Soultaker with Sword build, double strike or dual strike?

So I have always been Dual Strike and Cleave with my dual crit sword duelist, but I just got a soul taker to try out as mana is always an issue. It's super amazing, but what skill is best to go with it?

Cleave uses both weapons, so the Soul Taker won't take advantage of all my sword nodes. Double Strike only uses the main hand, so the Soul Taker would be a stat stick, but the base damage is lower on Double Strike. Dual strike has the same problem as Cleave. Double Strike for single target and pvp, and Reave for PvE?

Would appreciate some help with mechanics.

current tree

Using

Anyone?

Reave works with 1 handed swords but not axes so that should be good.

So Reave is an easy choice for map clearing, but for single target and pvp?

Double Strike only uses main hand, so with my sword in main hand, it should only use the sword, right? Or do I have to use a skill that can't use axes at all?

iirc, Double Strike should only use the main hand regardless of what weapons you have equipped. If you're stacking sword damage, it'll likely be better to go Double Strike. That being said, Double Strike is realllllly cheap on the mana cost, even with supports equipped. If you're planning on reserving 100% of your mana, you could probably grab some mana reserveration nodes to knock it down some. A tiny amount of mana leech (or mana on hit) should keep you in business.

At work, so I didn't take a look at the tree. Just a general suggestion. :)

Haven't played a dual wield build in a long time so I'm a bit rusty on the current meta. However, from what I remember, Reave with the sword in the main hand and Soul Taker as a "free mana" stat stick is flat out, no-contest better.

There's also a relatively recent unique which, as far as I know, is an even better offhand weapon for pseudo dual wield: Death's Hand if you're crit based.

You will need a better one handed sword, though. This one is weak.

Awesome tips, thanks guys!

So Reave for pve definitely, but for pvp I am torn between Double Strike with Soul Taker or Dual Strike with Soul Taker. The difference is between 127k dps with double strike, and 163k with dual strike. The 127k on double strike is fake though, since it's only main hand? If the 127k is legit, then dual strike with soul taker would be the way to go, right?

To be clear, the only reason I grabbed a soul taker was because dual strike with 2 swords was very hard on mana with a 6 link in pvp.

I never played PvP and don't understand much about it. I have, however, watched good PvPers and I've played years upon years of DotA, so I get some basic PvP principles. Having said all this, I really don't see how you can be viable in PvP with an easy-to-kite melee skill.

I guess cyclone would be the skill to go for PvP. Stun immunity, much more difficult to kite in combination with flickerstrike. Standing still in PvP is bad. Constantly moving is good. When I watched the top PvP guys, it was mostly a kiting game. They were incredibly difficult to actually hit and pin down.

Still, I'm speaking with zero PoE PvP experience, this is only theory. I might very well be missing something significant.

Also, if you're going for an attack based pvp build, expect to meet the guys with the mirror weapons. They aren't unbeatable, but you'll need a less weapon reliant build to deal with them. And you'll want the Deft Blade cluster for PvP. It's perhaps the most compelling reason to use a sword in PvP as far as I know.

And 3 years later I am Also looking for the same thing.
It would be great if we didnt lose too much dps with sword + st combo its a good choice for defensive setups bit it cripples the damage by too much and any defense gained is negated by more time taken to kill the mobs/ boss.

a 10-15% reduction of damage vs 10-15% defense gained is a good tradeoff.