[3.2] The Vigil - Vigilant Strike Juggernaut [BOTW submission]
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Hello exiles,
this is my very first self-evolved build that i would like to share. I'm level 87 with this character and will update this thread as i continue playing.
Language warning
English is not my native language, so there may be some errors in this post. I'm keen to improve, so if a spelling error in here drives you mad, please tell me.
Disclaimer
- This is not the most powerful build of the world, so if you only play meta builds, leave here.
- This is a Melee Splash build. If you hate playing with Melee Splash, this build is definately not for you. - I am a softcore scrub, so i am unable to declare this build as hardcore-viable. I can imagine that it is, because of the tankiness, but i'm not experienced enough with hardcore. If you need a hardcore-prone build, leave now!
Backstory
I love complex mechanical interactions and prefer creative and interesting builds over meta speed-clearers. I always wanted to make use of the Vigilant Strike attack gem. It has a huge damage effectiveness value and always hits, which renders using Resolute Technique obsolete and enables critical strikes on a two-hander. The built-in Fortify is nice as well. Previous versions of the juggernaut did sometimes not create enough endurance charges to sustain that skill or forced you into using the Endurance Charge on Melee Stun Support gem. With the 3.2 ascendancy changes, the juggernaut now creates more endurance charges faster and more reliably than ever before. This brought me to trying the gem again. And i think the result is powerful, fun and shareable!
Build mechanics
This build makes great use of endurance charges, which provide regeneration, physical damage mitigation, damage and resists in this build. Endurance charges are the engine that enables Vigilant Strike to be used continuously (bypassing the cooldown), power up our Immortal Call duration, and heal us instantly if we take a lot of damage (due to Kingsguard).
Because Vigilant Strike always hits, the Resolute Technique keystone is not needed, which enables critical strikes. The built-in fortify save us the use of the Fortify support gem. Unfortunately, this gem link is used again by Melee Splash, because Vigilant Strike is a single-target attack. Aside from that, the build tries to gather as much more multipliers as possible to increase damage to one-hit-possibilities. If a monster does not die to a one-hit, it will likely be stunned, which further increases our survivability. I should mention that playing with Melee Splash is a little bit different than using a real area skill. You cannot target the ground directly and have to click directly on mobs (unless you are using an attack-in-place-macro). Some players don't like this behaviour at all.
Playstyle
- Enter a map - Cast Enduring Cry or use Doedre's Elixir to get your initial endurance charges - Aim at a monster in the middle of a pack - See the pack explode - Repeat!
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- It's very fun popping up whole packs at once - This build is a nice map-boss killer due to high single-target damage - Tanky. Endurance charges, long Immortal Call and Life regain on endurance charge expiration make this char very damage-resistant - Uber-lab farming. As a juggernaut, physical mitigation is not a problem. So Izaro's slams are not as hard as with other builds. The built-in life gain when Immortal Call triggers or regeneration ability with endurance charges is nice to have against traps as well. Cons: - no meta - Melee splash - noob-friendly (besides the mechanical confusion maybe) - Movement speed is rather slow
Stat screenshots
Level 87, single-target attack, in hideout  Level 87, multi-target attack, in hideout  Level 87, single-target attack, with endurance and frenzy charges  Level 87, multi-target attack, with endurance and frenzy charges 
Gem links
Weapon (Multi-target)
(In order of importance) Vigilant Strike - Our main skill Melee splash - Turns Vigilant Strike into an area skill. Quality on this gem gives 10% area of effect. Melee physical damage - more multiplier boosting our damage Brutality - more multiplier boosting our damage Ruthless - more multiplier boosting our damage Damage on Full Life - more multiplier boosting our damage. Our regeneration is high enough to outregen the Blood Rage DoT.
Body (Single-target)
(In order of importance) Vigilant Strike - Our main skill Melee physical damage - more multiplier boosting our damage Brutality - more multiplier boosting our damage Increased critical strikes - to increase the crit chance versus tough bosses Chance to Bleed - Adds flat pyshical damage which gets scaled by Vigilant Strike and bleed chance Damage on Full Life - more multiplier boosting our damage. Our regeneration is high enough to outregen the Blood Rage DoT.
Helmet
Vulnerability - A nice passive more multiplier, adding bleed and maim chance as well. Blasphemy - Turns vulnerability into an aura. Herald of Ash - To make use of the overkill damage we produce in packs. This can clear the rest of the pack if there are survivors. This still works while using Brutality, we just don't care about the added fire damage. Increased Area of Effect - To increase the area of vulnerability and herald of ash.
Gloves
Cast when damage taken (Level 7) - Automatically activates the following gems when we take enough damage from hits. Immortal Call (Level 9) - To make us immune to physical damage and to instantly heal us when consuming the endurance charges (due to Kingsguard) Increased duration - To enhance the duration of immortal call. Blood Rage (Level 5) - Because I'm lazy and don't like activating blood rage manually. Gives us access to frenzy charges, attack speed and additional leech.
Boots
Enduring Cry - To generate endurance charges when in need. (No link required) Leap slam - Movement skill and to trigger maim while fighting a boss. Vengeance - to trigger maim while fighting a boss. Sure, first thing to link Maim with is ususally Ancestral Warchief, but i prefer another soure of endurance charge generation and automated maiming on bosses. Maim - to further increase the damage against bosses
Gear
Weapon
Tidebreaker This weapon adds another link to your attack gem, granting damage and another way of gaining endruance charges as well. It also increases your damage with each endurance charge you get and decreases the stun treshold. What weapon would fit more in this build? If you can't afford Tidebreaker, using any other strong Mace Unique works a well. Tidebreaker is just best-in-slot.
Head
Abyssus or Devoto's Devotion. I prefer Abyssus, because we don't really notice the increased physical damage taken. Abyssus adds a ton of flat damage which gets again scaled by Vigilant Strike's damage effectiveness. In addition, melee critical strike multiplier enhances our boss damage greatly. If you fear the incoming damage increase, or if you feel like running or hitting faster, take Devoto's Devotion instead.
Body
Kingsguard (required) This armour comes with a great auto-heal ability. Whenever a monster damages you and triggers Cast When Damage Taken, you get endurance charges x 100 life instantly. This works so good that sometimes, you don't notice incoming damage at all.
Rings
Kaom's Way - to increases maximum endurance charges and regeneration. You can turn the Kaom's Sign ring into Kaom's Way by using the "The King's Path" prophecy. The other ring can be a Rare with resists. If you have enough resists, you can exchange this with another Kaom's Way for another endurance charge or a Romira's banquet for additional crit chance, power charge generation and accuracy (which is attack speed).
Belt
Rare or physical Doryani's Invitation. I use an Abyss belt with life and resists. Another option would be belt with the +1 to maximum endurance charge corruption.
Amulet
Use a Rare with resists, life and flat physical damage. For Blood magic variants, swopping this with a physical Impresence in combination with Essence Worm would create a way to reserve no mana and enable blood magic for more life on this char.
Gloves
Rares with resists and life. I tried using Veruso's Battering Rams but they were disappointing. I tried usingWyrmsign but stacking resists gets hard with so many uniques.
Boots
Rares with good resists. Death's Door would be an upgrade, but they are very expensive.
Skilltree
Ascendancy
We are a juggernaut.  1. To enable the use of Vigilant Strike, we take Unflinching first (to get endurance charges en masse).  2. After cruel lab, we take Unyielding. This further increased our endurance charge gain and increases damage and area of effect.  3. When finishing merciless lab, take Undeniable. This increases our attack speed (due to now actually used acuracy) and makes the Faster Attacks gem obsolete. We can exchange this gem for a more damage multiplier.  4. After getting the last two ascendancy points, you can use Unstoppable as a quality of life feature (not getting slowed so much, more movement speed) or one of the damage-lowering abilities like Unbreakable or Unrelenting. I prefer Unstoppable. 
Leveling
Level with Sunder and typical two-handed leveling weapons. Its fast and effective. Rush the Resolute Technique keystone. After normal lab and getting the Unflinching ascendancy node, you can switch to Vigilant Strike and start popping up packs. Spec out of Resolute Technique at the same moment. Focus on mace specialization first, then go for the scion life wheel. Afterwards, collect the available endurance charges on the tree. Crit chance and jewel slots can be taken when you reach maps.
Bandits
Because i found Oaks bonuses weak in comparison to the bonuses the ascendancy class offers anyway, i took the two skill points instead by killing all bandits. Grabbing an extra jewel slot with these is better. Aliras extra resists and crit multiplier can be a valid choice as well.
Flasks
Staunching life flask - To counter bleeding. Instant Staunching flask - An emergency flask for situations when the self-healing due to Kingsguard is not enough. Having the staunching mod on it is a nice panic button. Anit-Freeze Quicksilver flask - Somehow mandatory. I like having anti-freeze on movement flasks as they are in use all the time anyway. Anti-curse Silver flask - as a second movespeed flask that boost damage against bosses as well. The anti-curse helps especially in lab, when fighting fonts. This can be exchanged with a Lion's Roar. Doedre's Elixier - Damages ourself on purpose to enable endurance charge generation (Juggernaut's Unflinching) in mobless places and provides a frenzy and power charge as well.
Jewels
Look for the following mods on jewels: - Resists. As this build wears many uniques, resists can become a problem when starting with maps. - Life. Always important. - Global Physical damage, Physical damage with Maces increase your damage nicely. - Attack speed isn't really noticable. - Abyss jewels with good flat physical damage values can raise your damage very well, because of the high Vigilant Strike's damage effectiveness value. - The Vigil jewel can be useful if playing with non-melee friends, giving them Fortify as well.  - With this character, i tried the Pure Talent jewel to further enhance the damaging area. 15% does not seem like much, but i tried to include as much area as possible. You may find this jewel not worth your investment. 
Enchantments
Gloves Try to get the Fury enchantment on your gloves. It adds a ton of damage and can be used to kill offscreen mobs or kill the rest of the pack that you didn't kill in the first place. Boots Increased crit chance, life and mana leech, life regeneration and movement speed are interesting choices here. Added damage will do nothing for us because we use Brutality. Head There are not many good choices here. The Vigilant Strike and Herald of Ash enchantments are poor. The only enchantment worth getting here may be the Vulnerability Curse Effect one.
Pantheon
Major  I took Soul of Solaris because i wanted to be safer while farming labyrinth. The area slams from izaro can be nasty, especially with elemental bonuses on him. Minor  I took Soul of Ryslatha to refill my life flasks. This helps in labyrinth, because traps are annoying.
Map mods
No regen - No problem at all. Blood magic - No problem. Deactivate your Herald of Ash and Vulnerability. Physical reflect - Very deadly. Reroll these.
Endgame viablity
Uber lab - yes, this build can do it easily Atziri - Easily. The trio is the most fun, because of endurance charges and Immortal call Uber atziri - not tried yet Guardians - not reached yet Elder/Shaper - not tried yet, because i never attempted one of them Breachlords - not tested yet Hall of Grandmasters - no way. This char can handle physical damage easily, but penetrating elemental damage will make this impossible.
Videos
Lab advertising
As a person who likes running the lab I would like to thank poelab.com. Cheers to these diligent guys and their frontman, SuitSizeSmall. I support them by providing software to decrease the effort needed to create the lab graphics. Support the page as well if you want them to continue their amazing work! Last edited by JP_dev on Mar 23, 2018, 8:35:46 PM Last bumped on Mar 18, 2019, 4:18:21 PM
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It says your videos are unavailable.
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" Oh, thanks. Forgot to publish them after upload. | |
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I'm lvl 75 with this build right now, though I have bad gear I can't seem to get over 5k hp. The damage is pretty good though on a 4 link that I have right now.
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" Yeah i think switching some nodes on the skilltree for life wouldnt be a bad idea. Some of the unique gear skip slots for life. Make sure you have life on every other slot. Anyways, i don't have more than 5k hp either, but i did not felt that this was a problem while mapping. | |
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Damage on Full Life AND Blood Rage?!?! How can you be on full life while taking DoT from Blood Rage? Do you just casually have enough regen to cancel Blood Rage and also any other damage you're taking? This damage on full life gem is probably like never active.
Edit: Also... Herald of Ash AND Brutality?!?!? Does this even do anything?! It literally says NO ELEMENTAL DAMAGE. Why waste 25% mana reservation on something that you are manually disabling Last edited by KingSmizzy on Mar 19, 2018, 3:26:23 PM
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With the amount of physical damage reduction and life regen this build gets, its pretty likely it will out sustain the dot from blood rage.
Herald of ash and brutality makes no sense though. EDIT: Yea plenty of regen for blood rage. Last edited by ev0s on Mar 20, 2018, 9:01:31 PM
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" Damage on Full Life works because the Regeneration is higher than the DoT of Blood Rage. The Brutality gem only disables the direct damage of Herald of Ash, but still enables to spread the overkill damage. | |
" It still helps spreading the overkill damage (because the overkill does not get converted to fire). | |
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Hi fella! Just a quick little question... how do you manage mana costs? Well maybe it's just my newbie struggle but as I'm leveling up after a point manacost just jum so high I can't even get enough mana regen with gear. Can you help me out? :)
Last edited by makapoe on Apr 7, 2018, 6:13:51 PM
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