[1.0.6.1] Edge of Death - DW Vitality Cadence Death Knight, Gladiator farmer (under 11 minutes)

Hello, wonderful people!
Edge of Death was not so good as a Vitality damage melee weapon: it was always outperformed by better alternatives such as Decree of Malmouth.
However, with proper support it rocks in the campaign and Crucible.
Today’s build is designed to show the proper usage of this weapon.

Meet the Edge of Death.

>> Grimtools << no green items used

It’s a Death Knight using Cadence fully converted to Vitality, harvesting lost souls over the battlefield. Massive weapon damage boost provided by Soul Harvest and Deadly Momentum makes every Cadence hit really hard. 200% attack speed and no slow WPS procs ensure you’ll hit with Cadence very frequently.
Can tear through Crucible in under 11 minutes. Hard and fast action! ©

Core of the build

  • Main damage skill of this build is Cadence.
  • Mythical Edge of Death is the core weapon of this build. Actually I wanted to make a good use of Edge of Death and I made it.
  • Counter Strike boosted by Blood Knight set is somewhat useful; I didn’t measure its impact on build’s overall performance, your main damage comes from Cadence. I believe its ADCtH helps if you’re surrounded.
  • Strong defenses including 32% constant ADCtH, 2* Bloodthirster and Mark of Torment in rotation, Counter Strike, high armor, moderate DA and Ghoul on top of that.
  • Necessary secondary resistances are capped: 80% to Slow (with my rolls of gear), 30% to Trap and Stun, 46% to Freeze, 100% to Skill Disruption (I dont really need it, but these legguards provide a large chunk of it).
  • ~130 Vitality RR - any single target including Kuba gets melted.
  • Strong DoT damage as a side effect: up to 130k Vitality Decay ticks.

Key explanations and alternatives

  • I invested only 1 pt into Reaping Strike and 1 pt into Markovian’s Advantage, because damage increase from boosting them is negligible. You do much more damage with Cadence.
  • Acid Spray bound to Soul of Nazaran works great, and all bindings are balanced to ensure the most comfortable proc rate.
  • Direwolf’s Crest provides the Aether resistance, OA and enables us to wear 2 swords.
  • Doom relic is surprisingly BiS damage-wise, with Uroboruuk’s Reaping your weapon damage is lower.
  • Reforged Chains of Oleron belt is much better damage-wise too, but current belt provides lots of OA, so I decided to leave it.
  • Stacking flat physical damage here is a must.
  • Overall this build is well-rounded and all resistances are fit near softcap. If you feel unsafe, swap the pants and boots for ones you like better.

Gameplay

  • Aggressive melee combat: debuff 'em and reap everyone.
  • As always, Anasteria is annoying, be careful with her. And watch Alek’s meteors too.
  • All combinations of nemeses are facerolled. Kuba is facerolled little slower.

Max crit landed in Crucible (solo, Crucible buffs, no banners)

Stats pane (Soul Harvest, Deadly Momentum, Hungering Void up)

Video

//youtu.be/YFiSyFaQA94

Credits

  • sir spanksalot - great advices on gear.

Btw it’s my very first vitality build :3 I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.

Ha. They healed aleks this time ya noob.

EDIT: I had actually typed that in caps.

2nd EDIT: I can literally hear you saying, ‘cyka blyat’ across not just the internet, but through time as well. :stuck_out_tongue:

I thought I killed these healers! :smiley:

It really goes to show how well done the build is if it can perform at this level with veretragna as the pilot. :rolleyes:

Just kidding mate

Are you a wizard? 0_o
Because it’s literally what I said this time :stuck_out_tongue:

blahblah…10char

Nice, actually using that weapon. But to be honest the set is doing the heavy lifting here, I feel it could work with other weapons too.

You don’t need to add more characters once you quote something that’s like 100 characters long :stuck_out_tongue:

Weapon looks really cool. Glad to see you finally make use of these blades! Grats on another build!

Looks good. Looks really good Vere.
It seems, I need to level a death knight soon.

Although I am sad that you don’t use necrotic edge :(. Cadence interaction to the WPS is not good, so it’s understandable.

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

TY guys!
Yep, this set is good. It is designed to boost Bone Harvest and Counter Strike, but vitality and bleed builds get advantages too.
I think Vitality Cadence using these blades can wear something like this as an alternative. Why not?

Interesting. But you need to check dummy kill time to confirm if lost of skill points is worth it.

Looks fine in GT though.

It’s a draft, you know. Maybe I’ll test it, maybe not - currently I’m interested in a new idea :slight_smile:

Today I mentioned that this build have up to 130k Vitality Decay ticks (even with -% damage mutator). Nice

Build is super and very eye candy, but is it just me or all vitality builds feel a bit slow in terms on how fast they actually kill stuff when focusing?
EDIT what about dw crimson spikes?

This build is one of the fastest builds I ever made. Even Kuba with its ridiculous vitality resistance is melted in seconds

Hi. Cool build)
Just wanna ask - what is the best way to level up to this?

Hi!
The best way to level this build on early levels is Spectral Wrath. Max it, gain 25 level with Spectral Wrath, max Cadence and Deadly Momentum, craft Bladesworn Talisman, equip random phys or vitality weapons and you’re good.
Get Harbinger of Souls ASAP after Cadence and Deadly Momentum.
Equip 2x Edge of Death on level 65 if you have 'em and use them till level 94.
That’s it, this build is very easy to play, just keep your resistances capped and look for vitality bonuses on gear.

Cool, thx)) It’s very useful info, think about adding it to the first post.

Thank you for a great build. Been enjoying it very much :slight_smile:

One question though. Why are you using Unchained might gloves when you dont even use blade arc? Is it the entrapment decrease? Im a complete noob :slight_smile: