BiS Swords for my Build?

Question: Is dual wielding two Scaeva Gladii (plural of Gladius) best in slot for my build? Are there other swords that are / might be better?

Passives: here

Background: I'm a new player (2-3 weeks, now level 81) and I did my own build, and I went Dual Wield Duelist Gladiator with One Hand Sword specializations and basically took all the points related to physical damage, bleed (but not Crimson Dance), and crit. Since I'm new and did my own build I'm sure it's not optimized.

Right now I'm using Cleave with Melee Physical Damage, Chance to Bleed, and Ruthless; but I'm interested in trying Lacerate and Cyclone again (even though I think Cyclone would probably be stronger with a 2H weapon). I also use Ancestral Warchief with Bloodlust and Faster Attacks; and Enfeeble with Blasphemy Support.

At some point I bought two Scaeva Gladius in trade and they were a huge upgrade compared to the rares I'd been using all along. I tried switching to a slower, high damage rare in my main hand recently for bigger bleeds, but my sheet dps went down because of the drop in crit, and I've gone back to my Scaevas.

I'm farming for a six link or at least a good five-link chest, right now I'm using a four link I crafted myself. So far I enjoy mapping and don't like Labyrinth farming as much. I got very luck today with a Devoto's Devotion drop while I was mapping, and I want to wear it (though I have to rethink my gems/gear a bit given the drop in Intelligence and Lightning Resistance). Anyway, I was using Brutality Support for a long time, but I got frustrated at all the restrictions on items/herald etc. since I couldn't do elemental damage, so I recently dropped Brutality to see if I can do better with some elemental damage. So I got an Atziri's Promise flask and added Herald of Ash and wasn't sure where to go from there on elemental damage. Maybe Added Fire Damage Support if I get a 5/6 link?

I think all my passive multipliers are to physical damage. But right now I'm open to trying either pure physical or some added elemental. What are best in slot swords for this situation? What about main hand versus off-hand?

I believe my account is public so you can see my gear/build, but if you need more info let me know.

Thanks for your help, and if you have other suggestions for good gear for my build or minor changes to my passives please feel free.

the best swords u can use are rare swords, theres no unique that will even come close to 2 great rare swords. But such things will be extremely expensive, realistically if the scaevas are better than the rares you had then just keep using them till you find better physical damage crit rares that give you more damage basically. Scaeva is probably the best unique I can think of for 1h crit swords.



the passive tree is pretty decent for a new player making their own build. You can save some points by rerouting a passive and then dropping a few like this...

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.1.1/AAAABAQCAQHcAecFLQaLCVgLwRDwFE0UcRXsGJEaVRuqIOMhYCgqLTA1kjXvNug67T0APT5AoEMxRJ5FqUZpRrdHflBHU7tXDVeXWK9an2BBYxdjcGVNZrZoZWzYbmlvO3asd-N4DXrvgTqBQYGbggeE2YVShymI7Yrwi0-SfZd5my2bap7NpzCpbqn6rY2wq7XyuR28n702vni-p7_VwBrBB8GLxILPftIh02_T_NX4137Yvdlh2Xzbp-Hv5FHlz-lG6hjueu8O8kHyWvOb9zL6GPxL_o8=?accountName=Rockaday&characterName=Rockaday



a bit longer term, this is probably a better way to get to the marauder and grab his stuffs

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.1.1/AAAABAQCAQHcAecFLQaLCVgLwRDwFCAUTRRxFewYkRpVG6og4yFgKCotMDWSNe826DrtPQA9PkCgQzFEnkWpRmlGt0d-UEdTu1eXWK9an18_YEFjF2NwZU1mtmhlbNhuaW87dqx343gNeWh674E6gUGBm4IHhNmFUocpiO2K8ItPkn2XeZstm2qpbqn6rY2wq7XyuR28n702vni-p7_VwBrBBMEHwYvEgs9-02_T_NX4137Yvdlh2Xzbp-Hv5FHlz-lG6hjueu8O8kHyWvPd9zL46_oY_Ev-jw==?accountName=Rockaday&characterName=Rockaday



you dont seem to have any mana leech, hows your mana situation going? you able to sustain ur attacks fine with the setup u got?

Regarding auras, u should be able to run herald of ash and hatred with this sort of setup, together they will eat 75% of ur mana but this sort of build can usually handle that via mana leech. Often ull see builds like this reserving even more, like 90% of their mana and getting away with it.

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a bit longer term, this is probably a better way to get to the marauder and grab his stuffs

Thanks! I like both of those passive tree changes. I have 16 respec points saved up (wanted to wait til I knew what to do with them), maybe I can make those changes now.

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you dont seem to have any mana leech, hows your mana situation going? you able to sustain ur attacks fine with the setup u got?

Regarding auras, u should be able to run herald of ash and hatred with this sort of setup, together they will eat 75% of ur mana but this sort of build can usually handle that via mana leech. Often ull see builds like this reserving even more, like 90% of their mana and getting away with it.

I can spam Cleave and Leap Slam as much as I want without ever running out of mana. Right now my mana is reserved with Blasphemy Support and Enfeeble (35%) and Herald of Ash (25%). I haven't figured out how to run Hatred with that with my build yet. Or would you drop Enfeeble aura? I die sometimes on the harder maps so I was making Enfeeble a priority, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make. I used to cast Warlord's Mark curse until I figured out enemies could only have one curse, and it was a little tedious -- the aura's pretty nice. Still maybe it would be worth dropping for Hatred, or maybe there's a way to run them all?

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Right now my mana is reserved with Blasphemy Support and Enfeeble (50%) and Herald of Ash (35%). I haven't figured out how to run Hatred with that with my build yet.

Ah it looks like one path would be Blood Magic. But I don't understand how to calculate how that would impact my life. The wiki says:

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Blood Magic (often referred to as BM) is a keystone passive skill that allows the character to spend life instead of mana to use skills. It also sets maximum mana to zero...Skills that reserve mana will reserve life. The cost of skills is calculated normally, so reduced mana cost or reduced mana reservation modifiers will reduce the amount of life used.

But Auras reserve a % of max mana, right? And with Blood Magic max mana is set to 0. So they reserve nothing? Or is it not based on max mana, it's based on some other number, and how do I find that other number?

Blood Magic is not far from my skill tree -- it looks like 5 points to get that and Mortal Conviction. Think it's worth it?

EDIT: Ah I think I understand now... so with Blood Magic an aura that reserves 50% of your max mana will now reserve 50% of your max life. In other words I would lose half my life. That sounds really scary! If I tried to run 2 auras plus HoA it seems likely I wouldn't have much life left, even with Mortal Conviction.

I guess that would be 17.5% (curse aura) + 25% (hatred) + 12.5% (HoA) = 55% of my life reserved? I don't even have 4k life yet and I die sometimes, it seems like the resulting gameplay would not be pretty. Hm... The passive points to get there give +35% life, so does the rest of the calculation go:

+35% - 55% = -20%
4,000 life * 0.8 = 3,200

So my new life pool would be 3,200? Seems a little low, but not as bad as I thought along the way...

When using Blood Magic you dont want to use any aura. There is the exception of low life builds but they are not very beginner friendly

I would highly recommend to drop the crit nodes. You need to stack a lot of crit to make it efficient. Read on the wiki what increase really means. In this particular case, grabbing two points with 25% inceased crit chance will not give you a 50% crit chance. Instead, it increases the base crit chance of your weapon by 50%.

Drop the nodes and grab resolute technique instead. Your damage output will become a lot more consistent

Your life pool is way too low.

However, i would recommend to roll a new char and grab a build guide from the forum that sounds interesting to you. That might sounds boring, but POE can be a very complex for beginners :)

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Sollkomol wrote:

I would highly recommend to drop the crit nodes.

I would highly recommend to go all in on crit.

RT with swords is such a waste. It's super easy to get 90%+ chance to hit.
And while RT damage is "consistent" (for whatever that is good for), it's also very limited.
If you want to tackle endgame, you have a much easier time with the crazy DpS crit offers.

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Rockaday wrote:

Question: Is dual wielding two Scaeva Gladii (plural of Gladius) best in slot for my build? Are there other swords that are / might be better?

The natural upgrade for Scaeva is Ahn's Might, going up to ~350 DpS.
You can snipe 340+ DpS for 1-2 chaos sometimes, or just pay around 10 chaos.

A rare sword with more DpS than Ahn's will be weighted in multiple exalted orbs. And it won't have increased AoE (great for Cleave) and 50% crit multi.

Your skilltree isn't optimal by any means, as others have commented.

If you want to go crit swords, do something like this:
click me
Then you either go further into the left:
Click me
Or you go into Shadow's start:
click me

One of the left jewel sockets holds the unique "overwhelming odds" for permanent fortify buff.
Another one holds "pacifism", so that you are at 0 frenzy charges and get both a boatload of accuracy and crit multi for free at all times.

Both ways (Left or Northeast in the skilltree) work and can tackle all content in the game on a 6L Cleave dual sword build.

Remaining skillpoints should be put into more life nodes in Marauder and Ranger start, or - if you feel confident - you take further DpS stuff along the way, there's still a couple of crit/damage/attackspeed nodes I skipped.

The last unique I'd recommend is Oskarm:

Lots of crit chance from the unique line, and you get a free "curse on hit".

You can fit in one more unique, if you want (starkonja's or devoto's hat, or unique boots), but fill the rest with rares to cap your resists.

Use a random rare 6L armor chest and craft it into something useful (life, resists).

The only expensive part of your build will be the amulet. You probably want something like this:

Intelligence, Life, crit multi, flat physical damage + as many other cool stuff you can afford (can easily cost 1 Ex++).

Example gear set:

Wow, thanks for all the help!

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When using Blood Magic you dont want to use any aura. There is the exception of low life builds but they are not very beginner friendly

Ah okay, thanks, that makes sense. I dropped enfeeble aura for hatred and ran three maps and it seems good so far. I kept enfeeble as a cast for now in case I start taking a lot of damage.

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Your life pool is way too low.

Current armour in hideout with no flasks is 5,533. Evasion is 3,752. Life is 3,739. Chance to dodge is 5%. Resistances are 68 - 75 (85) - 75 (90) - 17.

What strategy would you recommend to increase my life pool? Kaom’s Heart doesn’t seem like a good idea in my situation as then I can’t get a 6L and would lose a lot of resistance. I like my Devoto’s Devotion and it offers good armour and evasion, but no life and only Chaos resistance.

I already have +max life explicit on my gloves, belt, belt abyssal socket jewel, boots, one ring, and body armour. On the other ring I have strength. +life is enchanted on my amulet. Do I basically need bigger rolls of flat life on all these items? Right now it seems challenging to find good life upgrades without losing a lot on other stats. I assume I shouldn’t give up resistances for life. Are there other stats I should be dropping for more life? Should I be going for more strength (currently 342) to up my damage at the same time?

Should I be seeking more %life passives on the passive tree than I have now? Is the best option to fill out the nodes around Constitution?

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i would recommend to roll a new char and grab a build guide from the forum that sounds interesting to you

Yeah I was actually thinking of doing that. I was considering trying a Marauder 2H Cyclone build, but maybe Duelist would be better, I’m not sure. There are a lot of builds to read about. I was tempted by

[3.1] Ahfack's Crimson Cyclone
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1995010

But that looks really expensive for a beginner who doesn’t really understand the economy and how to generate currency that well.

I’ll keep looking. Any beginner builds that are great for running high tier maps that you’d recommend in particular?

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POE can be a very complex for beginners

Yes I’ve found that to be the case so far. :) But so far it’s also been worth it.

The game mechanics, gearing, and builds are hard enough. But honestly I think the most overwhelming part for me has been trying to understand the economy. The range of items that can drop while I’m mapping seems massive. I’m using NeverSink’s loot filter and hiding more items than the default (mostly some chancing and crafting bases that I don’t have the mats to use), and for rares I only pick up the ones it makes more visible. But still, I identify a rare and I can’t tell whether it’s valuable. I go on Poe.Trade and research it (and I watched a couple video guides on how to do that), but that takes a lot of time given the number and variety of rares I get and I’m not always sure I’m understanding what I see. Just because one person listed something similar for 20 chaos yesterday doesn’t mean anyone actually wants it. I expect knowing that just takes a lot of research/experience. I understand that if I studied all the popular builds it would get me a long way, but that’s also a long process. Oh there was another site about the PoE economy referenced in an Engineering Eternity video I was going to check out and I didn’t get to that yet, I’ll look for that and maybe it will speed me up the learning curve a bit… (Ah found it: poe.ninja, but at first glance it doesn’t look like it helps with rares.)

I have six premium stash tabs to sell stuff from. But is the best approach to just vendor all rares until I understand better? Most of the rares I list for sale don't sell. Are there a few rare criteria in particular I should look out for? So far I’m basically guessing resistance + life for non-weapons, damage for weapons, and spell damage for wands, though I’m not confident I even know what’s high and what’s not high enough to be valuable for each criteria.

Here’s a link to my current loot filter in case anyone has related input on that:
http://www.filterblade.xyz/#u9akSjky3yUP

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the best swords u can use are rare swords, theres no unique that will even come close to 2 great rare swords. But such things will be extremely expensive

What’s an example of a really good rare sword? So I can keep an eye out for an exceptional drop. Do they come from just one or two bases, or is it a large number of bases?

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A rare sword with more DpS than Ahn's will be weighted in multiple exalted orbs. And it won't have increased AoE (great for Cleave) and 50% crit multi.

Ah thanks. I had wondered whether Ahn’s would ben an upgrade but wasn’t sure. Yeah I’ve looked at these on Poe.Trade before and they looked affordable and I was thinking of getting one to try. Given what you said about Ahn’s, if I adopted a crit focus and kept using a skill that benefits from AoE, would you recommend I keep looking to upgrade to a rare eventually, or is Ahn’s basically BiS? And it looks like you’re saying it’s great for both mainhand and offhand.

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RT with swords is such a waste. It's super easy to get 90%+ chance to hit.

I’m currently at 87% chance to hit on my character sheet, and I haven’t really put any significant effort into raising that with gear (and oh wow: 105% chance to inflict bleed, I hadn’t notice that before). I read somewhere that 93% chance to hit is a good target to shoot for. My main hand crit chance is 24.94% and off-hand is 24.74%.

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One of the left jewel sockets holds the unique "overwhelming odds" for permanent fortify buff.
Another one holds "pacifism", so that you are at 0 frenzy charges and get both a boatload of accuracy and crit multi for free at all times.

I’m currently using Overwhelming Odds. I didn’t know about Pacifism, thanks. So far I don't think I'm taking advantage of any mechanics related to frenzy and endurance charges. I don't think I really understand what they are, where they come from, and how to tell whether I have them yet. I didn't put passives into them or equip gems related to them because I didn't really know what they were. I started reading the wiki on them, but I have more to research on those.

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Both ways (Left or Northeast in the skilltree) work and can tackle all content in the game on a 6L Cleave dual sword build.

Thanks for the passive tree examples! And that’s neat about the free curse from Oskarm, I didn’t know about that either.

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Example gear set

Thanks for the detailed complete gear set example and cost breakdown! The gem setup is also informative to me, I’m still learning which gems work well together, and that’s one of the main things I look for when I browse build guides on the forums.

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Chest: 30-50c for the base, another 20c for crafting

How did you find that? Was that in Abyss? When I go to Poe.Trade and put in a base of Glorious Plate, Links min 6, corrupted no, and buyout 1-60 Chaos Orb in Abyss league I get zero results. Am I doing it wrong?

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Another one holds "pacifism", so that you are at 0 frenzy charges and get both a boatload of accuracy and crit multi for free at all times.

Just tested in game: dual wielding Ahn's Might with Pacifism I'm now at 93% chance to hit. My crit went down to 19.12% MH and 20.25% offhand without the Scaevas (with green sockets), but my sheet damage is up. I'm using an Experimenter's Diamond Flask of Warding I crafted, and I get can to work on other ways to gain more crit.

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Rockaday wrote:

Ah okay, thanks, that makes sense. I dropped enfeeble aura for hatred and ran three maps and it seems good so far. I kept enfeeble as a cast for now in case I start taking a lot of damage.

The way Id recommend using enfeeble is with a cast when damage taken gem. Imo u want a lvl1 cwdt and a lvl5 enfeeble, Ill see if I have gems to link u...



cant be bothered loading game to take out the gems, but socketed in those gloves bottom 2 slots lvl1 cwdt and lvl5 enfeeble. Itll trigger the curse when u take the specified amount of damage. The higher ur cwdt gem the more damage it takes to go off, but the higher level gems it can cast. I just keep mine on lvl1 and the max lvl of enfeeble that can support is 5. Blood rage and lightning warp can be linked to cwdt, but because those gems are too high level they do not trigger with my cwdt, I want to manually cast those when needed.



Ill have a look but I think the only good rare phys crit swords I have are so stupidly over rolled that ur never gonna find something like that in a league, or even in standard unless you have triple figure exalts to pay for them. Basically you just want really high % physical damage, high flat physical damage, attack speed and crit chance.



thats an axe im using in abyss, youd want something in that ballpark but that also has crit chance rolled on it. I think youll know something when u see it, just pay attention to the blue physical damage number at the top, the attacks per second and the crit chance.



thats an example of the right set of mods but many of them are a little too low, a sword like this is probably no match for the unique sword options.



this is better, but still maybe short of the scaeva and ahns. Even finding a sword like this is pretty hard tho, I mean look at the blue phys numbers, crit and speed at the top of the item, look at the ones on the uniques, is it significantly better? Probably not even as good?

Be aware that you can bench on mods like flat phys, % phys, attack speed etc with ur masters, sometimes a weapon is missing something but u can put it on.



thats where it can go when things get stupid on standard league and ppl craft serious high tier gear. Im not sure anyone has ever found a sword like that but the potential is there. Now something between the uniques and this will exist in leagues, it can drop, but very rare, very expensive. Something that maybe gets into the high 200s or even into the 300s on the top end phys like an ahns has, but is significantly faster than an ahns with better crit chance.

Best bases for crit are thrusting swords, either foils or rapiers, but note they do have massive dex requirements. That sword I use is a corsair, lower natural crit but lower dex requirement and higher base damage potential I believe, thats like a semi crit sword. honestly when ur looting any 1h sword base of a decent level might provide an upgrade if it rolls an ungodly combo of mods. Theres potential in this game for rare items to be extreme, absolutely insane, but the rng of getting the 6 exact mods and all high rolls become virtually impossible as u get towards a perfect item. In 5 years its unlikely that anyone has ever found a perfect crit sword ever in poe, or even 95% of the way towards perfect. People have found things that will completely eclipse those unique options tho.

http://poe.trade/search/oteboriwowotiw

if u take a scroll down that list, thats the best crit swords on the market in abyss right now. Have a look at the mods, have a look at the 'pdps' and crit values they have on the right, that will give you an idea of whats possible in a league. A rly good rolled ahns has made its way into that search, Id forgotten they added that item its nice. Slow old bird but its got some damages for sure.





Regarding gear values, the more you play the more ull get to know. Give it time, if u see a piece and ur not sure maybe hold on to it, cant hurt. Youve got the right idea, life + resists for armour slots, damage for weapons. Just pay attention to the values u see, if somethings got way higher values than u normally see maybe its something. Eventually youll be able to look at an item and know ok, that has tier 1 of this and tier 2 of that, thats rly good and X build is gonna want that sort of item.



for boosting your life, just get as high a life roll on everything u can and get as many life nodes as possible. I plan builds into the 90s and Im looking for at least about 185% life from my tree, preferably over 200% by about 115 points in which is somewhere around lvl93. Sometimes easier said than done. U can get away with a few items like devotos that have no life, but only a couple.

getting 90%+ chance to hit is fine, 90% is a good number Id be happy with that. The more the better obviously.

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The way Id recommend using enfeeble is with a cast when damage taken gem

Thanks, it hadn’t occurred to me that one could use a targeted spell with cwdt. I read about it on the wiki some today after you mentioned it, and I’ve linked those on my gear now. Level 5 Enfeeble is perfect, as that’s the highest level my Intelligence can maintain…

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thats where it can go when things get stupid on standard league and ppl craft serious high tier gear...the best crit swords on the market in abyss right now

WOW. Those swords are insane. @.@

You guys were right, I would have noticed if I identified a rare drop and saw numbers like that.

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Or you go into Shadow's start

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note they do have massive dex requirements

So is Duelist Gladiator arguably the best choice for dual wield crit swords, or would something else be better?

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get as many life nodes as possible

I bought some new boots with higher life, and used some refund points and got several more 5% life nodes in the passive tree. My life is 4,320 now. Probably still low but I guess it’s progress.

Thanks again for all the helpful info.