Duelist - [3.23] Oni-Goroshi Reave of Refraction Slayer - Forum - Path of Exile (2024)

I've been wanting to play Reave for a while, mainly because of its high damage effectiveness. When I want to play a new build, I go to the Damage Effectiveness page on POEWiki and sort descending to find a skill with lots of damage effectiveness. I love big number!

My original idea for Reave was to do Energy Blade but I was annoyed that Energy Blade says "70% more damage with two-handed" but Reave is only a one-handed skill.

Once Reave of Refraction came out, I thought it would be a fun one to play. Simultaneously I decided that I wanted to get an Oni-Goroshi because I hadn't done the farm before and it seemed like a fun rite of passage or something. Also, combining "Phys as Extra" and "convert 100% phys" effects together seems very powerful!

Finally, I chose Slayer because beeg AoE and I hadn't played a Slayer in a while.

I won't go into all the details about Oni-Goroshi, just the relevant ones for this build:

"

Gain Her Embrace for 3 seconds when you Ignite an Enemy

As well as a variety of defensive bonuses, Her Embrace gives us:

* 123% of Sword Physical Damage gained as Extra Fire Damage
* 20% increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed

Both of these are pretty good! We just have to make sure we are Igniting enemies.

"

Critical Strike Chance: (8.50%-9.50%)

Well that'll help!

Now, Oni-Goroshi is a one-handed sword and we can't wield an off-hand, not even a shield. So we'll have to make sure to account for that.

Reave of Refraction shares the same damage effectiveness of regular Reave. The only real difference is this:

"

Converts 100% of Physical Damage to a random Element

See Also

Reave of Refraction | PoE Wiki

So now combine this with Oni-Goroshi - we get 123% of phys as extra fire _and_ we convert 100% of phys to a random element. So we basically get 223% of phys damage as elemental damage. That's pretty good! Combine that with the relatively high damage effectiveness, and this skill starts off with quite a bit of damage.

Attack Speed is important for Reave because you'll want to build up your AoE quickly.

"

Each Reave that hits an enemy grants stages
50% more Area of Effect for each stage

Once you get the engine started and you have all of your AoE nodes, your max stack Reave will hit nearly an entire half of the screen per attack.

Since we can't do any blocking due to Oni-Goroshi, anything to do with shields or dual wielding or blocking is out. Instead, the huge amount of Leech we get as Slayer should help keep us alive. With Reave we'll be hitting tons of stuff constantly so it's really easy to stay leech capped.

Brutal Fervour:

"

Life Leech effects are not removed when Unreserved Life is Filled
10% reduced Damage taken while Leeching
100% increased Maximum Recovery per Life Leech

Important: do NOT take Overwhelm:

"

Base Critical Strike Chance for Attacks with Weapons is 8%
+10% to Critical Strike Multiplier per Nearby Enemy, up to +100%
Nearby Enemies have -30% to Critical Strike Multiplier

Oni-Goroshi's base crit chance is higher than 8%, so taking this actually lowers our crit chance!

Impact is another useful node, the accuracy and AoE it gives makes it easy to keep hitting stuff.

"

5% increased Area of Effect per Enemy killed recently, up to 50%
+0.4 metres to Melee Strike Range
50% increased Global Accuracy Rating
Deal up to 15% more Melee Damage to Enemies, based on proximity

I chose Warden for this build. I'm using a Tincture that gives me Fire Pen and All Damage Can Freeze. I'm also using the increased effect of adjacent flasks with a sulphur and diamond flask. Finally, I'm using Oath of the Maji to paper over my bad gear's res :)

Here's my tree at Level 93.

Important highlights:

* Fortify! Fortify! Fortify! Makes a huge difference in survivability and is relatively cheap to get. Also I'm using Perseverance so it's kinda mandatory!

* Unfortunately, a lot of nodes around Duelist are for occupying both hands with stuff (two-hands, dual wield, shield, bow). I pretty much get zero nodes near the Duelist itself and instead branch off toward Marauder and Ranger.

* That being said, Vaal Pact is a must for Leechers. Get it! big leech.

* I am using Perseverance so I took a few Armour + Evasion nodes to get the Perseverance floor a little higher.

* Since I'm over near Ranger anyway, Suppression is a good idea. I'm Suppression capped with minimal gear investment. With better gear mods, I could conceivably spec out of suppression a bit and get more damage.

* As I'm writing this I just realized I could've saved a point!!!

* Oni-Goroshi. Obviously. Easy six link.

* Belly of the Beast - I put this on to get me to a point where I had a better Body Armour and I just haven't found one yet. I feel great with >4k life and a decent amount of defenses. Not sure I'll ever take it off tbh!

* Perseverance - We've had like five of these drop in the guild lol. Great item! Onslaught is good.

* That's pretty much it! Otherwise I'm just getting lots of Added Phys on jewelry and other typical stuff.

Six Link:
* Reave of Refraction: as far as I can tell, more than 20% quality doesn't do anything so don't bother trying to get a 23 quality gem. I just corrupted one to 21 with 20 quality.
* Melee Phys / Elemental Damage with Attacks: These synergize perfectly with each other due to Oni-Goroshi and Reave of Refraction's interaction.
* Rage: Rage gives us added phys damage which is very good for the build due to the conversion shenanigans.
* Inspiration: I was having mana problems and then I equipped Inspiration Support and I stopped having mana problems :)
* Critical Damage: I'm doing a lot of crits!

Auras:

* Precision, as big as you can afford
* Determination
* Blood and Sand (I'm always in Blood Stance, area damage yummy)
* Herald of Ash - I have the green "ghostflame" MTX to match My Goddess' colors

Other utilities:

* Blood Rage
* a guard skill (I should probably switch to Molten Shell soon lol)
* Ancestral Protector
* Leap Slam
* Assassin's Mark/Mark on Hit