[3.1] Heavy Strike Berserker - over 2m phys dps (1m+ on bosses), 8200 life... hopefully [3.2] viable
 Video Guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_X_AlBETw Catch me live: https://www.twitch.tv/whissp_ Pros of the build: - high damage - great elder and lich farmer - lots of HP, leech and regen - permanently immune to freeze, ignite and stun - low reliance on flasks Cons of the build: - it is melee - can't do phys reflect maps - map clear is somewhat slow compared to fast builds like autobomber - maps with no leech are doable but if they are T14+ they are risky 
Keystones allocated
Blood Magic Resolute Technique Unwavering Stance Crimson Dance Iron Reflexes
Gear explanation
Weapon
Oh no another Starforge build.... But it is currently one of the best physical damage weapons and that shock chance is great. If you can't afford it, just get any 2-handed weapon with lots of physical dps, doesn't matter if it is sword, axe, staff or mace (swords and axes are preferable however, because you get bleed chance from the tree).
Amulet
This item is very important, gives us free Vulnerability curse, which is a damage multiplier. Thanks to Blood Magic keystone and Mortal Conviction behind it if you have room for it in your setup, you can support Vulnerability with Increased AOE or Empower because you have 150% reduced mana reservation on Vulnerability + Blasphemy.
Boots
Punishment curse gives us even more damage and it gives us the Punisher buff right away when enemy triggers Cast when damage taken (enemy doesn't have to hit us twice). Also synergizes with Berserker ascendancy - you want to get hit. To get +1 curse we need to basically sacrifice one gear slot and I chose boots. It is possible to hit +1 curse corruption on Impresence, but that is very unlikely. It is worth noting that endgame bosses have 80% curse reduction, which means the Punisher buff will be also reduced by 80%. However many bosses are accompanied by adds and if they attack you, you will get full effect of Punisher buff. If this character was in Hardcore, I would go probably for enfeeble. Lab enchant here is also important, because we have Resolute Technique, we can't crit and therefore with Starforge we need external sources of shock chance. With x% chance to shock if you haven't crit recently you have that bonus up all the time because we never crit.
Gloves
You don't have to get these with 2 abyss sockets. Main reason why to use these is to get the Intimidate debuff on enemies (when using Merderous Eye jewel), so they take 10% increased damage from attacks and that is basically a multiplier to your damage. That helps a lot on bosses who reduce the effectiveness of your Vulnerability by 80%. It is important to note that if you have Tombfist with 2 sockets, socketing Searching Eye jewel as the second jewel may actually reduce your damage, but I am not sure how it works and I would need confirmation from GGG on this mechanic. Basically the Maim support gem says "enemies maimed by supported skills take 14% increased Physical damage". What happens if you maim them with Tombfist first? Who knows. Of course if you are on budget, rare gloves with bunch of life and resists are fine, Impresence has higher priority.
Belt
Do not get this if you are on budget. It makes getting resists insanely difficult. However if you manage to fix your resists, you will have freeze and ignite immunity, bunch of life, some damage and stats (in my case almost +70 strength). It may seem like Starforge is the most expensive item on this list, but it is actually this belt - if you want to get ele resist capped for ele weakness maps. Getting any rare belt is just fine, this should be your last purchase. Just remember to get anti-freeze flask.
Chest
Spoiler
The extra leech rate gives us basically the Slayer ascendancy node. Extra life is also nice and with Iron Reflexes this gives us over 2700 base armor.
It is worth noting that the AOE Heavy Strike setup should be socketed in the chest, while the single target Heavy Strike for bosses to be socketed in the weapon. This allows us to chest-swap on some bosses and with Kaom's Heart you have over 9600 life. Nevermind what I said here. According to reddit user kylegetsspam I am already leech capped so that increased leech rate does nothing. Basically a rare chast is better than this.
Ring 1
This is Starforge ring, if you don't have Starforge you don't need shock chance. If you have Starforge this may be pretty expensive depending on how much life / resists you want to get. If you can't get this, enchant on boots and shock chance on jewels should be enough.
Ring 2
Just an Unset rare ring. With my setup I couldn't figure out how to get room for Blood Rage otherwise. Obviously if you don't have double 6-link or Tombfist with 2 abyssal sockets you can use any ring to get resists and life.
Helmet
Just a rare helmet to get resists and life. Evasion helmets work too because of Iron Reflexes.
Flasks
Thanks to Brutality support, this is the only dps flask that multiplies our damage. Arguably most important flask. Try to get Chemist's prefix so you can use this on bosses twice. These flasks don't improve the character too much, but honestly I have no idea what else I would use. This is very situational flask to trigger Savage Hit on yourself to one shot some bosses before they even get a chance to attack you.
Offhand
Basically press "X" to cull bosses. Also this portal setup makes portal gem very strong.
Jewels
2x Weight of the Empire. With 2 of those we basically have around +50% multiplier to our damage. Then you have 3 extra jewel slots. Try to get shock chance and resists on those (especially if you can't afford shock ring). You can inspect mine in PoB link below.
Bandits
Kill all. Helping Oak may be a consideration if you hit level 96+ (you can respec bandit choice later).
Why Crimson Dance keystone?
Don't get this if you are just leveling or doing low tier maps. The knockback from Heavy Strike pushes the enemies back, which makes them move and they take increased damage from bleed. However endgame bosses like Shaper, Elder, Shaper guardians, Liches or some T15 bosses are immune to knockback. If you get 8 stacks of bleed with Crimson Dance it is double the bleed damage enemy would take if they were moving while bleeding.
DPS
 You can play with different setups in PoB. On bosses the DPS is obviously lower because they have 80% curse effectiveness reduction. However if you take bleeds into account it should still be over 1m dps.
Why not Juggernaut?
I can't remember last time I died to physical damage. Whenever I die it is from elemental, chaos or maps that have extra elemental added damage. While I realize Juggernaut gets additional elemental reduction and increased fortify effect, those buffs are so minimal I would rather just stack HP and leech.
Is this going to be viable in 3.2?
Should be. New rage mechanic gives probably way too much life degen but in case it is garbage we can still pick the 40% more damage node and all leech nodes while ignoring rage. We will lose 25% attack speed if we have been hit recently but Windscream boots are getting a (hopefully) buffed fated version.
Skill Tree
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAECAAHnBLMFLQd1CZYJuwthDjwQ8BQgFE0UcRbpGJEaOBuqIVUhYCGQJDclvCcgJy8ppSz7NZI5DjpSOuE8LT38QKBFmka3R35J1U3jUEdXVFhjWfNeE18_X9BhUmMXZU1oWGhlaPJyqXTtdPF2rHrvfNmBOoIHg1-DzITZhO-FUoZgh2qJ2IoiirOMz5BVkGyTqJd5mFefy6IAplenMKknqZSsqq2Nr2y3PryfvTa-p78IwGbApsEHxPbGrsbYz37Tb9d-15bYvdlh2XzawdtP3D3fv-DD5FHqEOoY6wnvDu9O8B_yRfJa82_z3fZI9zL4X_jr_Ev-Cv6P?accountName=whissp_&characterName=whissp_S_M_A_S_H
Path of Building
https://pastebin.com/TzH6Qu4U https://www.twitch.tv/whissp_ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1O53Ot8ffj3JYBeagd-yyA Last edited by whissp_ on Feb 17, 2018, 10:23:24 AM Last bumped on Mar 14, 2018, 2:16:56 PM
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props to you for using non meta skill man
I make mirror tier items, I don't rlly play the actual game. Reddit hates me. I'm not cool.
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Very good tree man, a kaom/belly is definitely worth there, gets up to 9-10k which looks very sexy on zerker.
Also impresence + windscream double curse and that boot enchant are a nice idea. Gives streamers & friends queue priority and leaves supporters who spent hundreds $ packs in the 100k queue.
GGG: Don't you guys follow streamers? | |
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The Maim Support gem has three seperate effects:
The first is %more phys dmg. The second is chance to maim. The third is maimed enemies take increased damage. Since all maim chance stacks additive there is only one maim chance. That means the increased damage taken debuff cannot be applied to the gems maim chance only, but will trigger on any maim done by the skill. I can't say if Tombfist will give you an additional 100% chance to maim or directly skip the maim chance roll. But I'm pretty sure they will not prevent the debuff from being applied. So a Seeking Eye Jewel will give a little bit of dps increase since the monster will definetly get maimed on the first hit. Last edited by VersuchDrei on Feb 16, 2018, 11:15:19 PM
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"I can't remember last time I died to physical damage"
Abyssus says hi :P That's a whole lot of damage, and a whole lot of increased phys damage taken. I'm on the fence about if it's worth building around though ( Jugg) |
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" If you are crit based it's alright. But Starforge already has so much flat damage and it's relatively slow weapon... and besides Abyssus doesn't have resists or health, so that doesn't help against chaos / elemental damage as well. I am not sure if I would use it even if I was a Jugg. https://www.twitch.tv/whissp_
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1O53Ot8ffj3JYBeagd-yyA | |
" Yes, that's what I mean. Low health pool building around it : / Missing health from Chest and helm...it hurts. |
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Looks good, really having trouble finding a facetank build that looks fun.
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Great tree, very effective build, works in 3.2 without any issues.
Probably HC viable aswell, 0 deaths. |
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Hello there -
Really enjoying this build... started it a couple of days ago and am level 65 right now, half way through Act 10. Looking forward to mapping with this character, as it seems pretty strong all around. I wanted to mention something about your gear comments; at least here on Standard, a Cyclopean Belt is only 1 or 2 chaos, so not expensive at all. The Impresence Amulet though? Holy smokes, at least 2 exalts for the version with the Vulnerability mod. So to those that want it, start saving your currency! Starforge is pretty pricey too (in a 6-link), so will likely make do with something else until I farm enough to gear up similar to your guide. Thank you for all the information and the build... great stuff! |
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