aerial wrote:I wouldn't level as poison, because it really kicks in later, once you get gladiator dominance poison duration bonus (to both stance and snake bite). Also later with pierce, that multiplies your damage, vs early on you will have none.
If you really want to play as poison, I'd use earthquake 1pt melee until 100, you can spam 80% wdm earthquakes at nearly 0 mana cost, to spread snake stance, attack speed with dual wield is very fast with very basic gear, just rush with that. It feels better than using stampede early on. I'd kill bosses with melee skills, snake bite as op as it is, it isn't as isnane early on without pierce and gladiator's dominance.
For skills you wanna max ancient blood to keep that snake stance level as high as possible, as those hard points are greatest source of additional poison damage. Rest is pretty much optional, can go daedalus for more life/AR.
I have to respectfully disagree simply because i leveled as poison and had absolutely zero issues doing so. Since we will never be achieving any kind of decent amount of Block Chance anyway in the leveling process i found Duel Wielding Sterrenvogel (Throwing Axe) not only give enough damage for everything in the game up until Hell Difficulty but also gives us a more than respectable amount of Pierce along the way if you upgrade those weapons as you go that leveling was quite smooth for me. This is without even considering other TUs in other slots along the way that if leveling this as an alt and already haveing access to plenty of ACs would be even easier. Load some Nef Runes early as you can everywhere you can to make up for lack of Glad Dom and you have some decent Clear and more than respectable Single Target Damage i found.
However at the end of the day it doesn't matter too much in the end because either way you go about leveling to 100 you will still have to burn one of your 3 free respecs once you get your ultimate skill Glad Dom regardless. Then you will also have to burn a second Respec upon getting most of your charms up to 125 or so. But like i said i found DWing those weapons worked quite well till Hell in which at that point before i respec i went ahead and got my Runes for Raptor and transitioned over to the TU Shield as well. All of which give a nice smooth progression for me personally. Not to say your leveling strat is better or worse than mine but i wouldn't say leveling as poison out the gate is a terrible option either if you do it right and stick with just the 2 skills in Throw and Stance only while giving more than enough points from there for everything else along the way. Every 4 points to Ancient Blood and the rest in MT King till Glad Dom is ready.
IDK to each their own but personally i like to get a feel for what im working towards asap when i make builds. With all due respect i might add.