to get currency to buy better gear to stop dying and to increase DPS more...

Skilltree:


Gear:


atm I'm using a 4L(6socket) Kaom's Primacy, and haven't quite found one of those "rare weapons better then a unique", though I've no problem changing the axe if I can find a stronger replacement.

My gear is low par though, 4 linked Rare Evasion Gear 6 socket rare evasion chest: I decided after reaching 60 that my best course of action is to hope to dodge instead of trying to tank a hit with my tiny tiny HP and even tinyer ES.

in my first incarnation: he started dying alot around low 40-50s, and the moment I threw a non-linked cyclone on em, he was able to scale to 60 without much trouble, I even swapped out the Blood Reaper for Koam's Primacy, so no huge mana drain, though it still seems to drain alot.

With the second incarnation: I tried to forsake Cyclone cause not only did I find it kinda boring despite it's obvious insane DPS at times, I also thought I looked dumb spinning like a top: though I'm not much better now, I swapped it out for Sweep, and sadly, they seem to be doing about the same ammount of DPS AND drain on my mana...

At times I use Flicker Strike+Multistrike to avoid ranged attacks and close in on ranged enemies and I have a sort of novelty skill that can work pretty well at times but needs a wide open area: Vaal Spectral throw+LMP+Slow Projectiles, not sure what to do for the 4th slot atm though, same goes for the potential 2 other slots for flicker Strike

I have Vigilant Strike+Faster Attacks+Splash for when I know I'm probably not gonna kill something quick enough, then again, that combo doesn't really "add" much damage to VS I think

I also sometimes like to try and stack Charges, but with Awakenings release, Blood Rage no longer guarantees Frenzy charges, and as I've seen in the time it takes me to build up endurance charges with that Enduring cry, I've already been swarmed and died, I do use curses from time to time, but I often forget to use them with any type of consistency

Question Time now:

1. Atziri's Disfavour at 75, Kingmaker at 66 or should I try crafting my own 2h axe with orbs at current 61?

2. Why is my Damage/Life so low when I focused so hard on straight dmg(like nearly all physical)?

3. What main skills besides Cyclone might be useful to switch to instead of Sweep?
a. Would I be able to pull off a dominating Blow Main skill with my current tree maybe?

4. Would I be "safer" going with Evasion then ES or Armour?

5. As far as lvl 60: what SHOULD my DPS/HP/Mana/Evasion even be at? to Survive? maybe do low lvl maps, whatever it is lvl 60s do in the game?

Well then, I'll be lovelily honest here, both your tree and gear suck so much you shouldn't even be able to finish cruel, let alone farm high level content.

At level 61 you should have around 3 to 3,5k life, a melee goes below that number in that point in the game only if it really has to. And you can't replace it with anything, no amount of crazy dps will save you, you will get hit sooner or later and you will die. You need to strike a workable balance there, you don't need all that dps, 5k would be more than enough at that point in the game and I've found 10k physical on your AoE quite satisfactory up to mid level mapping.

So, first you should think of how to stay alive because that's a lot harder than getting workable dps numbers. As a 2H user on a low budget that starts as a duelist you should probably go iron reflexes to get a decent amount of base armor from grace so you're less gear-dependent, at the same time you will expand your gear selection to eva and arm/eva hybrid pieces.

Of course, a decent amount of armor and life aren't nearly enough, you should also get all endurance charges from the tree and one from oak in merciless, in addition to Soul of Steel passive cluster, armor will do squat without all that. Also fortify, usually on your leap slam. So, trigger Enduring, leap into the crowd, get fortify and start sweeping, rinse, repeat.

Also, you should get a lot of regen, you can use it as is or you can use it to offset Blood Rage, whatever you like more.

Curses should go on an auto setup, because you're already busy with maintaining charges and fortify, either a low level curse on CwDT for the price of two gem slots, or CwDT-low_level_spell-CoH-high_level_curse.

You should use grace in any case, and for your other aura you got three options
- do nothing and use herald of ash or arctic armor for extra tankiness
- get templar and duelist aura passives and use hatred
- use blood magic support on all your skills and use hatred

Unfortunately, your tree is a botchling that won't turn into a lubberkin easily, I advise sinking all this in and starting anew, it will be cheaper and faster. This time plan your tree in advance and submit for evaluation.

If you want to keep running sweep I would swap added fire for multistrike. I would drop vigilant strike for leap-fortify-faster attacks. This should be a bit smoother playstyle. If you want to drop sweep then static strike, ice crash, ground slam are all decent skills for a 2h phys build. Although, I think you will like sweep once you have multi support. When running a 2h build, I rely on my weapon to provide enough damage and focus my tree, gear, and gems towards defense. The only difference I would have with raics is that I wouldn't run grace. Hatred and HoA are pretty standard for my 2h builds. I do lvl purities to drop in for boss fights as well as have proper defensive flasks. I have not found blood magic to be beneficial even on my cyclone build.

You dodged each and every life node in the skilltree. Good job! ;)

Reroll and do it the other way around next time.

Sorry for a late return:

"

raics

So cut back on DPS and focus on Health is what I picked up, I wonder if my character is salvageable with just a couple regret orbs

I don't know if I want to focus on Armor rating though, Evasion however doesn't work on spells right? and while ES building is slow, especially for a duelist I'd assume, it doesn't require flasks to heal it,

"

Curses should go on an auto setup,

I was thinking of this as well, but I'm not quite sure the best way to go about it, as it stands I'd already be using 3 sockets to support the 4th socket's skill, it would take 2 sockets to even consider adding auto-cursing, so either my 2h or my armor would need a 6 link, which as you've stated me being on a "Cheap budget" I doubt I could afford... and I'm not being sarcastic or anything, your totally right, RNG Gods in all games hate me... and when they DO decide to grace me, it's with 3 of the same low lvl unique boots...

What about a Flicker strike+multistrike+fortify then?(instead of Leap)

"

Unfortunately, your tree is a botchling that won't turn into a lubberkin easily, I advise sinking all this in and starting anew, it will be cheaper and faster. This time plan your tree in advance and submit for evaluation.

I hate to challenge you after you offered such good advice all the same, but as it stands it feels like instead of balancing my tree with HP and DPS nodes, I simply went straight DPS nodes, surely spending any remaining lvls on HP nodes, better HP gear, and such should counteract my "limp tree".

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"

BackwoodsS

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If you want to keep running sweep I would swap added fire for multistrike.

Sweep with Multistrike would be like a cyclone... that stands still though... and the Added fire gem adds a large chunk of dps to my damage, from what I know, Multistrike is a good skill for normally single target skills, multi-allowing changing targets when they get close or what have you...

"

If you want to drop sweep then static strike, ice crash, ground slam are all decent skills for a 2h phys build.

Static Strike is the delay then shock move right? yes, I do kinda like that one, with Multi it might be even more interesting.
I have another idea with Ice Crash+Cast on crit+Glacial Cascade, but it's more of a cool looking thing then damaging I'm gonna assume...
And as for ground slam, I'd like to use that one as well, but it can only be used with Staves or Maces, and until I can figure out if I can skin a staff or 2 handed mace with the blood Reaper Unique Skin... I'mma stick with Axes...

"

I do lvl purities to drop in for boss fights as well as have proper defensive flasks.

Good advice and considering I'm probably gonna have a secondary weapon I'll never use usually I'll probably start leveling purities as well, atm I keep swapping out rings until I have the right resistances for the area I'm about to enter, would be easier with auras I suppose but then I'd have a itsy bitsy manapool, auras in general I can't seem to ignore the huge chunk of mana missing, and thus far.

"

I have not found blood magic to be beneficial even on my cyclone build.

every time I've tried to blood magic an aura it multiplies the cost by like 1000% or some crazy number.

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"

Peterlerock

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You dodged each and every life node in the skilltree. Good job! ;)

you'd be surprised how hard it was actually:p

"

Reroll and do it the other way around next time.

Now I have already decided to do exactly this with a marauder just to see how high I can actually get my life count, would you have any suggestions for that maybe (gear or uniques to look for) I'd be happy to hear it.

once again, thank you to those of you who responded to me, and if you happen to find anything I've said in my responses mean or annoyed sounding, I don't mean to, am simply understand better or further specify to come to a better solution.

In the end I really hope to not have to restart this character again, was lucky with the respec but as you guys have said, I blotched that all the same.

I wouldn't write off multi strike to quickly. It is pretty much the best support gem for any skill it works with. I would toss cast on crit right out of your vocabulary. With good gear and maybe lvl 80+ you can pull off a decent (read not pre 2.0 decent) CoC char. But that is more of a project for experienced players with some wealth who are prepared to be dissapointed by their effort.

On skill tree pathing. The reason raics is hinting that your skill tree may not be salvegable is because most (all?) 2h melee builds are built the opposite of what you did. The base of the tree is a line to all health nodes and you fill in dps nodes that happen to be on the way. It will probably save you some currency just to re-roll.

"

andminus wrote:

I don't know if I want to focus on Armor rating though, Evasion however doesn't work on spells right? and while ES building is slow, especially for a duelist I'd assume, it doesn't require flasks to heal it,

If you're a 2H user, IR-grace is very cheap and effective way to get armor, as you don't need high defense gear, nor can you use shields. Armor is very popular currently because the threat of oneshots is higher now and physical damage is a serious threat, but you have to combine it with other forms of mitigation to shine.

"

andminus wrote:

I was thinking of this as well, but I'm not quite sure the best way to go about it, as it stands I'd already be using 3 sockets to support the 4th socket's skill, it would take 2 sockets to even consider adding auto-cursing, so either my 2h or my armor would need a 6 link, which as you've stated me being on a "Cheap budget" I doubt I could afford... and I'm not being sarcastic or anything, your totally right, RNG Gods in all games hate me... and when they DO decide to grace me, it's with 3 of the same low lvl unique boots...

A 2H user only has 4links and higher, giving up a 4link to autocast a high level curse is worth the cost, you don't really have anything better to fill them with. Vengeance is also an option for curses, but it's less reliable and has limited coverage, if you hit hard enough you may get some free endurance charges with it against trash mobs, though.

"

andminus wrote:

What about a Flicker strike+multistrike+fortify then?(instead of Leap)

Whatever works best for you, but if you take Resolute Tech (and you should), multistrike is not needed, you will always get fortify.

"

andminus wrote:

surely spending any remaining lvls on HP nodes, better HP gear, and such should counteract my "limp tree".

That's easy to check, make a proper tree and compare it to your current one, that should tell you how many points you would need to respec.

WRT auto curse setups:



I found this godly at reducing damage from everything except map bosses (where it's only 'good' at 18% less damage). The key is to stack increased curse effectiveness. Combined with the 10% from 20q curse on hit, I also have another 20% from the tree.

At one point I was using Vengeance in some random red slot, and while it wasn't exactly consistent, it did help sometimes, and your definitely right, after fine tuning my skills I have lots of free sockets I can use, I could easily fit a curse on hit in; at t he same time, that's a good idea that gilrad had, have a spell trigger when damage is taken, that curses those around me to do less damage, I wasn't really thinking of anything but the Charge curses but that's definitely a good idea I'd have to try... only... I think like 80% of my deaths are from ranged enemies, like a dozen or so in the distance, shooting me in tandem, and if they have puncture it's even worse, but there's always flasks to cure puncture I guess... I was actually using a CWDT with Firestorm, it would trigger on the person who did the damage, which could curse those who hit me from range so I could close the distance quicker... well... if I haven't already with Flicker strike... and Multi-strike+Flicker strike isn't really for DPS or anything, it kinda feels like it helps me dodge arrows at pointblank, and I base this on nothing really...

Any further levels are going for HP nodes and probably regret a couple damage nodes to grab more HP, Set up an auto curse Cast like Gilrad's example, I'll get Resolute technique and have flicker Strike Linked to Fortify I think, sounding better so far?:P

A small note on auto cursing. I am usually limited on int so it is diificult to lvl a curse. My typical curse setup is lvl 1 cwdt and enfeable. The benefit of this setup (although it is weaker than the coh setup) is that it curse ranged mobs instantly.