[3.0] The Crimson Cleave Juggernaut (from Zero to white maps)

Hi.

The goal of this build is to start a league with crappy gear and do UberLabs, some not-too-high maps and have some fun slashing things open.

This post will (hopefully) form a detailed guide and the second post is for detailed playthrough for Solo Self Found form zero.

Cleave skill is veery old. It fell short with the likes of Lacerate, Earthquake and Sunder around.
But there are some pros to it
1) Overwhelming Odds jewel to free support gem slot,
2) okayish base damage for bleed,
3) 2-h Axe for big base damage
4) and no Attack Speed penalties to reach 8 stacks Bleeds with Crimson Dance and slow 2h.
So there might be a sweet spot for it.

Here is my planned tree and character pastebin for Path of Building.

Skills and supports

Ascendancy

Skill Tree progression

The Bandits


My gear will be focused on
Life,
resists,
Flat Physical damage,
Bleeding damage and duration

If you have any question or suggestion or just want to discuss something about this build - I will try to help as good as I can.

Current gear and progress

Playthrough:

Deaths log

You should really get the Bloodletting node. Those 3 points together give 115% extra bleed damage and 40% extra attack damage against bleeding enemies. That is a lot of extra damage.

And I would personally move the 4 bottom points in the large Axe wheel (Last node is slaughter) to the small axe node at the duelist area, taking the left route to the notable.. The large Axe wheel nodes have a large amount of AS, which you really don't want to much of. The duelist one gives you slightly more ailment damage, and some attack leech.

Or you can put those 4 points in the 2h-cluster between the marauder and templar. It has some good damage nodes, and the notable has 30% increased ailment damage with some damage and AS.

You should put your Ancestral Protector skill in your chest as well, so you can get more then 4 links on it. It's an amazing single target skill, with the bloodlust support, might as well get the most out of it.

I don't think blood magic is worth it as well. Vulnerability curse is a massive damage increase for bleeds, and i would personally just run a blashmeny + vulnerability set-up. You could then run another aura like arctic armour or Determination as well. You could just manually cast the curse for bosses, but that's up to you.

Lastly i don't know if cleave is the best skill for a bleed build. It's base aoe range isn't very high, and you can't really run an increased area support with it, without lowering your bleed damage by quit a lot. You could maybe just run the increased area support for trash and switch to a different one for bosses, like a lot of builds do.

Or you could switch to sunder. It has a much larger base aoe range then cleave, and higher base damage (so larger bleeds). You just need to link fortify support to your leap slam, and it will most likely provide more damage then cleave.

"

Tortunga wrote:

You should really get the Bloodletting node. Those 3 points together give 115% extra bleed damage and 40% extra attack damage against bleeding enemies. That is a lot of extra damage.

Yeah, that's the elephant in the room.
Definitely the late game variant should take this.
Thank you, updated pastebin link for my character.

"

Tortunga wrote:

And I would personally move the 4 bottom points in the large Axe wheel (Last node is slaughter) to the small axe node at the duelist area, taking the left route to the notable.. The large Axe wheel nodes have a large amount of AS, which you really don't want to much of. The duelist one gives you slightly more ailment damage, and some attack leech.

Or you can put those 4 points in the 2h-cluster between the marauder and templar. It has some good damage nodes, and the notable has 30% increased ailment damage with some damage and AS.

Blood Rage takes good care of Leech, so Splitting Strikes cluster is not very appealing...

The Bleed's duration is 6 seconds, the limit is 8 stacks, so some Attack Speed is actually needed.
Now, if I ever make it Guardians and Shaper, the situation becomes quite funny. Those bastards bleed for 50% less duration (or just 3 seconds) so we need approximately 2.67 hits per second - and that's quite some attack speed!

I think with weapon faster than Kaom's Primacy some Attack Speed can be sacrificed in favor of more hit/aliment damage.

Onslaught provides movement speed and should help with general mapping, that's mainly why I've chosen Slaughter over other variants you mentioned.

"

Tortunga wrote:

You should put your Ancestral Protector skill in your chest as well, so you can get more then 4 links on it. It's an amazing single target skill, with the bloodlust support, might as well get the most out of it.

I dream to drop Kaom's Heart in SSF. And first 5-6 link is to pimp the main skill. But if I'd ever have second 5-6 link - then Melee Physical Damage and Ruthless come in.

"

Tortunga wrote:

I don't think blood magic is worth it as well. Vulnerability curse is a massive damage increase for bleeds, and i would personally just run a blashmeny + vulnerability set-up. You could then run another aura like arctic armour or Determination as well. You could just manually cast the curse for bosses, but that's up to you.

It requires too much Int on gear and Mana Leech on gear or tree.
Since this will the first char, I don't want to complicate that.
Currenly, with lvl 11 Blood Rage I only need 30 Dex and 26 Int (basically just two rolls and one can be found on amulet bases) from gear to run all my skills and supports (even corrupted lvl 21 Faster Attacks).

Besides, Witchfire Brew does exactly that in lategame (if I'll ever find it).

"

Tortunga wrote:

Lastly i don't know if cleave is the best skill for a bleed build. It's base aoe range isn't very high, and you can't really run an increased area support with it, without lowering your bleed damage by quit a lot. You could maybe just run the increased area support for trash and switch to a different one for bosses, like a lot of builds do.

Well, once again AoE gems need lots of Int.
Also, Overwhelming Odds gives some AoE.
But yeah, I have this concern in the back of my head.

"

Tortunga wrote:

Or you could switch to sunder. It has a much larger base aoe range then cleave, and higher base damage (so larger bleeds). You just need to link fortify support to your leap slam, and it will most likely provide more damage then cleave.

I do not think it is possible to reliably reach 8 stacks of Bleed with slow attack + slow weapon when you need to dodge some nasty boss hits.
Cleave is (or at least seems to be) quite balanced here with Overwhelming Odds providing convenient main-skill Fortify at a cost of one jewel slot (which is not much at all until later in the league when you have good jewels).

Thank you for this guide!

I will try this build!

Where do you go after Crimson Dance?

Atm I feel like I need dex for gems but it's a long way.

"

riseandshine wrote:

Thank you for this guide!

I will try this build!

Glad to hear.
It is not near finished or tested though so take it if you just like the idea.

"

riseandshine wrote:

Where do you go after Crimson Dance?

I updated leveling a little.
Golem's Blood => Dirty Techniques => Jewel slot near Golem's Blood

Bloodletting => Rampart => Destroyer => Master of the Arena => Bravery => Art of the Gladiator

Stamina => Barbarism + small node behind it => Juggernaut

"

riseandshine wrote:

Atm I feel like I need dex for gems but it's a long way.

True, I keep a Jade Amulet on.
Finished build would need about 30 Dex at level 70 or so and 30 Int after you'll have 5-link on gear so it will not be hard in the end.

The dirty technique wheel doesn't do much for you. You are using brutality in your cleave set-up which has the 'deal no chaos/elemental damage' part to it, so poison doesn't do anything as it deals chaos damage. 8 points for just 65% bleed damage and 30% change to bleed is a real waste, as you can get much better damage stats with those 8 points;

For example 2 points in the large bleed wheel to and 4 points in the 2h nodes next to the jewel slot leading to the scion health area, would give you;

30% bleed change
64% bleed damage
50% hit damage
4% attack speed.

Same amount of bleed % and damage, with a good amount of extra hit damage for 2 points less. You lose 40 dexterity though, but if you really needed dexterity just pick one a 30 stat node one.

I would drop the tireless nodes as well, and just fill out the Scion health wheel. You lose 5% health, but gain 2 points to spend somewhere ells. You would normally only take that health wheel when you filled out most other health options around the marauder/Templar area.

I would pick up the Soul of steel armour wheel in the later stages of the game. The flat 4% physical damage reduction it gives stacks nicely with your 7 endurance charges. I wouldn't pick it up before you got 7 endurance charges though.

And i would properly pick up the Combat Stamina wheel, taking the life regen node. Life regen is your main health recovery system it seems, and for 3 points you get a nice 1.8% of it (with some extra
armour and 5% health).

Lastly some thing to think about; I played some dualist dual wield cleave/bleed build till act 10 on ssf hc. As The damage of a single bleed is based on the damage of both the weapons, the damage of a single bleed is roughly the same as a 2h version, as dual wield gets 120% of cleaves base damage (60% of each weapon).

As I was using swords as well I could use whirling blades, and the build felt pretty good. I would just dash from pack to pack, hitting every pack with 1 cleave and move on, while the bleed and bleed explosions would finish them off (I went gladiator ascendancy and had 100% bleed change). While the aoe wasn't amazing my leveling speed wasn't bad as i was quit mobile, and had pretty good boss damage as the bleed + ancestral totem would do most of the work while i would just dodge their attacks. To bad I died at the start of act 10, the mobs in there really hurt compared to the previous acts, so I can't provide you how it does in mapping.

Just something to consider, as dual wield does just a thingy bit lower damage per hit then a 2h, but provides better movement options (Whirling blades is so much better then leap) and attacks a lot faster (you get 15% free attack speed).

A small note if you are trying it in PoB, double the bleed dps. PoB base it's bleed damage from the Mh or OH damage, and not from the combination of both.

Great straight-forward build, I'm working through it now. I am using a 2H sword instead of an axe for taste and going to spec into some leech and replace blood magic with blasphemy/vulnerability which I think will be great in this build. Love being nigh invincible in the lower acts :)

One question though... why not use multistrike to apply the 8 bleeds super fast?

"

Craftyman wrote:

One question though... why not use multistrike to apply the 8 bleeds super fast?

Staying too long will kill you despite all tankiness this build has.
As you can see from deaths log, most of fails happen in situations where it is paramount to react quickly. Multistrike will make matters worse.