[0.10.4] CI RT 2H Melee Templar Build (HC)

~POKEMON~|~PROFESSOR~|~DOCTOR~|~#TEAMOAK~


This will be the first build I am posting of several. I believe all my builds are unique, however it is possible someone else posted a similar/same build somewhere else.

Warning: This build is a pain in the rear to level, especially until low 60s. Be prepared to drop at least a few GCP on gear once you make transition to CI.

With this build I have tried my best to emulate the experience of a sweeping lunging barbarian, tearing through mobs with impunity. I believe I have succeeded, and I get that same feeling of power and unfiltered fun playing this character as I have the classical 'warrior/barbarian' in other games.


Pros of this Build
- Can use ANY 2h weapon with good success, optimizations can be made for Maces/Staves
- Very high physical damage. Only thing you have to worry about is phys reflect, otherwise you can go in and tear shit up
- Probably the second most fun build I have played in this game
- Amazing scalability.


Cons:
- Gear dependancy. Be prepared to 'pay to play'.
- Horrible leveling. Leech off groups. Or buy 20 regret orbs, the choice is yours.
- Extremely vulnerable to de-sync/lag spikes. Can be 'insta-gibbed' if either of these happen.


Key KeyStones
- Ghost Reaver: Leech applies to ES instead of life
- Vaal Pact: Life Leech is instant
- Inner Force: Auras, Granite flasks, and Frenzy are more effective
- Resolute Technique: Cannot crit, cannot miss
- Chaos Inoculation: Self explanatory

Auras to be Used
- Determination: This boosts your armor greatly from granite flasks. While you will not have much armor from gear (I think I have like 2-400?), with granite flask up you will be in the 22-26K range, with ~70% mitigation.
- Discipline: With all the passive nodes taken, Discipline adds close to 1.5K ES. Must Have
- Grace/Haste/Purity/Wrath: Depending on what you need, any of these work. With a leveled Purity you will be going on 85% all resist which is amazing. Due to how evasion rating works Grace is always a valid option for some extra mitigation. Haste if you are set on the other two and are decently geared (where Haste is better than wrath). Otherwise go with one of the 3 dps auras; I personally prefer Wrath or the Agility one.

Skills and Links:
- Sweep or Leap Slam : Linked with: Life Leech, Melee Physical Damage on Full Life, Melee Physical Damage. After this you can go with depending on your items. I personally like increased area of effect if you can swing the mana cost. Blind and faster attacks also work well.
- Determination / Discipline / 3rd Aura: Linked with Reduced Mana Cost
- Heavy Strike : Same links as Sweep/Leap Slam. I like to add in Blind as well, as it helps for bosses
- Enfeeble : Toss this in with your auras if you can for reduced mana
- Blood Rage : This is what CI builds are all about. Use and abuse it.
- Decoy Totem OR Skeleton Totem : This depends on your links, both are very nice, even with no points invested in minions they can be nice shields.

Warning: I do not recommend leap slam as the main damage skill as I have experienced massive de-sync and other issues with the skill when spamming it

The beauty of this build is that even with investing in MINIMAL DPS Nodes, having 4-5 Frenzy charges rolling up at *all* times and stacking increased melee physical damage with the full life version, both which add MORE damage (so just a flat * 1.XX; these increases are huge!) makes this build have high damage.



Key Items


With the Eye you will avoid being stunned by mobs (must have. Do NOT go CI until you have the Eye of Chayula!. Flasks with the affixes 'Perpetual' and 'Iron Skin' are gold. Every flask that you have should either be 'Iron Skin' or dispels frozen, due to your low HP you are very likely to get status effects, and 'frozen' may spell death. A suggested item would be dream fragments, however it is NOT worth it IMO (I have killed hailrape at ~lvl 60 without it, and that to me is good enough).

The important item here is the Granite Flask. Due to Vaal Pact, HP Flasks are useless to you. Thus I currently run 4x Granite and 1x speed flasks. Granite uptime must be 100% when fighting anything but the weakest mobs With 7k ES I have let granite wear off for under a second when fighting a pack of blue archers and was quickly brought to 20-30%. If you have an inopportune lag spike and granite falls off, you suddenly go from 25k armor to 500 armor, and the result is never pretty.


Play Style
- Step 1: Activate Auras.
- Step 2: Activate Blood Rage.
- Step 3: Activate first Granite. Leap Slam into mobs, Sweep once or twice until dead. Heavy Strike spam any rare/uniques.
- Step 4: If Blood Rage is down, go to Step 2. If Blood rage is up, go to Step 3.


Bandit Rewards:
- Normal: + 1 skill point
- Cruel: + 1 skill point
- Merciless: +1 Frenzy Charge
Possibly get +1 Endurance Charge; however I have found it to not be necessary at all


Recommended Builds:
32 Points:

56 Points:

83 Points:

91 Points:


If you go maces I recommend taking Bone Smasher to connect through (1 extra point for 32% increased damage). If you go staves I highly recommend Whirling Barrier (Through the 30 int Node). Do not respec into CI Until you have 4K ES (With Discipline etc.), Likely sometime act 1 or 2 in Merciless. While leveling just go for typical +health gear and play like a gimped Ground Slam Mara/Templar. With my recommended specs you will have enough respec points from quests to achieve the end game build without using regret orbs.





Thanks everyone for reading, and if you have any questions/would like to flesh out any part of the guide please let me know. Depending on the response I will make two more guides for my other specs. Unfortunately, I will not be uploading any videos of this spec in action as my computer is a piece of junk that can barely handle the game.
~POKEMON~|~PROFESSOR~|~DOCTOR~|~#TEAMOAK~

gj:D

You mention this being the seccond most fun build you have played. What was the first most fun?