[1.3] Didii's Immortal Facebreaker (+video) [HC-viable]

- Super tanky against attacks
- AFK possible
- Solid damage (2-shotting white packs)
- You don't feel physical reflect
- Quick leveling, both early as mid-game (I'm going into the late-game phase now)
- No 5L required

- Degens are very painful, especially chaos degens
- Hard to get max resist
- Slow hard-hitting monsters are still very dangerous

Facebreakers makes you a slow, hard-hitting character. Your damage is thus set back mostly by attack speed. Since Reckoning has only a short cooldown of 0.4 seconds and doesn't care about attack speed, it will deal massive amounts of damage each time it triggers. So going for high block not only makes him more tanky, but will also increase its damage potential greatly. Life leech will then also give us a large portion of our health back.

Aegis Aurora makes you gain 2% of your armor as ES on block instantly. For me, this is about 200 ES. The instant gain gives us a small buffer so life leech could regenerate a little bit more life before we get hit again. With Aegis Aurora it's actually very possible to leave out Unwavering Stance, since ES gives an additional 50% chance to evade stuns. So every time we block, there is a window in which are more likely to escape tougher situations. We also gain 5% evade chance from for not taking it. Something which I might try in the near future. Without this shield, I do not recommend dropping Unwavering Stance.

Abyssus is a dangerous item and I don't like it too much because of the +(40-50)% increased physical damage taken mod. But it doubles our damage, so we really can't do without it regrettably. It makes it much more possible to get killed if you don't have enough +life gear and are unlucky with your blocks.

Meginord's Girdle is also used for damage and can be swapped with a normal belt, but that would make mapping a lot slower. If I remember it correctly, I lose about 600 dps which is quite a lot.

Screenshots are from a level 68 character

Main attack
Infernal Blow - Melee Splash - Melee Physical Damage - Life Leech (- Faster Attacks - Weapon Elemental Damage)
OR
Cyclone - Life Gain on Hit - Melee Physical Damage - Faster Attacks (- Life Leech - Weapon Elemental Damage)
> I use Infernal Blow since it's super satisfying, leaves no corpses, almost always stuns the target and is less prone to desync
> Cyclone should be tankier
> I'm currently working with a 4L. Once I get a 5L, I'll add life leech and am able to free up the life leech nodes on the passive tree and put it into even more defenses
> I'm currently using Blood Magic instead of Life Leech because I'm having mana issues. A 1% mana leech ring solves the problem though. (thanks I0wa) With Cyclone's higher mana cost it could be a bit worse if you're doing short distances.
> Infernal Blow is still a bit dangerous for an elemental reflect map. If you kill a whole pack in 1 blow, it could do some fair damage to you. I think the initial explosions are considered as a single hit, thus you only have 1 roll to block all that damage. Cyclone is much safer in that way.

Secondary attack
Reckoning - Life Leech - Endurance Charge on Melee Stun - Melee Physical Damage/Inc. AOE
> Since the damage is so high on Facebreakers you will always stun, gain an endurance charge and a good amount of health on every block, great skill
> The more you get attacked, the more damage you'll do

Aura's
Herald of Ash - Tempest Shield (lvl 1) - Grace - Reduced Mana
> Grace because we will take Iron Reflexes, the armor you gain from this is much higher than when using Determination; we are already missing a big chunk of armour because of the Facebreakers and Aegis Aurora.
> Tempest shield is only used for the 4% block chance, it has an int requirement so better not level it

Movement
Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Blood Magic
> I have this on my weapon swap since you can't use Leap Slam unarmed. You can also use Lightning Warp if you don't want to swap, but mind that you do not have a lot of free mana and it will probably be a lot slower

Other
Molten Shell - Vaal Molten Shell - Enduring Cry - Increased Duration
> Enduring Cry is to be used for Bosses
> In party, use Enduring Cry to draw attention away from your party members
> Molten Shells give additional armour which will make you more tanky, since we will gain more ES on every block
> Keep in mind that Molten Shell detonates after having mitigated an amount of damage. Since we have high armour and block, the detonation happens pretty quick.
> Vaal Molten Shell is just super fun to use because of the sheer amount of explosions


Notes
- If you didn't go for Lightning Warp, you still have 3 sockets left. You could use it to link the Molten Shells to a leveled Empower or use it for Vaal Haste/Grace/Cyclone. Or to be counter the negative mod from Abyssus, put in an Immortal Call with Increased duration and self cast it for difficult mobs

Focus is: Block > Life > Armour > Evasion > Resist > Physical Damage
Getting resist from the tree is important! From the uniques, only Aegis gives 10% resist to all and Meginord's Girdle a little bit of cold resist. So all your resistances must come from rings, body armour and boots. Get some passives to help you.

Keystones: Resolute Technique, Iron Reflexes, Unwavering Stance
Essential (~lvl 55)
Level 90

How to level the tree is coming soon...
The life leech nodes under Unweavering Stance and 1 single mana node above the Duelist block node help a lot early-game if you are only working with a 2L or 3L. Currently I have still the leech nodes. When I get a 5L I will remove those in favour of life/resist.

I'm playing in Torment and while leveling (until level 66) I only died once. Mind that I was always 3-4 levels behind the area (including Boss area's) and solo'd everything without ever paying too much attention. If you get 2 times a 2L (all red) you can go one-shotting everything up until Act 2 Cruel with a bad rolled Facebreaker. I started of with a 650%, upgraded it to a 750% for about 15C until a friend came by and gave me a 796% one. Love it. My leveling gear:

With just a generic body armor, added physical damage rings and an Elreon amulet. I switched to Stone of Lazhwar when reaching enough block (~50%) in the tree. The belt for damage, the shoes for movement speed and immunity to freeze (makes you able to yolo chests), the shield for high block and crazy much life for low level, the helmet for resists and a good amount of evasion low level.

I have now died a total of 6 times since I'm trying to push the character to as high level maps as possible without even capped resists. The video shows a lvl 71 map, played at level 66. No problems at all until the boss wich is an unstunnable, slow hard-hitter. One of the only weaknesses of this build.
Pay attention to poison clouds, they hurt. A lot.

These are my current links and skill setups. From most to least important:


> Mind that Facebreaker has RRRR as sockets. I was just lucky while trying to go for RRRB. Since the requirements are very low, chances are still pretty high to get 3 red.
> The amulet can be swapped with The Anvil. It will give you insane protection against attacks, but none to spells. And without Stone of Lazhwar you will probably not be able to wear Aegis Aurora because of the int requirement.

> Both Abyssus as Meginord's Girdle are a huge part of our damage.
> Rings need to have a physical damage mod, but resists and life are also very important.
> Both body armour and boots need tons of armour, resists and life.
> Since Chaos degen is the nemesis of this build, chaos resist on gear would be a good investment.
> For flasks I'd recommend 2 life pots (fast and instant), 1 granite, 1 jade and 1 resistance/Quicksilver flask. Quicksilver mostly to quickly get out of Poison Clouds. If you have all your block, you should be able to drop a life flask. Bleeding hurts a lot, so try to roll a remove bleeding.
> Rumi's Concoction Granite flask would be awesome. It gives armour and +(20-30)% increased attack block chance, and +(10-15)% increased spell block chance. Giving max attack block (75%) chance and about 50% spell block chance. That's really close to Immortal.

1. Walk/Jump/Teleport into group
2. Start hitting face

Alternatively you can just wait until everything dies

> When you are scared, take a chug of your granite flask
> If you panic, mash all the potion buttons
This technique should prevent you from dying at all times

Strand map (map lvl 71) at level 66 (sorry for low quality, this pc can't handle more :) )