[2.6]F.I.I.L Poison Commander Berserker/Juggernaut with 5 totems and 3 Inspired Learning



INTRODUCTION



The Fortesque Institute for Inspired Learning would like to introduce:
3x Inspired Learning - Poison Commander Berserker/Juggernaut.
The build is capable of using 3 Inspired Learning unique jewels to simulate the effect of a headhunter and also is capable of quite neatly upgrading should you acquire a headhunter while still being able to survive and deal enough damage without the headhunter mods as well as enough control over its damage to be able to quickly dispatch map bosses.

IMPORTANT UPDATES



VIDEO


Juggernaut - Shaped Mesa - Test Run
Berserker - Shaped Shore/Strand - Test Runs
More info on Iron Commander


OVERVIEW


This build uses the Iron Commander - Death Bow to lay down up to 5 Siege Ballistas while allowing for 1-2 ballistas to deal enough damage to clear monsters, because of this we can run ahead of our ballistas while they take out the trash.

In addition to this it passes 3 Inspired learning spots and gains at least some benefit from all but 1 of the notables required to make Inspired learning function. Using Inspired learning does of course still cost us some power but it is still ready to speed clear maps, should you want to clear other content the Inspired Learning jewels can easily be replaced for Life+Damage jewels and allow for an easier time in the Uber Labyrinth or fighting one of the game's many difficult bosses.

While running the Juggernaut version we are using the Unstoppable ascendancy which allows us to run Temporal Chains maps without the need for Kaom's Roots which allows us to increase the duration of all buffs including those granted by Inspired Learning or Headhunter turning Temporal Chains(One of the most hated map mods) into one we actively seek and enjoy.

DAMAGE
My current DPS per totem excluding poison is around 13k with poison causing up to an additional 50k, with all 5 totems up this puts our peak DPS at around 300k and far higher while we are channeling wither

DEFENSE
With The Perfect Form Equipped I currently have about 4700 life which doesn't sound like much but when combined with 8 endurance charges and around 13k armour along with our totems defending us it feels surprisingly tanky

Pros:
+ Able to use 3 Inspired Learnings nearly simulating the complete effect of headhunter.
+ The Iron Commander's ability to adjust damage output vs area covered allows us to quickly race through maps and also kill bosses with relative ease.
+ Totems coupled with high placement speed allow for really high mobility to avoid incoming damage and telegraphed attacks.
+ Siege Ballista Totems have very high range and as such previously placed totems are likely to assist you even from a screen away.
+ Iron Reflexes allows for a certain degree of gearing versatility.

+ The Juggernaut class gives us large amounts of physical mitigation and protection against various slows as well as a fairly good movement speed while the Berserker grants us another double-dipping damage multiplier as well as a fair amount of attack speed.


Cons:

- Slightly lower life pool than I would have liked, currently just shy of 4700 with The Perfect form and a bit over 5000 with a Belly of the Beast or Kaom's Heart.
- The fact that we require dexterity on a large amount of items means that getting the required resists can be a pain.


SKILL TREE


Marauder
At around Level 43 we can use 1 Inspired Learning Unique Jewel and can summon 4 Totems
At around Level 72 we can use 2 Inspired Learning Unique Jewels and can summon 5 Totems
At Level 90 we can use 3 Inspired Learning Unique Jewels and can summon 5 Totems

Right now the only difference between the Berserker/Juggernaut is the ascendancy.

Berserker Ascendancy Points:
Crave the Slaughter - Grants us attack speed if we've been hit recently(in combat) and movement speed if we haven't been hit recently(outside of combat) fairly solid bonuses either way.

Aspect of Carnage - Grants us a massive 40% multiplicative damage boost while costing us some tankiness

War Bringer - Reduces the cooldown of our Enduring Cry making it easier to max our endurance charges as well as increase the duration of its regeneration, It also gives us a strong unconditional life/mana heal.

Rite of Ruin
Gives us Attack speed when we haven't killed anything yet allowing us to steal that first buff a little quicker, after our first kill it grants us 6% damage reduction and stun immunity.

Juggernaut Ascendancy Points:
Undeniable - Grants us increased accuracy rating as well as increased attack speeds for the insane amount of accuracy rating we have granting us around 93% chance to hit will also boosting our attack speed by around 20%.

Unflinching - Grants us an additional Endurance charge while also giving us a small chance to gain an endurance charge when hit.

Unrelenting - Grants us a small amount of increased damage, Elemental damage mitigation as well as a 25% chance to gain all of our endurance charges when we gain an endurance charge.

Unstoppable - Grants us increased movement speed and protects us from Freezes, Chills and Temporal Chains' slow effect meaning that we only gain the positive effect of Temporal Chains(Buff Duration)

Bandits:Help Oak, Kill, Help Oak

SKILL TREE EXPLANATION
We strategically target the locations where the Inspired Learning jewels go while picking up any life we need along the way and any damage nodes that look tempting, separating out the points at which we can insert Inspired Learning.

LEVELING POINTERS


This is a new section brought on by questions asked through PM, on the thread or ingame, since all players have access to different leveling gear I decided to include pointers rather than a roadmap.
Spoiler

- If you do not have access to gems and have no wealth to get them, I recommend leveling as a standard melee marauder until you gain access to Siosa in the Act 3 Library.

- If you have access to gems or would like to purchase quality gems then I recommend leveling with Elemental Shrapnel shot and siege ballista using uniques/rares that add flat elemental damage to your attacks while also using the Storm Cloud bow(this is the bow that I had equipped from level 9 until level 32 where I was eager to equip the Iron Commander.) Since we scale totem nodes all kinds of flat damage benefit us equally until later.

- Nice quality gems to purchase early on that have the most impact are:
Siege Ballista - Quality adds Totem Placement Speed which is extremely important for clearing fast and makes the build feel better.
Poison - This adds poison duration which is one multiplier we don't scale much on the tree itself making the extra 10% incredibly worthwhile.
Added Chaos - As a world-drop-only gem we are going to have to buy or find one anyway and the quality bonus double dips so its quite nice to have.

- If you have the required resists then before you reach level 90'ish to insert the 3rd inspired learning I highly recommend speccing blood magic, it makes the build far more fluid to play on easier maps and dried lake.

- Do not be too hasty to insert Fluid Motion jewels as until we get Shaper's Touch we lose life when its socketed, Instead use jewels like Mantra of Flames or any old damage boosting jewels in your place until the point where inserting a Fluid Motion will grant you an additional Siege Ballista.

- Likewise don't rush Inspired Learning spots, if you are struggling to clear for whatever reason its important to try to fix your clearing issue before adding another Inspired Learning otherwise it will feel uncomfortable when you get unlucky with buffs.

- While leveling, especially once you reach merciless dried lake try to be conscious of how far apart you are placing your totems, over time I adjusted to determining how far apart to place my totems and how quickly to move forward based on how much damage the monsters behind me were taking, if you want to play at peak efficiency its important to master this. You also don't want to run too far away so that your loot filter doesn't make a sound when something drops.

COMMUNITY SUGGESTIONS
"
rivermud wrote:
Some other items that help while leveling: Brinerot Whalers, Karui Ward, and Diedbellow. The attack speed, and physical damage boost is impressive.

Winds of change was also mentioned by rivermud later on.




JEWELS



We use 3 Inspired Learning Jewels socketed in these areas




Additionally these sockets are suitable for boosting our dexterity by means of Fluid Motion


Should you not require the dexterity feel free to replace them with regular Life+Damage Jewels


Lastly we place a single Rain of Splinters jewel here




For our Life+Damage Jewels we prioritize Life and then Totem Damage, Projectile Damage, Increased Damage, Chaos Damage and then various attack speeds obtainable for bow users as well as any resists we may need.

GEAR




FLASKS



We use Witchfire Brew for that extra damage over time as well as the removal of the need to run a blasphemy.

1-2 Life flasks for healing when you do end up taking some damage

Additional Utility flasks can include Sulphur/Quicksilver/Basalt/Jade flasks depending on content and preference.

It is also worth noting that bleed removal is important since kills with poison on corrupted bloodline packs will affect us.



GEAR EXPLANATION


Spoiler
Weapon

Iron Commander allows us to have 3 Additional totems(on top of the base 1 and Ancestral bond +1) with 600 dexterity as well as having pretty decent attack speed and crit for when we steal a few powerful crits mods.



Off-Hand

Drillneck is currently Best in Slot as it increases our damage by 50% as Siege Ballista always has 100% chance to pierce.


Helm

A Devoto's Devotion can be used for speed clearing and can be swapped with a

Starkonja's head for tougher content where we require a larger life pool.
Siege Ballista Damage is our favoured enchant here.


Chest

The Perfect Form grants us a sizeable increase in dexterity and a lot of extra armour thanks to the fact that it scales evasion rating based on our cold resistance as well as providing us with free arctic armour and 30% spell dodge through phase acrobatics all at the cost of 30% cold resistance.

Belly of the Beast for a higher life pool and some extra resists

Kaom's Heart which gives us a massive amount of life without providing us with resistances.


Gloves

Shaper's touch will grant us approximately 150 increased maximum life at 600 dexterity however it can be replaced with some

Life+Dexterity+Resists gloves if you are struggling with resists/dexterity.


Boots

armour/evasion boots with dexterity, movement speed, resistances and life.

Enchants that help us include
+1 Frenzy Charge(corruption),
Increased attack/cast speed on kill(when we kill something with poison it no longer counts for the totem)
Increased Critical Strike Chance if you haven't crit recently(when our totems crit this buff is still in effect)
Increased Movement Speed if you haven't been hit recently
Resists from Two-Toned boots.


Amulet

A Turquoise amulet would help us meet the intelligence requirement for a level 20 added chaos, but any stats amulet focusing primarily on dexterity is good here, the Adds X - X Chaos damage elreon craft is nice to have here(but is quite expensive at 13c a craft) as well as resistances.



Rings

Our rings focus primarily on filling out our dexterity and resistances while also providing us with some life and it is decently important to have mana regeneration on at least one of them. Again the Adds X-X Chaos damage elreon crafts are nice to have on these.



Belt

+1 endurance charge Perandus Blazon is a great placeholder here although we can also use a

Leather belt crafted with an Essence of Sorrow.
NO HEADHUNTER IN MY POCKET
Our ultimate goal is that we have a headhunter in this slot as it provides life and dexterity as well as freeing up our 3 jewel sockets used for Inspired Learning, this belt is EXTREMELY expensive however.


LINKS AND GEMS(in order of priority)


Weapon-> Siege Ballista, Added Chaos, Poison, Slower Projectiles, Void Manipulation, Pierce
Our Main Attack Skill.
Helm-> Frenzy, Faster Attacks, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Blink Arrow
To Generate frenzy charges on bosses and also to cross gaps/ledges when needed.
Gloves-> Enduring Cry, Purity of Ice, Purity of Elements, Clarity
Generating Endurance charges and granting us extra resistances and Mana Regeneration, if our resists are already capped we can use grace instead.
Boots -> Vaal Haste, Increased Duration, Faster Casting, Wither(Level 1)
Vaal Haste helps speed us up even more and Wither is great for channeling on bosses and boosts our damage substantially.
Chest -> Right now I have a golem socketed in here as well as blood rage and arctic armour, the rest of the sockets are being used to level gems.

Aura Setup


Clarity and any purities to round out our resists or Grace if our resists are capped.

Golem


Fire golem if you have the gem slot for it.

BoE
(BoE)skill=Siege+Ballista;item=Iron+Commander;item=Inspired+Learning;defense=Life;cheap=true;hardcore=false;coc=false;crit=false;atziri=true(BoE)

THE END
Last edited by codraziel on Jul 11, 2017, 3:28:50 PM
Last bumped on Apr 16, 2017, 3:33:31 PM
I decided to run this. I am currently using sunder. What did you use to level with before using siege ballista?
"
rivermud wrote:
I decided to run this. I am currently using sunder. What did you use to level with before using siege ballista?


Well, I was running elemental shrapnel shot with a siege ballista as I had a few levelling bows in my guild stash, using the Skirmish quiver and heading over to Ancestral bond worked nicely, it was a bit of a slow start buying the gems(you know... trading...), but a 20q Siege Ballista only cost me 1c in the end, Storm Cloud was my bow of choice up to Iron Commander along with other items that grant flat damage such as sadima's touch and prismweave(Since we are using mainly totem nodes at the start we scale all kinds of damage evenly), it is important not to skip the Totemic Zeal when you're passing it as placement speed is pretty important, as a marauder and since you pass so much life you should be safe running past the monsters while your ballistas do the work. After a while you should learn what the most efficient pace is to place ballistas and run ahead.

Once I entered cruel with my 4 totems it was pretty smooth sailing, although I had some nice level 42 leaguestones so I stuck around on the ledge for a bit.

Edit: As an extra note I ran blood magic for a good deal of time along with the totem nodes above it, you can actually spec into it early on and keep it till it will give you enough points to get your 3rd inspired learning.
Last edited by codraziel on Apr 13, 2017, 11:54:00 PM
Thank you very much for the detailed response. It filled in a lot of the gaps for me.
"
rivermud wrote:
Thank you very much for the detailed response. It filled in a lot of the gaps for me.


You're welcome, it actually led to the idea of having a leveling pointers section I could easily add to. since I don't really like the idea of an exact leveling roadmap(different players have access to different things and a roadmap can cause them to waste currency)

This will also allow for players to share tips from their leveling experiences in the guide. So thank you for sparking the idea :)
Some other items that help while leveling: Brinerot Whalers, Karui Ward, Diedbellow, and Winds of Change.

The attack speed, and physical damage boost is impressive.
Last edited by rivermud on Apr 17, 2017, 2:58:37 PM
"
rivermud wrote:
Some other items that help while leveling: Brinerot Whalers, Karui Ward, and Diedbellow.

The attack speed, and physical damage boost is impressive.


Thanks for the suggestions, these are all worthy items!, added to the leveling pointers.

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