Path of Exile: Week Race!

They're currently between race seasons in Path of Exile with the last season having ended yesterday. I finished in 1201st place, having stopped racing as soon as I got the legendary item I wanted. I knew I couldn't finish very highly overall because of going away for two weeks and doubting my laptop could play the game very well. (Turns out I was right and it can't.) The next season has not yet started but they've thrown a little something interesting in between the seasons... A week long race!

This race has a few interesting twists going on compared to the races I've done thus far. It lasts a week, for one! It also is running as both a nemesis and domination league for the purposes of getting challenge achievements. This means all rare monsters will have a nemesis mod and that shrines will spawn on the map. I don't need the shrines but I do have one more nemesis mod I need to pick up. At the end of the week any characters that are still alive will get transferred not to the normal hardcore ladder but to the nemesis ladder.

It's also a party event which means the guild stash tab will work for the week. It also means trading is an option and will probably be a real important thing. Real builds might be possible since you can plausibly acquire low level legendaries and a full suite of gems. I also have to assume that the really good people will hit end game in less than a week so there's going to be people running maps and such in a race which is an interesting idea. I wonder if people will group with strangers?

I'm going to give it a shot, of course, but I'm wondering what I should play. My normal race character would be a leap slamming duelist but I wonder if a tankier plan might not be in order for a week long race. Running a playstyle that will result in a death per hour on average is fine if your goal is to win a two hour race. You'll die in most of them, but win every now and then. In a week long race you're just going to die. So ignoring all life nodes seems like it's got to be wrong. Shaving 20 minutes off your early game time is also probably not terribly relevant, especially if you end up worse in the long run.

The race starts at 6pm on Jan 1st. Be there or be square asleep!