[3.5] FACETANK THE WORLD | Instant Leech! 8k+ life, 2.5m+ Shaper DPS Double Strike

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Schlaudraff wrote:

I am willing to play this build in standard, but I am waiting for 3.5 at the moment as you mentioned earlier that stat sticks might be nerfed when patch 3.5 hits. I don't have that many currency, so I am not willing to take the risk to make a poor investment.

If this happens, what offhand will you use? And will (and how?)this affect your build?

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately it's hard to answer that question without knowing HOW they'll be nerfed. There's many ways they could do it and in a recent podcast somewhere (I can't find a link) chris stated they were having a lot of internal discussions still, so it may not happen just yet? Regardless, I'd expect a manifesto about it before the next expansion since so many people are expecting it. Once we have some finality to it I'll do some tinkering in PoB and come up with something.

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diamin15 wrote:

First of all - a big thankyou, as this inspires me for next league as starter build :) Let's see what the patchnotes will bring, but it looks overall very solid and my tests on standard are quite fine.

One questions occurs to me: What adjustments would you suggest to do uber lab running (at the start of the league).

Here some humble thoughts: Use soul of Ralakesh, priorize regen, armor and any phys. dmg reduction, drop blood rage, use a granite flask, lions road and maybe witchfire.

Whats about Ambu's Charge (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Ambu%27s_Charge), should be cheap at league start - maybe add some Enduring Cry for End-Charges? Using Bloodgrip as amu (even more regen)?

Perseverance Belt for some extra movement speed?

Edit: Replacing Golem for Stone Golem?

And finally 2nd weapon slot so you can use leap slam?

What way would you take - or do I missing anything obvious here?

I actually think you're overcompensating a bit xD. I suppose I never tried to speed run lab for income early in the league though, so maybe if you're trying to optimize that much there are more changes you can make. I personally liked tukohama pantheon for lab early to avoid izaro one shots when he has crazy phase buffs. Likewise I'd lean towards chaos golem for phys reduction, but lightning does give us the attack speed so that's still a good choice. I don't think we can get our regen high enough to be practically helpful so honestly I'd fucus on attack speed to get through gauntlets faster. Double up on life flasks, and if you're worried about bleed make sure you have at least 2 staunching flasks too. Keep blood rage, but definitely don't put it on CWDT (honestly there's no good reason to have it on CWDT anymore at all since it's true instant cast, but I haven't updated it since that happened).

I like the perseverence idea, as the %life is more valuable early on too, and bloodgrip is a pretty decent idea. It might be kind of hard to cap your resistances with all those uniques though, and while izaro usually does pure phys, his green balls are fire, and he can get light and cold from phase buffs. As for ambu's, it's helpful but chest slots are tricky since you want links. A 5L ambus's is going to cost extra currency vs a 5L plain chest that you craft, and has one less link than a tabula which is cheap and helps you delete izaro. Weapon swap to brightbeak+3G prismatic eclipse is always the way to go for fast leap slam, the difference will probably be night and day.

I can't think of much else off the top of my head, but I think I'd need to actually try it to get the best optimization results. If you give it a shot let me know how it goes!

Dear PsychicMuffin,

thank you for your fast and brief reply! Ill give it a try on standard, featuring in the chaos golem and the other adjustments you noted - and let you know how it turns out.

To be honest I am allways a bit scary about traps, so "overcompensating" is damn correct :D


*update*
Izaro runs OK (no charges, no elemental enhancement yet), facetanking on a 5-link with low level chaos golem (surving the fights) and lions roar. Brightbeak+PEclipse is fast, have to learn the usage as I am used to whirling blades.
For gearing I think I will go with Arctic Armor and 2x Purity Aura instead of BM, that should be free up some resist for the perseverance belt and the bloodgrip amu uniques. Not too costy to swap back - and uberlab doesn't has mapmods like "no/less regen / no leech".

Traps make this still squishy. Maybe I am a bit rusty at this point, but I hope AA will make them less harmful (with lower HP (dropping BM) heal flasks should be more efficient, as the trapdmg is percentile while the flasks are fixed). Still tinkering on this point.

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diamin15 wrote:

Dear PsychicMuffin,

thank you for your fast and brief reply! Ill give it a try on standard, featuring in the chaos golem and the other adjustments you noted - and let you know how it turns out.

To be honest I am allways a bit scary about traps, so "overcompensating" is damn correct :D


*update*
Izaro runs OK (no charges, no elemental enhancement yet), facetanking on a 5-link with low level chaos golem (surving the fights) and lions roar. Brightbeak+PEclipse is fast, have to learn the usage as I am used to whirling blades.
For gearing I think I will go with Arctic Armor and 2x Purity Aura instead of BM, that should be free up some resist for the perseverance belt and the bloodgrip amu uniques. Not too costy to swap back - and uberlab doesn't has mapmods like "no/less regen / no leech".

Traps make this still squishy. Maybe I am a bit rusty at this point, but I hope AA will make them less harmful (with lower HP (dropping BM) heal flasks should be more efficient, as the trapdmg is percentile while the flasks are fixed). Still tinkering on this point.

Yeah, it's interesting how badly this build gets punished by traps late-game, as traps do %life damage but flasks heal flat life. I'm not sure how GGG could fix this without trivializing traps lategame though...maybe a flask mod that only applies to lab somehow?

Anyway, I had a lot of life by the time I did uber lab so I literally didn't bother with a life flask, I think the best defense was just moving really fast with decent phys mitigation. If I was gonna do it earlier, maybe dual life flasks, taste of hate, basalt, and silver (quicksilver if you're using perseverence)? It sucks to lose lion's roar for damage since izaro is immune to knockback, but unfortunately only spike and dart traps "hit", so they're the only traps mitigated by armor I believe. "Damage taken as" and "additional physical damage mitigation" apply to all physical damage taken. This also applies to less damage taken, but unfortunately fortify is the one exception since it specifies less damage taken from HITS, so...just 2 of the traps.

If we're going all in for anti-trap, Arakaali + Ralakesh starts to make a lot of sense (the first upgrade from arakaali is nice if you can get it). I like the aura setup, as BM is definitely bad for lab, and you want the extra uniques.

Would you recommend this as a league startr for 3.5 if no big nerfs are coming for stat sticks and stuff?

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PsychicMuffin wrote:

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junaum wrote:

The build is performing very nicely, but I still can't get near the 9k life pool.

I even went with the "Max Defenses" Skill tree (which improved the life pool, but not above 7.2k life). I've runned some tests on Poe Planner, replacing rings with max life versions and replacing belly with max life rare body armor - ended up near 7.4k, so not a great improvement.

If you guys have the time to, please check my Cobra_Fumante character in standard.

Yeah, there is a little unfairness in that my gear is absolutely ridiculously well tuned for life bonuses. My amulet and chest have a crazy amount (remember 50 str is 25 flat life), and my rings both have t1 flat AND 5% life, which was only available during incursion, AND either t2 str or life implicit. Also those stats are the original blood magic version, as the new purities version with that exact same gear only has like 8.7k. Also that character is level 95, and when you have that much flat life and every level is some more flat life from innate level bonus, plus another 4% life node...that's a lot of life per level.

Your character is missing some life nodes, some jewel sockets, some levels, has less life on all your jewelry. Also your skill tree has a few oddities in it, as the starting marauder node of life and armor node isn't that good, and Path of the Warrior/Heart of Oak are pretty good...but not as good as jewels or all the dangling life nodes you have (duelist start, herbalism cluster, revenge of the hunted cluster). For reference, this is the level 95 tree I'm using in my purities build. With the purities version, I think 8k is a very reasonable goal without buying stupidly tuned life gear, and you aren't too far off. Just be patient!

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Nickolai20599 wrote:

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ExplodedAmadillo wrote:

I get that Ancestral Call is pretty good But I just gained like 13k dps by replacing it with my freshly Vaaled 20% lvl 4 empower.. going to be a huge single target improvement and I jumped up to 817k shaper dps fully buffed.

And Im also feeling like the life just isnt really there on this build. Im gonna do a bit of tinkering with armour to see what I can do, But Im also sitting at 7.2k.

Ancestral call is a clearing tool and gives some utility in the form of range, you should swap it out in those boss encounters yes, but for Ruthless or damage on full life I'd say.

I was on 7.1k life with room to improve my gear with a TABULA on, I just now today upgraded to a chest I crafted myself, bumped me up to 8k. I still have room to improve the gear, and I'm also running the aura variation that doesn't use blood magic, gains slightly less life % but uses purity auras to make up for resistances. If I perfect my gear (which I might do now just to see how far I can push it), I'd sdrop the purities, gain some more life and add hatred + herald of purity. I also have yet to get good jewels, which will give me another couple of hundred life.

Uhh...yeah, basically what he said, plus my response above detailing some of my unfairness.

Hello, the tree you mentioned about the auras, which gem did you replace by them? Thanks!

There were some questions about this build farming UberLab.
I am playing this build currently, so here are some thoughts.

The short answer is NO.
The long answer. This build is a high damage, high dodge, high sustain WHILE there are enemys to hit. I was able to facetank all guardians with mods and crap gear 5,6k hp without moving my character, the exception is the phoenix explosion. My dps is around 1mil, it oneshots most nonbosses, and most bosses I dont even move my character around, because the leech keeps me alive on a 5link, I am too lazy to swap out ancestor call.
In UberLab the main danger isnt Izaro for this build, it can facetank all attacks and ends the fight in 3 to 5 seconds, the traps and gaunlets are the problem. Traps deal a percentage of your hp as damage, so it doesnt matter 5k or 50k hp and the dodge is useless here, also this build has low regen and armor value is mediocre for this job.
It is possible to do UberLab farming. But, and it is a big but, you will have to pay full attention to the lab and in some spots it can easily get you killed, just running through is too dangerous and often you will have to stop to regen your hp, flasks will help, but if you panick they wont save you. Again the problem isnt Izaro its the freaking traps.

Conclusion: I seriously dont recommend this build for UberLab. Since there are builds that trivialize traps, and make it walk through the park. As a boss killer this build is superb, uberlab farmer not comfy.

If you are super lazy about not making more than 1 character, look up Hank the Tank. Once you are done with UberLab, you can respeck Hank the Tank in to this character no problems. Best part that most gear is same.

Dear ArcaneMagician,

thank you for mentioning "Hank the Tank". From my own tests - and your recent writing - traps and gauntlets are the main problem. There are two possibilities noted in "Hank the Tank" that I'll add to my list, to mitigate trap damage:

Death's Door (Lab only drop, quite expensive - but since doing the lab it sooner or later will drop)
and the rare corruption on rings "Bleeding Cannot Be Inflicted On You" (even more expensive).

The other stuff in the mentioned thread doesn't seem to help with these traps, more with Izaro, who is not the prime concern here (Blind, Loreweave vs. ele buffed Izaro on full Key runs, Thief's Torment, more Armor and the increased effect on our Fortify).

Both builds seem to overlap, so you're right respeccing is well possible.

Have I missed anything else from "Hank the Tank"?

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diamin15 wrote:

Dear ArcaneMagician,

thank you for mentioning "Hank the Tank". From my own tests - and your recent writing - traps and gauntlets are the main problem. There are two possibilities noted in "Hank the Tank" that I'll add to my list, to mitigate trap damage:

Death's Door (Lab only drop, quite expensive - but since doing the lab it sooner or later will drop)
and the rare corruption on rings "Bleeding Cannot Be Inflicted On You" (even more expensive).

The other stuff in the mentioned thread doesn't seem to help with these traps, more with Izaro, who is not the prime concern here (Blind, Loreweave vs. ele buffed Izaro on full Key runs, Thief's Torment, more Armor and the increased effect on our Fortify).

Both builds seem to overlap, so you're right respeccing is well possible.

Have I missed anything else from "Hank the Tank"?

The reason is why I mentioned Hank the tank is that build was specifically made previously for UberLab farming, recently upgraded to be able to take on endgame bosses.

Iron reflexes converts all evasion to armor, Champion adds 1000 armor and evasion, so 2000 armor, auras determination and grace add more armor on top, Ichimonji increases those buffs power, and you use some passive points to buff the fortify effect. Also you invest heavily in the marauder side for more armor,regen and life. Most traps deal physical damage, that is mitigated by armor. Those super expansive uniques are mentioned if you want to max out that build and are completely NOT mandatory. The only uniques that are mandatory are Thiefs ring(for life gain on hit) and Ichimonji(for increased aura and buffs effect, decreased reserved cost). Hank the tank is a noncrit build, it is designed to be able to survive attacks, without the reliance on RNGesus of evasion. The authoe made a great video that explains the build, watch it for a better understanding.

Hey, I wanted to ask if you are planning to do some "before release" update on the build guide when the patch notes comes out. Would really help a lot of people here I think that plan to do this build as a league starter. Also, I've read that Champion's "Inspirational" is gonna be reworked around the new banners, so what is your opinion on using the banners, maybe even instead of some auras before you get your hands on "no mana reservation" on banners ascendancy. They seem pretty strong, aren't they? Are there some other things you are considering changing based on some info we have about the new league? Thanks a lot.

Hey, I wanted to ask if you are planning to do some "before release" update on the build guide when the patch notes comes out. Would really help a lot of people here I think that plan to do this build as a league starter. Also, I've read that Champion's "Inspirational" is gonna be reworked around the new banners, so what is your opinion on using the banners, maybe even instead of some auras before you get your hands on "no mana reservation" on banners ascendancy. They seem pretty strong, aren't they? Are there some other things you are considering changing based on some info we have about the new league? Thanks a lot.