[3.2+] Explosive Cleave / Lacerate Gladiator. Insane Clear Speed, Solid Defenses and Budget

why not use "blood rage" in this build?

I played around with this a little more last night, and swapped out BOR for devoto's and lightning coil to see how it felt. I couldnt tell too much difference but I think I'll switch back to BOR because the blind seemed to help alot on boss fights which is the only place I had an issue.

Also like I mentioned before I really think sunder is good over cleave for clearing packs. Even though its less dps the range it gave and speed seemed to be faster. For bosses though cleave is definately better. I'll try to take a video later of a few runs, but Ive been able to do up to t12 maps no issues( havent tried anything more yet).

First of all thanks for making this build , still levelling but looking forward to start mapping with it,i bought this axe for 35c on perandus :



would it be a good replacement for Jack the axe if i matsercraft vagan mod on it ?

This build looks awesome! I'm going to be trying it out sometime soon. I've never played a bleed build so I have a couple of questions.

1. Jack, The Axe and Soultaker are great weapons for this build, obviously. They save passives, they allow for 100% mana reservation and they do good damage. In terms of late game (T10-T15), would it be more beneficial to drop Jack, The Axe and use a high dps rare weapon, drop BoR and aim for a 6-link Belly (or some other good chest piece), or does it already run those map tiers with the original setup?

2. I was trying to plan a bleed build myself (cyclone was my initial thought) before looking for some help on the forums to smooth out some rough edges (which is how I got here :P). I was concerned about damage over time when I was thinking about Jack, The Axe (and some other bleed on hit weapons). I was wanting to inflict really high bleeds for efficient bleed-and-run as well as good single target dps.
I wanted to be able to scale damage with weapon upgrades so I thought of going with two rare Dragoon swords and built a tree around that.

If you're able to take a look and have any feedback that'd be awesome. I'm really looking forward to rolling this type of character.

Thanks for sharing this guide!

@czerwinsky1

Hey, we already have outmatch and outlast for frenzy charge generation, so it's not necessary.

@stephenp1983

Hmm I see, yeah I guess sunder would be more defensive since theres higher range, but since we are attacking with main hand only, there is a dps drop. I think either skill would work, it just depends on your defensive/offenseive you want to go.

But nice work on doing T12 maps. That's quite impressive.

@_Betamax_

Hi, I think that axe is 300+ dps, which is pretty good and with the vagan mastercraft, it will outdamage Jack the Axe.

Only problem is you do lose out on 2% leech so that decision lies with you I guess (along with a talking axe).

Generally I think our lategame DPS is pretty good already, so it's up to you if you want to go more offensive I guess.

@Vigeous

Hmm yeah for question one, it is the same reply as above. It depends on how willing you are to lose the 2% life leech. I can easily kill Atziri and clear T10 'Death and Taxes' with my current setup. But if you want to go more offense over survivability, a rare axe is the way to go. Similarly with BoR, I think BoR gives us Blind which is really good against bosses, as well as high life, block chance and heaps of DPS, so I would prefer it over a 6L.

Regarding bleed builds, I think a build entirely focused on bleed DOT damage isn't that effective, because you have to have some form of knockback so that enemies constantly move around, and knockback sucks for melee. Also damage over time is too slow for pack clearing, I mainly run bleed just for the explosions.

If you plan on using swords, I would get some high DPS swords and craft 'bleeding on hit' on them, so you don't have to go specifically Dragoon swords for your build.

Can't really look at your tree atm cos im outside on my mobile. Might have to wait a couple of hours til I get home.

Thanks for the reply!

That's true. It might work well at high levels when there's some extra points to spend on leech. I think it might be worth experimenting with if I take the build that high.

I hadn't thought about knockback. I haven't played cyclone much so I'm forgetting how it is in action but wouldn't that work? You cyclone through a pack and they chase you (assuming they don't die from initial hits or before they can run)? I imagine it would kill pretty quickly since the mobs would have the DoT degen plus the barrage of fast hits from cyclone (which would also have more chances of inflicting a higher end bleed).

I could be wrong; that's just me theorizing how it would work based on what I understood from reading the wiki.

Alright, no worries! I appreciate the response!

What map tier is this supposed to speedfarm? I seem to lack far too much defenses despite having full resists and chunky HP. Also lack of chaos resist seems to be murdering me. And then dont get me started on explode on death enemies.

@Vigeous

ah k, good luck with your build. Yeah I'm still not sure about the cyclone chasing thing, but it might work..

You would probably also want to run Vulnerability + Blasphemy if you are going bleed, since the curse amplifies all damage over time by 50%.

@Macromute

Hey, I took a look at your character,

I think generally at around level 75 or so, you should have around 4.3k life, and then aim for 5k life at level 82-85. Try to pick up some endurance charges soon, and that will boost your defenses by a bit. I would probably not run Bloodrage either, since you can already gain frenzy charges from Outmatch and Outlast, the 4% degen is not worth it.

Try to use a lower level CWDT gem so that it triggers more often, since we are armour based. Make sure you have high armour/evasion boots and gloves, and you should hit around 5k armour.

Are there any decent high tier flasks that you would recommend along with this build as well as gears for atziri?

@CaptSkillzz

I think Taste of Hate is really good for this build (but expensive). Also Atziri's Promise is a nice damage boost as well.

But I think some non-unique flasks are pretty good too, like Basalt and Quicksilver Flasks.