Hello All,

A bit late into the PoE games, I want to finish my run properly this time. I have both dlc's installed.

I have built a Fighter as pure DPS, based on AndreaColombo's lady of pain. Playing in PotD difficulty with a full party of ingame companions (I hate custom characters with no personality). She is human for aesthetics, currently she wields two sabres, but I want to build her for two handed. My weapon of choice is the Tidefall, for the draining and wounding properties, so I have two major questions.

1. If I pick the talents Envenom Weapon and Runner's Wounding shot, will they stack with the wounding property or Tidefall? If they do, the wounding damage should be really great.

The build I have in mind is Knockdown, Two handed style, Disciplined Barrage, Savage Attack, Weapon Spec (Soldier), Apprentice Sneak Attack, Armored Grace, Weapon Mastery (Soldier), then mainly offensive talents and abilites kike Envenomed Strike and Runner's Wounding shot, at 13 I will pick up Charge, it is way too good.

2. Hitting zero recovery.

Is it possible to hit zero recovery with the Tidefall instead of the Blade of the Endless Paths? I know it packs an inherent 5 DR penetration and 20% bonus speed, which makes it the superior choice for reaching the zero recovery, but I am deadset in Tidefall.

I do not care about armor, I can wear a medium one with 35% redovery penalty, which will be mitigated by Armored Grace and Durgan steel, so in essence the recovery penalty will be 100% if I am correct. Can I bring it down to zero? For example, Gloves of swift action, Durganized Tidefall for 30%, Dex will be around 21 or 22 with belt of royal deadfire cannonneer. If I chug a potion of DAoM, it will be another 50%. I hate the idea of picking Frenzy for the attack bonus, even if it is nice thematically, but not in practice. So can I hit the goal of zero recovery without it? Also, I do not care about Cautious Attack, anything that decreases attack speed is out of the window, even if it is a bad idea for PotD, I can live without it. Any opinion is welcome, thank you in advance.

After reading again the AndreaColombo conversation page.6 , I realized that Frenzy does not stack with potion of DAoM, so it is out if the question, which limits even further the possibility of reaching zero recovery I guess.

On 8/25/2026 at 8:31 PM, Med1ev4L said:

1. If I pick the talents Envenom Weapon and Runner's Wounding shot, will they stack with the wounding property or Tidefall? If they do, the wounding damage should be really great.

Yes, they will stack.

On 8/25/2026 at 8:31 PM, Med1ev4L said:

2. Hitting zero recovery.

Is it possible to hit zero recovery with the Tidefall instead of the Blade of the Endless Paths? I know it packs an inherent 5 DR penetration and 20% bonus speed, which makes it the superior choice for reaching the zero recovery, but I am deadset in Tidefall.

No, it will not be possible. WIth the optimal item setup* you will be left with 1 frame of recovery (0.7 or 0.8 depending on your DEX which will get rounded up to 1 frame iirc). However, Tidefall with high MIG does so much additonal damage that it will more than outbalance the slower (non zero) recovery speed. It's just 1 frame after all. You will see a very, very short appearance of the recovery bar.
To play around with your recovery time a bit, using various talents and items, you can use this tool which was impletented with respect to the code base of the game:

https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/

*) you need to enchant Tidefall with Durgan Steel and get Gauntlets of Swift Action which stack with everything (like Deleterious Alacrity of Motion). With Armored Grace and Durgan Steel on the armor you can wear up to Scale Armor and have zero recovery penalty.

With the Blade of the Endless Paths you could achieve 0 recovery and on top of that use Vulnerable Attack without slowdown and wear Plate Armor because the additional speed anchantment of the weapon drops recovery into the negative real so to speak (so the added recovery of Vulnerable Attack doesn't bring it up to zero so there's even space for recovery penatly from armor).

But usually Vulnerable Attack, paired with the 5 DR bypass from Estocs (+10 dmg per attack if attack enemies with 10+ DR) isn't as potent as high MIG wounding (which also bypasses DR and stacks with itself). So the BotEP usually does a little less DPS than Tidefall but allows to be more sturdy (bc. allows for thicker armor). On the other hand Tidefall also drains endurace so you will be sturdier, too.

I personally like to give BotEP to a Paladin because the Marking enchantment stacks with Coordinated Attacks which is a great combo.

Edited August 27Aug 27 by Boeroer

Thank you so much for your detailed answer Boeroer! I have been following this forum since years, but I only recently became a member (shame on me). You are a total legend and I am honoured by your response. I will stick to Tidefall then like I initially planned ❤️