[3.21] Slayer Splitting Steel - Cheap Crit build [All Content Viable]

Disclaimer:
First time posting a build so please bear with me.
I'll try to make the post better afterwards as soon as I get back home, this is mostly a copy-paste from a reddit thread in which I've posted this and I thought it could be useful to have it here as well.

Any feedback on the build and/or improvements will be appreciated :)


Slayer, Splitting Steel + Vengeant Cascade.

Cheap critical build.

Requirement: Any amulet with Vengeant Cascade annoint (I bought one non-good that lead me to yellow/early red maps on day 3 for 2c, farmed blight to make myself one way better afterwards).

Cheap bonus: 2x Beltimber blade (around 1-3c each) They basically give you +2 projectiles for free (each) and Far Shot, both things gives us massive amounts of damage (see mechanics below).

Extra bonus Lioneye's vision (for the 7-L)

Slayer gives you +3% flat crit chance, culling strike at 20% life, infinite leech plus free 10% damage reduction, can't take reflected phys damage... All for free!

Mechanic works like that:

You hit with splitting steel, which breaks into pieces chaining between enemies + impaling them (so you don't even need to aim at the mobs directly, just about their direction). Vengeant Cascade makes projectiles come back to you, hitting mobs again. The distance of the travel back also benefits from "far shot", getting the maximum effect of it.

When you "reload" with Call of Steel, the impales come back to you, replenishing all shards and dealing reflected damage to mobs. This reflected damage deals damage in -a huge- area and sometimes kills nearby mobs by itself when retrieving the impales from dead enemies.

When mapping, usually the gameplay is shot few times, move, "reload" (call of steel). <- repeat. Quite straightforward.

When fighting a boss you can do one of two things:

- Face-tank it [0] to easily get over 8/9M dps + it will insta-die when at 20% life.

- Keep hitting it from far if you need so (mechanics avoidance, safe spot to recover a bit etc).

Can do all maps?

Yes, though no-leech maps are uneasy and I won't recommend it, but you definitely can unless you pick Vaal Pact and/or sacrifice regen for extra damage.

Main skill

Splitting Steel
+ Brutality
+ Maim
+ Crit chance
+ Crit damage
+ vicious projectiles
+ pierce (Lvl 15, from the chest)

Other links (just recommending some options):

CWDT + vaal molten shell (so you can use the vaal version on demand)

CWDT + purifying flame/WoC/Arc[1] + hextouch + vulnerability

mark on hit + Sniper's Mark [2]

Vengeance + Power Charge on Crit

Flame Dash

Precision, determination, Herald of Purity, Flesh and Stone, War Banner


Sidenotes

[0] When in front of a boss, all projectiles may hit the boss when comming back to you, hitting it with the main hit once, and N secondary hits afterwards. The number of split projectiles may differ depending on your build. Base split proj number is 5, if you use 2x Beltimbers and used a movement skill recently (in the past 4 seconds) it will be 9 projectiles, plus Sniper's mark is +4 so 13 and so on and so forth.
After swapping one Beltimber with a Legion sword it will be 11 projectiles but more damage overall.

[1] Purifying flame creates consecrated ground, granting you life regen for more sustain. Wave of Conviction doesn't but has greater AoE. I'd recommend the first, you'll rarely need to curse big packs of mobs when mapping.

After getting Kaom's Spirit gauntlets you may swap Purifying Flame for WoC for greater AoE or anything that shocks to have a chance to deal more damage.

[2] You may use mark on hit with either sniper mark -recommended, grants you huge damage increase to bosses for the extra projectiles- or Poachers mark -to get more sustain-.


Video Gameplays:

League start, just reaching red maps. 2 beltimbers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4pL0XycwxY


After improvements (Reference PoB: https://pastebin.com/q6c1QYvK)

20% Delirium T16 with 5 mods:
https://youtu.be/Pp7FWEX_N3g

Eater of Worlds:
https://youtu.be/9VEzr-Qv32M

20% Delirium T16 with 6 mods:
https://youtu.be/YUVXFRs1DCM



PoB

Initial PoB:
https://pastebin.com/9frYviKp

Current PoB:
https://pastebin.com/q6c1QYvK

You can mostly follow the passive tree in order, with few tweaks if you feel like.

If you manage to get 100% Crit chance you can drop the crit flask and add something else (Onslaught could be a nice option).


______


All Content Viable details:

- Atlas: 100% completed as well as all favored slots
- Bossing: Killed all guardians, pinnacle and uber bosses so far (Uber bosses require that you know the mechanics, tho. You can't facetank them or you'll die in a couple of hits or get one-shotted sometimes).
- Heist: All gang members max level, did contracts and grand heists, all good and fast.
- Delve (Niko): Didn't played delve much yet, reached lvl 80 monsters and had no issues at all, will update if anything changes.
- Metamorph (Tane): What to say, they die in a blink. All good there.
- Beasts (Einhar): No issues here either, faced 3 red beasts at once without trouble.
- Delirium: Tested T16 maps with 20%, 40% and 60% deli. At 60% it gets tough, meaning you may die if not care enough, or if too brave to facetank everything. We can shot from far so we need to remember that at this point. With more leech per second can help here.
- Lab: If you don't facetank the Izaro mechanics you can do uber lab easy peasy.
- Temple (Alva): The clearing speed ensures you won't miss any key on incursions, ran lvl 83 temple twice, no issues either here.
- Essences: I've been facetanking any essence I've found so far (even corrupted max tier ones) and they die in a blink always.
- Immortal Syndicate (Jun): it's a walk, super easy.
- Breach: Being able to hit from far, shards chaining and so makes it easy, the move speed also helps.
- Legion Same as breach.
- Strongboxes: If you copied my build "as is" take care with freeze ones, I don't have ailment immunity at the moment. Plus, as always, care with the ones that explode nearby cadavers.
- Abyss: Super easy as well.
- Expedition: Just don't pick "monsters are immune to phys damage" and you'll be good :D
- Blight: I make it to T16 triple anointed 6 mods blighted maps alone but depending on the layout of the map and the RNG of the blights you may prefer to do them in a party as with most builds.


Alternative:

If you build Champion instead of Slayer, or get a Slayer but use Endless Hunger instead Overwhelm ascendancy notable it's perfectly fine, just swap Maim Support for Anomalous Cruelty Support (grants +20% crit chance at 20% quality).

Just wanted to post to let you know I am going to attempt leveling with this build. First time posting on the forums!

I'm in the market for a console friendly build (fewest button presses required) and was wondering how button intensive this is.

Thanks!

Don't play this if you want few buttons. At high attac speed, you'll be pressing steel recall very very frequently.

I was effortlessly able to get 85+ crit chance in the story

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MJHeemeyer wrote:

I'm in the market for a console friendly build (fewest button presses required) and was wondering how button intensive this is.

Thanks!

It's 2 buttons. Splitting steel and call of steel. You just need to press call of steel once every 12 hits of splitting steel (you can use an Impale Mastery to get 16 shots if you like it for QoL).

"

HwtChirino wrote:

Don't play this if you want few buttons. At high attac speed, you'll be pressing steel recall very very frequently.

I'd consider 2 buttons as "few buttons" but I may be crazy lol

"

Karagra wrote:

Just wanted to post to let you know I am going to attempt leveling with this build. First time posting on the forums!

How is it going? :)

"

Tiger2209 wrote:

I was effortlessly able to get 85+ crit chance in the story

Yeah, the Overwhelm ascendancy notable is a nice push, plus growing in accuracy and crit chance has been quite easy in comparison with other builds I tried before

I am pushing this build hard , around 300 div spent atm ( with MB ) and results are very good

Trying POE after 3+ years break. Saw your build and tried it in SSF ruthless. As it goes with any random build - there are no problems with trash mobs. Problems starts with harder yellow or bosses. Lvl 72 now.

What are defence mechanics in your build?