This post will give you a rundown of dozens of different tips and tricks that can help you out in Path of Exile. Enjoy!

1. Putting points in “24% Increased Evasion Rating and Armour” in your skill tree will NOT increase your Evasion by 24% AND Armour by 24% if you’re using Iron Reflexes. It only gets counted once.
2. Selling an item with three linked RGB sockets to a vendor will give you a Chromatic Orb. You should always pick these items up and vendor them!
3. Did you know there’s a Chaos Orb recipe you should be using? Find it here.
4. If you vendor multiple gems with combined quality of 40% you get back a Gemcutter’s Prism.
5. If you’re having frequent problems with desync, you can force the server to re-sync with your client by typing /oos in chat. This command can only be used once every 10 seconds.
6. Typing the command /remaining in chat will show how many monsters are still left alive in the area you’re in.
7. Typing /passives in chat will show you how many passive skill points you have and where you got them from. Useful if you think you skipped some quests.
8. Pick up an item from your inventory (but don’t drop it!) and type /itemlevel in chat to find out the iLvl of an item.
9. You can link items in chat by holding down CTRL + ALT and left-clicking an item.
10. Press “Ctrl + C” to copy item’s attributes including its itemlevel to your clipboard. You can paste the text version of an item with its stats anywhere.
11. You must finish the game on Normal difficulty before you move on to Cruel.
12. Confused which gems to take as your quest reward? Read my post about it.
13. Side quests are very difficult in Cruel and Merciless. Group up with other players or come back to them later!
14. To unlock the Scion class you need to finish the game on Normal difficulty first.
15. Stash tabs and bundles are on sale every month or two. You might want to wait until they are before you buy them.
16. If regular stash tabs microtransaction is on sale, Premium stash tab upgrades will be on sale the day after.
17. Don’t wear blue (magic) items past level 10 unless you absolutely must. Yellow (rare) items are almost always better, and don’t underestimate their Armor, Evasion or Energy Shield bonuses.
18. MF, IR, RT, US, CS, EK, LA, 6L… Confused? Read this!
19. Registering on Poepro is completely free and hides all ads.
20. After dying in a hardcore league your character is transferred to Standard league along with all his progress and equipped items.
21. CTRL + Left Click on a waypoint destination to magically create a new instance of the area or see a list of existing instances.
22. “Cast When Damage Taken” gem is awarded from “A Fixture of Fate” quest in Library in Act III Merciless.
23. Level 20 gems are quite valuable. If you have any spare gem sockets be sure to level frequently used support gems in them.
24. Gems gain experience even if placed in alternate weapons which are equipped on your character but not currently active.
25. If you’re using “Bringer of Rain” unique item, gems in your chest still gain experience.
26. Having trouble with Piety’s lightning spells? +10 to max Lightning Resistance helps a great deal, so bring a Topaz Flask!
27. If you start leveling gems from character level 1, they should be level 20 by the time your character reaches 85.
28. Gems do not get the same XP penalty as your character does.
29. Vendoring a gem and an Orb of Scouring will de-level the gem by 1.
30. “Cast When Damage Taken” linked is a powerful defensive gem you should get as soon as you can scrape together enough currency to buy one (level requirement is 31). Recommended links are with Molten Shell, Decoy Totem, Enduring Cry or Enfeeble.
31. When identifying multiple items, hold “Shift” so you don’t have to click on Wisdom Scrolls every time.
32. Using multiple flasks of the same type (i.e. two Life Flasks) will queue the lower life/second one after the effect of the other flask is finished.
33. Critical Strike Multiplier only increases the damage dealt by your critical strike, not your critical strike chance.
34. Every weapon and spell has a base chance to critically strike. If you have for example extra 80% to crit while using a sword with base 5% crit chance, your total critical chance will be 9% (5×1,8).
35. One-handed weapons and shields can have 3 sockets at most.
36. If using Iron Reflexes, you need 6667 base armor for Determination to be better than Grace.
37. With a level 20 Reduced Mana gem, you need an additional 13% Reduced Mana Reserved to use two 60% and one 40% auras, or 22% Reduced Mana Reserved for three 60% auras.
38. Quality on Reduced Mana gem only works on skills and spells, not auras.

Here’s some general advice on racing I picked up. Not all applies to Descent Champions or Endless Ledge, but I hope you’ll find some of it useful.

1. Try to get early health regen. Easiest way is to buy a white Coral Amulet from Nessa in the first camp; it costs 1 Orb of Transmutation, but you may not find one until Ledge if you’re unlucky. Also buy a Coral ring, it will help prevent stuns from Rhoas in Mud Flats (and overall survivability).
2. Check the other vendor in the same time for boots with bonus movement speed, they can speed up leveling a lot early on.
3. Always stay on the move. Whether killing monsters, or equipping or identifying items you should always try to move forward to the next monster pack, area or objective.
4. Learn zone layouts. Even though zones are generated (somewhat) randomly every time, they do follow a certain pattern. You will usually see 3-4 or less layouts repeating all the time, which you can learn by simply continuously creating an instance of the same area over and over again in a non-race league.
   — in Coast you’ll usually want to follow the wall to the far right side
   — Mud Flats glyphs are connected via small “rivers”, and the three glyphs are generally in a triangular pattern
   — Lower Submerged Passage doesn’t really have a particular layout (as far as I know), the entrance to Upper and the Cave can be in either direction.
   — exit to Ledge in Upper Submerged Passage is either far northeast or northwest — opposite of where you started. It’s never in the southern part of the zone.
5. Don’t skip magic (blue) monsters. They give you the most experience and are worth killing almost every time. Rare (yellow) or Unique monsters on the other hand are generally best skipped, they usually take too long to kill considering the rewards.
6. Only kill large monster packs. If you come across one or two monsters it’s best to simply skip them. Try to find larger packs with 4-5 monsters at least and use your AoE abilities to clear them, in the end you’ll spend the same time killing 10 monsters as you would 2. Don’t backtrack to finish off any leftover monsters, always keep moving forward.
7. Learn when to back to town. You don’t need to pick up quest rewards or talk to NPCs every time something pops up, you can save valuable time by simply continuing ahead.
8. Don’t reset instances and farm. It’s generally not worth it in short-term races and you will fall behind if you do it. Instead move to the next area even if you’re behind in levels: at least you’ll be getting bonus experience and make up for it fast.
9. Learn quest rewards. Not very important, but Tidal Island side quest with the Medicine Chest for example rewards a Quicksilver Flask, it can be hugely beneficial to have it. Also particular skill gems are more useful than others — see Path of Exile Wiki for gem rewards to see when you should back and pick up gems.
10. Plan your character build. For 1 hour races it doesn’t really make sense to plan a build with 50 skill points, but do make sure to plan beforehand. You don’t want to waste any time thinking where to put a skillpoint, just decide on it before the race starts and spend as little time as you possibly can to allocate points. A tip you may find useful is to hold CTRL while left-clicking on a skill point, you won’t see a confirmation message and points will get instantly allocated.
11. Use a decent build. This race season I’ve only been leveling with a Spectral Throw Scion. It’s fast and has great AoE damage, and you can just pick up an early 2-handed weapon and pretty much one-shot white packs. You can also cast ST and keep moving, when the “weapon” comes back to you you’ll finish off the remaining mobs. Takes just a few races to get used to it, I’d really recommend it if you’re new. I believe Ice Nova and Ground Slam builds are fairly popular now as well, but I haven’t tried either of those. Try to keep using the same build over and over again in multiple races, it will save you time in the long run.

Hopefully some of this is useful for you. You usually get better and better every time you run these races, so don’t sweat it at first and set some realistic goals. I for one only want the Andvarius this season, it takes measly 135 points to get it. Simply participating in one race a day and not dying is enough to get it. Unless you’re extremely serious about racing don’t count on getting any of the most expensive rewards like Ming’s Heart or Void Battery — even the best of racers will likely have trouble getting those. Do races to have fun and get better at the game. With time I’m sure you’ll improve.

Might be useful:
A beginner’s guide to racing
Nugiyen’s racing videos
– Try watching some popular streamers on Twitch.tv while they’re racing, you may pick up a few things.

Does a higher quality map provide more experience?

No. +Quality on maps only affects the drop rates of items, and also increases the chance to get a map drop. It has no effect on the number of monsters spawned in a map nor the amount of experience they give.

Rolling certain map mods however can increase your XP gain, such as Pack Size or More Magic Monsters.

Lvl 25 Templar build what gems needed for aoe attacks?

Increasing your max resists can be very beneficial and reduce the damage you take significantly. You could theoretically reach over 100% in some max elemental resist and become completely immune to that damage type, but in practice it’s pretty hard to achieve.

The simplest way to get 5% to max Lightning, Fire or Cold resist is to use Purity of Fire, Lightning or Ice auras. Ruby, Topaz and Sapphire flasks also increase your max resists by 10% while their effect lasts. For bosses like Piety with a strong lightning attack having 90% resistance would substantially reduce incoming damage: going from 75% to 90% lightning resist would not reduce lightning damage you take by 15%, but rather by over 60%! So being overcapped while increasing your max resists can be incredibly strong.

A unique flask, Divination Distillate, also gives you 6% to all maximum elemental resistances during its effect, and Elemental Adaptation node in the skill tree (near Marauder starting) gives you 2% to all max elemental resists all the time — well worth taking if you’re near it.

Lastly items that can increase your max resists are Rise of the Phoenix (8% max fire), Aegis Aurora (5% max cold), Kaltenhalt (5% cold), Safell’s Frame (5% all max resists). Most of these have downsides so they aren’t practical to use all the time but if you need specific elemental resist they can help a lot.

It also depends if you’re in softcore or hardcore; obviously in HC leagues you’ll want to get higher defenses before you tackle 72+ maps. Also important to note are levels, being the same level as monsters or 10 levels above can make a huge impact to your overall survivability. For level 72 maps I’d recommend you try to be level 82 at least.

You also didn’t mention if you have Iron Reflexes (turns evasion into armor) or not? Obviously if you have 50% or higher chance to evade attacks then you don’t necessarily need as much armor.

Since armor has diminishing returns (same amount of armor gives you less physical reduction with every level), I’ll just mention roughly what amount of reduction you should aim for.

With Iron Reflexes, I’d recommend you try and keep your physical resistance over 40% at all times. 50% or more would be fairly safe but 40% I think is a minimum you should have, and it’s not hard to achieve. Without IR, try to stay above 20% physical reduction. As mentioned health plays an important role here as well, and as such having 2500 health and 50% physical damage reduced is fairly bad, but having 3500 health with 40% reduced phys damage is much better (from my observations).

These are all just rough estimates from the top of my head and I didn’t do any effectiveness calculations or anything like that, so you don’t have to blindly follow it. If you’re always playing in groups less armor and health can work well since damage taken is spread to multiple targets.

It’s a bit outdated, but this defenses analysis research by Lord Krike can provide you with further insight into defense calculations, effectiveness, mitigation and all that stuff.

Attack speed:

• Attack speed affects all damage (physical or elemental)
• Faster attack speed can apply Life on Hit faster
• High attack speed will drain your mana quicker, so if you rely on mana leech at some point it may become unsustainable.
• Attacking faster may apply critical strikes or elemental status effects quicker.
• Not affected as much by enemy’s dodge/block

Damage:

• If an attack hits for a lot of damage in one hit a part of monster’s armor is bypassed.
• Damage scales better with Hatred if you’re using it.
• High damage has a chance to stun.

Generally for your skill tree you should focus on both attack speed and damage equally. The more you invest into damage, attack speed becomes even better, and vice versa.

Attack speed also scales better if your weapons have high base speed. So for example if you’re going for a 2-Handed weapon stacking more physical damage might be more efficient for you, and a fast attacking dual-wield build can benefit more by going for increased attack speeds.

If you’re wondering whether to take attack speed or physical damage nodes in your skill tree, it should roughly be the same. But it depends on your build, equipment and other nodes as well, so the easiest way to find out whether you gain more damage with a 4% attack speed node or from a 12% physical damage node is to spend 2-3 Regrets and test it yourself.

Standard & Hardcore leagues

Standard and Hardcore leagues are the two most basic leagues that exist since Open Beta. They are often considered as “trash” leagues due to their age and inflated economy: many players have ridiculous amounts of currency hoarded and new players will have a hard time catching up with the ever-increasing prices of high-end items.

Standard is a casual league where all character progress is permanent and you can’t lose it in any way. In Hardcore league if your character dies, he is permanently transferred to Standard league along with all of his items and stash.

Domination & Nemesis

Domination and Nemesis are temporary, 4-month “challenge” leagues that started when the game was released on October 23rd, 2013. When these leagues end in February 23, 2014 all characters will be transferred to Standard league for Domination, or Hardcore league if you managed to stay alive in Nemesis. Domination is a softcore league like Standard, where characters who die can simply continue playing. Nemesis is a hard-core league and if your character dies he or she is transferred to Standard as well.

These temporary challenge leagues also have certain unique modifiers: in Domination there are “shrines” that grant the monsters around them powerful buffs, and if you defeat the monsters around it you its bonuses for a short time. In Nemesis every rare mob has a special mod which makes it even harder to kill than usual, making fights significantly harder.

Once these two leagues end new ones (with probably new names as well) will begin where players can start playing from scratch and in a fresh economy. Before Domination and Nemesis there were Anarchy and Onslaught, and in Anarchy for example “Rogue Exiles” started appearing which were later incorporated into other leagues as well. These leagues also function as sort of a beta-test for new features or items.

Which league to pick?

If you have friends playing the game first off you may want to make sure that you’re on the same league as they are. Otherwise you will not be able to group up for quests, farming or trading items with them. Hardcore leagues provide a strong challenge to players who want one, but if you’re just playing casually you may not want to worry about your character dying. It’s actually much more difficult for new players not to die in hardcore leagues so don’t get too bummed if you do. If you wish you could start in a hardcore league, and once you die your character will be transferred over to Standard anyway where you can continue playing where you left off.

As for the choice between a temporary Domination and Standard league, bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter. One of the key points with new leagues is that players can race to a certain level and display their achievements on a ladder, but new exiles will have a hard time trying to compete with veteran players. If you played Diablo 2 you probably know a bit about the ladder system. You can view the ladder for Standard and Hardcore leagues on the official site. You can find links to other league ladders in the footer on Pathofexile.com.

As for the economy, just because you started on a new league doesn’t mean items are cheap. In fact it’s usually exactly the opposite, due to less supply and higher demand items which you can obtain extremely inexpensively in Standard league are worth 5-10x as much in new leagues. Some of the best items in the game are still very costly in any league, but for new and casual players who don’t care about the ladder and don’t see Path of Exile as a competitive game Standard league is just fine.

More information on leagues:

• http://www.pathofexile.com/leagues
• http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Leagues

With the recent influx of new players I see this question asked multiple times in chat channels, including my guild chat. There’s a ton of different gems and understanding their value when you’re just beginning with the game can be confusing for newbies. This post will provide you with some basic rules about (non-quality) gems and their value in Standard league so the next time you’re offered a choice after finishing a quest you’ll know exactly what to take.

High(er) value gems

Most gems in Path of Exile can be obtained from quests but some only drop from monsters, therefore they usually have higher prices.

• Portal – drop-only gem, not particularly useful since Portal Scrolls drop in abundance but they can usually be sold for 1-3 Chaos Orbs.
• Cast When Damage Taken – only rewarded from one quest in the game, “A Fixture of Fate” in Act III Merciless difficulty. Basically means that unless it drops for you (still rare), you can only get one of these gems on each character, so they are constantly being traded. Having a level 31 requirement also means it will take quite awhile until you’re able to get it, so the price is usually around 4-6 Chaos.
• Chain – drop-only gem but only useful for very few builds in the game. The cost is typically 1 Chaos.
• Multistrike – rewarded from “A Fixture of Fate” quest, otherwise a drop-only gem and fairly rare. It’s being used by almost every melee build in the game, but fortunately that doesn’t reflect its price: it can be obtained for 3 Chaos only.
• Cast When Stunned – typically you’re able to sell it for 2 Chaos, although it’s much easier to obtain one yourself.
• Empower – 10-20 Chaos
• Enhance – 8 Chaos

What about other gems?

• Auras are generally sought after and can easily be sold for 1 Fusing or even 1 Chaos each, or 2 Chaos for Purity which is a bit less common. Grace, Hatred and Clarity are likely the most popular ones and easiest to sell.
• Most attack and similar skill gems (such as Dual Strike, Cleave, Heavy Strike, Raise Skeletons etc.) are extremely easy to come by from the first few quests in the game and you’ll have a tough time trying to find buyers for those.
• Curses generally can be sold for 1 Alchemy in case someone’s looking for a specific one, but stashing dozens of them and waiting for a seller is usually just a waste of time and space.
• Support gems are generally what’s being traded the most, even though a majority of them are easy to come by. Players often need multiple so the demand is always there. Support gems that I see sought after on a daily basis are:
  • Reduced Mana
  • Blood Magic
  • Faster Attacks
  • Melee Splash
• All of the above can fairly easily be sold for 1 Chaos Orb each fairly easily.
• Slightly less used support gems are Fork, Culling Strike, Mana Leech, Faster Casting, Lesser Multiple Projectiles and Greater Multiple Projectiles, Life Leech, Item Quantity, Item Rarity, Melee Physical Damage, Multiple Traps, Curse on Hit. Most of these sell for 1 Fusing each.

Note about prices

As with all things in Path of Exile gem prices are determined by the seller and the buyer, and you may be able to sell them for either lower or higher amount of currency. Trading values (based on Standard league) I provided are just to give you a basic understanding of their potential value in general, so hold your horses.

What does it all mean?

If you come across some of these gems or are presented with a choice from a quest, this is roughly your priority:

1. Gems you need or will use later on
2. Any higher value gems you can sell
3. Support gems
4. Auras

Hope that helps. If you have any questions, shoot them in the comments below!

I based the build on the Duelist class, but you can also adapt the skill tree slightly to work with Marauders, Templars, Scions and even Rangers.

Contents:

• Why Dual Strike
• Build Strengths
• Build Weaknesses
• Passive Skill Tree
• Skill Gems
• Recommended Equipment
• Bandit Quest Rewards
• Flasks
• Gameplay Videos
• Closing Thoughts

Why Dual Strike

Pre-release Cleave was my main damaging ability, but it got nerfed significantly and Dual Strike used with Melee Splash came out on top as the best replacement. Dual Strike deals massive single-target damage, and linked with Melee Splash even in a cheap 5-linked item deals over 10k AoE damage. This setup doesn’t necessarily even need a 6-linked chest early on to be effective, so you can farm your way through lower level maps until you’re ready to purchase one.

The Shredder build used to be a lot stronger before 1.0.0 patch but it’s still viable if you want a physical dual wielder. It gets increasingly powerful as you obtain better gear (duh!) and it does enable you to solo almost any content in the game.

As a side note, other AoE abilities don’t work as well for this build. Cleave, Lightning Strike, Reave, or any other 1-hand skill linked with Melee Splash gem doesn’t deal the same damage. Cyclone is just as good, but it causes huge desync (lag) issues so I stay away from it.

Build Strengths

• Not extremely dependent on gear: you don’t need any specific expensive unique items to make this build work. There are a couple that help greatly but they aren’t necessary to make the build viable, and you can start farming endgame maps with average rare items.
• High survivability: with just a few health points in the skill tree you can easily reach 4,000 health and more. Paired with high armor, lifesteal, life regeneration and Endurance Charges you’re unstoppable.
• Great mobility: using Leap Slam and overall having lots of movement speed helps you get into fights quickly, and if necessary jump out of harms way even faster.
• Can’t get stunned or frozen: by using my skill tree and one fairly cheap unique item you’re completely immune to stuns and freeze, making sure you’re always dishing out damage regardless of who you’re fighting against.
• Adaptable: skill tree is designed in such a way that you can easily pick up extra health or resistances if needed, and easily overcome the lack of defenses on your gear with just a few points.
• Versatility: you can do any kind of maps; you are virtually unaffected by reflect which is the bane of many other builds. Blood Magic + double Reflect + Multiple Projectiles + Vulnerability… bring it on! Even Chaos damage doesn’t hurt you nearly as much as it does other builds.
• Fun to play: obviously everyone enjoys different things, but dying constantly isn’t fun for me which is why I prefer this build. Also shredding everything in your path with over 8 attacks per second is unbelievably entertaining to watch.

Build Weaknesses

• Needs high health and resist gear: fortunately these are the only two stats you need to focus on. If you desperately need a specific resistance you can always put one or two points into the skill tree.
• Needs one mana leech item: you will need gloves, belt, ring or amulet with 2% mana leech. It’s not hard to get but you may have to sacrifice more useful stats because of it.
• Half regen maps: you might have somewhat decreased DPS in half-regen maps due to the inability to leech mana at a normal rate (funnily enough “no regeneneration” maps can be done without issues).
• Low IIQ/IIR: it’s hard to get Increased Item Rarity and Quantity on equipment for this build, but then again nearly every build except dual Spark totem or summoner has the same issue.
• Best gear is expensive: to be the most efficient it does require a 6 linked chest, Alpha’s Howl and preferably a Soul Taker.

Passive Skill Tree

The build is not updated for Forsaken Masters expansion, so the links below are broken. Here’s a screenshot of the old build if you need a starting point.

My current build: 109 points (level 90). It’s optimized for my own equipment based on my resistances, health and weapon types.  If you’re lazy you can use it as-is, but it will work best if you adapt it to your own gear. As such, remove sword and axe damage nodes if you don’t use those weapons, remove bonus resistances if you’re already over-capped, and add some extra life nodes if your life is low.

• Why 5% reduced mana reserved: because then I can reserve 99% of my mana and use three auras: unless you have a Soul Taker (and Alpha’s Howl) it won’t be possible, so feel free to redistribute those points elsewhere.
• Why no Blood Drinker: I have plenty of life leech on equipment. When leveling you’ll probably want to have a point in Blood Drinker at all times.
• Why +6 to all elemental resistances: very efficient point and just enough to push me over the cap.
• Why no Bloodless: 8% more health is great, but I can’t afford the extra points.
• Why no Fencing: efficient node, but don’t have enough points for it.
• Is 2% to maximum resistances worth it? Yes.
• For other questions, see FAQ below.

My own build is provided just to give you an example how you can adapt it. Unless you have the identical items as I do, use the build below.

Recommended endgame build: 110 points (level 87-90).

This is a generic build designed to work the a variety of different equipment, and can easily be adapted to overcome any lack of stats on your gear: extra dexterity or intelligence is just 1 point away, as is extra health or resistances. If you lack certain elemental resistances (which is common for new players) simply remove a couple of points from damage nodes. Spending a few Orbs of Regret is better than not having your resistances maxed!

You’ll notice the build goes from Duelist to Marauder starting points and can be used by either class. Scion or Ranger classes can work as well, only 3-4 points need to be redistributed which I’m sure you can figure out by yourself (in other words I’m too lazy to create builds for those classes, besides it’s pointless: just connect the build in shortest way possible).

Skill Tree Progression

• Duelist: 10 points (Leather and Steel), 16 points (Water Dancing for +dex, Steel Skin), 26 points (Blood Drinker), 32 points (Resolute Technique), 43 points (Warrior’s Blood), 55 points (Iron Reflexes, Unwavering Stance), 66 points (Thick Skin, Finesse), 70 points (Weapon Artistry, Aspect of the Panther). Keep taking health, resists or damage as needed, possibly in that order.
• Marauder: 12 points (Diamond Skin), 24 points (Blood Drinker, Resolute Technique), 36 points (Master of the Arena; you might need to pick up Quickness for extra dexterity along the way), 43 points (Water Dancing, Leather and Steel), 52 points (Iron Reflexes, Unwavering Stance), 60 points (Thick Skin, Finesse), 74 points (Weapon Artistry, Aspect of the Panther, Berserking, Sentinel). Fill out other nodes as needed, focus on resistances and health first, not damage.

Don’t bother planning your skill tree with 120 points, you’ll never have that many! With other classes, just follow the starting points and connect to one of the skill trees provided above in the closest way possible, and work your way to important keystones and notable passives that give you most bang for your buck.

There’s no clear benefit to playing either of these classes early as each one has its own advantages: Marauder can get to resistances and Resolute Technique earlier, Duelist can pick up more damage and some much needed early +dexterity. I recommend you play whatever class you prefer, you can get to most important skill points early enough to enable the build to work well with either one. These builds are also made for softcore leagues: if you play on hardcore you will surely want to pick more health nodes earlier to be on the safe side.

Note that the skill point progression is more of a suggestion or a guideline rather than set in stone. If you need extra health or resistances while leveling don’t be afraid to go for it, it’s always just a couple of points away. If you need extra Intellect you can also pick up Hard Knocks or Wisdom of the Glade earlier, and you can always remove the points if you don’t need them later on. A huge upside to this build is its flexibility, and you will get about 15 respec points throughout leveling from quests which will be more than enough to fiddle around with a few points as you see fit.

Keystones:

• Iron Reflexes: converts all your evasion rating into armour. It maximizes the benefits you get from both armor and evasion on gear, passive skill points that further increase it and Grace aura. Your physical damage reduction won’t be under 50% even with the worst of gear. I mainly prefer armor over evasion due to its consistency: it’s better to get hit for low damage than for high damage every other time. You can always react with flasks, Molten Shell or just run away if you’re taking too much damage, while with evasion you’re typically dead if you don’t dodge several times in a row. Don’t take it too early.
• Unwavering Stance: with this point you can no longer be stunned, and if you have Alpha’s Howl (pictured below with equipment) you can’t get frozen either. You’re literally unstoppable. Do not take it before you get Iron Reflexes!
• Resolute Technique: there’s no point in worrying about +accuracy and +critical on your equipment or worse in your passive skill tree. It’s a waste of stat, and potential damage you lose from not being able to critically strike is more than made up for by never missing attacks. Try to get to RT as fast as possible, it’s definitely worth it. It also makes sure your mana leech is consistent.

Other notes:

• You may need extra Dexterity or Intelligence for certain weapons or skill gems. +30 nodes are usually just a couple of points away so don’t be afraid to take them.
• Why no Blood Magic? Because we can’t run auras with it. Plus it’s not necessary as Mana Leech covers all ability costs.
• Unless you suffer from frequent stuns, don’t pick up Unwavering Stance and Iron Reflexes too early. Usually you’ll want to take it in late Cruel or early Merciless.

FAQ:

Why Resolute Technique? Why go Unwavering Stance? Why no Endurance Charges? Why no Vaal Pact? Why this, why that… If you feel any of the keystones are or are not useful, then do or don’t pick them up. I provided the full build I use which suits my play style, and after playing it for a year I’m sure it works — for me. It’s by no means the best or only build you can make! Experiment and decide for yourself.

Skill Gems

* Multistrike is not a frequent skill gem drop and you may have to purchase it (typically around 3 Chaos Orbs). As an alternative you can use Added Fire Damage until you can obtain Multistrike.

Gem rewards from quests

Some quest rewards were slightly changed in patch 1.0.0, so the table may not yet be 100% accurate.

Marauders have easier access to most skill gems you need so you may want to try my build with Marauders rather than Duelists. I hope the table helps you plan your quest rewards and figure out which gems to take. However none of these skill gems are expensive and you could buy everything you need for just a few Chaos Orbs.

Multistrike and Cast When Damage Taken are only rewarded at the end of Act III in Merciless difficulty, so you may want to purchase them from players earlier. Multistrike costs about 2-3 Chaos Orbs, Cast When Damage Taken (not really required early on) up to 10 Chaos.

Alternatives

• If you’re running a 6 linked chest you can use Added Fire Damage as an additional support gem, or even as an alternative to Multistrike if you for some reason prefer. AFD deals less damage than Multistrike but only slightly.
• If needed you can run Clarity aura for increased mana regeneration if you have problems sustaining your ability costs in half-regen maps. Keep it at level 10 or below, and you can even link it with Blood Magic gem since it uses a flat amount of mana/health rather than a percentage.

Cast When Damage Taken

This support gem has a lot of potential to add variety and survivability to your builds. You should typically just keep the gem on level 1, since leveling it further just increases the damage you need to take in order to activate skills. I recommend some of the following spells:

• Molten Shell – auto-casting Molten Shell means you constantly have additional armor and damage absorption, without the hassle of casting it yourself.
• Enfeeble – depending on the intelligence requirements you may not want to level this gem fully or at all, but even a level 1 Enfeeble curse reduces the damage of anything hitting you by 25%. Definitely a noticeable difference!
• Enduring Cry – gives you endurance charges without having to cast the skill yourself. Makes you even more durable, and it’s especially useful for hard-hitting bosses since every endurance charge provides a fixed 4% physical damage reduction.

Alternatively, Rejuvenation or Decoy Totems are also very helpful. And in case you want to be extra annoying in groups, add Portal. Worth mentioning because I was asked many times, spells linked to CWDT don’t require or consume mana when cast.

Level 1 Cast When Damage Taken, linked with level 5 Enduring Cry and Enfeeble is easiest and probably best for beginners to use. You can also add Increased Duration if you have a 4th socket available. If your sockets allow later on you can also add another high level (15-20) CWDT and link it with Molten Shell and/or Immortal Call, or even add another Enduring Cry.

Curses

Rejuvenation Totem and Molten Shell are definitely not mandatory in this build, especially once you start using Cast on Damage Taken. If necessary you can consider using some of the following curses:

• Enfeeble – affected monsters have reduced Accuracy, Critical and Damage. Even a rank 1 Enfeeble reduces monster damage by 25% so if you have trouble surviving in some situations or against particular bosses feel free to consider it.
• Vulnerability – increases your physical damage by 25%-34%. Be careful about leveling it fully as level 20 Vulnerability requires 151 Intelligence.
• Warlord’s Mark – you gain increased life and mana leech on affected monsters: 3%-7% life leech and 1-3% mana leech depending on gem level. You can easily level it to 20 as it only requires Strength. If you need extra life leech or can’t get mana leech any other way consider using Warlord’s Mark, although you should typically avoid having to resort to it.

Where to put all those gems?

Below is an example of how you want your skill gems set up in your gear. Socket colors are important, but you don’t necessarily need to use all of these skills or support gems to achieve the same effect.

You still end up with a few leftover sockets, enough to make all of these abilities work just fine.

Recommended Equipment

With my old build the item requirements were even less important. Now, the build can basically work well with just Alpha’s Howl, but a decent 6-linked chest and later on a Soul Taker are very recommended if you intend to tackle highest level content. Previously the build was extremely cheap, but now you can gear up any other build for the same price so take that into consideration.

Overall your main focus is to get elemental resistances and health on most equipment. One item is required with 2% mana leech, it’s not too hard to get but you may need to sacrifice more useful stats because of it. Avoid using a Mana Leech gem because you will find it much better to have an additional damage increasing skill gem link to your Dual Strike.

One item that’s almost mandatory for this build is Alpha’s Howl. Having a 6L chest helps greatly as well, but there is a fairly cheap alternative. Lastly a Soul Taker is recommended once you obtain riches beyond imagination.

Alpha’s Howl

The biggest upside to Alpha’s Howl is the freeze immunity. Getting frozen by bunch of caster skeletons is the number one reason why I died before getting this headpiece so set your goals towards obtaining this: it costs 3-4 Exalted Orbs with a maxed roll, but it’s priceless for this build.

Although it seems like a minor buff, the 8% reduced mana reserve cost is just enough to enable you to use a second aura on mana. You’ll be able to use Grace for additional defense or Hatred for a damage increase, and either of those will help greatly. As if that wasn’t enough, your auras will also get +2 additional gem levels and be slightly more powerful.

I definitely recommend you save any currency you have and try to purchase Alpha’s as soon as you can.

6-Linked Chest

6-linked chests don’t come cheap, but they do enable you to get extra damage on your Dual Strike. As a sidenote it makes no difference if you have a 4-link item for Dual Strike or a 5-link one: you can’t sustain Dual Strike + Melee Splash in a 5-link item with 3 damaging support gems without also adding Reduced Mana.

If you can afford the price and more importantly loss of stats on your chest piece, consider getting Tabula Rasa. It costs about 2-3 Exalted Orbs and will enable you to add Faster Attacks + Reduced Mana to your Dual Strike, thus increasing its DPS by about 25-30%. It’s up to you to figure out if you can play without armor, resistances and health provided by normal chests — it mostly depends on the quality of the rest of your gear.

Decent 6-linked rare chests are pretty expensive: the one pictured costs about 20 Exalted, and it’s far from being the best one. If you want to buy ANY 6-linked chest you’re probably not going to find one priced below 8 Ex.

Soul Taker

Not necessary by any means, but it does open up additional opportunities. By having this unique axe you can remove the Reduced Mana gem in your chest and add Added Fire Damage, further improving your damage to likely well over 20k (depending on your weapons).

Legacy Soul Takers are insanely expensive so it’s unlikely you’ll be able to get your hands on one any time soon, but a new nerfed one should cost you about 50 Exalted and it’s still decent. You’re buying it because of its “insufficient mana” effect, not because of the DPS. Soul Taker also enables you to reserve your entire mana pool, allowing you to use a 3rd aura.

Either way leave it as the last item to go for, and set your goals towards it. You can do without it, but can never improve your DPS substantially without one.

Leveling Gear

If you want to level up a bit faster you might want to consider getting one of these two items: Wurm’s Molt or Slitherpinch. They will help sustain your ability costs early on and are really, really cheap. If you’re just starting in the game you probably won’t even be able to afford these immediately, but generally they cost about 1 Chaos Orb.

I might be able to hook you up with these (on Standard league), just PM me in game (info below), or join my guild.

Bandit Quest Rewards

• Normal: help Oak and get +40 health
• Cruel: help Oak for +18% physical damage
• Merciless: kill them all (+1 skill point)

Flasks

I prefer using a setup of 2 health flasks, 1 hybrid (for cases if I run out of mana), 1 Granite and 1 Amethyst. You can see the flasks that I currently use below:

They aren’t perfect rolls (except the Hybrid one) but they serve the purpose. I think it’s very important to have one “instant recovery when on low life” flask for situations when you suddenly drop near death. You can never have enough Chaos resist so I recommend having an Amethyst Flask in case it’s needed: try to get one with increased armor or evasion on use so you can use it against physical damage as well. Hybrid Flask helps in case you happen to run out of mana and need to Leap Slam or use a Rejuvenation Totem, or in some instances when you can’t sustain Dual Strike on single-target monsters. Once you get Soul Taker you can switch Hybrid to Quicksilver or even another Granite Flask.

I prefer all my flasks to have either bonus Armour or Evasion on use which is further scaled with the passive skill tree. Doubling your armor for nearly 5 seconds with a Granite Flask is crucial to surviving hard-hitting abilities and enemies like Vaal or Kole.

Plenty of players often use Quicksilver Flasks, but there’s no reason to with my build. You have plenty of mobility to get away or run towards someone faster, and if you really feel the need for speed you can get a bonus movement speed mod on any other flask.

Gameplay Videos

The video embedded below is a short and incomplete Jungle Valley, level 72 map run. The map doesn’t have any mods to increase its difficulty, but it does demonstrate how well the build works in high level content. Weaver/Spinner of False Hope boss fight shown in the end of the video is considered one of the most challenging ones, but as you can see this build doesn’t really struggle with it.

I didn’t even use Endurance Charges and the flasks used are more as a precaution rather than a necessity. If you have any specific map or boss fight requests let me know in the comments below and I’ll try to record them.

• Dominus kill

Closing Thoughts

Shredder is a very versatile build that has little weaknesses. It used to be much, much stronger but it’s still viable for grouping or even soloing endgame maps, however it does come with a steep price tag if you’re dabbling in highest level content without a group. To get the most out of this build you will need some pretty expensive items, and with the same amount of currency spent you’re able to make many other builds work just as well if not better.

But, if you like the gameplay of a physical damage dual-wield character, this is it! There are some other dual-wield builds but none of them that I like playing nearly as much as this one. The Shredder is great for beginners as well since it’s extremely easy to play, but be warned you will have to farm intensively if you ever want to get over 20k tooltip DPS. Even with the best of items Shredder is somewhat weak DPS-wise compared to many other builds, so take that into consideration if you intend to choose it.

You’re welcome to discuss the build or ask me anything about it in the comments below.