GoGo asked if I could post this in these forums so here I am
Just want to start by saying there is no "best" build, this is just the version I've tried and tested up to plat. There has been one death on this build but it was completely avoidable and happened early due to a lost connection. So yea that being said these are my opinions and what I've learned. This build works as a dual wield or a 2 hand weapon build just as nicely allthough dps wise dual wield does do alot more.
SKILL CHOICES
-LEVEL 2 TACTICS LORE-
-This will be your first choice and if you're going to go the path of the Dual wielder it'll be the only skill you put points into until level 5 when you can select it.
-LEVEL 3 EXALTED WARRIOR FOCUS-
-This is the back bone of this build as will be explained in the combat art section.
-LEVEL 5 DUAL WIELD-
-Self explanatory, if you're going with a 2 hand discipline insert that skill here. If so I suggest pole arms due to their animation speed with pelting strikes compared to 2 hand swords.
-LEVEL 8 ARMOUR LORE-
-A very powerfull skill for lots of reasons. It lowers regen times of your Combat Arts by lowering the penalty on your armour, it also allows you to wear higher level armor sooner and the percentage increases are large.
-LEVEL 12 CONSTITUTION-
-To me it's a skill I wont go without on any build except a warding energy one which this is'nt a tutorial for:P The mastery bonus on this is fantastic to the point of almost being overpowered.
-LEVEL 18 COMBAT DISCIPLINE-
-An often overlooked skill it's extremely powerfull in this build as you'll be using pelting strikes a TON so the extra damage is nice not to mention the decrease in regen.
-LEVEL 25 CELESTIAL FOCUS-
-Once you choose this skill you'll put enough points into it to be able to modify radiant pillar and then leave it alone.
-LEVEL 35 COMBAT REFLEXES-
-A decent defensive skill more so for the ability to evade critical hits than the chance to evade attacks as you'll have alot of evasion from your armour allready.
-LEVEL 50 TOUGHNESS-
-Again a decent defensive skill. The resistance armour points added are then raised by armour lore making it not quite so bad and the damage reduction hits 10% at level 75.
-LEVEL 65 SPELL RESISTANCE-
-What makes this skill really nice is for fighting mobs like Spiders, Baby dragons and Dark Fairy Champions whose special attacks are unevadable by this build and are element based. Later level bosses also start hitting you with some attacks that you cannot evade aswell but this build will keep you alive through all of them.
-LAST NOTE-
-If you want to substitute another skill instead of any I suggested I suggest not choosing these three:
-Warding Energy-It's pointless to take this skill as the shield is useless without the other skills needed to make it not useless which we did'nt pick.
-Speed Lore-With the Combat Arts we'll be using your run speed will be maxed and the attack value raise is a drop of water in an ocean compared to what it'll be at with battle stance.
-Divine Devotion-The god skills are not worth a skill choice to make them even more not worth using imo.
SKILL POINT ALLOCATION
You'll want to keep Exalted Warrior at the highest level possible after unlocking dual wield until you reach level 75(character level). The reason for this is you want battle stance to be as high a level as possible and it's power trumps all.
The other skill you'll want to keep as high as possible is Constitution until you unlock the regen in battle mastery bonus.
For the rest I just put my extra skills in groups of 10 into the other skills until they were all at a soft 30 which means including item bonus. Once that is done take first Armour lore and then Spell resistance to 75. Then take Dual wield to 75 for the chance to double hit but dont bother putting any points into it after that as battle stance and dashing aliclarity make doing so pointless. Then finish it off by taking the rest of your skills to 75. For the ones to take beyond 75 I suggest tactics and armour lore as they are percentage based.
For attributes I put 2 points of strength for every point of Vitality for damage and increasing the power of constitutions mastery bonus until level 100 at which point I went all strength.
RUNE ALLOCATION
-Unlike SC1 the reading of runes does'nt reduce the chance to find more which makes things much easier.
-Pelting Strikes-
-You'll want to allways keep the regen of this under 3 seconds.
Succession-Increase your chance for a double hit. Honestly I hav'nt experimented with the raise damage vrs double hit but I do believe it's better as it seems to proc quite often.
Enfeeble-Chance to lower defense value. I'd rather make sure my attacks hit than have .3 seconds taken off of my regen time. In all honesty for this build anyhow it's just not worth taking the energy reduction other than for the first 30 or so levels at which point it becomes almost unnoticeable.
Precision-Chance to land crit hits, honestly you'll never be fighting anything long enough to make losing a crit hit worth a chance to reduce armour.
-Battle Stance-
-The core of this build. You'll switch between putting runs into this and Dashing Aliclarity when ever you can put any into Pelting or Pillar because of regen time which will be most of the time. I have over 130 runes into each one atm. you'll want to mode it this way:
Aggression- Raises attack damage by 5%. the reason I went this way is my attack value is allready overkilled without adding another 10% to it but damage is allways welcome. To put it into perspective I have a 87% hit rating against fen Fires without having to equip any -chance to evade items.
Flexibility-It's a scaling chance to evade vrs lowering the regen time of your other Combat Arts by a very small amount later game which we dont care about right?
Retaliation-This buff's true power and the main reason you want it's level as high as you possibly can is it's a chance to reflect damage and it scales with the buffs level.
-Dashing Aliclarity-
-A FANTASTIC CA whose timer is'nt effected by your buff and that you can eventually make chain castable. It'll max out your casting/running/attack speeds really very early game aswell as a chance to resist root. This is how I suggest modding it.
Sprint-Honestly this choice does'nt really matter as either choice will hit it's max very quickly but I chose run speed myself.
Delay-Now I know I said we allways love more damage which in a round about way choosing to increase the duration does do a better job of as it's our first step in making this a non stop CA and you a blur of attack speed.
Impatience-this is the 2nd step of making this CA pretty much your second buff as it'll be up all the time once you get the CA level high enough.
-Radiant Pillar-
-This skill will be one you only pull out for bosses as it's just not worth the cast time compared to your power house Pelting Strike and regular attacks. It's main purpose will be to help keep the bosses chance to hit below 10 percent. you'll keep it's regen time equal to pelting strikes and rotate between the 2 when fighting bosses. With that in mind mod it this way:
Delude-Reduces your targets attack value. Speaks for it's self.
Conserve-Increases the duration allowing you to have more up at once.
Ordeal-Double damage when the targets health falls below a certain value, since it really does'nt do much damage for us anyhow and will only use it on bosses where this skill actually means something it helps, a tiny little bit but it helps
ALLOCATING THE POINTS:
Completely mod battle stance, then dashing aliclarity and finally pelting strikes. Pillar you'll mod once you have chosen the skill for it.
Items:
+all skills Items are best with some slots changed over to damage mitigation and increased damage starting near the high end of plat.
ARMOUR::
The armour pieces you'll want are Set item wise, Holy protection, Helmut of Benevolence, Sash of Sacrifice, Wrist guards of dusk and Sofias protection. All of these are for their slots more so than their stats which on some are great and others only so so before forging. With this build the Exalted set actually hurts us by raising pelting too high and we'll mod these to make them well worth having. Lastly Wings of the serish. For the rest just use what ever your last best drop was be it a set items or not.
For smithing you'll want to have a chance to evade rune in each piece if armour you have and put it into the lowest level spot. The next item is your +all skills items(which you'll make sure you keep when you reforge right?or +offensive skills, which ever you have that is highest. The reason for this is simple math as far as how it makes these allright armour pieces VERY good. If I put a +7 all skills item in I've now added 70 total skill points to my build which is almost better than any set bonus. For the third slot when you have it I put armour/defence increase smith skill in as it does help when Stance gets debuffed and allthough it does'nt really do much early game it does make a large difference later game.
WEAPONS:
With this build you can grind Christmas island at which point you'll want one weapon with fire and one weapon with poison. If you dont enjoy grinding there then change poison to ice. I personally just put +attack damage/value smithing arts in for the rest, again does'nt do much early game but later game you'll see a large difference. For Maximum damage have a set of weapons for each elemental damage. I dont personally bother doing that with Dual Wield but I do on my single weapon chars.
COMBOS:
I dont use any but I do put each skill into a combo by its self to benefit from Combat Discipline.
LAST NOTE:
With this build I kill EXTREMELY fast and very rarely have to use a healing pot. If you wanted to though this build does allow for the use of Hallowed restoration which in it's self is a very powerfull skill. I just dont like having 2 skills I need to refresh periodically. One thing that is very important to know especially early game when you're still getting hit and are playing closed net is that your health bar lags BUT the damage above your head is real time so watch that and not your health bar when fighting bosses. Know your hp total and if you see anything that takes it down a third in one hit use a health pot and you'll never die. Boss battles are also where I use my concentration potions
I think that about covers anything but I guess the future comments/questions will correct me on that point Most importantly have fun and goodluck.