The Glorious Viking Duelist Guide (also axes, blood magic and a ton of cleave)

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@Redline, seriously now that I look at the build more closely you sacrificed a ton of nodes I had in certain places for life to get others.You sacrificed some regen, Might and 3 life nodes to just run up and get the same stuff elsewhere.

Ya you can get those nodes later or before... Remember these are just suggestions! You don't even have to listen to me :). I prefer to get up further to get Alchemist, Arrow Dodging, and crystal skin.

The two regen nodes are useless. You will thank me later for never getting them as those points can be spent on block or something much better.

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@Redline, I am in the proccess of tweaking the build right now and I am very interested in getting some help with it. Say we keep the first 81 points that I have already spent (look in the guide for the 81 point tree)

Ok here is at 81 with 19 points remaining:

I really think taking the Axe accuracy nodes are a waste of points. I put them into crit since you decided to get some crit nodes near ranger. Took away the increase attack speed nodes at the right since you are going with increase attack speed with axes. Since I think you still need more HP nodes I took away axe accuracy/speed at the bottom right.

19 Points left:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQBA4cFLRHVEiAUdRcdGNsaVR3KIWAm-Ci1KNss6TB3Mgk1hjWSNug4ljpSOrM67UCgR35KU0p9TipOyFPfVvpXl1ivWNtbPVuvXotgQWBLYSFjcGSjZU1lp2egaodwcnRBdO108XgNeu-E2YTvh3aVZpWbmSubLZuDnaqeuavFtxe5zb2BvqfAD8qQz_jQR9JN037VANXt3Q3fv9_v4mHtg-9O7-P8xdDu96NieRX2AAbuDnfXfyvWijB8TZJRR58nqriqf4cZI_bv8A==

I think the accuracy nodes also get a bit useless at the point I am. I was thinking to switch focus to the Marauder area and saw Resolute technique which tempted me a lot to add it to the build in some way. I can remove the lower part of the Axe area and spend the same amount to get to this, avoiding some low damage and high Accuracy nodes and also making sure my hits are always sure to hit, which is a real tempting offer as of now. What it also helps with is avoid spending 4 points for elemental resistances and get another diamond skin from that area and Heart of the Gladiator for essentialy an equal amount. Right next is an Armor mastery node as well. This makes up for a lot of survivability problems I faced before and will allow me to respec a part of the tree that does not work too well (the Axe Accuracy nodes).

So a good all around build can be this:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQBBS0R1RIgFHUXHRjbGlUb-h3KIWAl3yb4J9UotSjbMHcyCTWGNug4ljpSOrM67UCgR35KfVPfVvpXl1ivWNtbr16LYEFgS2EhY3Bko2VNZadnoGqHdEF07XTxd9d6738rhNmE74d2lZuZK5stm4Odqp65pBmrxbcXuc29gb6nwA_EWM_40k3V7daK3Q3fv9_v4mHvTu_j_MUOPBRxQar46_cycql82ayqJ-0ZLtSPud3yL-8OZ5spLsqQXznd48HYpzAUIFBH974=

What I did is killed the Accuracy nodes for Axes, compensated with Resolute Technique, grabbed Diamond Skin and Heart of the Gladiator and Armour Mastery plus Blood Drinker, two life nodes right under, extra Strength, small boost in damage and Attack Speed and move speed also. So the question as it stands is: is this any more survivable and more viable than the one I had in mind before? Obviously I cannot get huge DPS so I might as well aim for survivability more. What I can get is some decent notables and a good Keystone and dump my useless Accuracy nodes and compensate with a higher Strength to boost my damage instead. Wanna hear your opinion on it. I would love to use this build actually, this tweak makes me smile right now, I want an opinion on it asap! :D

P.S.: Thanks for all the great feedback and not just posting something along the lines of "Man, it sucks!" :P

Just found this today and enjoying what I see, when I had initially planned out my duelist I had planned to go double swords, but I seem to like axes better now. As of right now I'm using a IR/US build (at level 39) with no weapon nodes taken (some of the points aren't optimal, I'm bad and will use respec/regrets laterm this is partially intentional), and I've got a few questions...

What was your health pool like around this level? I realize that (especially with Blood Magic) it's probably going to be higher than mine...but I feel that mine's kind of low at ~580. I was able to solo normal Piety (after 1 death) with relative ease as long as I kept mobile. This is my first character so I know that my gear is far from top notch.

Viper Strike - since you're using axes I know you can't use this, but I've come to love it. Have you used it or anything similar on any other toons? How does this buidl fare without a Chaos-DoT? I know that I'm running into more rare/unique/bosses with Chaos resistance, but I've found that even on those it's nice to have a 4 stack ticking away and on those that are not resistant this tends to do a whole lot of damage.

How is your survivability without having taken many dual-wield block nodes? I know it's probably difficult to gauge because afaik there's no animation for DW Block. I think my planned build had about 10-12% more DW Block.

I felt that I would be fine going glass-cannony and ended up planning out to the Ranger portion of the tree, however from reading and also realizing that since this is my first/highest character...I know that I should probably build more survivable now for end-game.

Anyway, thanks for the write-up, will continue to follow this thread!

BUILD UPDATE:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQBBS0R1RIgFHUXHRjbGlUb-iFgJd8m-CfVMHcyCTWGNug4ljpSOrM67UCgR35KfVPfVvpXl1ivWNtbr16LYEFgS2EhZKNlTWWnZ6Bqh3RBdO108XfXeu9_K4TZhO-HdpWbmSubLZuDnaqeuaQZq8W3F7nNvYG-p8APxFjP-NJN1e3Wit0N37_iYe9O_MUOPBRxQar46_cycql82ayqJ-0ZLtSPud3yL-8OZ5spLsqQXznd48HYpzAUIFBH976DfKgHZ4B4SfGKJ08=
This is a final plan as it now stands, see for yourselves. It is a more survivable build with a bunch of points spent in things the original one lacked.


@acecow: Wow man, you know how to make my day, don't you?:D

IR/US just don't. You can spend in Arrow Dodging, trust me you will love this. And with Grace added to the mix when you touch 1.5k HP, you will be evading almost all projectiles. I suggest refunding the points already and getting Arrow Dodging and soon enough Leather and Steel. It is quite better in my honest opinion. If you can afford refund-testing it, I would strongly recommend it, so that you decide on your own.

Well at around 38 when I entered cruel my Health Pool was near 800 HP, but I had very good gear from an older character, so I suggest that you farm some rares with Health and you will be set.

I have never ever once used viper strike on another character, but as the latest build plans stand, you can easily swap my Axe nodes for Sword ones and be set on your merry way using viper strike, which seems like a decent option anyway.

Dual Wield block seems like a huge waste of my nodes right now. I have invested around 16% block and it does not seem to do all that much so I might as well swap some nodes for pure damage, combined with Blood Drinker and and dump some more in Armor to compensate and just ignore Dual Wield Block alltogether.

About survivability, I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to go get a lot of resistances around Merciless start. I will try to get from 59 to 66 today and plan around getting more survivability as well as making the end-game build plan. But it will all involve around me going Marauder area and getting stuff there. Anyway, my end-game plan is at 100 points so the last 20 can be easily invested in good stuff in the Ranger area and changing the DPS a lot. But do not worry about your DPS, as soon as you get 61 level gear with good rolls and a bunch of great sockets, Cleave will skyrocket and you will see your character solo groups of Wraiths in the Merciless Docks. Or so I am told! :P

*UPDATED ORIGINAL POST, BUILD TWEAKED TO BE MORE SURVIVABLE*
Thanks to everyone for helping me out with this build, any feedback is appreciated! :)

Ahh, thanks for the reply mate

Speaking of Resistances, I know taking the one 8% Chaos and the 1-2 Diamond Skins are great (also I think the one 5% Ele near Marauder) but what about the individual 15% elemental resists? Are these worth grabbing always or should I only pick them up if I feel that I'm lacking in one specific area at any time?

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acecow wrote:

Ahh, thanks for the reply mate

Speaking of Resistances, I know taking the one 8% Chaos and the 1-2 Diamond Skins are great (also I think the one 5% Ele near Marauder) but what about the individual 15% elemental resists? Are these worth grabbing always or should I only pick them up if I feel that I'm lacking in one specific area at any time?

Personally I would not bother with them as you can roll gear with resistances and fix your problems. If you wish to resist something, I suggest grabbing Stun Resist, Shock Resist, Freeze Resist etc which I think you can access near the lower right of the start area.
I suggest 2 prismatic rigns (24% resistances) and roll them to get individual resistances (two in each is pretty amazing (fire,lightning and chaos,ice for example)) and some life,life regen. Bear in mind that Chaos is only pure damage reduction as your energy shield will be near non-existent if you roll proper items. So only reason for Chaos Resist is to generally avoid things like poison bombs that are classified as spells and cannot be dodged with arrow dodging. If you put some effort in rerolling your rares you may end up having two or three decent extras for your resistances.
Still without any extras and only two prismatics you wll have (15+15+12+12)=54% resistances to all elemental damage. This is assuming you get +12% prismatics, but you can do it pretty easily, even buy from someone. So if you want further resistances, you may want to look into getting higher max resistances as you can only go up to 75% default. ;)

Okay, been messing around with my builds...would something like this be too crazy? I realize that it's planned out to the very end (which is forever away right now)

I couldn't commit to any one weapon type so I just decided to aim for either dual-wield or one-handed nodes and also tried to look around for life nodes. I realize I could go towards the middle triple life cluster and pick up 56% there as opposed to the 46% I have at the templar tree, but I think perhaps the extra strength and max life I gain (and the 12% damage) would be better? Gave it some thought and I think I'll try out Resolute Technique/Arrow Dodging over IR/US...hopefully things will work out nicely.

Whats ur lvl? cuz i wanted to go similar build, but i changed my mind when i hit higher lvl.
hp is too low.

@Sebash6:
I am level 63 with I think 80 points spent total. I have really bad gear (most of it is stuff I got at level 50-55 and my weapons are even lower) and my life pool is 1800ish. With decent gear I would be around 2,4k I believe. I still have not invested in some more life I want but with my regen and lifesteal, I can do very well and the Decoy Totem saves me a lot if I get in sticky situations. I can dodge a lot of arrows and Grace is the best aura ever. As soon as I get my second Diamond Skin, I will confirm if the build is 100% ok in terms of survivability As it now stands, I can join in Fellshrine runs and I never once got killed in 4 levels of continual exp there with a full party (I was pretty sleepy and almost braindead for like 3/4 of the time in there so yeah, I think my survivability is pretty good).

@acecow:
Personally, I suggest to stick with the guide and just change the 6 or so nodes for axes with generic dual wield or One-Handed nodes (something like this maybe? - http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQBBS0R1RIgFHUXHRjbGlUb-iFgJd8n1TIJNYY26DiWOlI6szrtQKBHfkp9U99W-leXWNtbr16LYEFgS2EhZKNlTWegaod0QXTtdPF313rvfyuE2YTvh3aZK5stm4Odqp65pBmrxbcXuc29gb6nwA_EWM_40k3V7daK3Q3vTvzFDjwUcUGq-Ov3MnKpfNmsqiftGS7Uj7nd8i_vDmebKS7KkF853ePB2KcwFCBQR_e-g3yoB2eAeEnxiidP379EgVz5GE2bau_jY3A=).

As far as your tree goes, I can only give you MY opinion, so yeah, don't expect much, my mindset is totally different. First off, you don't go Blood Magic, I can see your mana pool suffer unless you get some Blood Magic Gems or Life Leech gems but you will be gear-dependent to fit all the needed modifications for Cleave and Dual Strike (essentialy two 5L rares with some good stats). Secondly you waste a ton of nodes in critical damage and stuff, but you get RT which means NO CRITICAL WHATSOEVER. I ain't shouting, but just be careful, you wasted a ton of nodes this way, it does not look good. Other than that, I am almost sure you can manage to get the build much more compact and get the points used in a better way. If you want to make a build, my advice is to go slow. Start with 5 or 10 points or so, set stretch goals for certain levels (e.g. what do you need to get into Cruel) and stick to those. Planning a full build can only be done gradually and carefully. Have a plan but be realistic and take notes while you play. When you get any kind of trouble, adjust. Rinse and repeat. This is how I got my build to where it is now. And this is what I suggest to anyone, Duelist or not, my build or any other, in order to make a build they like and can use. (Plus I am here to give you my opinion any moment, so feel free to ask even if it is anything stupid. I am glad I get all this feedback :D )