[2.4.x ESC] Savage Blaster, Berserker/VP/Crit Blast Rain, defeat Shaper with Chin Sol

(English is not my first language, guide may have a few mistakes. still working on it, If you see strange words/sentences, please let me know, thanks.)

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Videos:
defeat Shaper with Chin Sol, my first Shaper kill in Essence league.
1 death at phase2, zana down, no shield.
3 deaths at phase3, 1st: dot floor, 2nd: Frostbolt, 3rd: three darkball draw close to zana's shield, commit suicide to avoid DOT floor in the center. xD
Guardians

defeat Guardian of the Phoenix with Lioneye's Glare
map run Guardian of the Hydra
map run Guardian of the Minotaur CWDT triple curse
map run Guardian of the Chimera video broke into two, (free version of bandicam, 10min top), lost about 1min video(one death while chimera slip into mist). video is combined from two.
more videos on the way.

This build is based on original Blast Avatar(Berserker version), which you can find in Marauder Builds List. (I copied some content from previous post to save some work here.)
Main skill is

Blast Rain has decent clear speed due to its AoE coverage, and because of its explosions overlap, it's also very powerful against single target.
How to calculate the DPS of Blast Rain, and the play style

Simple way is tool-tip dps x (4+0.75) hits(Helmet enhancement)
If I have 39K tool-tip dps, it will be 185K total damage to monsters assuming they stand still and take all the blasts. But usually...monsters move. xD
There's a delay between using the attack and the first explosion, when encounter with monsters, I often take damage before monsters die from blasts. So estimate monsters' movements and attack slightly ahead of their position are the basic strategy when running maps. With 'Increased Area of Effect' support it doesn't matter that much but I still recommend to do so. (The delay can be decreased by increases to both attack speed and projectile speed.)
example, fire at 1 and 2, then you go.

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When I run maps, the pattern is like:
encounter monsters > I attack > I take damage from ranged or fast move melee monsters > blasts land, kill monsters, leech heal > move forward.

Build mechanism

Basically it's a physical Crit Bow build use Blast Rain as main skill, and defence rely on Berserker's ascendancy skill leech 100% damage plus Vaal Pact's instant leech.
with '75% chance for an additional blast' helmet enchantment and 'increased attack speed' from tree/ gear/golem, I do average 18 blasts per second, (20.04 if I get hit and trigger Crave the Slaughter effect)
frequency of hits is one thing that affect my survivability, sometimes I choose attack speed over crit chance or base damage to find the balance.


How to avoid being Stunned

Plan A. Unwavering Stance make you 'Cannot be Stunned', so your attack/leech are not affected by stun. Downside is you cannot evade attacks. (your action could still be interrupted by Freeze. Leech effect could also be interrupted when failed to hit due to Blind).

Plan B. x% chance to Avoid being Stunned
here are sources to get x% chance:
.Master Leo's lv5 crafting on helmet: (25 to 35)% chance to Avoid being Stunned

.Heart of Oak skill nodes, 20+8+8 total 36%!


.new resource in Essence league, use Essence of Scorn on gloves, maximum 34% chance.

now I have over 100% chance to avoid being Stunned, and I can evade attacks! (check my defence status)

If have difficulty to get gloves along with avoid being stunned and nice properties, here's a compromised method, it does not offer 100% stun avoidance though.
Keep your energy shield above 0.
find some energy shield on armour or jewellery. Then find a way to gain/regeneration ES.
In my case, it's the boots give 28 ES, and a jewel with 'gain energy shield for each enemy hit by attack'.
Skills that do multiple hits frequently could easily keep your energy shield up.
If I have Leo's crafting and Heart of Oak (assuming 34+36=70%), it would be 85% chance to avoid being stunned as long as my energy shield isn't 0.


How to avoid being frozen


of course you can use flask before enemy hit when you known their damage could freeze you.
here I want to talk about avoid being frozen of normal status
Plan A: Cannot Be Frozen
well, it's not actual concept of 'avoid' in POE, but I think it's the same in most of cases.
classic simple way is unique item like:

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and the ideal method in my opinion is to get movement speed by regal Mutewind boots, then craft other mods, but it's not easy.

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Plan B: x% chance to avoid being frozen, for Berserker
before 2.4 Essence league,
1. you could get 10 to 20% chance from corrupted amulet, ring, bodyarmour (risky, not easy).
2. passive skill tree (68% chance close to main skill tree of this build, need 5 to 8 skill points investment).

3. master Leo's lv6 crafting on gloves (20 to 25)% chance to Avoid being Frozen. (this one is difficult if with essence 'avoid being stunned')

3. Essence league, there is another source:



x% chance means you need vaal/craft/chance items and collect multiple of them to get effective avoidance, it's not easy to achieve.

How to deal with damage reflection(coming soon, xD)



Character status


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DPS with WED FA PPAD Inc.Crit.strike and Concentrated Effect, buff: hatred + HoA + Lightning Golem

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Inc.Crit.Damage instead of Concentrated Effect

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Inc.Aoe instead of Concentrated Effect, nearly 5L tool-tip DPS but best clear speed.

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Pros&Cons

Pros:
- Rapid clear speed with 'Increased Area of Effect', great DPS with 'Concentrated Effect' for boss fight.
- outstanding survivability. Berserker's Ascendancy Cloaked in Savagery, combining with Vaal Pact and frequent hits from blast rain, makes me recover instantly from any damage as long as:
1. I have something to leech from, and the amount of actual damage dealt by each blast is greater or equal to my maximum life.
2. savagery effect '100% damage leech' is on.
3. attack / leech is not interrupted by freeze / stun / blind(failed to hit).
4. damage I take is not high enough to one shot me.
here is an example




Cons:
- maps with 'Can not leech' is difficult; because of the most advantage is not working, you could easily die, basiclly rely on flasks.
- maps with elemental reflection are not recommended. (though there's a trick to do dual reflection but it require either change gear / use Doedre's Elixir / or action in specific pattern which I'll explain in build mechanism later.)
- Poor intelligence, need to find some on gear.

Ascendancy progress / Skill Tree / Jewel / level up


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Jewel:

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Skill Tree:
Armour version
lv90, 112points Armour version, Iron Grip, Unwavering Stance
Better defence for physical damage reduction, but less efficiency for elemental damage focused boss like Shaper/Atziri.

Current lv91 less armour, Point Blank
This build isn't base on Point Blank, but before I have a great bow, point blank is efficient to do specific fight (Shaper/Atziri etc), especially with Chin Sol.
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lv78, 99points, finish Trials of Ascendancy in Merciless
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lv68, 89points, finish Trials of Ascendancy in Cruel
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lv55, 68points, after finish Trials of Ascendancy in Normal, Pain Reaver allocated
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lv55, 68points, before Trials of Ascendancy. Vaal Pact allocated.
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lv35, 44points
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lv20, 22points

Recommend level up using Frost Blades before you can use Blast Rain(lv28).
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Bandits:
Normal help Oak/ Cruel kill all/ Merciless kill all.

Gem Setup

6L Blast Rain
best clear speed set:

If 5L, remove Inc.AoE
switch between 'Increased Area of Effect' and 'Concentrated Effect' for clear speed or higher DPS for single target that does not move often.(Shaper/Atziri etc)

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and mid-way option:

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4L #1 Aura / buff set.

Hatred and HoA both offer x% physical daamage as extra elemental damage, and these 'extra' can be supported by any 'increased elemental damage' or 'increased weapon elemental damage', which could boost tool-tip DPS over 60%.
On-demand options:

For dedicated elemental defence, 'Guardian of the Phoenix' for example, I use Purity of fire + Arctic Armour + HoA.
Other case like map mod 'cursed with elemental weakness', just turn on Purity of elements.
You need 155int to run lv20 Purity of Lightning(as well as Enfeeble).
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4L #2 CWDT set
for deal with physical damage:

lv12 Chaos golem offer 4% physical damage reduction, better than nothing, xD.

for those not focused on physical damage, change chaos golem to:


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4L #3 Movement / others

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CWDT dual Curse
If 6L armour and 5L bow:


If Kaom's Heart, 4L

this set struggles between curse level and the amount of damage need to take. It's lv56 in my case, but I think this could go higher if you have more HP.

Gear

Lioneye's Glare - classic cost-effective unique is recommended before you get a decent bow.
If you have a nice quiver and ring/amulet with 'add x physical damage to attack', it's even viable for T16(check my video)

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Current Gear in Essence league (you want at least 65 INT from gear):




Not Harbinger, it's a 370+ pDPS Spine Bow with 7.6 crit. It's cheaper than popular high DPS/Crit bow, but I found it's balanced just fine between attack speed and crit chance for this build.
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Shaper fight set, Dream Fragments is for mid-way boss

My current maximum tool-tip DPS with Chin Sol 36k, no flask buff.
With Point Blank the maximum damage could be 36 x 4.75 x 1.5 x 2 = 512k without flask!
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ideal gear is 6L bow with high attack speed / crit/ pDPS, plus Kaom's Heart
gear in standard league:

MF Gear



for culling:



Flask

Normal set for map run.

Cloaked in Savagery which is the most advantage of this build requires taking savage hit that removes at least 15% of maximum life to trigger the 100% dmg leech effect. In some cases the damage come with frequent mid-low damage hits (eg: wolves charge from Rigwald) or damage over time which cannot trigger savagery effect (Shaper's Kamehameha, The Goddess' life draining beam etc). There is a self-damage way to deal with these situation:
Doedre's Elixir make you take 10% of your maximum Life as Chaos Damage on use, and it count as one hit! With -60% chaos resistance(default in merciless) I take 160% chaos damage from that hit which remove 16% of my maximum life, which become a savage hit, it triggers 100% dmg leech effect.
It also helps to deal with monsters reflect physical/elemental damage.

DPS flask option:

Diamond Flask's effect won't be shown at tool-tip DPS, but actually it's very powerful. see details

Full DPS set for shaper phase3 fight.


recommend set for Guardian of the Chimera

When Chimera slip into mist and sneak attack you, use Granite and Basalt, run over one mist to another until you caught Chimera. Take Forbidden Taste or Divine Life Flask with 'Instant Recovery when on Low Life'to recover life.
Ruby Flask is for the pet dog. don't underestimate the damage of its multiple fire orb, their AOE could overlap. better turn on Arctic Armour / Purity of fire.
Atziri's Promise for snake's chaos damage.

Other

Special thanks:
wangpi and bigbrot who share experience and resource with me.
Flyaway_Grinder who gives moral support
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my other build guide and game discussion
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Character status track since sep 5 2016

2.4 Essence League Character
status

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Gear


Skill Tree
lv74 Skill tree
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Savour these moments, for they may never return.
Last edited by shghostell on Nov 23, 2016, 8:52:03 AM
Last bumped on Aug 5, 2017, 1:06:25 PM
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Skill Tree

Atlas


Savour these moments, for they may never return.
Uber Labyrinth finished
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Gear




Skill Tree

Atlas


Savour these moments, for they may never return.
Last edited by shghostell on Sep 12, 2016, 11:27:46 AM
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Gear






Skill Tree

Atlas


Savour these moments, for they may never return.
Last edited by shghostell on Sep 17, 2016, 7:58:16 PM
first time shaper fight, dead! xD
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Gear






Skill Tree

Atlas


Savour these moments, for they may never return.
Last edited by shghostell on Sep 24, 2016, 8:37:14 AM
reserved for recent character track, and death video for fun.
Atlas


defeat 123 map boss alone.

Character status in standard


I feel more confident now. xD
Savour these moments, for they may never return.
Last edited by shghostell on Nov 30, 2016, 6:09:24 AM
Passing by.
10ex cost at least, but fair enough for a Shaper viable build.
Hello
thx guide pls check my gear
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/TheGrammaton/characters
thx
Beware of the chaos resistance on your body armour, it could prevent Doedre's Elixir trigger the savage hit effect.
I assume you take Doryani's Invitation due to a little problem with elemental resistances, others are all fine.
Savour these moments, for they may never return.

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