(2.4) 2H Viper Strike Slayer

First time writing a guide so it won't be as expansive as other guides on here, but the point of me writing it is to both help people wanting to try something other than the current meta builds and to help myself through feedback from people.

Intro
I like to play my own builds instead of following a guide and I'm also not very fond of the OP meta builds. This league I've tried several builds: Ice Spear totems (worked great, but got boring fast), Wander (was awesome, but to squishy and dps wasn't that good) and then I decided to follow a guide and make an ancestral warchief build. The warchief was so OP it felt like cheating...

So I wanted to make another character, after looking over the possible skills I noticed that viper strike works with 2 handed swords too. For some reason I always assumed it would only work with 1 handed weapons. After looking over the possible ascendancy classes for my 2h viper strike character I decided to pick slayer. Took a quick look at the passive tree and decided to try it ...not expecting to get very far.

And now here I am writing my first guide. This character has without a doubt been my most successful character that uses one of my own builds. I've killed Atziri for the first time ever, cleared uber lab with 4 keys and have been doing red maps.

Current progress
Highest map cleared deathless: Core
Atziri: deathless
Uber lab: 4 keys (with izaro using 2h mace, I'm told this is his most dangerous weapon ;))
Uber atziri: collecting fragments
Guardians/Shaper: still working my way up to their maps

Pros/Cons

+Great for killing bosses
+Decent clearspeed
+Cheap to gear (mostly rares)
+Can be done solo self found (that's what I've been doing)
+It's not a brainless OP meta build ;)
+Runs most map mods (only one I haven't tried is no leech)
+Dot allows you to hit and run particularly dangerous mobs
+No bleed damage taken thanks to slayer
+Insane leech
+No problems with reflect

-Melee (to be honest I don't see this really as a pro or a con, but enough people do)
-Evasion based so sometimes you might get killed by a few lucky hits (I haven't died in ages though)
-No insane clearspeed so might be hard if you want to reach level 100

Current Gear

Weapon:

Nice damage and leech. We don't build for crit chance so the no leech shouldn't hinder you and when you do crit the blind and bleed outweigh the no leech.
A starforge would probably be even better, more damage, more life, we don't deal elemental damage anyway, and the AoE boost helps with our impact. But since I haven't killed Shaper yet I don't want to buy one.

Chest:

Decent evasion, life and 1 resist. The best part of this is the 20% less damage taken which is quite a huge buff if you don't get hit all that often.

Before I found Kintsugi I was using a rare chest:


Boots:

Atziri's step has decent life, 30% MS and gives us a great boost to surviving spells.

Belt:

Physical Doryani's invitation gives us resists, some leech and phys damage
I think a rare belt would actually be better if you can find a decently rolled one, it would certainly be a big life boost.

The rest of my gear is all rare:



Focus on (over)capping resists, getting life on everything and try to get +physical damage on the jewelry.

Potions:

The unique flasks provide extra damage and survivability, witchfire brew is an especially big damage boost.
The life flask is obviously to heal life back up when you need it fast.
And the quicksilver is just utility

Current build:
This is at level 89

Key things that this gives you:
40% dodge chance for attacks
30% dodge chance for spells
181% increased life
23% of max life per second to max life leech rate

While leveling I focused on getting the acrobatics nodes first and then going for the life and damage nodes as I saw fit. If you don't have mana leech you'll probably want to pick up the life/mana leech node at duelist soon too.
When you're not sure if you need to go for life/leech or damage first, remember that you can't do any damage while dead. ;)

For ascendancies I went with:
Endless Hunger
Brutal Fervour
Impact
Bane of Legends

Bandits
Normal: Oak - More life, who doesn't want this?
Cruel: Oak or Kraitlyn - Not sure which is the best, but I'm sure they're both good enough
Merciless: Skillpoint or endurance charge - I went for the skillpoint since I wasn't using charges yet at that point.

Gem Links

Viper Strike - Void Manipulation - Faster attacks - Fortify - Melee Physical Damage
This is my current 5L, if I ever get my chest 6linked I'll probably add Rapid Decay.
Before you get the Impact ascendancy you'll have to use Melee Splash.

If you want you can obviously link Fortify to Leap Slam and use something else, but I'm to lazy to leap slam every few seconds.

Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Temporal Chains
IC is a life saver and I think every build uses it. Temp Chains was my curse of choice.

Leap Slam - Faster Attacks
You'll want a movement skill to get out of tough situations, Leap Slam is the one I prefer.

Another link you can use (which I'm no longer using) is:
Abyssal Cry - Increased AoE - Poison - Void Manipulation
AC will clear tight packs almost instantaneously. Having all the exploding adds put a stack of poison on the tougher mobs also boosted my damage on those mobs through the Growing Agony jewel.
Unfortunately it will also clear your mana instantaneously and while you're shouting Abyssal Cry you're not shouting Enduring Cry. And endurance charges are just pretty damn cool to have, even if it's only 3. Also AC freezes my computer when it blows up a big screen, never got me killed, but why risk it?

Aside from these I also use Blood Rage, Grace, Arctic Armour, Ice Golem, Vaal Grace and Vaal Haste.

Notes
Why Impact over Headsman/Melee Splash?
While Impact doesn't do as much damage to adds as Melee Splash it still does more than enough damage to kill them fast enough. I felt that getting an other support gem boosted my dps more. The reduced reflected damage from headsman isn't needed either, I have yet to kill myself on a reflect mob/map.


Alright, that's everything off the top of my head. Might add try to record some videos if I get a few replies, but I'm not getting my hopes up. ;)

I hope someone can give me some feedback on my build too, always looking for way to improve and I'm sure there a lot of people out there that know a lot more about this game than I do. :)

Thanks, it looks very good!
I'll be using this as as template when making a Starforge version after league is done :)

Hi, i was told that viper strike was out of metta, and then i found your build and i'm going for it! Thank you very much. I have one question. Can i use cleave as a second main attack?