Life Leech/Ghost Reaver/CI Claw Build

Thought I might make an update on the progress of the char.

Right now my claw shadow is level 37 and about to kill oak.

I died on normal HC to fildeldas as I didn't let my es regen in time, otherwise I would have gotten him.

I hit a major roadblock as soon as I hit cruel, as I was dying really quickly and not killing fast enough, but I partied up and got to the start of merviels cave with this group, and it got me enough skill points to push past the block.

Blood rage helped A LOT. I got Ghost reaver relatively early, just after getting the es and claw nodes to the right, and it worked better than I thought, as blood rage took some hp, but my claws where still life gain on hit, so I was getting both HP and ES from my attacks.

Once I was getting %lifeleeched claws dropping I quickly got CI.

Normally I wouldn't get CI with only 900 ES, but with blood rage and dual strike dealing 500 dps, it is working quite well for me. I'm still a bit squishy, so I have to chain some flicker strike to take some of a large group down first. (I was lucky to get a 11% flicker strike to drop early)

I'm using dual strike as my main attack, linked with faster attacks and (when I have the available slots) added cold damage.

I'm using grace as my main aura until I can get discipline, and I have purity in case some ele mobs are hard hitting.

I'm using the vulnerability curse as it allows me to take down mobs faster and gain more leech from the added physical damage done. I have considered getting warlords mark, but I haven't gotten one yet, and I'm not sure if I can spare getting str nodes.


I'm dying ever so often, which is something I don't really like coming from HC, but I suppose it will happen because this build requires me to go in balls deep to deal damage AND stay alive.

I was running a ghostreaver/CI + claw/shield + flicker/bloodrage until I gave up yesterday.

I reached lvl 65, my build focus mostly on damage so I would able to ons-shot flicker strike most mobs and my frenzy charge keep built up to get unlimited flicker. I'm able to clear all act 2 content easily.

But the problem arised when facing map, basically, you feel helpless and lacking everything from damage to defense and I don't even know how can I improved the build.

Sounds more like a gearproblem to me, would be nice if you could give more info about your character (f.e. gear, passives).