why duelist is so unpopular?

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I've never seen a build that travels through that area (east from IG keystone), when it's a main course is the edge of the tree on the south.

There are no life nodes there, that's the key.

The AR/EV nodes are garbage, AR nodes aren't important when the game is almost balanced around Immortal Call and you can easily get 100%+ AR from nodes without those 50%, all those DPS nodes are easily found elsewhere point-wise.

That area fucking sucks.

http://poebuilder.com/#character/AAAAAgQAAecEswUtErwUIBRNGE0YkRmFGjgaPhpsG_odyiFgJJskqiXfJy8n1SjbKS4pTzQ1Nug26TrYPfxAoEF0ROdHfk3YUEdT31RJVw1Y21nzXz9gS2UvZU1ngGoeajtyqXK7dO12K3hJeu98uHzZgIqBb4N8hNmE74tPjHaMz5BVkc6ZK5uDnjyeuaFtogCkGaSspzCnhKgHqBirxayqtPm5zbvtvJ-9gcAawQTBB8RYzNvSIdd-3-_jauOf5CLsOO8O707wH_Gs8i_z3fZI9zL3TQ==

Here, i just made a 5 minute tree lv 85 for a DW Duelist (not even min/max'd)

250% HP, 5% life regen, 300% phys dmg/27% ias, +4max res, 220% armour, 5 endu charges

Dont even need to use my brain so damn good are these nodes arround duelist :P

Try with something else other than DW.
Or maybe go through the southern area by the AR/EV nodes.

Also, no IR/US with a DW build, almost no block, the survivability...

And that's exactly what I was talking about earlier, Duelist is mainly for 2-handers and DW, and both of those suck in high levels and that's why there aren't a lot of Duelists there (other than looking like a dickbag in a "dark" continent of Wraeclast).

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SVD wrote:

a section of the tree is definetely not find if people only ever skip all but 2 of the nodes in that section.

almost every build is wasting points when investing into nodes in this area

It's not just those two nodes, there are good notables considering the values also.
Now, is the pathing of this section ideal ? probably not imho.

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tinko92 wrote:

Try with something else other than DW.
Or maybe go through the southern area by the AR/EV nodes.

Also, no IR/US with a DW build, almost no block, the survivability...

And that's exactly what I was talking about earlier, Duelist is mainly for 2-handers and DW, and both of those suck in high levels and that's why there aren't a lot of Duelists there (other than looking like a dickbag in a "dark" continent of Wraeclast).

Its a bit harder for 2H, agreed.
http://poebuilder.com/#character/AAAAAgQAAecEswUtBu4UIBRNGJEZhRo4Gj4abBuqG_ohYCSqJd8nLyi1KS4pTymlLIU0NTboNuk6UjrYPfxAoETnR35N2E4qUEdUSVWpVgRXDVnzWhpfP2BLYVJjF2VNah5qO2qTbUpuaXKpcrt07XTxeu982YE6gW-E2YZgiO2MdozPkFWRzpdwl7SZK5wnnjyeuZ7NoJ2hbaIApBmkrKcwp4SoGKloq8Wsqqy6tkG5zbvtvJ-9gb6nwA_AGsEH0iHSTdRS1e3XfuNq45_kIuw47hTvDu9O8B_yL_Pd9kj3Mg==


Hm, i think arround 15k armour and 5 endus are okay for phys dmg redu. But i agree, the spelldamage is more of a problem :)

Some sort of max resistances in the area of MoM and ondards would be good i think. But the DPS nodes are still very good there.

Also, block is a very expensiv defensive stat, you have to dedicate too much to it.

Blood magic on all attacks and MoM scrubs!



Also i agree with tinko here, it's about the lack of defensive options for 2handers atm.
(when it comes to end-game obviously)

Atm they got less dps then crit builds and on-top of that they lack the defenses a 1hand build can achieve.

However i do love the duelist starting area, it's packed with very efficient points for a melee build, however the problem arises when trying to "escape" that area in a point efficient way.

Yeah, my best guess is also 'too much dakka', his area has way more damage than you'll ever need, and we all know damage nodes are one big noobtrap.

Sacrificing defensive capabilities for offense; thats the trade off, yea.

"Offense is the best defense"

You need to balance it. If you have too much dps without def you are a glass cannon. If y ou have too much defences and hit like a wet noodle, then..you are a glascastle ? :D

Both are bad and the trick is to find the the good average between these.

In Invasion im playing right now with 82 Res,14k armour and 17k Reave, also DW (CI Witch, 91) and for me the defensiv stats are fine (Also, because im using bloodseeker).

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Astarte911 wrote:

Its a bit harder for 2H, agreed.
http://poebuilder.com/#character/AAAAAgQAAecEswUtBu4UIBRNGJEZhRo4Gj4abBuqG_ohYCSqJd8nLyi1KS4pTymlLIU0NTboNuk6UjrYPfxAoETnR35N2E4qUEdUSVWpVgRXDVnzWhpfP2BLYVJjF2VNah5qO2qTbUpuaXKpcrt07XTxeu982YE6gW-E2YZgiO2MdozPkFWRzpdwl7SZK5wnnjyeuZ7NoJ2hbaIApBmkrKcwp4SoGKloq8Wsqqy6tkG5zbvtvJ-9gb6nwA_AGsEH0iHSTdRS1e3XfuNq45_kIuw47hTvDu9O8B_yL_Pd9kj3Mg==


Hm, i think arround 15k armour and 5 endus are okay for phys dmg redu. But i agree, the spelldamage is more of a problem :)

Some sort of max resistances in the area of MoM and ondards would be good i think. But the DPS nodes are still very good there.

Also, block is a very expensiv defensive stat, you have to dedicate too much to it.

Going 2-hander melee build is not efficient neither DPS-wise nor survivability-wise.
Daggers are the way to get DPS, put on a shield and you have the survivability.
Critting fills your flasks (which is a fucking insanity in this form).

I've always wondered why 2-handed weapons have 5% base crit but sceptres have higher.

Anyway...
Yes, 15k armour and 5 charges are more than enough for all non-bosses with all the worst map mods, tested personally (but with 50% block), so we can put a safe line in being enough for almost all worst "anti-armour" map mods.

Well yes, block is expensive, and that's why your tree without IR/US is really crappy survivability-wise, which cannot get you far in levels, the overall situation provides a nice look of it.

The lack of life in that area east of IG and around AR/EV nodes is the key, you don't go where there isn't life, you can get high DPS nodes with 2-3 points along the way to more life.
There is some small amount of life for DW, but that's it.
Those AR/EV nodes are so shitty, incredible.

And the fact that GGG fused armour with life nodes is beyond any reason, when we have Immortal Call (which is also a ridiculous skill...), that was a spit in life build's faces (outside of Aegis builds) and lead to a nerf because of the point-wise situation.

To summarize, block mitigating full damage on succession is the key of non-block build's weakness.
It's also very hard getting high spell block in DW, and impossible to have any spell block in 2-handed builds (outside of staffs) which is a huge thing, especially when you also don't have higher DPS than a crit dagger build.

Funny situation.

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Astarte911 wrote:

"Offense is the best defense"

Yeah, maybe in some other games. It ends up balanced but investment isn't, when you deduct travel tax and utility an average char is probably left with offense-defense passive ratio of 2:8, for HC might be closer to 1:9.

Why is that so? We don't need it, gear and gems give us offensive clout aplenty.

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Astarte911 wrote:

I've always wondered why 2-handed weapons have 5% base crit but sceptres have higher

I got a theory they went with 'light' weapons as crit-focused, a scepter is lighter than a mace, same goes for staff versus a 2H mace. You know, 'light' as 'the weapons that would work with weapon finesse' in D&D, the only exception to this are rapiers but they have a crit implicit.

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raics wrote:

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tinko92 wrote:

I've always wondered why 2-handed weapons have 5% base crit but sceptres have higher

I got a theory they went with 'light' weapons as crit-focused, a scepter is lighter than a mace, same goes for staff versus a 2H mace. You know, 'light' as 'the weapons that would work with weapon finesse' in D&D, the only exception to this are rapiers but they have a crit implicit.

Fixed the quote :P

How is a sceptre "lighter" than swords/rapiers then? Hm.
Not to mention the idea behind that is a complete mess, because those "light" weapons tend to have much higher APS than "heavier", which naturally leans DPS to the crit side, and the fact that they're 1-handers they get survivability too.

Rapier's implicit is a joke, same as the sword ones. Just compare them to the other implicit mods of "light" weapons.

Even more hilarious are the axes, no implicit mods and the DPS goes as high as the dagger DPS, and daggers have high crit base + incredible implicit mods.
I know there is a thing with rolling them and the item mod pool, but that's just a barrier in a first week of a league.
200 pDPS crit dagger will outperform a 300+ pDPS axe by a lot.

And also the thing... if you're not in the east tree area which is filled with crit nodes, you might as well stop making a crit build and reroll a Shadow/Ranger, because you will perform better crit-wise.
So, when you're not in the east area, it's reasonable to get RT and not to use crit weapons, there is a reason why I have never seen a dagger Marauder/Templar build.
And when you get RT, you lose DPS compared to the crit builds and you lose the ability of permanent flask upkeep which is a huge thing since the game is balanced around overcapped resists.

Look at me, all bored before lunch.