[3.2] Spectral Shield Throw Pure Physical Gladiator - How to smash your enemies faces with shields

Spectral Shield Throw is a new Skillgem in 3.2 and it throws a spectral version of your equipped shield. On the first hit it explodes in 8 small projectiles. It deals physical damage, counts as a projectile and the damage is base off the armor or evasion rating of your shield. Energy shield increases the crit. chance of this skill.

+ mostly cheap items to run first maps
+ high damage output
+ high armor/life
+ very good waveclear
+ high resistances due to Auromvorax
+ you dont need a good weapon

- very weak and slow leveling phase
- BiS is very expensive
- also you dont need a good weapon but a very good high armor shield
- physical reflect kills you immediately

You may ask, why you should pick Gladiator ascendency for this build if SST is a projectile skill and Deadeye would be the better choice. Well, in this case you wont throw the spectral shield, you smack it into your enemies faces in close combat ;)

Thanks to Point Blank and Vulnerability, you can charge into the crowd and kill them with an insame speed. Gratuitous Violence on the other hand helps to get even faster through every minionwave. Blood in the Eyes, painforged and Violent Ritaliation are supporting the survivability and pushing the damage. Due to the bleeding buff from Gratuitous Violance you'll see only a cloud of blood if you run into the horde :P

Even most of the builds today recommend elemantal damage, this build ist focused on physical only. With Buratality Support Gem you are not able to inflict elemental dmg but your physical dmg ist boosted very well. You can ignore all elemental resistance from bosses and still have good clearspeed.

I have already metioned some of the skills i have used to get this build working.

Our main skill - Spectral Shield Throw:
You should look out for 6-linked chest piece in order to get the most of this skill. Try to focus on following gems: Sepctral Shield Throw - Faster Attacks - Brutality - Physical Projectile Attack Damage - Maim - Fork/Slower Projectile.
You can also go for 3 green - 3 red sockets and switch fork for damage on full life.

This will help to get a good clearspeed. I recommend to switch betwenn fork and slower projectile to beat the hell out of the bosses to. Fork will help to clear even faster. Since pierce dont work for the shield, only for the projectiles, it does not work. Same reason i wont use lesser/greater projectile support, cause it will only add more projectiles after the first hit. However fork will split your shield into two shields, which both will explod into 8 projectiles after they hit another enemy.

Life Regen, Dmg, Atk.Spd.:
Stone Golem - Ancestral Protector - Culling Strike

these three skills will provide a good life regeneration and your golem will taunt some times to prevent damage, also the golem and the protector will end most of the enemies in their last phase easily due to culling strike. Also the protector gives a nice boost to our DPS due to the attack speed buff. Try to keep it up most of the while fighting bosses or hughe monsters.
If you think you are having enough life regen., enough suvivabilty, or you dont have enough damage, then you should go for flame golem instead.

Survivability:
Immortal Call - Cast when damage taken

Just prevent deadly physical damage by using immortal call with CWDT. Dont have to say much about it ;)

Shield to survive:
Shield Charge - Fortitude - Faster Attacks

In order to boost your survivability and your mobility you should socket Shield Charge and Fortitude. To move even faster, you can add faster attacks.

Vulnerability:
To buff your damage or debuff your enemies defence, you should use vulnerability. You can link it to blasphemy but this ist not the best option, cause this build will use blood magic passive, except you can get your hands on a Impresence amulet.
Otherwise you can link it to cast on hit and link it to another dmg spell.

Other single socket should be Vaal Haste

Maps: Summon Stone Golem and shieldcharge into the crowd, use SST as standard attack (my prefered ML Button). Refresh Fortitude with Shield Charge if you gets trouble with packs, charge out, charge in, refresh the golem, use vulnerability and again SST (if the enemies are not already dead yet)

Bosses: Get as close as possible to the boss, tanking und throwing shields. It is the same procedure as playing on maps but you should use Slower Projectiles Support instead of Fork Support. To avoid high damage charge out of combat and refresh the golem and throw shields from far away to use your life leech and health regeneration or some flasks, charge against the boss again to refresh fortitude, use armor/resistance flasks for the fight.

Since i have leveled with SST i can only say how i've skilled the tree, but i would recommend to level with other skills like molten strike. If you want to level with SST as i was doing you should pick following passives:







Key Talents
Iron Grip
Point Blank
Blood Magic
Resolute Technique

I would recommend to get iron grip and point blank as early as possible if you want to level with SST. Otherwise you can use the Iron Grip Support as i was using it.

Go to ascendancy talents
Blood in the Eyes
Gratuitous Violence
Painforged
Violent Retaliation

Bandits:
I picked the 2 passive points, but Oak is also an option

Weapon:
I have already mentioned, that you weaponchooice doenst matter that much, cause most of the stats wont affect our dmg at all, but if you can find a good wepaon with global dmg and/or attack speed, you should go for it.
Just to get resitances a lot easier i would recommend to got for
Aurumvorax


Shield:
Since the shield is our Main Weapon you should get a lot of Armor on it.
The BiS shield is a rare one with 2K+ Armor, resistances, max. life an global physical damage, but getting something like this is like winning the lottery.

Lioneye's Remorse is a good and cheap choice to go for at lvl 70.


Magna's Eclipse is also a solid and good choice but it is very expansive.
3% reduced Movement Speed (Hidden)
+(20-30) to maximum Life+2 to Level of Socketed Gems
Triggers Level 20 Elemental Aegis when Equipped
(200-250)% increased Armour
+(60-80) to maximum Life
+(80-100) to Evasion Rating and Energy Shield

Gloves:
Meginord's Vise

You get insame life regen and global phys. damage.

you can also go for rare gloves with resitances, max. life and attackspeed. If you can grab some, go for it.

Boots:
I prefere good rare ones with movement speed, resistances and max life

I know these are not good ones, but they should only give a hint.

Otherwise you can go and grab Kaom's Roots, but they are expensive and doubleedged. But since you wont evade much, go for it.

Kaom's Roots
Has no Sockets
Cannot be Knocked Back
+(150-200) to maximum Life
You cannot be slowed to below base speed
Unwavering Stance

Belt:
If you start leveling grab
The Magnate
(20-30)% increased Stun Duration on Enemies
(25-40)% increased Global Physical Damage
+(40-50) to Strength
50% increased Flask Charges gained
+(20-25)% to all Elemental Resistances while you have at least 200 Strength

later on you can get the new 3.2 fated version with The Great Leader of the North , which is clearly the best item in slot.
The Nomad

Global phys. damage, resistances and projectile damage is al you can want ;)

Body Armor:
For body armor i would try to get a Belly of the Beast since it provides a lot of armor, life and resistances to make it even easier to cap resistances or make it possible to switch Aurumvorax for DPS-oriented weapon.

Belly of the Beast
3% reduced Movement Speed (Hidden)
(150-200)% increased Armour
(30-40)% increased maximum Life
+(10-15)% to all Elemental Resistances
50% increased Flask Life Recovery rate
Extra gore

Lioneye's Vision can also be an option, but you'll only benefit from high armor and +life, since pierce does not work very well with SST

Lioneye's Vision
5% reduced Movement Speed (Hidden)
(200-250)% increased Armour
+(60-100) to maximum Life
0.4% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Mana
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 15 Pierce
Enemy Projectiles Pierce you

If you cant get some of these you can go for Tabula Rasa for leveling and till you can grab another 6-link or a good 5-link rare armor


The rare one should have at least
100+ to maximum life
10%+ to cold, fire, lightning resistances
+armor
+ % increased armor
6-link

Amulet:
Best amulet you can get is Imperesence with "adds physical to attack" since it comes with manaless Vulnerable. This pushes DPS and survivability with "Maddening Presence".

Imperesence
+(10-16) to all Attributes
Adds (12-16) to (20-25) Physical Damage
+(400-500) to Armour
+(50-70) to maximum Life
(30-40)% increased Stun and Block Recovery
100% reduced Vulnerability Mana Reservation
Gain Maddening Presence for 10 seconds when you Kill a Rare or Unique Enemy

Otherwise try to get an rare amulet with
70+ to maximum life
10+% to all resistances
10+ phys. dmg to attack

Rings:
The best rings you can get are rare ones, but there are also good unique options. One of this option is Le Heup of All but you need to get very good rolls on it with at least 15%dmg, 20% resistances and 15+ attributes.

Le Heup of All
Adds 1 to 4 Physical Damage to Attacks
(10-30)% increased Damage
+(10-30) to all Attributes
(10-30)% increased Rarity of Items found
+(10-30)% to all Elemental Resistances

As mentioned, the best thing you can get would be a rare ring with following stats:
50+ to maximum life
15+% to all resistances
15+ phys. dmg to attacks
5+% increased attack speed

but to get these stats you have either to craft something an be very lucky or you must be rich since most of theses rings cost 5+ exalted orbs

Jewels:
For rare jewels i would just try to get as much as possible from these affixes:
% increased maximum life
% increased physical damage
% increased projectile damage
% increased attack speed
% to all elemental resistances

but always prefe +life and +pyhs. dmg

Flasks:
Since i dont have good flasks by myself, i can only recommend one flasks from another guide and this is Rumi's Concoction. It provides good defens on use.

Rumi's Concoction
+3000 to Armour
(14-20)% Chance to Block during Flask effect
(6-10)% Chance to Block Spells during Flask effect

Apart from that i would recommend following affixes:
of Staunching (bleeding immunity)
of Heat (immunity to freeze and chill effects)
of Iron Skin (increased damage, regen and additional armour)
of Grounding (immunity to shock)