Level 96 Crit Smite Slayer^3.27

Notes

Levelling

All of these tips assume a fresh start, or at least not using a dedicated reroll build (like Hollow Palm.) If you have another levelling setup you feel more comfortable with you can definitely do that. PConc could also be good on a fresh start
but as I'm not familiar with that I don't want to share questionable information about it. The important thing is that you have fun while efficiently clearing the campaign. 

If you wanted to mule Smite you could kill Hillock on a Templar and then get the quest reward before starting your duelist. This only matters for a fresh start, and I haven't tested it myself so I can't speak to how good it would feel, but it's an option.

Act 1:
Spectral Throw - Added Fire Damage - Faster Attacks
Frostblink
Leap Slam - Faster Attacks
Sniper's Mark
Enduring Cry

Act 2:
Herald of Ice
Poacher's Mark

Also make sure you pick up Elemental Damage with Attacks and Trinity for levelling in your offhand setup, along with  Flesh and Stone and Blood Rage

Help Alira early (you can also choose to Kill All Bandits if you don't want to respec but it's hard for 1 point to beat 15 Elemental Resistance this early)

Act 3: 
Smite - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Faster Attacks (if you have a 4th link Trinity is great if you can proc it, otherwise you can use something like Added Cold Damage / Added Fire Damage / Rage)
Haste

Act 4:
Smite - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Multistrike - Trinity / Added Cold Damage / Added Fire Damage (Trinity is best but you have to make sure you're proccing)
Mark on Hit - Poacher's Mark - Lifetap

If you have extra sockets you can also grab a Stone Golem or Fire Golem from the quest reward at the end of the act. It's not a lot of power but it does something with an empty socket at this early stage of the game.


Ascendancy Order
Lab 1 - Impact
Lab 2 - Brutal Fervour
Lab 3 - Bane of Legends
Lab 4 - Headsman

You could also take Brutal Fervour last. Your damage will feel much better but you lose the only defense we get from our Ascendancy so there is a real opportunity cost to this.


Early Maps
This guide is tailored to trade, but you could absolutely play this build in SSF. You're just going to spend longer getting some of these uniques. 

I'll have an early maps gear set with barebones stuff to get you started. Once you're strong enough to break into Tier 16s your immediate priority should be getting Rakiata's Dance. For the price this sword is absolutely unmatched, and can easily carry you
through Uber bosses and juiced T17 mod content. If you're on a second character and have the money you can just pick this up right away and shift your focus over to every other piece of gear. 

Prior to Rakiata's Dance I think you're better off using a Rare Axe. Hatchet Master is so strong early and the Rage generation from the Mastery is incredible until you can easily gain Rage from other sources.

Because of our position on the tree it's trivial to cap Spell Suppression. You can get a low roll on a single piece of gear, Eldritch Implicit on Gloves, or even a craft (body armour is the best spot for this.) 

Make sure you check your build in PoB before you switch away from Precise Technique. My build wasn't stronger without it until after I had gotten my first 2 stones, but this was on a fresh start so your experience may vary greatly. The important thing here is 
to test out your changes here in PoB before you commit to swapping into Crit. 

Getting a Lethal Pride asap is huge, essentially solving our Strength by itself. Try to get some combination of Endurance Charge on Kill, Intimidate on Hit, and Gain Rage on Hit (prioritizing in that order.) If you just have the first 2 nodes that's still an excellent
starter jewel, and you can always go back later to get one with more useful nodes. You can also look for jewels to go into the other viable socket we have, so you have quite a few options here. You can use the "Find Timeless Jewel" function at the bottom of the
Tree tab here, and I've already plugged in the 3 nodes we care about. You can change the jewel socket to search up at the top, and if you want to drop one of the nodes from being mandatory simply replace the last 1 in that line with a 0.

The Taming is amazing for damage and ele res at the cost of losing life in that slot. I do recommend using it but if you're feeling squishy and want to level you could drop it for a rare ring with a good life roll and whatever other stats you need to fill out your character.

Yoke of Suffering is very similar to Rakiata's Dance. You CAN beat it with a rare but it's incredibly hard to do and would be MUCH more expensive. Because of this you should just pick up Yoke whenever you can afford it and ignore that slot until you're very deep
into the endgame.

Getting a good Conquest Lamellar is massive for your survivability, and in 3.27 this is easier than ever before. You can source this from the Genesis Tree, buy a Fractured base and craft (these are relatively cheap this league) or just find one that fits your needs buy it.
If you already have Rakiata's Dance and 6 linking your new body armour would be expensive you can just run a single 6 link in your weapon and put off the second 6 link til you build up your stash again. This shouldn't be a problem this league, but might be an issue
in the future when 6 links aren't as common as they are in 3.27.

Clusters are great but I would wait to put them in until you have good enough gear that you can trim some of the fat off the tree. Getting high res on your gear allows you to save a bunch of points, getting more Suppression on gear saves points, you have options here.

For Smite links... check whether Increased Critical Strikes or Increased Critical Damage is better for you. If Trinity won't proc then you can run both of these or Added Lightning Damage


Grafts
3.27's borrowed power comes in the form of Grafts. Storming Eshgraft feels mandatory, and with either CDR or Skill Effect Duration your uptime is virtually permanent. I prefer CDR here because it allows me to move the ring more frequently. For your second graft
you have some options, but I think you want a Tulgraft as they can roll "Non Vaal Strike Skills target 1 addional nearby enemy." I opted for the Aegis Tulgraft to get some extra defense and have a skill with high uptime, but you could also use a Squalling Tulgraft
for a nice damage boost. Given that Slayer is already so good at pumping out damage I probably wouldn't do this, but if you were playing Champion I think there would be more merit to this.


Lategame Optimization

Taking this build further you have a few options. The simplest optimzations would be adding Max Frenzy Charges and switching out Impact for Masterful Form. You could also try something like Call of the Brotherhood and Heatshiver for some conversion shenanigans.
You could also swap over to Champion and stack Fortification with Celestial Brace. I haven't tested this in 3.27 yet but the Rakiata's Dance variant of this build didn't use Doryani's Prototype and so would still retain most of its power in this league.
I have a video for this guide on my YouTube, and I'd be willing to update if for 3.27 if there was some interest. Facetanking Ubers with a 2 handed sword feels pretty damn good.

Map Regexes
Prior to getting level 5 Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks we can't run Elemental Reflect. Picking this up is a really nice QoL but not a priority until your gear is looking solid. The "Safe" Regexes include mods that we can run but that are likely to get us killed.
I use these regexes when I'm focused on levelling, but if you're not concerned with Experience you can use the "Risky" regexes and open up your pool of runnable maps.

For the T17 mod regexes I have left in quite a few annoying mods even in the "Safe" regexes. I would encourage you to check out PoE.re and make your own regex if you find that mine have too many map mods that annoy you. At the end of the day we're here to have fun
and if things like Drowning Orbs are taking away from that there's no problem avoiding those mods. The reason I don't is just to keep my map pool as open as possible.

Before Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks
T16 Safe - "!er,|eec|tal d|o al"
T16 Risky - "!eec|tal d"
T17 Safe - "!o al|'v|teal|om$|f el|net|ever"
T17 Risky - "!om$|f el|ever"

After Awakened Elemental Damage with Attacks
T16 Safe - "!er,|eec|o al"
T16 Risky - "!eec"
T17 Safe - "!o al|'v|teal|om$|ever"
T17 Risky - "!om$|ever"


Hopefully this helps some of you have a good time!