Duelist sucks, let's make it better

Some of my ideas may be a bit controversial, but that's what I intend. Hopefully it will spur more discussion and assist in refining the class.

I've read most of this thread and I like a lot of the ideas that I've seen so far. "Keynode 2" (Always crit against frozen targets) that was presented in the OP is really great. Right now Ice Bite seems really out of place simply because duelists don't have many other passives that synergize well with it. Critical strike chance is something that I feel is undervalued by most classes right now and rightfully so. Which leads me to my first point.

Make attaining higher critical strike chance easier. While critical strike chance is not exclusive to Duelists I think it has the potential to be a crucial part of this class. However, even with nodes like Twin Terrors and after stacking crit gear it turns out to be a waste (in my opinion). You can just stack crit multi and fair much better. I don't like obvious decisions that lead to "cookie cutter" builds (see Moosifer's 2h duelist which is now the basic framework for every good duelist build out there). Fortunately there are a number of ways to address the crit multi > crit strike dilemma.


*Put more emphasis on Alchemist. In my opinion this is probably the best resolution. You don't want the passive tree to undermine the use of Diamond Flasks it's not terribly far out of the way, but I think it is often overlooked for closer more beneficial passives.

*Keynode: Converts critical multiplier (anything above base) to critical strike chance (critical multiplier can never go below 150%)

*Keynode: +X critical strike chance per X dexterity.

On to my second and probably more controversial point. Mana vs BM.
Make Blood Magic tiered 25/25/50. At first glance some people will look at this as a nerf. However, there is logic behind this. Mana flows and +% Mana don't do enough. I've played 2 duelists using mana and 2 using BM and while it is possible to have success with either I can say without a doubt from my experience Blood Magic makes life so much easier. Unfortunately taking BM leads to stacking more life, LR, and LL. This is a hybrid class, why not make it a hybrid in every sense? If you make Blood Magic triple tiered at a conversion rate of 25%/25%/50% you allow for more flexibility with auras, you potentially remove the need for BM gems in some builds allowing for better alternative gems, and ultimately make for a more dynamic class in-terms of energy resourcefulness.

Still brainstorming, more to come.
EDIT: Apparently lists don't work.

However, do we really want to create an larger then necessary reliance on diamond flasks?


Like I said before, half the issue with duelists is that it's a class made to tank or gain survivability through damage mitigation. However, due to it's nature, armor can't be called a primary reliable damage mitigation, however, in order to get evasion to fill this roll, acrobatics is an utter necessity, meaning it can't use armor, making half the premise of the toon, rather obsolete.

Basically it suffers from the fact that str is hp/armor and dex is evasion/hp, they simply do not mesh well, since evasion is balanced around the assumption the user will have acrobatics and/or large amounts of evasion nodes, and armor is balanced around the assumption that the user will hoard HP nodes.

The two purposes simply don't mesh well. This leaves the duelist struggling for surivability, which comes first, and then, by extention, is lacking in offense.

Side note :

Stick a 2 stage keystone right smack dab in the middle of the duelist's tree. All the keystones are sitting on the outskirts or the outskirts of the center.

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CNKalmah написал:

Side note :

Stick a 2 stage keystone right smack dab in the middle of the duelist's tree. All the keystones are sitting on the outskirts or the outskirts of the center.

Ya I'd like to see something duelist could get before lvl 20-30, which atm is IR which after some time I feel the same way about IR as Charan does, get rid of it. Having it as the only quick keystone has bothered me for a while. There's very little variation of duelist short race builds, basically 2h sweep or DW, all IR does is make them into mara builds.

Kick that claw cluster to dust, and rework the places of nodes between Ice Bite and the Golem Blood wheel. Does anyone even take the Deft Blade nodes?

You could place this cluster there.

Claw Passives for Duelist work just fine. Just dont take them if you dont want them. I for one am going to use claws with Vaal Pact on my Duelist in OB. Duelist have so much mitagation and duel wield passives so I believe its the class best suited for a Vaal Pact/ Claw character. Dont take that away!

-sincirely, Kinsman

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Bibba написал:

Claw Passives for Duelist work just fine. Just dont take them if you dont want them. I for one am going to use claws with Vaal Pact on my Duelist in OB. Duelist have so much mitagation and duel wield passives so I believe its the class best suited for a Vaal Pact/ Claw character. Dont take that away!

-sincirely, Kinsman

It's one circle and there isn't enough INT in the immediate area to use claws anyways. Move the circle near the MS circle between ranger and shadow as I assume if you were doing a claw build it would be in that area anyways.

I made a post involving evasion here:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/62832/page/1/#p787171



Something like that would help Str and Dex mesh together better.


What I really see missing from the Dex Tree is Sustainability.



It's why Duelists go into the Strength side of the tree. Blood Magic, Arcane Efficiency, Life Regeneration.

There isn't anything on the Dex side of the tree that gives that sustainability other than a few 20% mana regen nodes. A Few Mana on Kill nodes on the Dex side would go a long way toward sustaining duelist builds without making them feel like templars or mara-lites.

A couple arcane efficiency nodes between Ranger and Duelist deep in the Dex tree would go a LONG way too.

Yes, the dex classes have severe manage issues, I guess that's why we get the mana leech as a dex gem, but duelists naturally have a rather easy progression into blood-magic, so mana isn't so much their issue, as the fact that hp/evasion/armor as a defense, is simply three defensive types that they need to sink nodes into, opposed to the two that every other class needs.

Yeah... and the fact that the Strength side of the tree gives not only more predictable mitigation, but also natural hp increases and an easy Sustain means that Duelists tend to gravitate into strength (and, at that point, they're just Marauders in a blouse)


SO, what about a Keystone either where Gallantry is or right below Golem's Blood.


Roll with the Punches: You gain +1 hp for every 2 points of Dexterity you possess. You gain an additional 1% to block for every 5 points of Strength you possess.



Kind of a hybrid keystone so the duelists survivability doesn't fall behind while they get what they need.

Hp represents how well you can shrug off a blow. With this, they're not taking the hits head on and "evading" part of the damage