All-out Melee Build, last skill choice?

[orvar87 0]

Hello all! I've been tinkering with a Shadow Warrior build since I started one last night and I'm really enjoying it. The purpose of this build is all-out melee, I've no interest in casting at all. I can't however decide on my last skill choice and some skill point allocations. Pointers would be very welcome! And just to clarify, this is just the skill bit, so far I haven't put very much effort into the modifications but that is also going to be geared towards melee.

 

What I've got so far is (in no particular order):

 

Hafted Weapons 200 - For melee attack and damage obviously

Armor Lore 75 - For defensive purposes

Tactics Lore 124 - Mod points and damage

Concentration 1 - Solely for dual buffs, nothing more

Malevolent Champion Focus 75 - Rest of the mod points in this aspect aswell as regeneration times

Death Warrior Focus 75 - As above

Combat Discipline 75 - The Mastery Regen is really nice and I like three-Combat Art combos (thinking of Demonic Blow, Scything Sweep and Frenzied Rampage for one-button goodness)

Constitution 75 - Survivability

Toughness 75 - As above

 

I'm modding Demonic Blow for Area of Effect (Vehemence), Armor reduction (Frailty) and Life Leech.

Scything Sweep gets Knockback, Numb (stun) and Rage (hit storing).

Frenzied Rampage is undecided as of yet but most probably Wounding (open wounds), Intent (crits) and Vampire (life leech).

This gives me one attack for really all purposes, high single-target damage with good survivability through lifeleech and Area of Effect/arcing damage for groups.

 

So... Should I dump a load of points into Astral Lord Lore and make two combos (single-target and groups), stay with nine skills for the extra points or go with either Combat Reflexes or Spell Resistance? Current skill layout has 146 points left over.

 

I'm leaning towards making two combos, one of which will be Demonic Blow and Scything Sweep modded as above, for massive group damage. The other one being Frenzied Rampage and Spectral Hand but I reaaaaaally don't know if I wanna go down the three-aspect road... Feels like it's gonna cripple the purpose and usefulness of the build.

 

Pointers? Thanks!

[Spunky 16]

I would rather take Tactics Lore(TL) to 200 as Hafted Weapons(HW) won't give you enough in return that makes up for all those skill points, TL increases damage and HP bonus from Grim Resilience(GR), HW only gives you small amounts of attack rating and attacks speed/casting speed that is easily capped at 150% if taken to mastery and some +skills equipped.

 

For my last skill pick I would take Combat Reflexes(CR) as GR gives you all the Spell Resistance your Shadow Warrior will ever need, and if you like to do boss runs the evade/chance to evade critical hits from CR will come in handy.

 

EDIT: Just a suggestion for your Frenzied Rampage mods, if you plan on mainly using this for strong foes(champions/bosses) I would take Double/Double/Envenom and instead use a 2-handed hafted with Leech Life %(as that damage the enemy based on their total HP, and then those double hits could come in to be real helpful).

 

If your goal is to make this Shadow Warrior a real damage dealer then your Scything Sweep mods should IMO be these: Force/Intent/Rage, why stun/knock them back when you can kill 'em?

Edited March 22, 2010 by Spunky

[claudius 104]

Most powerful defensive Buff in the game is Shadow Veil. You could take concentration to 75 and Astral Focus 9 pts. You can use combat arts without unveiling. Just no left clicks.

[Spunky 16]

Melee and SV sounds like a awful combo, I thought the draw side in making a 2-handed hafted Shadow Warrior was to gather huge groups of enemies and crush them down, not going from foe to foe and backstabbing them like an assassin.

[orvar87 0]

I would rather take Tactics Lore(TL) to 200 as Hafted Weapons(HW) won't give you enough in return that makes up for all those skill points, TL increases damage and HP bonus from Grim Resilience(GR), HW only gives you small amounts of attack rating and attacks speed/casting speed that is easily capped at 150% if taken to mastery and some +skills equipped.

 

For my last skill pick I would take Combat Reflexes(CR) as GR gives you all the Spell Resistance your Shadow Warrior will ever need, and if you like to do boss runs the evade/chance to evade critical hits from CR will come in handy.

 

EDIT: Just a suggestion for your Frenzied Rampage mods, if you plan on mainly using this for strong foes(champions/bosses) I would take Double/Double/Envenom and instead use a 2-handed hafted with Leech Life %(as that damage the enemy based on their total HP, and then those double hits could come in to be real helpful).

 

If your goal is to make this Shadow Warrior a real damage dealer then your Scything Sweep mods should IMO be these: Force/Intent/Rage, why stun/knock them back when you can kill 'em?

 

Hmm this makes it a bit more interesting... Hafted weapons 75 and Tactics lore 200 leaves me at a total 0f 801 skillpoints with the rest unchanged as above but with the addition of 75pts Combat Reflexes... Since HW is points wasted, this raises the question: where to allocate the final 120 points? Either I can split them over Combat Reflexes and Toughness... Oooor... I Split it 60pts Combat Discipline for extra damage goodness since the increase skyrockets after 75 and remaining 60pts split over CR/Toughness... Leaving me at:

 

Hafted Weapons 75

Armor Lore 75

Tactics Lore 200

Concentration 1

Malevolent Champion Focus 75

Death Warrior Focus 75

Combat Discipline 135

Toughness 105

Constitution 75

Combat Reflexes 105

 

Grand total: 921 skillpoints...

 

Can you tell I like balanced builds? Haha...

 

What do you think?

 

Regarding Scything Sweep, cant' really say why but I REALLY like the knockback haha so that's staying, the point about Numb is very valid though... Aswell as the Frenzied bit, that's probably the way to go when I give it some thought!

Thanks!

[claudius 104]

Depends on if you want to be a Crusader or an Assassin You can still xp up to high 70s easy. I don't know what ungodly killspeed you have to reach in the 100s though haha! You wouldn't need ANY defensive mods on gear and could socket more +xp % gear...

[Dobri 55]

With his build Veil will be bad, because it will make all his other skills completely superfluous. There is no point to be veiled when you want to dish out the damage.

 

In general, Astral focus can be a bonus to this build if Orvar decides to play with 3 buffs and take Nether allegiance for some extra firepower. Otherwise, I would suggest taking either Blacksmith (if you play to take this build to niobium for some niob smith arts for your new chars) or Blacksmith+Enhanced Perception for some extra magic find and better drops along with the smithing (but that would require giving up a skill).

Edited March 22, 2010 by Dobri

[orvar87 0]

With his build Veil will be bad, because it will make all his other skills completely superfluous. There is no point to be veiled when you want to dish out the damage.

 

In general, Astral focus can be a bonus to this build if Orvar decides to play with 3 buffs and take Nether allegiance for some extra firepower. Otherwise, I would suggest taking either Blacksmith (if you play to take this build to niobium for some niob smith arts for your new chars) or Blacksmith+Enhanced Perception for some extra magic find and better drops along with the smithing (but that would require giving up a skill).

 

No offence Claudius but I prefer not using Veil, it doesn't quite fit my playstyle (the smashing of faces and severing of limbs without hesitation or thought ). I'd really rather not do a three-aspect build either as I mentioned and Blacksmithing is out of the question since I'm on PS3 Appreciate the effort though! Right now I'm leaning more and more towards the skill-setup posted above, I like the balance between offence and defence, unless anyone thinks I'm gonna break my beloved little facesmasher by going with it? To me it looks rounded, perhaps a bit boring but that's less of an issue, and solid? Thoughts?

 

Thanks!

[Furian67 14]

I'm liking what your getting put together Orvar, Looks really good with Spunky's input. But for your Scything Sweep I would do as Spunky suggested. On My Shadow Warrior I modded it just like what your planning and after level 50 I regretted it. The more runes you eat and skill level goes up in Scything Sweep the knock back will get farther away. Meaning that if you have a nice group infront of you and Scything Sweep pops off and doesn't kill in the first hit now you have to run after them to hit again. Which isn't that big a deal but it sure slowed down the mob mowing. And make sure you socket RpH into this build. It'll allow you to take the runes to very high damage/regen but regen times will go unnoticed, as long as you have a good chance to hit.

[orvar87 0]

I'm liking what your getting put together Orvar, Looks really good with Spunky's input. But for your Scything Sweep I would do as Spunky suggested. On My Shadow Warrior I modded it just like what your planning and after level 50 I regretted it. The more runes you eat and skill level goes up in Scything Sweep the knock back will get farther away. Meaning that if you have a nice group infront of you and Scything Sweep pops off and doesn't kill in the first hit now you have to run after them to hit again. Which isn't that big a deal but it sure slowed down the mob mowing. And make sure you socket RpH into this build. It'll allow you to take the runes to very high damage/regen but regen times will go unnoticed, as long as you have a good chance to hit.

 

Thanks mate! To be honest one of the major reasons I wanted to go with Knockback was that I thought I already had picked it, haha... Yes, I'm too lazy to do a play-over atm But since I hadn't, I'll be following your advice and going with Force. ESPECIALLY since I got it mixed up, thought knockback only added just that, knockback, and that the Combat Art had no knockback as of default... It's not a problem now but if it gets farther... Well I can see the annoyance there So It'll be Force, Intent, Rage as suggested! Furthermore after getting a little half-decent gear with my Inquisitor that has some bargaining (a nice two-handed axe with some RpH and some +all skills) this guy is a killing machine Demonic Blow and Scything Sweep at ~3s regen with three runes eaten in each and damage in the high 200's, meaning I hit for 350-400 regular hits and 700-800 crits... Still haven't found a champion mob that survives two hits and Gar'Colossus solo at level 19 was almost... Ridiculously easy

That's probably just the twinking talking but I REALLY look forward to seeing how this build develops

 

Thanks again for all your input!

 

EDIT: Will be posting full build with mods and strategies here as soon as I have a little time on my hands!

Edited March 23, 2010 by orvar87

[joanofarc 1]

Hi.

 

Thats a great build-up. Nice work Just missing the Grim Resiliance mods.

 

Regards.

Edited August 2, 2011 by joanofarc

[Tharkane 1]

I decided to give the game another whirl. I blew the dust off the jewel case and fired it up.

 

I'm an old school DE (Cobra was godly), a latter day Daemon (Flying Daemon for those precision nuclear battlefield strikes), and now a Shadow Warrior devotee. No doubt about it, the SW wears the mantle well. Melee is my preference, and I like Demonic Blow with the Area of Effect mod for massive carnage. I prefer all of my foes to scream in unison, and Demonic Blow doesn't disappoint. Sometimes I just use Scything Sweep to go bowling, which is just as fun.

 

I see some excellent suggestions in this thread. I stick to Death Warrior and pump up Grim Resilience as far as I can, using the Fortify, Readiness, and Safeguard mods. I also use Reflective Emanation with the Backlash, Antimagic and Riposte mods, and find my work much easier because of it. Most non-elites are almost dead by the time I get to them if I have packs to work through. Demonic Blow is also great with the leeching mod + leech on gear (I think that one is pretty much a must-have). I have all of the CAs I use down to about 1.3 second regen time, which means I can just mash buttons while pressing alt to look at the loot as it drops.

 

P.S. - Two-handed axes and hammers. You are the Prophet of Carnage, and a really big hammer or an axe is your bully pulpit...

 

Edited December 15, 2011 by Tharkane

[JKtheWonderguy 3]

I decided to give the game another whirl. I blew the dust off the jewel case and fired it up.

 

I'm an old school DE (Cobra was godly), a latter day Daemon (Flying Daemon for those precision nuclear battlefield strikes), and now a Shadow Warrior devotee. No doubt about it, the SW wears the mantle well. Melee is my preference, and I like Demonic Blow with the Area of Effect mod for massive carnage. I prefer all of my foes to scream in unison, and Demonic Blow doesn't disappoint. Sometimes I just use Scything Sweep to go bowling, which is just as fun.

 

I see some excellent suggestions in this thread. I stick to Death Warrior and pump up Grim Resilience as far as I can, using the Fortify, Readiness, and Safeguard mods. I also use Reflective Emanation with the Backlash, Antimagic and Riposte mods, and find my work much easier because of it. Most non-elites are almost dead by the time I get to them if I have packs to work through. Demonic Blow is also great with the leeching mod + leech on gear (I think that one is pretty much a must-have). I have all of the CAs I use down to about 1.3 second regen time, which means I can just mash buttons while pressing alt to look at the loot as it drops.

 

P.S. - Two-handed axes and hammers. You are the Prophet of Carnage, and a really big hammer or an axe is your bully pulpit...

 

 

I got a treasure hunter 2H Hammer/Axe at 87 in Plat right now, with Enhanced Perception at 178 (Yay), and will be later much higher.

I built him to use a 112 level three slot Leeching Hammer, and I got about four million XP between me and it, so it's dang close to being used

 

I word of advice on the Hammers: Make sure they can be swung very fast, as the big ugly hits are cool in lower levels, but they can't one hit kill in Niobium.

If you're using DB, it is also cool, but some times it has problems targeting when you're surrounded.

Also the crit screen shake is cool and all, but sometimes when you're on bosses you can lose targeting over it.

Be aware and warned