Sexy Slayer Builds @_@

As we are still in dire need of an "Slayer Blood Gods High Commander", we have to know what weird builds are somewhat viable. Like some other specialty 0/100/0 is not necessarily the best option.

Since I got 4 slayer at the moment, most reached the primus bracket, it's time to weed out the weak builds. (focus on agi as the main stat)

First we have the "most" defensive build I can think of.

20/40/40 Vanish fake Juggernaut:

Shadow skills: Unnatural Agility and Weapon Finesse (Sixth Sense may be switched with Weapon Finesse)
Slayer skills: Weapon Skill, Weak Spot, Mystic Markings and Blood Bath
Trixster skills: Cheap Shot, Shank, Unseen Strike are needed for Vanish

Using the only defensive skills available for slayers are Vanish and Juggernaut, so obviously we pick Vanish and use lvl 2 Juggernaut to equip heavy armor and unlearn it again.
Blood Bath becomes our main damage source as we " maybe should" last a bit longer in fights. This build depends on consistency so we use Lunge/Slash/Bash to trigger Vanish as often as we can. Dunder, Human, Spite and Elaar could be a solid choice for this.
If a full set of heavy armor without Armor Movement is inferior to the 4/1 heavy/medium armor combo with Armor Movement we have to substitute the torso with medium armor and pick Armor Movement, dropping Weapon finesse. (until someone will actually test it, we have to guess)

As of right now this build is a bit lackluster and the weakest I tried. But!! as always this can change with full orange gear and I honestly expect it to be true here. (I run this build with Armor Movement and without Blood Bath right now for lazy reasons, don't want to relearn the howl slayer tree twice just to test it with low quality gear)


40/40/20 Injury fake Juggernaut:

Shadow skills: Unnatural Agility, Keen Eye, Weapon Finesse and Sixth Sense
Slayer skills: Weapon Skill, Weak Spot, Mystic Markings, Blood Bath
Trixster skills: Cheap Shot and Shank

The idea is to rely solely on injury damage so the whole build revolves around Keen Eye, Mystic Markings and Shank paired with the nice combo of Weak Spot and Cheap Shot.
After an injury is created we make use of the additional damage which has all sorts of benefits. Fast 1h weapons are recommended for a better chance to create more injuries. Full heavy armor for slightly more durability, we don't really need the speed advantage. This build is right now fairly mediocre :D again with better gear and stats this should start to produce those sweet injuries more frequent and to an extend a very injured opponent tends to die more often. So this is our potential "killer" build.
Weak Spot and Cheap Shot ensure an almost 100% trigger rate each round and serve basically as enhanced auto attacks, one does good damage and the other is like Feint and provides extra hit chance. I used this mini combo in the past and was very happy with it.
Dunder, Spite, Human or Snivler can be a beneficial race for this build.
Don't have any specific weapon recommendation besides 1h swords or exotics. Dual Gladius should be the best option or dual Whips for some shenanigans.
(This build right now is as the above without heavy armor and is missing Cheap Shot which is substituted with Armor Movement, this will also change with full orange gear. Dual whips are and will be the first choice here)


40/60/0 Initiative Slayer:

Shadow skills: Unnatural Agility, Sixth Sense, Weapon Finesse and Blazing Speed (Keen Eye serves no purpose here)
Slayer skills: Weapon Skill, Weak Spot, Mystic Markings, First Strike, Vital Strike and Armor Movement

This build is inspired by "Hells Judge" as his standard hybrid slayer build (30/70/0) with 1h weapons was fairly fast and did impressive damage.
The idea is very basic, be faster than everyone else and cripple the opponent.
Right out of the gate, yes Blazing Speed and First Strike! both are needed. Blazing Speed has more quality to it, but the first hit in a fight has sometimes devastating consequences and sometimes some opponents are slightly faster or fellow slayer with First Strike. So yes we need both skills and with Vital Strike they form the foundation of this build. Only downside, we have to target the legs to get the Agi debuff from Vital Strike. This build also uses only medium armor and a Snivler race is recommended.
Looks like a weak build to begin with, but this is the most dominant out of all my slayer attempts (considering only primus performance, blood gods performance may change drastically)
Nothing special just two damage skill in Weak Spot and Vital Strike, but the sheer number of hits should give us enough damage and/or enough initiativ suppression against opponents to control the fight. (heavy armored opponents may pose a serious threat)
Dual Gladius is commended as they have by far the best speed/damage ratio, one could opt for gladius/dagger or dual dagger if more speed is needed and damage/deflection is no concern.


Note: The main damage source for most slayer is Weak Spot hence Eviscerate is not crucial to every build.
There are far more builds out there so feel free to post your thoughts.

I always have found your posts on slayers to be rather interesting, there is not much information about them.

Though I do wonder why you pick Vital Strike over Blood Bath in your Initiative Build. I don't know the specifics on Vital Strike, but I know bloodbath is consistently good damage and high bleed. I feel that the control that Vital Strike gives is less important than the damage lost by not choosing Blood Bath. Anything with low damage output suffers against blood bath builds, as any damage on the blood bath attack will trigger the full bleed. Because of this it works well against defensive opponents, as they tend to run heavier armor, as long as they don't deflect all of the Blood Bath attacks. I could see Vital Strike being helpful against highly aggressive glads that can do high damage quickly, However taking juggernaut 2 ranks and getting heavy armor will mitigate the issue. Also being forced to target legs for an agi debuff is obnoxious, and heavy/ medium armor legs have high armor values relative to other locations. Blood bath seems more generally useful in a build like this, especially if you go first and land the attack. From what I have noticed its more important to go first on the first round than on other rounds as it allows you to determine the tempo of the battle. Vital strike will allow you to keep your initiative advantage, but I don't think it determines who goes first. Vital Strike has more utility, but I think the damage from Blood Bath might outperform it.

Great post, I look forward to seeing more.

I've always found that slayers with vanish skill never seem to use it.

OK before I get to far into this there are a few things to note.

First off, we know there are weapons that are Unsuited to an attack style, you dont bash with a dagger for instance. That being said i think it goes further then that. I belive each type of style has both an "favorite" weapon set, that they are most suited, so lets break it down into this three catergories. Suited, being the best suited to the class, MA or marginally suited, meaning it works, and can be effective, but isnt optimal and US or unsuited, see bashing with a dagger. Now that being said, I belive there is a random factor that set a favored weapon to each gladiator as they are created. Something you do not ever find out unless you watch closely. WIth favorite weapons you will notice a few more things in attacks that lets you know. I am not going to get into this heavily now. but, keep it in mind.

Now, also I belive there there is a favorite run "speed" if you will for each style. If we break OE and BL into sub classes, we get

1-2 Very low
3-4 low
5-6 Moderate
7-8 Higher
9-10 very high

this again can show signs that your int he right ball part. Again not going to get into this heavily here, but if you watch the fights you will see what I mean.

Slayers have two very unique fighting styles available to them, but I am only going to get into one of them in this reply.

The Striker.

The striker is what we like to refer to as a "Jumper" class. The point being hit fast, hit first, hit hard and end the fight as quickly as possible. There are down sides to this style. The main being they simply do not have defense, and they can not take a beating like their heavily armored brothers. I believe Aphexii touched on the core of this build in his "hells judge" build. however since I am only looking at "pure" slayer builds in this replay Ie 0/100/0 builds, I am not going to break down his build here. ( not that i am qualified to, Aphexii is a very talented manager, with alot great insight, so I would presume to break down his builds)

Skills:
Tier 1 , Two-handed weapons.. Why, because Strikers seem to thrive on THW, and we want big power, and big hits fast.
tier 2, Weak spot, sweep.

Tier 3, First Strike
Tier 4, Blood Bath, Vital Strike
Tier 5, Eviscerate, Disarm
Tier 6, Flurry of Steel

Armor, Medium and Light ( you have to stay in the green encumbrance, the lower the better).

Stat importance, Intelligence, Agility, Strength (chi as a bonus)


Run Style High/low to high/mid Aim locations Head/torso minute 1, legs minutes 2, torso rest of fight, torso/head when opponet is on ground.

Suited weapons; Greatsword, flamberge, warsword, zwhander. Hammers being MA, Chains/flails being US



Ideally this is what we are looking for in a fight with this particular build.



The fallen remains of gladiators litters the arena sands!
R O U N D 1
>> BUCHERA SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 1
>> MITIKHAN SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 1
MITIKHAN hurtles madly to and fro.
MITIKHAN raises his CHIPPED FLAMBERGE overhead and makes a devastating attack.
MITIKHAN makes a swift and skilled attack! (-Vital Strike-)
Devastating slash to the shoulder almost removes the arm as a huge spray of blood covers the crowd! (+223 Damage)

BUCHERA screams in agony as the strike causes him to drop his weapon!
BUCHERA gets knocked off balance by the strike and falls to the ground!
R O U N D 2
BUCHERA can't find an opening to stand!
>> BUCHERA SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 3
>> MITIKHAN SWITCHES TO STRATEGY 2
BUCHERA tries to attack from the ground.
BUCHERA takes a wild swing.
Women in the audience giggle at the pathetic hit to MITIKHAN's abdomen. (+3 Damage)
BUCHERA moves around on the ground looking for an opening to strike.
BUCHERA throws an uncertain punch toward his opponent.
Grazing blow to MITIKHAN's leg. (+3 Damage)
MITIKHAN hustles uncontrollably to and fro.
MITIKHAN quickly swings his CHIPPED FLAMBERGE at BUCHERA
MITIKHAN looks to create havoc with a cruel attack! (-Blood Bath-)
Slash to BUCHERA's sternum opens a sucking chest wound! (+252 Damage)

R O U N D 3
BUCHERA attempts to pick himself up off the ground, but slips and falls back down!
BUCHERA readies a strike from the ground.
BUCHERA jabs with his CHEAP KNUCKLE DUSTER and nearly loses his footing.
The attack to the Achilles tendon proves to be very ineffective. (+1 Damage)
MITIKHAN quickly lashes out like a snake with his CHIPPED FLAMBERGE.
MITIKHAN's CHIPPED FLAMBERGE connects with BUCHERA's bicep inflicting cyclopean wounds! (+137 Damage)

MITIKHAN dashes around as if on fire.
MITIKHAN makes a quick strike.
Devastating slash to the shoulder almost removes the arm as a huge spray of blood covers the crowd! (+252 Damage)

R O U N D 4
BUCHERA yells in frustration as he looks for an opening to stand!
MITIKHAN yells in anger as the Enforcer saves BUCHERA's life!

So all three have valid arguments @_@

Vital Strike over Blood Bath (for the speed build only)

Blood Bath is a damn good skill, IF you can reliably survive more than 3 round it would be better, but I don't think that a speed slayer without heavy armor (that shit slows you down without any Armor Movement skill) will survive that long. Vital Strike is not only used for an Agi debuff, it is a generally huge debuff for every opponent.

Examples are always for late game Blood Gods opponents:
After a successful Vital Strike the opponent get a ~120 Stat debuff depending on the location you hit, that's a huge debuff. 120 Str or Agi is roughly 4 pieces of orange armor, you basically strip some of his armor away for whole 3 turns!! Int does work a bit different and I wouldn't recommend to aim for that debuff (maybe vs trixster for science).
Rage glads are always a problem, you could prolong the fight with a Str debuff and weaken most of their skill or use the Agi debuff to slow them down. (should work best vs dodge rage glads)
It doesn't look that strong in the lower brackets, even in primus the debuff is only -32 which is laughably low.
Imagine 120 Str as encumbrance, should be 1-1,5% overall, it won't affect everyone but some glads are barely on the 25% encumbrance this could mess with the weight quite a bit.
That's the only justification I have for Vital Strike over Blood Bath.


Vanish on a slayer:

Yes it triggers rarely with a Whirlwind/Strike style and a bit less than reliable with our most defensive styles Lunge/Slash/Bash. We have to see it on a lvl 55 fully geared glad to draw more conclusions. Just for now we have to belief :D (4 skills deep into trixster it better be worth it late game)


And something for Smallz to tinker with:

Slayer are the only class that can use slashing/bashing weapons together effectively. War glads could in theory use a sword and mace together, but they lack a common fighting style other than tank.
By effectively I mean without wasting precious skills, a rage with a sword/mace combo is possible, but that world be a true waste.
Slayer are the only class to suffer from to many skills that no one wants.
They have Whirlwind/Strike which works with all weapon types, one could use an axe and gladius without any downsides (besides stat points, you need equal Str and Agi for good damage). As many glads have already almost equal Str/Agi for consistency purposes, a slayer shouldn't be hindered by it.
This opens a unexplored segment of weapon usage which barely anyone has tested or is currently using. The only guy other than myself would be "Murakami" and he is only using a Swords/Exotic combo which is the most "normal" approach we can take. And yes, it is not a waste of skill points to have 2 or 3 weapon skills at once. (Mojito has 2 weapon skills and the "Weapons Master" skill and does just fine.)
(Brief note, I used gladius/hatchet, mace/claw, axe/whip on a weak blue geared slayer with an unfinished skilltree so my experience is also rather low here, but it worked. Both weapons did the expected damage and sometimes Bash was an option. MAYBE just MAYBE there is a hidden gem in form of a very unique slayer build that rules them all @_@)

I actually am waiting for a good premium glad on my slayer account, I might toss this over.


Also I noticed i forgot armor movement on the above example and thus only have 9 skills listed, my bad. My dualwield striker isnt doing anywhere near as good as my thw striker, though I am considering swapping him to a whirler. You should see both of them in blood gods relativley soon, although the incredibaly long time it takes to get any gear will limit testing at the top levels for quite awhile. sadly.

But, your missmatch dualwield info has got me thinking.

hrmm

Damn you Phexi lol

In response to your statement about strength and encumbrance Aphexii. From my testing and calculations Strength does not contribute to carry weight in any way. The tool tip claims it does, but I have stacked strength on many of my glads and seen no increase in the past. Stamina has a noticeable effect on carry weight though, and Size is about 10 times better than stamina for your carry weight.

A 120 stat penalty does sound crippling, I didn't realize it could get so high. I still think Blood Bath would be more consistent though, but I see your point.

Also taking different weapon skills on slayer is an interesting idea, as slayer suffers from too many active skills normally.

Well I would recommend Blood Bath to everyone over Vital Strike, when in doubt take always Blood Bath. But honestly there is no room for both skills in this build and as soon as Vital Strike is dropped the whole build becomes a weaker version of the standard 30/70/0 slayer.


I don't know if Str has direct influence over encumbrance or a ripple effect thru weakening the skills and therefor indirect influence over encumbrance.
Here a quick screenshot comparison: a war glad with 5 str difference

Attachment 170 39% encumbrance
Attachment 171 38% encumbrance

It could be a war specific problem with all the weight related skills or the effect is more visible with higher encumbrance. As I'm more of an Agi type, I only can speak for that one war example. It may be different for lighter armor.

I redid my tests and can say that STR does indeed affect carry capacity, though it is a rather small difference. I decided to use +10 stat achievements. Here are the results:

Plus 10 Size, STAM, STR:
Attachment 172
36% encumbrance

Plus 10 Size, STAM:
Attachment 173
37% encumbrance

Plus 10 Size, STR:
Attachment 174
37% encumbrance

Plus 10 STR, STAM:
Attachment 175
41% encumbrance

No Achievements:
Attachment 176
42% encumbrance

It looks like STAM and STR have similar encumbrance values to each other from what I can tell.

Size affects carry capacity the most. Then Stamina is also a pretty significant factor. Strength has a much smaller effect on carrying capacity, but it does contribute a little. If you want to carry a lot or armor, I've found high size and stamina are the most important factors.

Similar for hit points. If size gives ~+10 hit points per point in size, stamina gives ~+8 hit points per point and strength gives ~+3 hit points per point. Or at least something like that.

Quick Update on Vital Strike, the debuff is roughly 40% off the given stat. Just like Adrenalin Rush, Hamstring and other skills the % will slightly vary about 1-6% depending on your own stats.
So basically Vital Strike is a 40% debuff for Str, Agi or Int (I falsely assumed that Int would be different, but no all three stats are equally decreased. Most glads just rock only minimal Int)

Normal values for main stats are usually at least 200, therefor we can expect an ≥80 Stat debuff most of the time. (Int will be around ~50)


Bodyparts and effects:

Head = Int
Hands = Str
Torso = Str or Agi (either the higher stat is chosen or it is just a simple 50/50 chance)
Legs = Agi


(Maybe Vital Strike is also nicely suited for the Vanish Slayer, as our main damage source is Blood Bath and lowering the opponents stats could give us one or two more rounds of bleed damage. The only thing to test now is the Int debuff and his effects. Unexpected low Int values could be the most detrimental part for opponents.)