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

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Nagisan wrote:

I understand this build is "not for soloing", I plan to run maps with a friend or a larger party...but how well does it go through the leveling process solo? I tend to level alts when my friend is not on and finding public groups for leveling is annoying when half the parties you join have already completed that quest.

You can solo up to Cruel Piety fairly well, still you will need a party for the main act bosses and maybe a couple of more places. If you can gear up and overlevel a bit, you can easily do them with one friend or so, I believe. Leveling in Merciless is a challenge, but I suggest the following course of action:
1.Enter Merciless, get to Lioneye's.
2.Rush quests avoiding stuff like Medicine Chest and Fetid Pool, go get Mud Flats opened to get access to the Deep Dweller. Party up with your friend and do Deep Dweller.
3.Level up in Ledge until you can take Brutus with your friend and then do Allflame.
4.Level more in Ledge and gear up and go do Merveil.
5.Enter Act 2, immediately level up in Fellshrine, avoid any distractions.
6.Deal with the Bandits and go open the passage to Act 1 and then find a party to complete the Vaal Pyramid and the Oversoul.
7.Get into Act 3, farm City of Sarn solo is a good idea, I could do it without too great gear, but I was a bit higher level than the mobs.
8.Farm Docks and when you have leveled enough go do Piety with a big party if needed.
9.At this point, go back to unfinished quests and do them if you wish.
Remember that questing and leveling in Merciless are better split up. Level up a whole level in the Ledge for example and when you hit next level and have no exp, go do quests that you can finish at this time, because even if you die, you will lose no experience and this will work to your advantage.
Another tip I can give you is make complimentary build, although this is a bit rough. If you play constantly with a friend, think ahead, you may be good with ice, he may be good with fire. You may want to drop some DPS and get more tanky, so his mage can blast stuff to death. You may want to get more DPS because he plays a marauder with 8k life or a ranger that draws all the aggro, i don't know. Just think of the game as a team, not as individual builds. Together you can be better than the sum of your individual characters and this can actually help a lot in leveling.

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Sebash6 wrote:

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Spiritios wrote:

@Sebash6: It plays like a charm and I have a great time because I am not an anti-social psycho guy playing solo maps at level 80... If you want to solo maps, get out of this guide, it is not for you. You are playing a MMO, learn what you are supposed to do! Thanks! :)

By the way, I tweaked a lot to get the build where it is and make it survivable and it works perfectly well with my crappy items. It is melee so it will be gear dependent and everyone knows. I am not aiming for neither cookie-cutter nor for 20k life, I have 2,4k life at 67 with bad gear and not all the HP nodes added and I may drop some damage and get it over 4k later on, but I am not sure this will be neccessary... So your point is invalid as was the point of others before that said it has not enough HP...

Plus you want survivability? Fine get it this way -> http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQABS0SIBpVIWAn1TIJNug6UkCgR35T31jbXotgS2EhZKNlTXTtdPF674TZhO-ZK5uDnrmrxb2BxFjP-N-_704OPBRxpzAUIFBHmy0XHVeXYEER1b6nJd8b-qQZ0k3AD9XtGNtbr90N_MVW-nRBFHU67XfXfyvWijqzNYadqrnNZ6CHdkp9aodBqvjr9zJyqXzZWK_iYTB3lZtlpyb4txc4lve-rKon7Rku1I-53fIv7w5nmykuwdjKkF853ePG2FhjUFCMzz38fLj2SF8_ I will eventually get these nodes over level 80 or something, I do not care that much, my survivability is fine!

And for anyone else wanting it more tanky, simple easy solution with not any huge changes:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQABS0SIBpVIWAn1TIJNug6UkCgR35T31jbXotgS2EhZKNlTXTtdPF674TZhO-ZK5uDnrmrxb2BxFjP-N-_704OPBRxpzAUIFBHmy0XHVeXYEER1b6nJd8b-qQZ0k3AD9XtGNtbr90N_MVW-nRBFHU67XfXfyvWijqzNYadqrnNZ6CHdkp9aodBqvjr9zJyqXzZWK_iYTB3lZtlpyb4txc4lve-rKon7Rku1I-53fIv7w5nmykuwdjKkF853ePG2FhjPfx8uIN8qAc=
25% More Armor, 21% more Life at the cost of some pure DPS, does not hurt too much!

Ok ok, good luck at vaal, brutus, piety, flickers, etc etc :D
Just wanted to help and let u imagine this all what will happen

I am already doing maps and I am fine. I really don't understand why people are getting mad at the build. If someone cannot do it properly, get one that suits you. I can do just fine even with two people in really tough maps and still I do not have my full tree up. I may decide to drop some DPS for a bit more life at the final nodes, but I will not be 2-hit dead...

I play this build on hardcore and the survivability even when soloing is pretty good.

Normal: walk in the park (solo), just remember (or ask around) what damage type you will need protection for per map.

Cruel: Act1: Avoid Fetid pool untill you have some levels and/or a granite flask. The problem there is the amount of Rhoa Carcasses that keep stunning you and the necromancer reviving them (killed me once).

Act2: that is where I am now, I choose to level up in fellshrine because I needed better equipement. Now I am level 50 and I will try to finish this act tonight (will post details later)

My build atm:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQAAecFLRHVEiAUIBcdGNsaVRv6IWAl3yfVMgk1hjboOlI6s0CgR35QR1PfV5dYr1jbW69ei2BBYEthIWSjZU107XTxeu-E2YTvlZuZK5stm4Odqp65pBmnMKvFuc29gb6nwA_EWM_40k3V7d0N37_iYe9O974=

My DPS on cleave is just under 1k. My chestplate has 4 connected sockets, 3x red 1x green. I have cleave, life gain on hit, melee physical damage on the red slots and faster attacks on the green one.

I am still 100% on the build, but my order is a bit different. I choose life/armor/evasion first, damage later.

For hardcore builds, try to get equipement per level and keep it in stash when you get better equipement. Always assume you will die at some point, and starting over is way faster if you have some gear for those levels.

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Faxie wrote:

I play this build on hardcore and the survivability even when soloing is pretty good.

Normal: walk in the park (solo), just remember (or ask around) what damage type you will need protection for per map.

Cruel: Act1: Avoid Fetid pool untill you have some levels and/or a granite flask. The problem there is the amount of Rhoa Carcasses that keep stunning you and the necromancer reviving them (killed me once).

Act2: that is where I am now, I choose to level up in fellshrine because I needed better equipement. Now I am level 50 and I will try to finish this act tonight (will post details later)

My build atm:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQAAecFLRHVEiAUIBcdGNsaVRv6IWAl3yfVMgk1hjboOlI6s0CgR35QR1PfV5dYr1jbW69ei2BBYEthIWSjZU107XTxeu-E2YTvlZuZK5stm4Odqp65pBmnMKvFuc29gb6nwA_EWM_40k3V7d0N37_iYe9O974=

My DPS on cleave is just under 1k. My chestplate has 4 connected sockets, 3x red 1x green. I have cleave, life gain on hit, melee physical damage on the red slots and faster attacks on the green one.

I am still 100% on the build, but my order is a bit different. I choose life/armor/evasion first, damage later.

For hardcore builds, try to get equipement per level and keep it in stash when you get better equipement. Always assume you will die at some point, and starting over is way faster if you have some gear for those levels.

You do not know how delighted I am that someone is trying out this build in Hardcore and actually brings us the results. I will soon make a polishing to the build (add a second branching to my final build for more life) and will probably add a Hardcore advice appendix. Would you like to share some more tips for Hardcore, general or concerning this particular build, so I can include them? :D

As far as I am concerned if anyone reads my reasoning they can understand why I made some choices and what other alternatives there are at that point, so if you do not do anything too crazy (like open all the paths first, then go grab all the nodes which will cost you survivability early on) you are going to be fine. I would like to see your build progression later on, though, maybe you can find a more optimal path for Hardcore that I did not see. :)

Just tested "Multi Strike" with "Faster Attacks" on "Dual Strike" and its DPS skyrocketed to 4400 and 0.16 second attack time. Unfortunately I messed up my chestplate and I now only have Multi Strike + Dual Strike. Still it is a very good way to boost your DPS to insane levels. Be on the lookout for one if you follow up the guide and have a slot to put it in. ;)

Thank you for the multi-strike tip, I wil try it when I have the slots to put them in and can buy/find the gem. Hopefully I will it before I go to Vaal.

I killed Kraityn and Alira, did chamber of sins quest and got to the waypoint in Vaal all solo yesterday evening (cruel). No problem there and I think I could have done it 5 levels below of what I had then (50, 45 is doable) if I had a 4 linked socketed piece of armor then.

The fun part of this build is: you will regen health as long as you are cleaving everything that moves. Big crowds of monsters aren't a problem because of that. This is also the weak part of the build, when you are frozen, you don't hit and don't regen fast enough so you can die when ganged.

So when on a map where monsters do ice damage, I kill them first. Cause they are mostly ranged attacks, I just leapslam to the corners, wack them before I go berserk in the melee crowd :D. If it is a very large crowd, I use a decoy totem to locate them and distract the rest. I also make sure my potions have stun and block recovery and that I have a get-the-hell-outta-there potion (aka quicksilver) and a granite flask.

Then my 45 marauder friend came online, and we wacked the archbishop together so no solo report from that.

Plans for tonight: get a 4 linked armor and hope for 2 green - 2 red so I can test dual strike. I haven't used it in a while, cause with my current setup cleave does more dps. If I don't find it, I will still go to act 3. Not sure to try kill Vaal solo, or look for a team.

@Faxie: Exactly, Cleave is supposed to be your main DPS but also your main Regen as well. If you want to try a crazy idea that I have not managed to get my Hands on, find a 6L and put in Cleave, Multi Strike, Faster Attacks, Melee Physical Damage, Life Gain On Hit and Life Leech and see your character practically devour enemies in one big bite! Have fun with it! :P

UPDATE: Due to complains about lack of survivability, plus my interest in making a more generic build that will be accessible from Ranger tree as well (wanted to do this for a couple of reasons) and that will not be Axe-Specific (will soon try it out in full with Swords), I made this beauty here: OpenPlanBuild
Now bear in mind that if you want it far mor survivable, you can always start Marauder and work your way in through the life nodes to the upper armor area and Troll's Blood if you want.

All feedback is appreciated (also I will be soon starting an Alt based off swords, because I got a bit bored of my axes for now. ;) )

Here's where my ranger stands now.



I just recently respecced for more crit chance. Next on my list is more damage nodes, by ranger start, duelist start and fencing. And lastly hp and block, as I don't seem to need it. got up to 3600 hp and respecced out of some hp nodes for more damage. One of my first characters i've done that on.

But even without the crit I was clearing merciless with easE!!! I have capped resistances 77% with purity, run grace, and hatred all on my mana, and then link my abilities up to blood magic. I sometimes run anger and wrath on life too. I haven't tried multistrike yet, but melee splash was awful.

I'm pulling about 6k dps on my dual strike with very mediocre weapons worth about 2 gcp.

Merciless vaal was a cake walk. I made good use of whirlwing blades. Merciless brutus I just tanked him, cake walk. Merveil tanked her too. Piety is the funniest part, first time I went to her I just did it solo, and tanked her, didn't have to hide for any of the ice arrows etc.

Maps so far are done with ease. I haven't done any really hard ones yet, but so far it's been easy. clear fast, don't have much problems with anything. I was using culling strike for a while and it is really a nice addition for any name mobs.

Right now I'm at a stand still and using cleave and dual strike in the same 5L until I can either fix the colors for it, or find a multistrike gem to test.

Still it's not everything I want it to be yet, as you really can only hit minimal targets at a time.

Just thought I would share my progress on a similar DW character. My attack speed is .25 right now, imagine with multistrike that could be even crazier.

@SEOINAGE: Your build is better than mine, period. No wonder you can solo everything in the game with ease. I would suggest you get Multistrike for both Cleave and Dual Strike and blast monsters to infinity with them. Good build, amazing work with your character in my opinion, keep it up! ;)


EDIT: I would like an opinion on this build ->Acrobat Dual Wielder. It is a huge variation of my current one, focusing on more life, dropping all the armor and getting evasion instead and making it more possible to use other kinds of weaponry, like probably swords. I want quick feedback on this if possible, I would like to try it out in Hardcore (I was challenged by someone to do this) and I would like to know if it can stand well.