[3.14] Gannicus, God of the Arena – Deathless Uber Elder for Everyone

Since it doesn't require block swords any more I'd say it's SSF viable. It doesn't require any uniques either, although Maligaro's are pretty damned good and you'd have to make some changes if you're not using them. Other than that I don't see a problem.

Seems like this build will be great for the new Cultist league, as being able to place multiple bladestorms in a boss arena with multiple bosses & having max block will make Maven progression easy. I've never played Bladestorm however, so I have a few questions/thoughts if you don't mind.

Would a Scaeva + Ichimonji (which = 830k dps in my PoB) be enough to take you through red maps, and at what threshold of pDPS does rare swords surpass it? Also, is it worth getting a Saviour ASAP as a weapon upgrade?

How important is getting mana reduction on your gear? It seems you prioritize it quite a bit. Would running herald of purity over Pride and foregoing enlighten work well enough (would have ~100 unreserved mana w/ a 34 mana cost bladestorm with my PoB) or would this feel clunky w/o an enduring mana flask?

In case you're curious to look, this is the PoB that I am aiming for within the first couple weeks of league start, depending on how much I play.

I don't know how well the Ichimonji would work as I haven't tried it. The Saviour however gives both a significant damage increase and helps a lot with clear speed. It also attacks bosses while you're away for whatever reason and helps find teleporting bosses like Sirus. Big QoL improvement.

If you want max damage you need pride and for that to work you need mana reduction. In the league you'll have to use HoP until enlighten gems and -mana armour becomes available. It works fine like that but when you mion max you need the best possible setup which includes pride.

There was a guy who had mana for just a couple of storms and felt fine playing like that. I don't. So it's up to you what feels clunky and what doesn't. 3+ storms is probably enough though.

Hey guys, seeing as they changed the ascendency nodes to give block chance regardless of weapons used, is this build viable and/or better with a twohander than dual wielding?

I didn't choose to dual wield because of those minor nodes. So no it's not better with a two handed weapon. You can make it work if you want but it won't be better (despite the dual wield nerf).

In any case I find this change ridiculous. They want the ascendancies to have "character". Well gladiators dual wielded or used a shield. It makes for faster and more spectacular combat which is the entire point of the gladiator (in real life). Very rarely would you see them use slow and heavy two handed weapons.

In our case this change doesn't affect us at all. What does affect us is that Painforged no longer grants 40% increased Damage if you've taken no Damage from Hits Recently. Not a big nerf since in serious fights we do get hit regularly.

Other than that I don't see any change in the patch notes. The build is ready to go.

Question - is it viable option to take a path "Physical Attack damage and Life" (then take 2x strength to reach the used tree) at the begining insteadof "Attack speed and Accuracy" (this can save 2 passive points)

That can be used to pick:

1. "Life and Armour" (at marauder start) + Iron reflexes (as I understand the build, we do not want to evade the attacks as we have riposte - so we lower the Chance to not be hit from 17% to 5%)

OR

2. Go for "Aspect of the Lynx" for pure DPS boost?

All of those are minor changes to the tree. You can try them out and see what works best for you. The tree in my PoB is the one that I consider to be the best but everyone can tailor it to their own preferences.

Riposte doesn't do any damage (because of the cooldown). It's just there to activate onslaught and CS. And with the new alt quality gems you essentially have permanent onslaught so you don't need to worry about that.

Uploaded new PoBs for normal and best gear. No changes really, just the new tree (same as the old) and the Saviour as the default off-hand weapon since it has become dirt cheap. A few alt quality gems were added to the best gear PoB as well.

Good luck to everyone playing this in the league.

I'll probably be skipping this one. Like all atlas expansions before this one is part of the core game so it's all available on standard. The league itself is just some added monsters with crappy rewards. It's obvious all the development effort went into the new atlas stuff (as it should) and the league is an afterthough. Also the new Maven stuff seems late end-game so I'll get much quicker access to it with an already leveled and geared build and a full atlas.

Looking forward to crafting something good with the addition of harvest to standard. I hope it wasn't nerfed too much.

Is it better to use Saviuor in your off hand or in main hand or it doesnt matter at all ?

Well for some channeling skills (like blade flurry) there are some convoluted reasons to choose one particular hand (which weapon does the release damage etc) but for Bladestorm it doesn't matter especially with such high APS.