After theorycrafting and testing this build in the 3.0 beta to great success, I was shocked when the Fall of Oriath launch ended up making it even stronger. In the first week of Harbinger league I’ve used this build to farm lab, destroy all guardians, and kill the Shaper. and the clear speed is great too. Sound too good to be true?
Use Whirling Blades to dart around the map and Blade Flurry to rapidly deliver tons of phys damage / bleed stacks.
After testing a variety of different skills, Blade Flurry really stood out as a powerful delivery vehicle for blood-sucking shenanigans. The build’s massive attack speed synergizes extremely well with BF’s mechanics.
3.0 also brought along massive buffs to evasion, which I wanted to abuse both offensively and defensively. Dual-wielding Dreamfeather Eternal Swords while rocking Queen of the Forest is just insane right now.
While evasion is great, POE’s all about defensive layers. In addition to crazy high eva, this build gets decent block chance, ~6k life, and fantastic leech.
Ascendancy: Gratuitous Violence > Blood in the Eyes > Outmatch and Outlast > Painforged
Pantheon:Soul of Arakaali
Soul of Tukohama
Leveling Skill Trees:
Skill Tree - Level 90
Skill Tree - Level 94 (Shaper/Uber-Atziri/anything-viable)
Tips
1. Go to leech first!
2. Go to Marauder start for some survivability.
3. Swing over to Templar for life/SOE, and try snagging a bit of the Scion wheel.
4. Respec mana flows to dps nodes, and start to grab some more DPS. At this point it's pretty flexible though.
5. Take "Crimson Dance" "Presicion" and all jewel slots. First of all get Templar jewel int slot, it will allow you to lvl up you Vulnerability to 20 (if u have int ring)
There are plenty of useful uniques that can help along the way depending on your budget, playstyle, and risk-management profile.
Of course, feel free to modify as needed and take more life/dps depending on what you prefer. Don't forget to update your gear/flasks/gems as you go along.
Pros & Cons:
Pros: - Strong (great damage output)
- Resilient (good survivability)
- Fast (solid clearspeed)
Cons: - Doesn’t get much offensive boost from aurabot (Brutality)
- A few semi-expensive items, especially jewels (though I’m using this as my league-starter without too much trouble)
- Not immune to phys reflect (totem can handle it for single packs)
Recommended Gears:
Helm Alpha's Howl Sinner Tricorne
Body Armor Queen of the Forest Destiny Leather
Gloves Miracle Claw Spiked Gloves
Boots Dread March Slink Boots
1h Weapon Dreamfeather Eternal Sword
Offhand weapon Dreamfeather Eternal Sword
Left Ring Dread Spiral Coral Ring
Right Ring Dread Circle Iron Ring
Amulet Carnage Heart Onyx Amulet
Belt Sol Strap Leather Belt
Flask Lion's Roar Granite Flask
Flask Rumi's Concoction Granite Flask
Flask Bubbling Divine Life Flask of Staunching
Flask Experimenter's Jade Flask of Steadiness
Flask Perpetual Stibnite Flask of Staunching
For
jewels, you want Maximum Life + Physical Damage + Damage. 4th prop is gravy, but you really want those 3 specifically. Reason-being, *other damage mods can scale up BF or bleed but not both!* Unfortunately these jewels are EX+ at the moment, but they help the damage output substantially.