2h Sword Duelist - The Samurai (Any ideas to improve is appreciated)

I wanted to start on HC after a couple of months on default league.
Never played a Duelist, so I'm no specialist here. But I will give it a go. I wanted an easy build to master, because I didn't wanted to RIP fast. :)

Right now I am lvl 26 ( just started yesterday ) But atm I cannot play and therefor thinking of getting some tips on my build.

So here we go:

This is my passive tree - I have tried to get get a bunch of life nodes early on with some extra resistance. I'm going to stack armor, because it feels right for me. Choosing IR because I will pick up "Grace" as aura plus it gives me a better choice of armors.
US is picked up because I will not have any evasion and therefor it is good for not getting stunlocked to death.



My skills

Single Target: Double Strike - Supported with: Faster attack, Melee Physical Damage, Life Leech
AoE Attack: Cleave - Supported with: Increased Area of Effect, Melee Physical Damage, Life leech, Mana leech (if you find your life/mana leech to be good enough from gear add: Elemental Proliferation)

Movement: Phase run

Auras:
Anger: Supported with: Reduced Mana
Hatred: Supported with: Reduced Mana
Wrath: Supported with: Reduced Mana
Grace: Supported with: Reduced Mana

If needed Clarity: Supported with: Reduced Mana (Can be mana expensive so I dont know really)

Totem:
Decoy - always nice to have.


So what are the ideas on this one ? Hope to get some input, or maybe someone wanna play it and tell me there experience.

-Kazmio

The one obvious issue you are going to have is mana. You will need to put some points into int nodes and increased mana. On hardcore where trading is limited at best, relying on items to solve your mana problems is not a good idea.

Personally if I build my character to use mana instead of blood magic I would drop the elemental auras and use grace and determination while levelling. When late game is reached the mana pool will be large enough to accommodate one additional aura but not 3 of them.

Other than that everything else is fine in your build, it will do well in hardcore if you are careful. Yesterday I died at lvl60 to merciless vaal cos I was stupid with a very similar build.

On another note:

There is one thing you should consider before committing your time to this build - 2h swords suck at the moment. They are still viable enough I guess, but very sub-optimal when compared to 2h axes, 2h maces or dual-wield.

The short reason is - you can't use Sweep with them.

The long reason is - 2h swords have very low base attack speed and lower base damage than maces and axes. Cleave scales with base attack speed unlike Sweep, therefore if you dual wield 2 one-handers their combined dps will be higher than any 2h sword. In both cases you give up a shield slot and use Cleave.

The fun part is I'm pretty sure that some of the fastest one handers would give better dps than a 2h sword by themselves, but I'm too lazy to do actual numbers.

Thanks for your answer :) Yeah I have thought about the mana pool. I will try go for your advice. I think I can regret some nodes to go for mace instead. Then picking up sweep instead of Cleave? I found a pretty decent hammer aswell. So thats cool.

I will try figure out how to get some int/mana nodes aswell. Not many of them around duelist though.

Yeah I thought about doing a sword/shield build. But think this sounds more fun :D And I think its doable.

Hmm I have now been looking around. And I have to go pretty far up in Marauder's tree to find mace nodes.

Should I go for axes? Seems pretty decent with all the + IAS / DMG nodes. Then I could wait till around lvl 40-45 to pick any dmg nodes and just build a really strong survival duelist.

So when I hit the dmg wall, I can easily pick up the nodes.

Something like this:

Yeah, that was pretty much what I was doing, use the strongest 2h weapon you have - axe or mace and rely just on 2h nodes without committing specialized points. I went axe in the end cos mace nodes require going into marauder territory and I was specifically aiming not to go there.

There is a nice 2h cluster near ranger with the Wrecking ball node, gives quite a bit of attack speed. Also if your accuracy is low you can get 48% increased accuracy with axes and some dmg for 4 points to the left of the starting zone, not a bad deal.

You can really do a lot of fine tuning once you level up a bit, switching around nodes to compensate exactly what your gear is lacking. This is why I love this game, no 2 builds will be exactly the same even if aiming for the same general concept.

^ Total agree!

Just got to 34 today. Got my IR and ended on 1650 armor (with grace) and 860Hp
As you spoke of, my mana pool having a hard time. But for now I am just using Grace for the defensive. I will try getting hatred into it aswell (The freeze is lovely)

But yeah, I like the idea of not going to specialize in one kind. But going for the "2h nodes" and yes I need more accurcy. Having a 86% hit chance atm, sucks but it works.


Got most of my gems aswell. Still need the increased AoE - but it will come.

So far I think this build works great for HC normel, cruel :) Lets see on ruthless and merciless - hehe probably gonna die in some weird way I didn't think of.

So this is the newest setup. I kinda like this one a lot. Even though I'm not sure I'm getting that high of a lvl. But now I'm getting more life, more mana, more accurcy and still keeping some + dmg nodes. Putting away Unwavering stance. But to get so much better stuff.



And this is the more likely build:

Axe Samurai? :P I know you need accuracy, but you can try this instead.

your problem will be defense. i'd suggest grace as primary aura over the others, and also dont rule out evasion; since you aren't using block with a shield use armor and evasion. i imagine 2H have some block but it wont be as high as a normal shield obviously.

although i can understand that if your damage is good enough you can lifesteal plenty of hp you loose in battle, but as others have mentioned MP is a major issue here as well as needing some major high socketed items and doing some trades to get those support gems. good luck with it though.

"

Axe Samurai? :P I know you need accuracy, but you can try this instead.

Well the samurai was when I thought I went for swords. But then I heard Swords ain't that good in the end game. So now its a Axe Samurai :D