[3.21] Versatile Combatant Impale Shield Crush Slayer - Crush the Atlas - SSF Compatible

I dug around anoints and found a better budget alternative, Executioner. We get 60% increased damage on low life and 15% area of effect if we've killed recently. It's also cheaper than Kinetic Impacts.

3.21 Changes:

We now are able to optionally drop Herald of Purity in order to allocate Determination as long as you get the Armor Small Cluster Jewel with 'Uncompromising'. If you feel that you're a little squishy, then allocate 'Seasoned Swordplay' and use the small cluster. This roughly doubles our armor for a ~20% damage drop. Use this if you're feeling a bit squishy.

Damage has slightly increased, and our real dps is slightly more than what the combined dps states. This is because we get about 11% more impale triggers with the new '10% chance on hitting an enemy for all impales to last an additional hit'.

The Endgame tree has been changed to utilizing Kaom's spirit. We now get slightly more damage and also are relatively tankier due to Berserk being up almost 100% of the time.

PoB has been updated. If you see any issues or anything I missed please message me to fix.

This Shield Crush build is intended as a starter build for all types of players, including those brand new to the game. Every single league since Shield Crush has been introduced, I have either gone back to it or started it. This is my favorite skill in the game.

This build can currently scale into a character that can reasonably do all endgame content (ubers w/ investment) utilizing easy to get gear, reliable scaling, and large amounts of safety. Because of this, the build is also SSF friendly due to the adaptable options to prioritize defenses over raw damage. If you would like to do this build in a HC environment, some auras need to be dropped for Determination until you can sustain ~20k armor on your own.

This build is comprehensive and breaks down nearly every aspect of the build including mechanic breakdowns, upgrade options, crafting steps to make your own endgame gear, alternative options to make this build your own, examples of gear that you should be aiming for, and video demonstrations of endgame content.

Ubers can be done with this build, but it will take much more investment compared to other builds. I would personally recommend making a second character if you want a character to farm/kill uber bosses.

These videos are outdated, but are about the same for 3.21 since melee has barely changed. I plan on updating these videos for the Crucible League.

These PoBs are built around baselines on what your character should look like at certain points of the game. Listed affixes on gear are general recommendations - fill with resistances and other pieces as you see fit.

Things like Vaal Ancestral Warchief and Onslaught are disabled. Frenzy Charges aren't difficult to keep up, so those are included.

3.21 PoB: https://pobb.in/LhUaKf3rzYXi

3.20 PoB: https://pobb.in/KUn01q0xTRhZ

NOTE: Make sure to check the Notes section for a sheet that includes Harvest priorities, Pantheon, Enchantments, and finalized gear links!

Here is an image demonstrating how the Shield Crush areas work.



Green = the two 'side' damaging arcs
Red = the 'center' damaging arc
Gold = the 'sweet spot' where you get shotgun (double) damage.

Remember: You only really need to apply the shotgun damage for rares/bosses, not during general mapping. The whites and blues should die in 1-2 hits either way.

+ Easy, Effective League Start to get off the ground (only need a decently high armor shield)
+ All content viable (Ubers are difficult to do without investment but doable)
+ Tanky (about 100k eHP) with lots of ways to keep your defense up (Versatile Combatant Max Block, Armor, Endurance Charges, Vaal Molten Shell, etc)
+ SSF Friendly. No Uniques Required.
+ Fast mapping and mobility utilizing Leap Slam.
+ Offensive, Defensive, and Flask Flexibility to make this build your own.

- Not a one button build (Totems, Blood Rage, Leap Slam, Shield Crush buttons)
- We Level with Steel Skills and swap to Shield Crush in White Maps
- Weak to DoT damage (natural weakness of block/armor builds, we patch this with Pantheon bonuses)
- Average Bossing speed
- Reduced block chance modifier maps are dangerous (but doable).
- Dexterity/Intelligence Starvation without Carnage Heart.

Resolute Technique:
Resolute Technique enables us to hit 100% of the time at the cost of no critical strikes. Since we do not use critical strikes, this is excellent for us to use.

Unwavering Stance:
We don't use evasion, so Unwavering Stance is used for Stun Immunity.

Fortify/Fortification:
We use Fortification for general damage reduction, and end up getting about 21% less damage taken after passives. Due to the Fortify passive mastery, we get this with Fortify at the cost of roughly 4 skill points.

Lifetap
We utilize Lifetap to make Leap Slamming really easy, and to give us a nice damage buffer early on before we get our cluster jewel to ignore most mana problems. This will always be used for Leap Slam and Enduring Cry, and optional for Shield crush. We still need Mana Leech for CWDT Vulnerability trigger (before Vulnerability ring) and Totems. Once you can get the Impale chance to remove Impale Support, we swap back to Lifetap for better damage.

Block:
Our main source of defense. We block the hit, we take no damage. We also get the ability to ignore enemy physical damage reduction on block.
We get up to 50% block and 42% spell block through Versatile Combatant on Slayer with no additional investment on gear. Getting the extra 4% block on other gear (only 3% extra on shield) isn't difficult to do.

Armor:
Armor is our big defensive tool while mapping. Without Determination, we'll be able to block ~1500 damage from hits in maps, which will generally mitigate the trash mobs. With Determination, this goes up to around ~3000.

Impale:
We swing our Shield really fast. Using Impale is best because we can trigger Impale stacks easily and effectively due to our speed. The shotgun effect also counts as two hits, which makes stacking and triggering Impale even faster.

Attack Speed:
In tandem with above, Attack Speed gives us faster Leap Slam movement, faster shield hits, and faster Impale triggering when we attack.

Ancestral Protector + Ancestral Warchief:
We use ancestral totems to buff our attack speed and flat damage, and also anoint 'Panopticon' for better effects of our Totem buffs. This is a large damage steroid that we primarily use for bosses and tough rares, as our damage is high enough for general mapping without it.

Leech:
We use leech as our primary life and mana sustain. We get our leech through Jewels, Cluster Jewels, Gloves, Rings, or the passive tree.

We will have enough mana sustain to continue attacking with this equation below:

(MANA COST x (ATTACK RATE / MUTISTRIKE HITS)) < MANA LEECH ON HIT RATE

Generally speaking as long as there is one source of Mana Leech on your items or passive tree and you have multistrike in Shield Crush, you will be able to sustain mana through leech. Just 0.2% of damage leeched as mana is enough for this equation to work as long as we are in maps.

Key:
(20/X) = Level/Quality. If you see X on quality, it can be whatever quality.

Eldritch mods are an addition as of 3.17 that give us some cool benefits depending on the gear that we have. These can be applied to Helmets, Body Armor, Gloves, and Boots. Eldritch mods can only be applied to rares. There are multiple tiers of these items and they replace implicit values on armor pieces. Use the lesser ones as much as you like on your armor pieces - it won't change the explicit modifier values.

Because our Body Armor slot is ultimately going to be a unique or a warlord's body, Body Armor is not listed.

Remember that the end options for our helmet are an Eldritch Modded rare helmet or an Inward Eye. You can still use a rare helmet if you find some GG rolls, but these other options will be better most of the time.

NOTE: There are endgame options for both Amulet and Body Armor slots. Shield Crush just needs to hit Level 24. I would recommend the +2 Body and the +1 amulet if you do not want to heavily invest into this build.

Helmet: 'Blood and Sand has X% increased effect' OR 'Ancestral Protector gives X% increased attack speed while active' OR 'Blood Rage gives X% increased attack speed' OR 'X% increased Shield Crush Damage' OR 'X% increased Shield Crush Attack Speed'

Explanation: We have lots of options here, and they are all about the same on DPS. Ancestral Protector is the best on paper, but I would personally recommend Blood and Sand due to mapping QoL. Use whatever you find first or what is cheapest, as the 'best' only matters for min-maxing.

The build feels the best with Shield Crush Attack Speed or Blood and Sand Effect, followed by Ancestral Protector Attack Speed.

The best damage is Ancestral Protector Attack Speed followed by anything else listed (the damage difference is too minimal to matter for everything else).

Boots: 'X% increased attack and cast speed if you have killed recently'
Explanation: Attack Speed gives us the best general feel.

Gloves: This doesn't matter. Do what you like.

Our Ascendancy that we run is Slayer.

Slayer is used because of the overleech, 20% cull, and built in aoe gains during maps. We also have better damage when close to a target, which we normally are for bosses.

Skill Order:
Brutal Fervor > Bane of Legends > Impact > Headsman

Brutal Fervor - Lots of reliable leech and overleech during the acts. This will make the acts feel much safer.

Bane of Legends - More damage against bosses. Bosses can start to feel a little beefy around Act 8/9 (Arakaali onwards).

Impact - Since we get Ascendancy Trials much quicker now, it's fine to save Impact to last since the aoe isn't as problematic in earlier maps.

Headsman - Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Culling by the time we hit maps. Mapping feels much better with this.

You are free to choose between Headsman or Impact as the 4th ascendancy. It's your preference on more aoe vs faster rare/boss killing.

A lot of these Pantheons are just for quality of life bonuses now, as none of them are very 'required'. Make sure to use divine vessels that you find to get the bonus passives, as the bonuses do matter as you get into endgame bossing.

MAJOR:
Soul of Arakaali - Block builds are weak against DOT effects. This is the best major keystone to help us mitigate that.

Honorable Mentions:
Soul of Solaris - Big Bossing (Maven, Sirus, etc)
Soul of the Brine King - Freeze Immunity with the secondary passive you get with a divine vessel.

MINOR:
Soul of Shakari - More DOT and Chaos Damage mitigation

BANDITS:
Primary: Kill All - We need the passive points.