I’ve got about 200 hours logged in the game and have noticed a lot of gear which appears to lend itself to a Tanky Vitality Build that uses Sword (or axe/hammer) and Board.
I am trying to build a quite similar build, with a 2hander and cadence instead of blade arc, but its quite comparable.
The issue i would think you could stumble upon later on in the game is your multitude of damage types and damage types buffed.
Basically, your main attack deals weapon, bleeding and internal trauma damage, while your Occultist side of things buffs chaos, vitality, poison and acid damage. I’m not nearly experienced enough to tell if this is actually problematic but i think you’re missing out on a lot of synergy.
Those melee items with vitality bonuses are distractions, don’t fall for it!
Three (and a half) major problems with vitality damage that aren’t obvious at first:
Vitality is insanely well resisted everywhere in the late game. Even Vulnerability is not enough to deal with masses of resistances to vitality. From my testing with a totem/sigil vitality conjurer, 3 nemesis have over 100% resistance (undead, order and chthonian). Void leeches which infest BoC and ghosts which infest SoT have over 100%. The rest of those dungeons have insanely high values as well (compared to aether or lightning for example). Conjurer has around 150 reduction naturally, which is more than enough, but other classes will do almost no vitality damage in the end game. Phantasmal blades builds, for example, suck (if not using Agrivix and devastation) because most of their damage is vitality. There are no good items that reduce vitality resistance.
It’s hard to get good base damage. Compared to things like PRM or Fire strike, or even Menhir’s bastion + Cadence, vitality damage skills suck. There is no good way of converting physical to vitality either.
Items for vitality builds come with only vitality (and sometimes chaos) resistance. Vitality is in the same boat as poison/acid in that way. Forget farming Fabius with a vitality dmg build because you will either gimp your damage or die to bleeding/piercing. Good luck having more than -30% aether resistance without wasting all of your weapon armor augments on it.
3.5. Vitality damage comes paired with chaos damage, which suffers from exactly the same problems.
Do not despair, however, physical-based Withcblade is absolutely amazing! You have 3 easy ways of reducing physical resistance (Assassin’s mark, Black matriarch ring and Curse). Add to that the Black star of deceit, which fits the build perfectly, and you will mop the floor with everything in your way.
Something like this. I’m assuming +6 soldier, +1 occultist skill. The best way to set up devotions, imo, is focusing on block-based devotions and retaliation to boost your otherwise mediocre damage output.
Thank you so much for this detailed reply! I like the look of the build you posted and I’m desperate to try out a sword and board build so I’ll give it a try
Keep in mind that it was my setup with the full Markovian set and a lot of other high level items (the set is great for a block build because it lets you keep overboard up almost 100% of the time). I also used Empowered bloodreaper mark instead of Black star, hence the points in break morale.
The point is, results may vary depending on your gear, but it should still be strong.
Most of the Chaos or Vita builds are not viable because they lack a big amount of resistance reduction. Its rly sad, because they are fucking fun to play. Either their will be a rework on resistances of the mobs or some usefull items with - chaos / vita reduction.
