Playing this right now on my first try through veteran hardcore, plan on eventually respeccing into an aether version at the end, thanks so much for a cool chassis!
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Just dropped this:
Is this enough attack speed to give it a try ? “of Alacrity” would be in 30ish like, but sensibly less %Phys as well, obviously. I’m quite happy with the drop 
By “give it a try” do you mean to level a char or you have the char already? If it’s the latter then would need to know what exactly you’re comparing it with, it is almost certainly worth trying over say Superior of Alacrity. But wouldn’t call it GG enough to actually compel me to level a character.
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I have a level 85 Death Knight FW build in progress. I was a bit underwhelmed with it because of the latest update on conversion to phys now being affected by armor. I have the feeling that the very little Aether->Phys conversion the build proposes (only seal of might) was far from taking full advantage of Spectral Binding ; see my message here on this.
And btw, you provide a totally different answer in OP regarding conversion, than the one I’ve found on reddit. What you say in OP tells me I should really crave for converting as mush Aether as possible to Physical, because now those extra sources are all affected by armor, and so they need to be as big as possible to bypass it, hence 100% conversion highly wanted.
The build never really was about the “magical” converted phys. The vast majority of it’s damage comes from weapon’s base physical damage that gets multiplied via Blade Arc’s high %weapon damage.
The halberd has 100% of aether to physical for your main skill and 49 flat with high %weapon damage of Blade Arc should be above the “don’t care” point.
What was really hurt by the phys damage change is Krieg set’s helm and glove procs when physical damage is concerned. Especially the helm’s proc is just garbage now for physical damage. But it’s not like these procs did much of a meaningful AoE damage when your main skill is Blade Arc and you have Blind Fury to boot.
Didn’t read your reddit link as there’s just too much of a wall of text 
The way you put my words from OP isn’t really wrong, albeit it depends on how big the chunk of aether damage being converted is. Say if we’re talking about mere 30 damage, then even if you go out of your way to convert 100% of it the impact on the build would be small.
And let me reiterate - this build was always about unconverted physical damage, the small converted part that bypassed armor was just a cherry on top of the cake.
I was speaking about that bulid, not yours. I just came to your bulid after I found the halberd, yesterday.
But your remarks also prevail for that FW build, I suppose.
Hi, Stupid_Dragon! Thanks a lot for the excellent guide, it was a huge help. Now, I have a quick question regarding devotions: wouldn’t it make more sense to complete Owl first (to get enough points to access Oleron) and then invest those remaining 4 points in Stag instead of Wolverine? If I my calculation is right, we basically are trading 50% retaliation dmg and some DA for a decent phys&bleed dmg increase. Or maybe even go for Ghoul instead of Stag/Wolverine? What is your opinion?
Hello, welcome to the forum!
You didn’t try it even in the calc, do you? 
I hate Wolverine here too and would had ditched it if I could. But the devotion setup would collapse without it. It’s an impossible swap because Wolverine gives 6 purple while Owl gives only 5, and I have already used up the crossroads point.
EDIT: what you can do though is try incorporating Wraith into the build, then sure you can also get Owl, but you’re only getting one extra point out of this trade. You’d have an overflow of blue points and I don’t see any good way to deflate it and get value somewhere else at glance, but perhaps you would find a way.
I did, only after I had sent my initial message 
Yeah, I see my mistake: I was 1 purple point short. It’s just that Wolverine is such a weak constellation for this particular build.
Anyway, thank you again for your work and for sharing it. Your build presentation and layout is among the best I’ve seen. You rock! 
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Hey, if you don’t mind a couple more quick questions: why Purified salt almost till the end instead of, say, switching to Oleron’s blood when it becomes available? Also what do you think about investing at least 1 point into Counter Strike ability?
Oleron’s Blood doesn’t really give that much %damage and it’s expensive to craft. E.g. if it was a cold build I’d had definitely used Coldstone because it gives a whooping +100% cold damage with buff included, but Oleron’s Blood is just a quarter of that. Since it’s a physical build I don’t need conversions either, so I’m using the next best thing which is racial damage and resists.
EDIT: right, another reason is the enemies who hold Krieg set pieces are all Aetherials.
Counter Strike? Well you can if you want. The build is just so loaded with AoE so that would be a drop in the ocean imo.
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Hi again, I’ve got another question on devotions. Why do you choose Owl for those last three points instead of going back to Hammer or Dire Boar to get more pure phys dmg? Or maybe turn to health/resist constellations or maybe even invest 1 point into that proc node on Azrakaa?
Hope you don’t mind these newbie questions, I’d just really like to understand your choices rather than follow your guide blindly.
Good question, that’s because the build harms itself with reflected damage quite a bit.
I don’t mind as long as it’s about the build.
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Oh, now I get it. Thanks, your patience is appreciated a lot!
Well, maybe one more question: why prefer Mark of Traveler to Mark of Mogdrogen? Is 15% slow resist worth losing all that health regen?
Health regen doesn’t worth jack shit on builds that don’t stack it to the limit, which is only worth it for certain archetypes. This build has 80 passive and 240 under Menhir’s Will, which is negligible numbers even for a kiting caster. The primary sustain mechanic of this build is lifesteal. Crowd Controlled = not attacking = no sustain. And Slow Resistance works even on attack speed reduction effects.
So yeah, you’re pretty much asking whether a good chunk of the absolutely mandatory stat for melee builds is worth it over small amount of very niche stat. 
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As always, great answer. Guess I should just follow your build and stop questioning too much before all that math and overthinking start ruining the fun of actually playing the game
It might be worth removing the latest rule of thumb as of 1.9.4, no ?
Ignore the above for damage that was converted to physical. Converted physical is not subject to armor.
edit or not. I always forget that the game can be played at older patch version.
Otherwise, I’ve quickly converted my Forcewave DK to Blade Arc with the weapon I’ve mentioned previously. The little changes in gameplay is refreshing at least :). Now I need to add the missing touches (compo, revising devo route, etc) and test it properly.
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Hello, I’ve played like 40-50h in the past, just on my own, beating regular game back when there were no exp.
Now I’m taking a look about all these builds.
If I’m not wrong, all these budgets and SSF builds are made just to farm the high level items for other builds?
That’s up to you. You don’t have to farm if you don’t want to. Any class can make it to the end of Ultimate difficulty with reasonable gear.
If you want to do so called endgame stuff like hunt/farm Nemesis bosses, do Crucible runs in stupidly fast times or go extremely deep into the Shattered Realm then yes, you will need special gear.
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I mean, if you don’t have an endgame build already to farm SR or CR, than these builds will do you quite well. Obviously they have potential to be much stronger with endgame gear, but you gotta farm or trade for it.
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