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

Thank you for this guide, gave me some nice idead behind the playstyle and stats. However, I prefer going the block path - its damage migation is just too good to pass up. I also feel like it deals more dmg in the long run considering you can get frenzy stacks from blood rage quite easily.

Any reason you haven't taken the 4 Fortify nodes at the bottom, this will have pretty much 100% up time I believe the defense that comes from this is too much to turn down?

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Boltonsquads wrote:

Any reason you haven't taken the 4 Fortify nodes at the bottom, this will have pretty much 100% up time I believe the defense that comes from this is too much to turn down?

your talking about the champion i guess, this is gladiator ascendancy, not champion. going champion with a meele isnt that good imo. you can put fortify on a skill (wirhling blade,leap slam etc) and have permanant fortify.

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zakariusqc wrote:

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Boltonsquads wrote:

Any reason you haven't taken the 4 Fortify nodes at the bottom, this will have pretty much 100% up time I believe the defense that comes from this is too much to turn down?

your talking about the champion i guess, this is gladiator ascendancy, not champion. going champion with a meele isnt that good imo. you can put fortify on a skill (wirhling blade,leap slam etc) and have permanant fortify.

Nope on the tree there are 4 nodes related to Fortify which we spec very close to, these are missed completely.

Melee Damage while Fortified
Melee Damage while Fortified
Fortify Effect & Duration
Rampart

So I didnt notice this until a buddy pointed out but using sunder negates the endurance charge generation since it only uses the main hand weapon(you may have said that previously). So for higher maps I switched back to cleave and it seems much safer. Sunder is still fun for lower maps where endurance charges arent that necessary.

I did a quick video to show how tanky this build seems to be. This is on a t13 Wasteland map facetanking brittle emperor Voll boss. Map has enfeeble, and elemental weakness. I only seemed to have gotten hit two times and enough of the damage was mitigated. It seems like blind is what allowed me to just stand there and avoid most of the damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpDy1pq-IZo&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for the reply on the flasks question! I got this guy up to lv79 and I'm having a blast lol!

@CrimnorID

Ah k, go with whichever playstyle you prefer.

@Boltonsquads

I don't really take it because we don't really need it. The overall damage and damage mitigation it provides is quite insubstantial and we don't have permanent uptime of our Fortify, so it is probably not worth it.

@stephenp1983

Yeah later on Endurance charges become quite important to have as they provide a high physical damage reduction, but you can probably interchange between sunder for lower level maps.

I saw your video and it was really cool. Your DPS is pretty good too since the T13 Boss is known for being quite tanky. Blind is amazing against melee bosses. Glad your enjoying the build!

@CaptSkillzz

lol good luck and have fun!

Been playing for a couple of days now and absolutely loving the build so far, this is my gear:



Not really sure what to replace next though:

Damage unbuffed: 39.2K
Damage self buffed (No charges): 53.2K

I'm working on a variation of this build that uses Reave (southpaw-style). I use the sword I'm Reaving with in my offhand so I generate endurance charges from Outmatch and Outlast and use Blood Rage for generating frenzy charges. And since I'm on HC my tree has a bit more life % in it (183% before jewels).

For my MH I'm using a Lavianga's Wisdom (10% AoE radius and 15% area damage) as a stat stick but will probably swap it for a Soul Taker later on so I can run AA (need to gather some more currency first).

So far it's working quite well, though I'm only lvl65... But it's kinda fun to explode whole screens with the humongous AoE that Reave gets when at 8 stacks (with Vaal Reave). I also much prefer Whirling Blades over Leap Slam :P

I'm using this sword as my main weapon... It was kinda hard to find a weapon with good DPS that has a free prefix open since most high IPD % ones have the flat roll as well as the hybrid along with the flat phys so theres no slot for the Vagan mod... This one is around 285pdps and cost me 30c, which was a steal.



I guess you could get an 1h with around 400'ish pdps if you manage to land both T1 IPD%, T1 flat and T1 attack speed... But that's gonna cost a pretty penny :P Dont think you can go much higher than that without sacrificing the Vagan Mod. Best I could find on PHC was a Corsair Sword with 324 pdps with an open prefix for a Vagan Mod.