[3.21] Crucible. Requesting help with gladiator build.

Hi! First of all thank you for reading this.

So the short story is this is my first time playing POE and I started crucible. I have just played for fun and it really pulled me in. Really like the aesthetic of slashing and impaling with twin swords making them bleed and suffer as a gladiator.

However recently I've stumbled upon a wall and the wall says both "Tier 9+ yellow maps" and "Eternal lab". I am ok not engaging in maps which have some kind of reflect modifier ever but after 3 death at the last stage of Izaro I got angry!

I humbly ask to check those two builds I will post below. One is what I have ATM and the other is what I am aiming for after reading about getting more survivability.

My question would be will this get me anywhere to higher level maps? I love Delve very much but 2 out of 3 runs I get annihilated even on bit lower levels.
Are there any easy ways to upgrade my gear (I am a bum and never used poe trade)?

For flasks I use granite, jQade, will pick one up for chaos res probably and Sulphur + 40% eternal life.

(int for vulnerability got from crucible tree on rapier)

https://pobb.in/VE90SKCiQf2l
https://pobb.in/eHqOdHDWdvZG

Welcome to POE - great to hear you're having fun! The character fantasy of the gladiator with bleeds is indeed a fun one. :)

You'll probably be able to do higher tier maps with the level 100 build you linked, but it'll be a frustrating experience. Unfortunately, though, you likely wouldn't be able to reach level 100 with it given how much you'd be dying.

I think it's fun to experiment in the game. So, rather than sharing a full pob with everything I would pick/change, I'll share some of my general recommendations for you to consider.

Comments on your current build:

Weapons:
The major part of your damage will come from your weapons. With bleed and impale, you'll want to have high physical damage. The elemental damage rolls on your weapons aren't doing much. You'll want to get weapons with "increased physical damage" and flat physical damage. If you're not keen on trading, you could snag a pretty good weapon by doing Jun missions with Betrayal. You'll be able to drop veiled items that can have decent "increased physical damage", then you can craft on the flat physical damage through your crafting bench if there's an open prefix slot.

You mentioned you liked Delve, and that can be a route towards crafting a good physical weapon. If you get jagged fossils, those can be used inside resonators to improve your odds of crafting a weapon with physical damage rolls.

Defense:
Getting more block will help. Block is a bit more limited with dual-wield block, so opting for a sword and board approach could help.

Haste feels great, but you could run Determination instead. That'll be a big boost to survivability. If you pick up Challenger Charges and Frenzy charges as I mention below, the loss of Haste won't feel as bad.

Bleed or impale/melee attack damage:
Typically, if you go bleed, you have to lean heavily into it for it feel good. That involves focusing on boosting flat (base) physical damage as much as possible and focusing on the damage over time aspect of bleed.

Or, you could opt to focus on physical attack/impale with bleed tacked on as a small bonus (for increased damage against bleeding targets or bleed explosions).

Jewels:
Jewel sockets on the passive tree are quite powerful, so I would recommend at least picking up the one below the duelist start. With jewels, the stats that would be good to look out for would be % maximum life, global physical damage, physical damage over time, attack speed. You could also get physical attack damage leeched as life/mana to help with recovery. And, that's just rare jewels. There's a bunch of power in various unique jewels. For instance, Lethal Pride (a special type of jewel known as a timeless jewel) adds bonus strength to your passive nodes and can add great bonuses to notable passives (chance to deal double damage, physical damage taken as fire, chance to intimidate on hit, etc) if you get the right ones.

Skills:
For double strike, I would recommend Multistrike instead of Faster Attacks. It'll net you more damage overall and help with mana sustain (since it only charges once for the three attacks, instead of faster attacks using mana for each and every attack).

Charged dash, as a movement skill, I find really clunky. I'd recommend using leap slam or dash instead. With leap slam, you can link other supports to it for on-hit effects. It can be a decent way to apply vulnerability on hit to groups of enemies with Leap Slam + Vulnerability + Hextouch + Hex Bloom. Can work well until you get another way to apply vulnerability on hit.

The Blood Rage skill can be a great way to boost your damage and speed for mapping. To help offset the life drain effect, I'd recommend including the Vitality aura in your build for life regen.

Ascendency:
I'd get Arena Challenger instead of Violent Retaliation. The challenger charges you get will give you a lot more attack and movement speed, and in my opinion would make the build feel better. Violent Retaliation isn't giving you very much mileage. You already have sources of overwhelm physical resistance, and physical resistance cannot go negative. Monsters don't get a lot of physical resistance in general (unless you roll it as a map modifier).

I hope this helps. Have fun honing and improving your build!

Hi

I've got similar problem as author of this thread.
I'm playing as Bleed/Impale Preforate, but I've got problem with higher content.
Tier 16 maps are easy, fights with regular end-game bosses are maybe not the quickest but I can defeat them deathless, exceptions are The Maven ( her degen is killing me too quick ) and Searing Exarch ( I can tank only 2 balls in his ball phase )
Uber end-game bosses and Maven's Invitation The Feared are out of my reach
Is it even possible with character like mine?

https://pobb.in/K4zIwMXqj--I

Can somebody help me improve my build?
BTW I'm crafting everything myself