Claws, Iron Relfexes + Eldritch Battery

I did not test this build and can't play currently, but when tinkering with passive tree I came up with this build.

Passive tree for level 60 with 4 life rewards from bandit quest:


It is meant to be tanky. Iron Reflexes with almost 300 base dexterity, some evasion passives and grace aura would provide very high armor. I took a few life nodes and would get life from bandit quests. There is no life regeneration but life leech from claws passives and claws implicit mods should be pretty high

Eldritch Battery should eliminate all mana problems. I also take quite a few int nodes on way there. Discipline aura with int bonus and some passives for energy shield provides a lot of mana. With base mana and single item with 200 energy shield, this character would easily have 1000 mana. 200 ES is quite big but for very high level gear it is not a problem even on a hybrid item. Earlier less mana would be enough.

This should be enough for a few auras. Grace and discipline are mandatory. Then for more defense determination or purity (probably not both, but they can be switched according to situation). With reduced mana cost gems on all auras, even wrath and hatred can be added.

Over 110 base intelligence is enough to use most claws, an onyx amulet (or any item with slight int bonus) may be needed for the very top ones. Big int nodes are also available if needed.

I hope mana leech passive would be enough to sustain attacks. If not, 1 aura would have to be replaced with clarity.

Build lacks a bit of damage, but it's not terrible. It has quite a bit of accuracy. A few big one-hand and dual-wielding passives are nice. Within 3 points a big claws passive "Claws of the Pride" near shadow starting location can be grabbed. Additional 3 points allow for nice "Heart of Panther" (30 dex, 2% as, 4% damage) node with 2 stun recovery nodes, or "Fencing" (18% damage), or taking claw cluster near duelist side.

For attacks lightning strike would be good for AOE. With a few movement speed nodes kiting with it would be easy. With not much strength it can't be leveled much though.
For single target dual strike or frenzy would be good. Or alternating between them to keep frenzy charges. Other skills that increase physical damage are mostly red and require a lot strength. High physical damage is needed for life and mana leech, also for high hatred damage if used.

I have never seen someone taking both EB and IR and I feel this combo should work great.

In theory, it would work fine, but that much mana generally isn't needed for melee builds, just the 2% mana leech is usually enough to sustain damage and you can easily get more (I've run around with only 30 max mana after 4 auras and still had no mana problems, although 50-60 is more comfortable for me).

By going out of your way for eldritch battery simply for auras, you spread your points very thin. You're already passing up a lot of real bonuses just to take the highways. Link is without eldritch battery and instead picking up the Dervish and Leather&Steel clusters, and two +30 int nodes you passed for claw requirements. I'm pretty sure the 13% block and 40% armor/evasion (and some dexterity) adds much more survivability than you might get from one or two extra auras.

So if you're all for having a massive mana pool then go for it, but I find Eldritch Battery to be too much of overkill and not worth going out of my way for, =).