[2.5] WIP Gladiator Varunastra Bleeder

I am planning a Varunastra build. I wonder if somebody has already done it or not.

What's planned:

Gear


Total budget is like 25ex in uniques, rest of the gear will fit into resists.

Tree plan
poeurl.com/ZDq

It's Fairly low on life - 156% , I won't be able to push more life through jewels, so only change of pathing could push me further.

99% IAS
roughly 650% IPD notcounting addded dmg against bleeders - another bunch of dmg.

Target is to have smooth gameplay through Red map till Guardians. I don't plan this as a Shaper Killer, but it might be actually viable if the dmg output is high enough.

Planned is Earth Quake with as reduced duration as possible for smooth gameplay.
Block should be capped with Rumi and thx @ Ascendancy , spell block cap is also counted.

6L EQ - chest
4L Ancestra Warchief
4L CWDT Inc Duration, Immortal Call, Vaal Lighting Trap
3L Whirling Fortify
open 1 3L and 1L for utility / auras

Expected
Herald of Ash
Blasphemy Temp Chains

Leap Slam , Rallying Call might be

I am not sold yet on Voidheart, but i might add it if i get enough res/life across the gear


FEedback is appreciated

i'm working on something similar, your tree got cut off though, could you re-link it?

I have a basic guide up for something similar here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1814939

Been testing a few different skill setups, you can check my current gear here: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Icaros/characters?characterName=Ica_RichterVonBoom

Done all Guardians, one shots T15 bosses with Vaal Breach.
Surrenderer / Nightmare is a fantastic combo when there's things to block. Degen really sucks though so I don't think these builds will do Shaper.

If you plan to use Abyssus, I recommend stacking endurance charges to mitigate the phys damage and going crit. The extra phys damage really hurts. You might also want Death's Door with that thing on. Without the crit multi, I'd say you're better off with a couple steel rings to make up that phys damage. I tested it as non-crit and didn't find the benefit worth the downside.

You shouldn't need Rumi's with Red Nightmare. I'm at 66% block before tempest shield and painforged (which is almost always up).

If you're running bleed and/or poison you can multiply your damage by running Vulnerability and Temp Chains (doedre ring is easy 2nd curse). You might need enfeeble for guardians though.

Get the scion life wheel. It's not really optional as life, and Path of the Warrior scales both weapon and bleed damage.
Your tree only has one Jewel socket (for nightmare), but you're skipping lots of 2 point jewels. You can drop a bit of weapon damage to pick those up for double dip stats (Damage, Phys Damage, Area Damage) to scale your weapon AND bleeds. You're missing 2 chance to block nodes on the left side of the shield wheel. Attack speed is not a priority if you're planning to run EQ.

I tested EQ, lacerate, Cyclone and BF with my setup, and found that the attack speed on BF was the best at consistently applying bleed/Poison because of the attack speed and AoE overlapping. Plus the more multi on release behaves similarly to EQ's aftershock but you control when it goes off.

Just my thoughts, I definitely recommend testing it out to see what you like. Surrenderer/Nightmare glad is really fun :)

Still leveling, just got to my gear, couple levels off my gems from previous chars.

Seems like Blade Flurry is the way to go. I wanted to go full EQ, but it's weird compared to Blade Flurry. The output is for now not even close of what i expected. Tested 75 map at 66, BF is OK, EQ is lack luster :) More life needed, at lvl 80 it will get better with some steel rings.

Unforunately BF does not go exactly the way of bleeding, since bleed does not stack. So from this perspective, it's failed build.

But with BF and dropping the extra dot dmg, rerouting for more life, it's viable. I might try re-doing this as Shadow after and go for full yolo crit, but i guess i will oneshot myself off reflect pretty frequently if I go that route.