[3.7] Rake's Tectonic Slam Equipment Guide - from League Start to Endgame

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ElJudge wrote:

How much HP / shaper DPS did you have? Was able to do red Elder / Shaper deathless but felt I was lacking a bit of damage

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Bazorg_2 wrote:

Hello guys I really need your help, can anyone check my character and see what's wrong with it, I can't even do t1 maps I get melted so fast. Even contagion build with less defence survived longer, please I really need your help

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I just finished Uber Elder for the first time today using this build as a guide and I'd like to share some of my thoughts on it.

First of all, I almost rerolled this character 5 times. Starting out with Ahn's and 80% of my mana reserved was just miserable. My friends were all running multistrike builds and this build just felt stuck in quicksand by comparison. I stuck it out, though, and boy am I glad I did, the end-game feel of this build is incredibly fun. Here are some changes I made with my build that made things feel better:

#1 Ditch Hatred - After doing a lot of messing around in PoB I found it almost just as much DPS to use a combination of:

Herald of Ash + Herald of Purity + low level Precision (to get 100% chance to hit) + Blood and Sand

Gave me 35% free mana and around 7-8 attacks before running out of mana, as opposed to many of the suggested builds which include a Herald + Hatred resulting in around 20% mana available and only 2-3 attacks before running out of mana. This was incredibly critical when fighting single-target, as with a Hatred setup I'd out-swing my mana regen almost constantly without multiple targets available.

#2 Attack Speed is King - While using Ahn's when I was first starting out gave me enough power to clear up through mid-tier maps, it made the entire process feel like a slog. I had a love/hate relationship for a long time with Multistrike, as it undermines a lot of what is needed in this build with Endurance Charges, but I felt that using it made the build so much smoother. Ultimately, the DPS/tankiness loss from using Multistrike is just not worth it. Instead, I prioritized switching to foils with at least 1.8-1.9 APS, taking a lower value on crit or pDPS to make the foils affordable. Additionally, I added Blood Rush which was maybe the biggest quality of life buff this build could ask for. The degen is negligible with your passive regen and the attack speed base + frenzy charges are completely priceless to making this build actually feel good. I can't tell you how many times I died in Legion content simply because I couldn't leap slam or move away from a slow attack I was waiting to complete. Of course, this also meant ditching Pulverize since the attack speed hit is killer.

Truthfully this build truly starts to come alive with a Tectonic Slam attack rate of > 3.5 without Multistrike. I kept Ancestral Protector and used it for an even bigger burst of attack speed for bosses, but isn't necessary for clearing.

#3 BabyRage - Honestly I started using Rage out of curiosity early in the league and enjoyed it's stacking progression and use of Berserk for mowing down big enemies, but over time it's use is just too inconsistent. I can get more consistent damage using Ruthless and make up the attack speed with my gear.

#4 Embrace the Blue Socket - I ran extensive testing on my sixth link between Concentrated Effect/Increased AoE, and Elemental Focus. They each have their own benefits: Concentrated Effect is the highest DPS but the AoE hit feels bad even in Sand; Increased AoE is god-tier for sweeping low-level maps and farming Legion content off-screen (particularly good for using Lion's Roar with your increased range and killing the projectile Legion mobs before they can even get in range to attack); and Elemental Focus which I came to use as my standard. With only <10% less DPS than Concentrated Effect, Elemental Focus provides significant damage without any penalty to AoE and was my favorite choice for endgame content.

#5 Choose Hinekora over Valako - I ultimately gave up on trying to maintain max endurance charges. With a 20% chance for a charged slam enchant, I could consistently keep some amount of Endurance Charges up, but never enough to keep up 5-6 to further take advantage of Valako. I absolutely am not going to use 3 stupid skill points in the stupid staff nodes that everyone asks on every page of this thread just to get the %chance for endurance charge on hit, just not worth it at all. Instead, I turned down to Hinekora for a huge bit of life leach, health bump from the increased Strength, and significant DPS buff against bosses with Covered in Ash.

Here's my final build in PoB, keep in mind I only got the mastercrafted foils in the last two days, I was using 1.9 APS/ 6% crit / 325ish pDPS foils for almost all endgame content. Hopefully this helps some of you struggling to get this build the way you want it!

https://pastebin.com/04sVpVEs

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Larzerus wrote:

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didko1000 wrote:

im not sure why Close combat doesn't show its damage increase so i just put ruthless to see approximately how much it gives

Close combat is unreliable anyways, therefore i would swap it out with Conc. effect or Pulverize (although not being a fan of the slower playstyle).

Furthermore your rings are not that good. Missing a lot of phy dmg.

You are also missing out on the benefit of having two different totems. With only utilizing one of two buffs for us (which are mentioned in this guide), you are losing a lot of AS. You're getting around 500k shaper dps if you swap combustion with ancestral protector, thus having a lot more AS. And get the Vaal version of Ancestral Warchief. You can put have 4 totems at the same time. (Two non-vaal and two vaal) They're a huge boost in overall damage.

And you could get a Tombfist with a curse. Even though you have currently a curse through your Oskarm, missing out on the intimidate debuff is a huge loss in terms of damage. (In addition, you can easily craft your own tombfist with a curse on top, since you can spam Tombfist through trade quite easily, since a lot of people sell their gloves for 2c each. Increased max life does not matter imo. Not gonna change much if you have 6% instead of 4%.

Update your rings and amulet, swap out closed combat because it is trash and try out to get a tombfist with intimidate. Also your jewels ain't that good. You can improve it alot by getting better mods. Go back to the jewel section to see, which jewels might be more suitable. Dunno on your survivability so that's depending on your playstyle.

(Dunno about the HoA thing. In your current state it is stronger, due to all the fire dmg mods on rings etc. HoP may become stronger if you switch out your stuff.)