First Build - Templar/Marauder [?] - Comments?

Hello,

So this weekend I started playing PoE and find it pretty nice and fun ... Was very lost in the beginning and now I am starting to understand a few things, or not ...

I am having a lot of fun in the game, lvl37 templar atm and following some passives that I judge to be nice and right for the path I choose ...

I decided to go templar just because I like this name 'Templar' but I decided to let out the magic spells and go for physical dmg and more tank alike using a 2h mace ...

so I got a few 2h dmg and maces passives, max life, few int, got body and soul for armor and resists, diamond skin for resists and following the path now to get another body and soul and life leech passives, a few more dmgs and bersek for ias if I can reach up that ... I also got Resolute Tech so I cant miss, I know I can not crit but at moment I feel I do not need crits since I am 1~2 hits everything except elites and bosses.

Here is the link for my passive build, I am not sure if the other path is Marauder but I think it is, correct me if I am wrong

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUAAnEEsw9UFE0YXRkuGekaOCftMolBP0RyTdhR5lfiWfNyqXflfNmBb4M4hMSKdIx2kFWePKIAp4SpaKyqtC-53cAa1I_eweSt7DjwH_Iv


So far now I have a few questions and hope you guys can help, in fact I know you can :D

1. Is Resolute Tech good for End Game? is this game Crit Based game like D3 or can I survive well without crits?

2. What can I do to tank a bit more? since sometimes I take 4~5 hits and die... Raise my armor and elemental resists will help that much?

3. Do I need to equip Shields to survive end game? since I will run into packs and tank them because no spells to kite... I really love 2h and would like to go with that, will it be possible?

4. Just comment about the build, am I following a good Path?


Again, I am having a lot of fun at moment, just taking passives and yesterday I got sweep and got even more motivated to continue the game, looking for few gems like Vitality and Determination for armor and life, also looking for some leech gems that I think will help me to stay alive when inside the mobs packs ...

Any comments will be helpfull and thanks everyone by now ...

later

Welcome to Wreaclase, exile!


Looks solid so far. You've got life, regen and armor. The Catalyse passives are great for boosting your elemental damage. Are you also using lightning strike for single target? That skill just destroys champs/bosses.

"

So far now I have a few questions and hope you guys can help, in fact I know you can :D

1. Is Resolute Tech good for End Game? is this game Crit Based game like D3 or can I survive well without crits?

RT is great for melee chars as you can ignore accuracy (and accuracy passives) and helps a lot with life leech/life on hit. Crit is powerful, but it's most effective with an AoE spell spec as you still need accuracy to hit and spells always hit. Crits also proc elemental status effects- shock, freeze, burning- which is best leveraged with spells or projectile attacks not 2H melee. Also note that any spells you use with RT will also never crit and Diamond Flasks are useless to you.

"

2. What can I do to tank a bit more? since sometimes I take 4~5 hits and die... Raise my armor and elemental resists will help that much?

Life is king. Get lots of life nodes and life on gear (help Oak for bandit quests too). You also want to strive for high resists as they are not mitigated by armor like in D3. Poison (chaos) damage is not effected by elemental resists either so a high life pool is important. Later get the "Elemental Adaptation" passive near RT to increase your resist cap. Can also consider running Grace aura to get some evasion and/or Discipline aura for some energy shield as that will also be increased by the hybrid armor/ES nodes in the "Body & Soul" clusters. "Iron Reflexes" passive + Grace is another option but it's a long trip into the dex tree. "Unwavering Stance" is great too if you decide to venture into the Duelist area for the life and regen nodes. Using Enduring Cry or Warlord's Mark curse to get endurance charges helps a lot as well (though keeping up the charges can be annoying).

Decoy Totem and curses such as Enfeeble or Temporal Chains do wonders as well.

Always keep an instant heal flask for emergencies ("Bubbling", "Panicked"). Other useful flask mods are "of Ironskin" for armor bounus and "of Heat" for dispelling chill/freeze.

"

3. Do I need to equip Shields to survive end game? since I will run into packs and tank them because no spells to kite... I really love 2h and would like to go with that, will it be possible?

2H is viable all the way through to end-game and maps. Just need lots of life, some leech, and play smart- i.e. use curses and decoy totem if need be. PoE builds need to be well rounded, there are so many things that can kill you very fast under the right conditions. Can even make use of "Spell Totem + Summon Skeleton" to help tank dangerous rares and bosses.

"

4. Just comment about the build, am I following a good Path?

Again, I am having a lot of fun at moment, just taking passives and yesterday I got sweep and got even more motivated to continue the game, looking for few gems like Vitality and Determination for armor and life, also looking for some leech gems that I think will help me to stay alive when inside the mobs packs ...

If you plan to use sweep I'd recommend getting "Amplify" for increased AoE. Might even consider picking up the "Blast Radius" AoE talent in the witch area as well. Keep an eye out for Faster Attacks and Concentrated Effect support gems. Melee Physical Damage and even Melee Physical Damage on Full Life can be used as well if you have a good energy shield buffer to stay on full life a lot.

EDIT: you might want to avoid getting weapon specific nodes until later on to widen your pool of potential weapons. Axes have higher DPS than maces, but don't have the stun duration implicit mod. Staves have block, but a lower min damage and have a tendency to roll caster mods so it's harder to get a good physical staff roll. Weapon type freedom is one of the strengths of sweep over Groundslam.

"

FriarJon wrote:

Welcome to Wreaclase, exile!

Thanks so much, and thanks for the reply, really appreciate it, helps a lot ...

"

FriarJon wrote:

Looks solid so far. You've got life, regen and armor. The Catalyse passives are great for boosting your elemental damage. Are you also using lightning strike for single target? That skill just destroys champs/bosses.

No, I did not find this Lightning strike gem yet, at moment I just use Phase run, and sweep in the mobs packs, using glacial hammer or heavy strike for single targets ... will try to find that one...

"

FriarJon wrote:

Life is king. Get lots of life nodes and life on gear (help Oak for bandit quests too). You also want to strive for high resists as they are not mitigated by armor like in D3. Poison (chaos) damage is not effected by elemental resists either so a high life pool is important. Later get the "Elemental Adaptation" passive near RT to increase your resist cap. Can also consider running Grace aura to get some evasion and/or Discipline aura for some energy shield as that will also be increased by the hybrid armor/ES nodes in the "Body & Soul" clusters. "Iron Reflexes" passive + Grace is another option but it's a long trip into the dex tree. "Unwavering Stance" is great too if you decide to venture into the Duelist area for the life and regen nodes. Using Enduring Cry or Warlord's Mark curse to get endurance charges helps a lot as well (though keeping up the charges can be annoying).

Yes, I was trying to get Armor and resists as high as possible, but I am not sure how does it works, if it is very helpfull to focus or just go for life nodes...

Unwavering Stance seems great, but just right from it we have a great evasion nodes also, so I am not sure what to go ...

"

FriarJon wrote:

If you plan to use sweep I'd recommend getting "Amplify" for increased AoE. Might even consider picking up the "Blast Radius" AoE talent in the witch area as well. Keep an eye out for Faster Attacks and Concentrated Effect support gems. Melee Physical Damage and even Melee Physical Damage on Full Life can be used as well if you have a good energy shield buffer to stay on full life a lot.

EDIT: you might want to avoid getting weapon specific nodes until later on to widen your pool of potential weapons. Axes have higher DPS than maces, but don't have the stun duration implicit mod. Staves have block, but a lower min damage and have a tendency to roll caster mods so it's harder to get a good physical staff roll. Weapon type freedom is one of the strengths of sweep over Groundslam.

I think I understand the point, I was not thinking of elemental dmg on these case, seems great. Also searched for Blast Radius and it is so far now, maybe I will stick only with amplify ...

I also agree with you about the weapon passives, I will respec it so I can be free from it and maybe choose the points later, or even use it for another passives...

While reading your post and trying to understand how to improve the build and the idea I made a passive build for later lvls just for fun ...

Here I respec all the mace passives to have the freedom as you said, got 2 FULL body and soul nodes for armor and resistance, got Elemental Adaption to increase the res cap and got Amplify as I loved your advice but I did not used 2 points to get the minor ones.

Also followed a path in the below class to get armor from Armor Mastery and few life nodes, went more down for Blood Drinker for 2% life leech from physical attacks and life node near it, I think it is necessary together with the leech gem that I found yesterday.

Continued the path way down and got Reckless Abandon for more dmg with 2h weapons, Berseking for a 15% attack speed bonus and Steel skin for a great boost on armor.

Stopped at Unwavering Stance and Evasion nodes with Leather and Steel, here I choose the Evasion nodes bcuz I think can be more useful for me later, not sure how the game is but at moment I think I could be alive more time if I have evasion, being hit by everyone in the moment would not be a good idea even with my life leech that is not that much and the evasion nodes also grant me more armor ...

Will reach this build maybe around 70~80, not sure ... will still have more points to spent but I do not know if I can reach them ...



Is it a good path to follow now? I think we did great improvement in the build :)

Still planning on use determination / vitality / purity gems as they give good bonus, are they really good? will try to find light strike as you adviced and use the sweep for AoE as I really like it.


Again, thanks so much for the reply and the patience on helping

Later

* You don't need so many armor nodes, better to get life and life regen instead (104% increased armor and 88% increased energy shield with just the 2x Body & Soul clusters)

* 151% increased life, 4.4% life regen/sec

* This build has +3 endurance charges for a total of 6 giving 30% bonus damage reduction (6x 5% per charge) and 1.2% more life/sec with 6 charges up (6x 0.2%/charge). Endurance charges makes stacking armor more useful and combined with Determination makes armor scale exponentially.

* You'll probably want to add a Blood Magic support gem to your main damage skill so you can cast your skill from your life pool instead of mana. Mana will probably be a problem as this build's auras will reserve most of your mana pool, has very little int and no mana or mana regen nodes. Taking the Blood Magic passive is not a good idea as your auras will reserve life instead of mana (bad idea with any percentage reservation aura). Be sure to link "Reduced Mana Cost" support to your auras as well.

* With so much life regen you should be able to run the Blood Rage skill at high levels to gain frenzy charges

That build should be reached around level 70ish. You may need to grab a +30 dex node for gem requirements as well. Most of your damage will come from your support gems and strength bonus so you can get away with little DPS nodes, especially with good gear at higher levels.

Useful links:

Unofficial Offline Skilltree Calculator(Updated for 0.9.13)

Armor scaling with Determination and endurance charges

I meant to link this one before about armor, it actually explains the formulas Zakaluka was talking about more in the other post:

Wow, determination.
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/53290

Purity aura is excellent as well, not so sure about Vitality. Determination, Purity, and Vitality reserve 40% mana each (that's more than 100% :). With Reduced Mana Cost support you won't be able to run all 3 until high levels- if you do the math it's not even possible to cast all 3 until at least L50's with lev 8 reduced mana cost and not practical until late 60's early 70's. Level 16 RMC would be 90% mana reserved, which you'd achieve around character level 70 (I have a mara with L16 gems who is L70).

Oh Thanks ...

I ve been away for a time but now Im back, my characters were wiped and I was lvl40 while trying this build ...

Starting again, is this still good build for end game? will it work? I was thinking of going str+int with 1h + shield ... kinda tank with some support spells and a few attacks ...

more of a templar style ...

any recommended? I didnt like the wand build from kripp and there is a lot of build up now but not sure about them...

thanks