[3.2+] Explosive Cleave / Lacerate Gladiator. Insane Clear Speed, Solid Defenses and Budget

Thank you for adding a leveling tree. I will hit level 67 in about 15 mins and just with Jack the Axe and Gratuitous Violence it's already too strong and one of the most fun builds i've played so far , not too expensive either (took me about 45-50 chaos to get the uniques) . Do you think that farming Izaro for that % cleave damage is worth it?

I have a variation in mind though, if I said afford enlighten, I link it to my auras, then I use the spirit void under duelist starts, then one I won't need soul taker, and to I could maybe use a higher pdps weapon. This allows us to sustain enough mana, and at the same time able to use anything other then blood magic. But of course this isn't cheap.
just a concept out of my brain lol.

@grindermann

Awesome! Have fun.

@marios

I think it might be worth it. Try to get reduced hatred reservation, cleave aoe or cleave damage. Although it would take you around 50-100 runs to get one of these mods

@enrovy

I think soul taker has pretty high dps already. Can get up to 290. But yeah, if you can get a 350pdps axe then go for it. But you would need at least level 3 or level 4 enlighten

How good do you feel Blood in the Eyes is for you? Playing in HC, been thinking about dropping it cause it felt pretty subpar and we don't make much use of the maim.

That and the semi-inconsistency of Outmatch and Outlast (due to kills from explosions not counting towards main/off hand kills) makes me want to go for the block/spell block stuff.

@locicero

I think blood in the eyes is actually quite important for this build. The small nodes in between the passives have %increased physical damage which boosts the damage of the explosions.

Also 30% increased damage to bleeding enemies also increases you explosions damage against bleeding enemies. So if there is a rare monster in the middle of a pack, if we kill the pack, then the rare monster sometimes dies from all the explosions.

Also 6% reduced damage taken is pretty nice too. Like 1.5 additional endurance charges. I think keeping up endurance charges through "Outmatch and Outlast" and the damage reduction from 'blood in the eyes' makes you tankier than grabbing the block stuff, since our block chance isn't that high to abuse it fully.

Can this build be rolled on a marauder ? If so can you recommend ascendant and maybe some improvised skill tree ? thanks alot

@Shinnexer

probably not, since explosions are exclusively for the gladiator subclass.

If you just want to make a standard cleave build. Then probably go Berserker, use crave the slaughter + aspect of carnage and pain reaver/rite of ruin. Skill tree will be the same, just starting nodes different I guess. And you probably won't need jack the axe anymore, so just grab a higher DPS axe.

@supreme_pizza

Ok , i think i will try to farm izaro today and see if i can get a good enchantment. Btw my dps at the moment is 52k with increased aoe and 72.5k with conc effect with low level gems and without frenzy charges. Which gem do you think i should quality first btw? Added fire seems good.

I think quality on cleave gives the biggest bonus, then get quality on increased aoe, then get it on multistrike and lastly added fire damage (since added fire damage quality only gives you increased fire damage)

I got gratitous violence first since I've already bought jack the axe and am lvl 62 now. Is it okay if I took gratitous violence as first ascendancy passive?