Death's Oath CI

Trust me when I say the chest is garbage. 450 dps is nothing. I used it on my full hp mara taking the mara regen nodes, duelist, templar and stacking huge hp. Also had 75% chaos res so I was only taking around 100 dps on myself which my regen would outrun and using a cyclone build just because it has synergy but the 450 dps and the stats on the chest are just not worth it. You can easily go another build and just take a standard 5l yellow with double res/hp or triple res/hp depending on your budget and do miles better. Also, theorycrafting is fine and all that but unless you've actually went and made the build you won't know everything for sure. You will always encounter small things you didn't expect.

In short, the chest is garbage.

Do I look like I'm theorycrafting? I do theory + actual testing.

Anyway, I can't get the Lightning strike build to work properly. It performs poorly.
Cyclone is garbage for physical builds, dont use it.

As soon I hit a few more levels I will make a guide for this badboy. Works like a charm atm - you will see.
People can only think about the aura, what they fail to realize is that this chest actually gives you +50 all stats, 15+ attack speed and a mindblowing 5% life leech.

I'd like to take it off your hands if you think the chest is garbage, Vanden. You know, one step closer to affording my own build.

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Harmster wrote:

Anyway, I can't get the Lightning strike build to work properly. It performs poorly.

Well I hear a lot of praise about LS+Multistrike but I don't like it much either. The trade-off for getting it over LMP is just too much IMO, which is why I went for a separate ST attack and an AoE attack with this build. LS+WED+LMP+Faster Attacks gets the job done for AoE, and you can get a strong single target attack (without melee splash) for DPS'ing down bosses. If not Glacial Hammer, then Double Strike.

Afterwards, going Crit over Static Blows becomes a more attractive option, since it helps your single target attack as well while also working well with a Surgeon's flask mod (since you swing a lot of times with Double Strike+Multistrike). At that point though, Soul Taker kinda loses its shine since you don't have a lot of mana issues and the base crit is low. This is why I have a link to a dagger skill tree in the build.

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Novalisk wrote:

I'd like to take it off your hands if you think the chest is garbage, Vanden. You know, one step closer to affording my own build.

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Harmster wrote:

Anyway, I can't get the Lightning strike build to work properly. It performs poorly.

Well I hear a lot of praise about LS+Multistrike but I don't like it much either. The trade-off for getting it over LMP is just too much IMO, which is why I went for a separate ST attack and an AoE attack with this build. LS+WED+LMP+Faster Attacks gets the job done for AoE, and you can get a strong single target attack (without melee splash) for DPS'ing down bosses. If not Glacial Hammer, then Double Strike.

Afterwards, going Crit over Static Blows becomes a more attractive option, since it helps your single target attack as well while also working well with a Surgeon's flask mod (since you swing a lot of times with Double Strike+Multistrike). At that point though, Soul Taker kinda loses its shine since you don't have a lot of mana issues and the base crit is low. This is why I have a link to a dagger skill tree in the build.

Would you have enough poinst to pick most if not all Dagger nodes?
I'm pretty sure a classic invalesco style dagger build is better suited with ES/EV nodes (void barrier and nullification), but hey it still wears a shield so perhaps it will fit quite well after all. With Eye of chayula so you dont have to travel to the bottom of the tree and can spend you nodes at the dagger specefic stuff.

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Harmster wrote:

Would you have enough poinst to pick most if not all Dagger nodes?
I'm pretty sure a classic invalesco style dagger build is better suited with ES/EV nodes (void barrier and nullification), but hey it still wears a shield so perhaps it will fit quite well after all. With Eye of chayula so you dont have to travel to the bottom of the tree and can spend you nodes at the dagger specefic stuff.

Invaelsco's build is better with EV nodes because of Grace, and better with plain ES nodes because it gets an ES chest piece.

The major Dagger nodes are accessible because they're right next to CI. Nullification nodes might also be really close to them, but Body and Soul nodes are right next to the best shield nodes which are really important for a Death's Oath build.

The main reason I chose Sceptres over Daggers for this build, is because of how point efficient the mace and crit nodes are on the left side of the tree. For example, the Skull Cracking and Bone Smasher routes give 88% increased damage for just 5 points!

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Novalisk wrote:

Invaelsco's build is better with EV nodes because of Grace, and better with plain ES nodes because it gets an ES chest piece.

The major Dagger nodes are accessible because they're right next to CI. Nullification nodes might also be really close to them, but Body and Soul nodes are right next to the best shield nodes which are really important for a Death's Oath build.

The main reason I chose Sceptres over Daggers for this build, is because of how point efficient the mace and crit nodes are on the left side of the tree. For example, the Skull Cracking and Bone Smasher routes give 88% increased damage for just 5 points!

Yea 88% for 5 nodes is insane, and especially if you have limited points to spend on damage nodes. Like with this build since you have to travel far.
A so called "Skillgrimage" as said by Charan (pilgrimage for reference) :D

Tbh. Nova I'm absolutely certain maces are best for this build if you go crit. There can be no doubt about it. Also how cool is Galvanic hammer not to pick, just the thought of having a build with it gives me chills (haha).
Looking forward to seeing your build shape up, hope you can get hands on a Death's soon. Meanwhile here is something to motivate you:



Soul taker is a really good solution with Resolute technique and the fact that attacks are free helps the build alot.
On long term I'm not in doubt a slower axe or mace would be better for the fact that you do harder hits, more physical damage, but until you get a 350+ dps weapon - yea... :p
Hope I can track up a good mace or so for this, but to get something that much better than soul taker is almost mirror material.

Btw I changed to templar and is now lvl 79. It has the right bandit rewards and a templar just generally suits this build better since you have more options. Allthough a marauder will work aswell.

Funny you should mention Galvanic Hammer, since I realized it isn't as point efficient as I'd like with this build. So I tried going south instead of north in an effort to grab Unwavering Stance and the efficient crit and mace nodes. It's very pricy in points, but I think It's slightly better if you manage to reach that level.

Unwavering Stance version

I'm also trying to come up with a max block variant of this, but no luck so far without relying on a high block chance shield.

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Novalisk wrote:

Funny you should mention Galvanic Hammer, since I realized it isn't as point efficient as I'd like with this build. So I tried going south instead of north in an effort to grab Unwavering Stance and the efficient crit and mace nodes. It's very pricy in points, but I think It's slightly better if you manage to reach that level.

Unwavering Stance version

I'm also trying to come up with a max block variant of this, but no luck so far without relying on a high block chance shield.

Lvl 90 or 89 depending on what bandit rewards you get is very doable, but anything higher than that and you will need TONS of time invested.

Oh no I was not thinking about point effectiveness there. Just that the names of the nodes sounds badass and original. Limb hewer (32% axe node) is also very cool etc.
That new build you made there looks much better than the first, I also like the one handed crit nodes in the bottom left corner of the tree you took.

I run a CI Melee with these pieces
The highest ES I've seen in shield is 760. Even if you can afford that, death oath + ES shield combo only gives you as high as 2k Armor and 760 ES, top. That's 800 armor and 200 ES lower than my build. 5% LL and 15% attack speed doesn't justify that loss, IMO. I do think that with a 55 ex budget you can still do decent with this combo despite not being as solid as a conventional build. With a so so budget it'd be just bad. How many people here has got their hand on a 600+ ES shield, let alone 760?
Also cyclone rocks. Not having to take Unwavering Stance is huge and the damage is ridiculous. I can kill Crematorium boss in literally 1.5s solo.

Bumblebutt, you probably missed the shield node part of the build.

The build gets a total of 350% increased ES on shield and 170% on other gear/discipline, so a shield will give significantly more ES than an equivalent ES chest (25% more).