see a lot of people still playing my setup of this so i just wanted to post an updated PoB
https://pastebin.com/FWKrpGsA
total life is 6k plus 1.7k es for a total of 7.6k EHP
the main changes are endless hunger for overwhelm which means the weapon is slightly different too. you swap the crit/quality craft for attack speed/quality and craft double damage as the extra suffix. it's a little bit more damage but it locks your weapon craft into slayer only. so if you ever want to easily sell the weapon on or play a different ascendency then i'd recommend the original, if you only ever want to try slayer then the double dmg option is slightly better. with this setup we are not bleed immune so you need to either get a corrupted blood immunity jewel or swap a cinderswallow crit silver flask to a regular silver flask with bleed immunity.
in terms on HCBE vs getting some accuracy plus +2 gems on the weapon, the HCBE is just so much more simple. with good endgame gear you really only have two ring slots, an amulet and a boot slot to cap resistance. none of our other gear has res on it so you have to cap it from those alone. if you need accuracy on those suffixes it makes it a lot more difficult and expensive, especially if you are trying to get a shaped assassins mark ring. that being said, if you really want to skip HCBE then with a level 4 enlighten you can fit a level 6 precision, which leaves you needing around 300 accuracy on gear plus a node like titanic impacts. that should give you 100%. w
for soul tether and glorious vanity, i see no reason not to use it. you lose a belt slot and 4 passive nodes but gain up to 1.7k ES AND you get to keep brutal fevor. playing crit you don't have to spare points to take that so you are essentially getting an extra ascendecy for free.
for gems there isn't much flexibility at all. main links are melee phys, brutality, infused channeling and close combat. 6th link should be impale. why? you clear trash instantly anyway on the 5th link so the 6th gem may as well be the huge single target upgrade so we don't have to gem swap. if you do want to gem swap then you can run with pulvarise (in place of either close combat/impale if you have a white socket or melee phys if you don't). personally i think the AoE is fine as it is so i don't bother with a swap, but the option is there. note: if you run soul tether, damage on full life does not work. the way we leech life back causes us to constantly drop the buff. close combat is the same multiplier so the dmg is the same in close range, don't be put off by having less tooltip.
one thing you can switch around in terms of jewels is vaal molten shell and warchief. you basically pick one setup. warchief with impale or a CWDT vaal molten shell. with just a granite flask you have enough armor for a 4k molten shell. it's not huge but it helps a lot especially when you are popping legion encounters on high level maps. for bossing warchief is better as nothing is really dangerous in boss fights, it's all easily avoidable and nothing should one shot through your base hp+es
for budget gearing you can skip the atziris acuity gloves and go for any rare with life/res and maybe attack speed, flat phys, crafted melee range or get the insanity gloves for leap slam. the main reason these gloves are so nice is that you don't skill vaal pact anymore, meaning you keep life regen. it keeps you topped up while you are looting, which is just a nice QoL. the watcher's eye is a nice dmg boost but it's fairly expensive so you can skip that also if you are on a budget. assasins mark ring is a pretty nice boost for mapping but a good one is expensive and it is probably the last thing i'd work on. most of the other gear is pretty cheap right now apart from the crafted weapon.
hope that helps some of you out who are playing crit swords
edit: i am not playing this build anymore so that's probably it in terms of updates. stil happy to answer any questions but thats it in optimizing and changing it. have fun ya'll, its probably the best build ive ever played in poe