Twin Terrors:DW/Evasion (ele and phys versions). solo run complete. Detailed guide! 10.2 updates
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I always liked the idea of evasion build melee and even despite what I was reading about evasion and melees in general I decided to make one . I also decided that I would do a 100% solo run from normal all the way to Piety kill in Act3 merciless. This task is complete and I am successfully running maps and progressing further along .
Well here it is - the quintessential dex monkey, the rapier king, ladies man and overall a nice guy -Evasion DUELIST! Phear my twin terrors! Update Disclaimer: Since I first made this build I learned a lot about game mechanics and end game . Competed in several hardcore races including the manmode smash HC challenge (sadly my ele cleave templar died because of stupid yolo mistake during merci ledge farm) , so there is a lot of things which I incorporated into this build , I will start with updating the tree and later on add map ,hardcore and end game strats. Table of contents: -General -Passive Tree build -Skills and links -Gear -General playstyle and tips -Normal act1 to merci act3 walktrough Pros: -fun to play -excellent dps -doesn't require much gear until Map stage -100% soloable from start to finish -some twitch skills and sense of timing are needed -doesnt need mana -has 2 swords and swagger Cons: -Physical Melee -do not recommend for HC (that goes from being melee and not having 300% life nodes) -limited group utility (only brings 2-3 auras and blind) -some twitch skills and sense of timing are needed -melee!!!!! desync <censored censored> .certain terror spells and broken mobs <censored censored> Updates -updated new trees to 10.2, updated vhaal and piety strats (cruel section), updated skills,added my current gear, immortal call tips -Added tips about viper strike and decoy totem.Added ele cleave version. W -Refined builds and added end game build -updated skill links -added skill section -added gear -added walktrough The key points : - AOE DPS is cleave - Single Target is Dual strike - Core support skills are Faster attacks, melee physical damage and blind - Auras are hatred and grace - Main curse is enfeeble - Mobility is whirling blades and flicker strike - survivability is tons of HP, block , resists, evasion , life leech - pair of brass balls A bit on general build strat: In path of exile there are 2 main goals of every build which are to survive and to deal damage .Among survival options there are: -"not getting hit " - works best with anything ranged. -Soak and shrug it off (tons of HP /lifeleech/regen) . -Mitigate (block/evasion/armor/endurance charges). This builds uses a ton of hp for dex (262% bonus HP). Has relatively high block and evasion and can use endurance charges. Lifleeches tons due to amount of physical damages it dishes out and ability to use blood rage. Has 2.5% base hp regen combined with vitaltiy gives alot of regen as well The damage options are generally spells, elemental weapon damage and phys weapon damage. This build uses phys weapon damage which means it main dps comes from weapons and crit. Elemental weapon damage is in many ways superior to physical weapon damage and that is just state of the game currently but I will highlight some advantages of phys approach: -can lifeleech and mana leech tons without support gems -can crit a lot which allows to procs status effects more The build: End of Normal . Lvl 33 -39 points Bandit reward 40 HP (Help Oak): End of Cruel . Lvl 52 -65 points Bandit reward 12% melee phys dmg or skill point (Help Oak): End of Merci and some docks farm . Lvl 70 -88 points Bandit reward help oak Endurance Charge. - BIG AND IMPORTANT CHANGE. Endurance charges are just so good that this is what you must take right now. END game build - this is what you should be working towards: Gear Generally aim for same thing everyone else does - HP, defence stat(s) (in this case evasion) and resists. One notable point is that I recommend you to get lifeleech and a bit of mana leech on gear. Your chest and helm should be the pieces you get max evasion on (goal for chest 2k+ , helm 600+) , your boots and gloves are utility pieces with resists and HP ,evasion always nice but not primary on them. Your jewelry is resists + HP , maybe life/mana leech on piece or 2 You probably can go for life leech support gems but frankly if you are not rich you will be happy to have 3 link gear, which doesnt leave much space for leech AND dps support gems. Its nice to have ele dmg on your sword(s) - to proc the effects ( shock/ignite).But dont go for it if you sacrifice DPS. This is not an ele build Resists should always be capped (for exception of chaos - since its hard to accomodate) for the area you going in. Because its hard to get all resists on one set of gear I generally had 2 sets of jewelry to swap depending on the area. Appropriate resists flasks are good idea too. Speaking of flasks- Generally 2-3 HP pots of reflexes. At least one should be panicked. 1-2 resists flasks of reflexes . U cant get evade bonus if u full HP so using resist flasks is good there. For specific areas flask with dispel chill/freeze/burn/curse are nice to have Helpful uniques - I did get insane mileage out of meginord's girdle I was lucky to get as drop in act1 normal. Still using it . One of best uniques for melee imho Used wonderlust slippers mainly because I didnt have any dispel freeze flasks and those i had stashed away. used khaoms ring for life leech early . End game maligaros look very sexy for dps department Goals and targets for gear: - normal anything - cruel merveil - cap cold . cruel vhaal -2k+ HP , cap lightining. Cruel piety - cap lightning /cold 2k HP - merci vhaal 3k HP cap resits. piety same HP cap resists - Maps . 4k HP. Cap ele resists. positive chaos resists My current gear(can use upgrades but generally achieves goal of cap resists and high life):
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Skills and skill links Do not level enfeeble at all. Level Int dependent skills only as far as your base int+onyx goes (otherwise you might be unable to use skills if u switch gear). Care there - you should be able eventually to hit 80-100 int just from gear bonuses, but its not a priority in any form. 3 link poor man setup (up to merci) 3 link: Faster Attack/Melee Phys Damage- Cleave 3 link: Faster Attack/Melee Phys Damage- Dual Strike 3 link: Blind/Frenzy- Viper strike/Whirling blades . 3 link: Grace/Hatred/Reduced Mana 3 link: Enfeeble/Increased Duration/Increased AOE The blind on Viper/Whirling is because early you dont need to blind trash packs (they die very fast anyways). viper strike is what u use to blind bosses with. whirling blades is what you use to blind trash packs when in trouble 4link- getting da gears (cruel onwards) 4 link: Faster Attack/Melee Phys Damage/Blind - Cleave . 4 link: Faster Attack/Melee Phys Damage/AddedFire dmg Blind - Dual strike The packs of blues need blind and its helpful vs whites later on too..Whirling blades is strictly mobility now . You not gonna use viper strike for dps much (except some special occasions) and having auto blind on dual strike is nice. you can switch to dps link if desired and you confident you can have 100% blind uptime on strong mobs 5link -IMA rich MOFO Faster Attack/Melee Phys Damage/Increased AOE or Additional Accuracy/Added fire dmg - Dual strike/Cleave (depending on what u need - better farm/trash clear or kill big boss) Other skills which I recommend to level and pickup for late game: -decoy totem, summon skeletons .Decoy totem imho more useful late game -Enduring Cry -immortal call+increased duration link. -vitality,blood rage -wrath, anger, temporal chains Now in end game any build can only be most effective when you full understand its strength and weaknesses and general mechanics of the game .You can adapt with gear and skill swaps to many different situation but there are still some core inherent limitations. Such as being physical melee . Ele cleave version After doing a lot of theorycrafting and playtime with ele cleave templar I also made an ele version of this build. Elemental cleave is very strong and its possible to make one based on this build. Elemental cleave unlike physical cleave doesnt have 40% dmg penalty from dual wield and scales linearly with Attack Speed. This is one advantage this build can get over templar is more attack speed, albeit templar has some very strong points (inner force, resolute technique,resists, great starting area) Main differences - build would require mana leech support unless you invest in mana nodes/gear . Replace melee phys dmg support with elemental damage support. Instead of hatred run wrath/anger auras. You also likely would have to run life leech for certain maps with reflect . You wont need dual strike as ele cleave as your cleave does more dmg than dual strike. Only single target skills you may want to use is frenzy and viper strike (for bosses and ele reflect/resistant enemies) The build itself : Fighting style Fly like a butterfly - sting like a fucking A-10 thunderbolt! Basically you dispatch the high damage ranged targets (read spell casters and archers) using whirling blades/flicker strike to close distance. And afterwards cleanup melee mobs who are enfeebled and blinded. You are very very tanky against pack of melee mobs/archers who are blinded/enfeebled. The exceptions are super beefy hard hitters like bears and rocks. And of course casters /aoe/chaos damage dealers is somethign u cant tank unless you spamming them in the face with dual strike life leeching tons . Voidbears packs cant be tanked by melee at all - simply broken anti melee mob Downside is that if you cant tank mob -well you cant do shit aside of stacking viper strike and running away. This is more of a problem if you insanely behind in gear .maps I do not recommend soloing at all - bring range /cc class with you. Ice witch, summoner builds , heck even a ranger or you can be seriously SOL in some situation since you cant recharge flask with port in maps. I suspect as I get better gear that becomes less and less of a problem but for fresh lvl 66 maps are hard All bosses can be face tanked using blind /viper strike early and frenzy charges(just dual strike late game) For extra fun and adrenaline you can turn on blood rage and go on ninja flickering rampage. Just remember to pop flasks Tips: - Having lvl 1 summon skeletons is very handy against exploding and charging mobs. Just let em absorb the skills and go in after. Particularly a life saver in cruel/merci. - Decoy totem is great alternative to skellies and is actually better for end game maps - use whirling blades and flicker strike to dodge most spells - viper strike is great boss killer and for reflect maps and/or resistant enemies. best setup for it is having it linked with increased duration in in +to melee gems fast weapon. IN off hand paired with good shield so you can stack it and get out . It will tick for mad damage for 15 seconds. This allows you to kill merci piety with ease - fire traps are OP so early on its good addition to your cleave - enduring cry is very handy when solo - after you pickup the increased skill duration node , have leveled immortal call (preferably QL) linked with increased duration and activate it with 5 endurance charges you gain 8 seconds of immunity to phys damage. you can facetank anything physical with this per Area/difficulty/mob specific guides : This guide is for solo run. Its much easier (and more fun) to do act bosses and harder areas in a group, but for those who wants extra spice: Normal:
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TL:DR -faceroll act1: Really melee in normal are just op as hell you shouldnt have any problems whatsoever. You can facetank brutus without blind at this stage .Optionally use cold resist for merveil, viper strike/dual strike her to death."Ladies first fair Merveil" Act2: Cruise along. Freeze/chill flasks can save you some annoyance in chambers of sin/church. Vipers/Constructs dont deal enough chaos damage to be any threat. Adds from vhaal does not do enough damage and vhaal itself dies very fast Act3: Just cruise along. Switch to lightning resists for piety/ barracks occasionaly Cruel
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Cruel is where you start realising you aint in Kansas anymore .Its also contains imho one of the hardest point in the game in act3 act1: Dodging spells and using resist flask is very highly recommended now . The hailrake? -well that area will be several levels higher than you when u start act1 so it will be more challenging. That diamond skin passive along with your resist gear ( you got some right?) should let you deal with him NP though In mud flats you can start practicing skeletons to absorb mob skills (or just keep dodging them) Those charging mobs.... practice it here you ll need it later Brutus's hook can be tanked with your skellies, then blind ,enfeeble him and finish. EZ PZ Merveil is still same faceroll . act2: Here is where you get full mileage out of arrow dodging passive. Archer mobs,vipers and constructs are not nearly as deadly as they could be Fun parts begin with chamber of sins/church. -Here is where you can practics running into room full of mages and dodge their spell cast with flicker strike at last moment. They still do not have enough HP but they do deal lots of damage , so kill fast and dont get hit much. Practice your ninja dispatching of sin lords (flicker on him , dual strike , get out of room heal up , go back in and finish) Your skellies are of great use against exploding Alira mobs. You can still kill all bandits and intermediate bosses without much thought up until : Vhaal: -well this one is really the party pooper. This where you turn from a superman into a whimpering portal hopping shadow of yourself .His summons hit HARD. He HITS HARD. Best way is to kill him during his spew frozen shit stage. You can also practice dodging his melee skill (pretty trivial with whirling blades) Main issue are summons -the ranged construsts instagib if they all hit you Not gonna lie. Hardest boss in entire game and its only boss I had real trouble on and still truly afraid . He also holds the record among bosses of killing me in SC (total tab btw: - piety merci 1, brutus - 0, fidelitas 0, gravicus - 1,bandits -0, vhaal cruel - 8 times, vhaal merci - 3 times) Now Real Vhaal strat I used in HC runs: - have ur hp high (2300 for cruel) with cap lightning and fire resists - keep decoy totem up all time - never engage him unless you know which phase he is doing , constantly move around him to dodge skill shots - kill ranged summons quickly - DPS him when he does summons/rocks/freezing stuff/fires lightning at decoy - keep him enfeebled Act3: Well well well.. you kinda at the point of the game where you dont have alot of HP and don't have lots of resists, if you lucky you can cap your resits. No YOU CAN cap your resist RIGHT? This when you learn how to use ur resists flasks for real and how to burst casters before they burst you Slums - beware of those rare carrion casters. Really dangerous . Kill all adds first, pop fire resists and kill em fast Crematorium Piety - cap your lightning, dodge ball Sewers - dodge leapers (they not too dangerous though) be super wary of the alchemists and flicker strikers. The rare one can kill you really fast. Learn to notice and dodge their traps/skills. Use decoy totem a lot Battlefront- kill the stupid archmages first dont kill guards with shield on Barracks - archmage in cruel is most broken mob in entire game. Well maybe along with merci voidbears but still. Problem is they can arc you from 3 screens away. You cant dodge it. you dont have HP at this stage to survive anywhere remotely well. sometimes they are in packs of 3 and if they cast at same time you dead even with capped lightning resists - broken mob , as broken as they come. So what do you do? -well you kite their guards away and kill guards out of their LOS (which is hard cause of 3 screen range ). you use ur skellies to get at least one arc cast on them and not on you. you charge in and kill Bitches FAST (they do die very fast) Gravicus is relatively easy except for his molten shield which again can nearly instagib you. Used portal once on him. Solaris temple -well the fcking curtains. fcking curtains man. Again almost same issue as damn archmages, but thankfully not nearly as bad. Basically you pop your resist flask (fire in most cases there) gib it really fast and get out if you low Lunaris - well faceroll mostly. By now you mastered the art of dodging spells and tentacle creations are just so easy to dodge. Watch out those mobs with lightining warp -they do not do much damage in cruel but learn their mechanics for merci Piety end boss? -well you cant face tank her fire form anymore. Cap lightning and cold Kite till she is human and then dps away. ... You can also try tank her Archer form(do not recommend in HC though) if you have capped cold and enfeebled her. If she is in human form and starts walking toward portal you can quickly kill the portal and she stays human longer Merci
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Mobs are a lot beefier , hit hard as fck and are in bigger packs Oh yeah all your resists are close to garbage now too! Thats was good news. Bad news is you probably need to upgrade that lvl 10 3 link uber chest piece and your lvl 20 toothpicks you fancy as swords.Along with your blue jewelry you call "resist gear". And that shit cost orbs and because you were soloing all the time you got garbage for loot drops . Welcome welcome to the Wraeclast exile! Seriously its very nice to have 2 4 links at this stage for cleave and dual strike. Along with a pair of decent swords .Dont go broke spending on leveling gear but 1-2 chaos for good swords is worth it even if you outlevel it by the end of act3. You should be able to cap or close to cap any elemental resist , have good amount of HP and at least 30% evade chance. Ready? -lets go: Also a tip - before doing major bosses its good idea to farm a bit and level so if you die you dont lose much XP. Particularly recommended for vhaal. and for major quest chains in act3. Act1: Mud Flats/Fetid pools: -those charging roas can flatten you before you can say 15% xp loss. If there was no desync the whirling blades would be very nice . As it is its only a chance to dodge it or u think you dodged while they owning your ass somewhere 1 screen away . Use your skellies and dont take their charge to the face . Brutus is faceroll. Beware of goat caster molten shield though in subsequent areas. One those WTF!?!? moments Poor merveil is still a joke of a boss. even in merci she still does nothing. cap cold and move on Act2: This is when the game start becoming more of a grind and less fun. Yeah you can still leeroy charge into 30 white mobs tank them all and lose no hp. But there are very often rares and blue with them .Who hit very hard and take a lot of punishment .So you do have to kite more now - which was only a last resort before. The big mobs (rocks /bears) hit so hard that even with blind and enfeeble its very risky to facetank a full pack of them The truly grindy areas begin in chambers/church The squishy DPS casters are not so squishy anymore at all. They got tons of HP and very often beefy energy shields. Entire Packs of them are blue. They hit hard as hell. Here is where you sometimes have to resort to infamous "door/corner cleave"- LOS'ing and luring out groups of mobs and softening them up before going all in The blue/rare sin lords are major pain as they simply refuse to die fast enough before the 30 fireball/ice shard casting skellies around them rape you. A lot of whirling blades /flicker strikes with frantic "die bitch die" dual strike in between. And sometimes you even have to port to recharge the flasks especially with rares/oranges Outdoors area are much nicer though and fellshrine is easy xp farm (as long as you take proper care with rocks). Chaos dmg mobs are very dangerous but you can still kill em relatively fast. You trusty skellies save you from ailira exploding mobs Bandit bosses are still same deal(kill adds then boss) and facetankable. Its more of a gear check (do you have decent evasion/dps/life leech) than anything else Now vhaal pyramid is cruel x 3 pain in the ass. That area is just.... not fun. very large areas with few waypoints filled to the brim with totems, nastiest multiple projectiles chaos damage constructs and super fast snakes who just dont die and kite u all day. Not fun at all door cleave, porting back ,die to bad desync, clear it again.... Vhaal himself is just way more retarded version of cruel .Hits harder and has stupid amount of life. Used ~5 portals to grind him down and not proud of it. You cant get hit by his smash - period. In cruel and normal with proper HP/resists you can survive it but in merci you are dead unless you truly insane gear (which you wont at the point of doing him) act3: Ironically in many ways its easier than cruel. Because you do have lot more HP now and can survive most casters better . But mobs are thicker and mistakes are more costly so overall you cant relax too much. More of grind than a challenge -play it safe and you wont see much problems Be super carefull in sewers as mobs there can gib you much faster now especially if you got caught by he toxic dudes in bad spot Barracks are much easier cause dumb bitches now cast useless spark instead of deadly arc and you do have more HP. Their guards though have a very nasty charge but roas in mud flats hopefully made you master of charge evade/skelly tank by now. Solaris is much easier -again because you can tank the caster curtains without being instaggibed by random white mob. Lunaris - the lightning warp mobs are more dangerous so care. Packs of mobs are retardedly big now - thats the only real difficulty. Piety as end boss of merci is huge dissapointment -nothing special just beefier version which hits harder. Same as cruel strat wise. Map and end game
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Work in progress
IGN Nordes Last edited by dark_madmax#3928 on Mar 15, 2013, 3:54:29 AM
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in-depth guide which is very helpful for newbie.. good job.. gonna try it when i have some time..havent tried evasion build yet and need to see if evasion scale decently in merci..
~Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should~
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Noobie question here: in both normal and cruel u stated that u helped oak but for different rewards... is that ok or a typo?
Anyway... great build and great job man :D |
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Interesting idea using the Blind-support gem, which i assume are the whole backbone of the build :D
Alexis
*smiles* =@[.]@= boggled =~[.]^= naughty wink |
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" You get different rewards in each difficulty here is helpful page I always consult if I forget : http://en.pathofexilewiki.com/wiki/Quest_Rewards IGN Nordes
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I generaly find the dps of a standard cleave DW duelist pretty weak in comparison with others melee builds.
So what is your current dps on your char ? |
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" My self buffed DPS without frenzy with maligaros was 3.5k On cleave and 7.5k on Dual strike. With full group auras it was over 10k on DS and 5k on cleave Since then I sold maligaros (cash strapped) that dropped about 1k on Dual and 800 on Cleave I also have suboptimal link for cleave and missing one support for dual strike. Problem of this build is not exactly DPS but the general state of the game - Ranged classes rule the dps category and nothing can beat in tankiness the endurance/life stacking build with granites. Cleave aoe is also huge problem as its short range and very very UP (it should deal 2x dps it deals now) Endurance life and armor are strong . Dex, evasion and block are UP, but they are fun and still viable (even in pure solo run ) if you dont mind being a bit behind off power curve. IGN Nordes Last edited by dark_madmax#3928 on Feb 18, 2013, 9:27:55 PM
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You should grab Nullification instead of Reflexes if you waste 2 nodes to travel there. Even if you take Mana Flows and Reflexes only costs you 4 points, 10% all res is better than slightly more evasion.
Why use 3 points to grab the frenzy charge when you are not using it? You can save one point there. Why not grab the 1% regen in duelist area? 1% for one point is really good... Same for Celerity. 8% MS, one point. So good. Same for Alchemist. 15% better life flasks and 30% faster? Yes please. Same for Blinding Speed. 12% AS and 2% block, 2 points? I also prefer Swagger to Blade Barrier. Aside from that, I'd grab a bit more life near the Ranger area, and you're good to go. Good luck! |
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" It would be if I needed elemental resists which are capped right now " I do use frenzy (mostly for bosses ). I am also considering speccing to enable blood rage and rolling with a lot of frenzy charges " Its nice and I might still take it if I go blood rage " What does MS do for me? - practically nothing... " Again it might be good I just didnt explore that option yet and didnt see it as priority. There are lot of options with the build and I have theorycrafted many different directions. They all have same limitations though which are hard to work around - melee in general is not exactly very viable and dex based melee doubly so. What is viable is stacking HP and relatively OP skills and mechanics ( which is why 2h stun marauders are viable even in HC) I made it for fun and it is pretty fun to play. I got pretty far ( I believe farther than many dex based dual wielders) and shared my experience, but ATM little tweaks here and there not gonna swing into FOTM area. -this has to do with basic game mechanics Acrobatics/evasions has to do hell lot more than they currently do for the points invested. As a melee your short range aoe should have 2x dps its currently has and have some sick utility (which blind isnt). there has to be an answer to blanket AOE magic damage which absolutely rules the end game. And alternative answer to Mack truck hitting mobs than stacking 7 endurance charges There has to be a reason to play DPS melee besides fun. Right now there isnt. IGN Nordes
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I'm planning on starting a dual-wield rapier Duelist, so have been looking for various builds to give me an idea where to start. Thanks for posting yours :)
Anyway, my question is about mana. It seems to me that this build might run into mana problems, or does this build not need much mana or mana regen? "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have." - Thomas Jefferson
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