The Infernal Blow HEAVY METAL Marauder - Build Guide (1.1 Updated!)



When anarchy & onslaught first launched I decided I wanted to hunt some exiles and that I wanted to do it in as manly and metal a fashion as possible. Eventually I settled on the manliest of all skills - Infernal Blow.

Prefer to Watch/Listen instead of Read? Check out the Video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9R7BzrOLBA

UPDATED for 1.1 Sacrifice of the Vaal!
This build is much tankier since the Marauder changes and the build has become overall simpler to gear and play - which means more exploding mobs and less time worrying about mana and casting curses etc. We lost a bit of DPS in the patch but it's still a pretty crunchy and fun build to play!

Passive Skill Tree


Key Points
Resolute Technique - gives us the consistency needed for melee and allows us to spend points on defensive and damage passives instead of accuracy.

Aplify - increases the AoE radius and damage of Infernal Blow's Proc, Melee Splash & Leap Slam.

Master of the Arena - Essential for melee targeting and makes Multistike much more effective.

Iron Reflexes - Evasion to Armor fro Grace Aura as well as some gear flexibility.

Endurance Charges - With Warlord's Mark we have close to 100% uptime on endurance charges, this maxes out the defensive bonus we get.

Damage & Stun - We get a combo of efficient damage and stun nodes. A few key stun nodes offer a ton of survivability.


Bandit Rewards
Normal - Oak (life)

Cruel - Oak (Phys damage) OR passive point

Merci - Oak (Endurance Charge)




Skills & Support Gems

Support Gems are in rough order of priority. If you have a 4 link select the first 3 supports listed and so on.

Infernal Blow
Melee Splash
Multistrike (Or Faster Attacks)
Blood Magic
Melee Physical Damage
Weapon Elemental Damage (Or Life Leech)


Leap Slam
Faster Attacks
Blood Magic
Endurance Charge on Melee Stun
Stun
Melee Physical Damage

With the addition of end charge on melee stun leap slam can easily become your primary method of endurance charge generation. See this video for an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuAu9_9w99o


Enduring Cry
Essential for leveling and allows us to build initial charges and maintain ones when we cannot get warlord's mark kills. I ended up dropping this when I added endurance charge on melee stun onto leap slam. Even vs bosses it's possible to keep your charges up just by leap slamming!


Auras
Hatred / Grace.
Reserve close to 100% of your mana by linking to a levelled up Reduced Mana support and use your primary skills with Blood Magic Supports. As Reduced Mana levels you will also have enough mana buffer to use some other skills occasionally (like casting blood rage).


Blood Rage
With our regen we can maintain this without taking damage. Use it to improve clear speed in easier content/maps.


TRIGGER GEMS
Cast When Damage Taken Level 4
- Enduring Cry level 7
- Molten Shell level 9
- Warlord's Mark Level 7
Other options include Decoy Totem, Rejuv Totem or Enfeeble.

How to Play this Build

- Initial with leap slam (also use to escape if things get hairy). This stuns all mobs allowing for...

- If you take damage your trigger gems will proc cursing enemies and giving you a lot more armor.

- Infernal Blow for the kill. Focus on enemy with highest life and the melee splash will kill the trash. You do more damage to your main target as well. Hold shift always when using this attack to ensure you hit without moving or desyncing.

- Move to next pack with leap slam. Hold shift when you leap slam to prevent arbitrary running (trust me on this). Personally I rebound shift to tab.

How to Deal with Reflect

Reflect is only dangerous with this build if you don't know how to deal with it.

Elemental Reflect - Use Leap Slam as the IB proc can kill you on larger packs.

Physical Reflect - Use Infernal Blow as multistrike splits the damage in three allowing time to leech. I have never even hurt myself with phys reflect when using IB. DO NOT LEAP SLAM PHSY REFLECT PACKS!

Dual Reflect - Hide under the covers and switch Infernal Blow for Glacial Hammer.

Gearing Guide

Weapon
Start saving for a Marohi Erqi from the beginning. I bought a 6S one for 2.5EXA and linked it for another 44 fusings. Not cheap but doable even for a casual player. Until you get the Marohi use blue maces with 90%+ phys damage and 20% quality. Marohi because of the AoE, stun and damage.



Gloves, Boots, Helm & Chest
Life Resists and Armor. Movespeed is not important on boots as we get around with leap slam.

Here's mine at the moment (I have a long way to go on the armor stat):



Belt
Defensive affixes and Stun Threshold Reduction.



Rings & Amulet
- INT/DEX on the amulet.

- Phys Damage & Life Leech are nice to have!

Everything else can be defensive or offensive stats.



Flasks
Insta Heal Flasks with Dispels. You can spam these a lot and they will stay full thanks to warlord's mark.

2x Granites of Iron Skin.




And I think that's everything! Lemme know if you have any questions and I'll try and check back here every now and then!


My Other Builds:

Ultimate Beginner's Tanky BM Ranger - http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/300860

Searing Bond + Fire Trap Templar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxSgUA9krzY
Twitch.TV/ZiggyDLive
YouTube.com/ZiggyDStarcraft
Twitter.com/ZiggyDStarcraft
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Last edited by ZiggyD on Mar 13, 2014, 8:19:36 PM
Awesome! Bump for ZiggyD :)
Great guide, enjoyed watching your videos on this build as well.
IGN: Oltaku
As always a complete guide from Ziggy.Simple and effective and HEAVY METAL \m/


Why no Catalyze ?
To crit or not to crit ?
"
Slagmaur wrote:
As always a complete guide from Ziggy.Simple and effective and HEAVY METAL \m/


Why no Catalyze ?


Thanks Slagmaur!

Catalyze is decent but thanks to the high base physical damage on the Marohi you get better returns on quite a few of the Physical damage nodes we are close to. You could spend the level 80 and 81 passive points on it - it's just not really worth it before that point. However, I'm tempted instead to start getting some more life/armor instead of damage to make high level mapping a bit easier.
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Had a few people ask me why I go for Multistrike over Faster attacks on IB so here's some copy pasta:

Negatives:

- The root takes away some control, which is aggravated by slow attack speed.

- Overkill on some packs where the second or third attack isn't needed.

- Higher mana cost means you have to ensure you have 250+ mana unreserved to give you room to leech.

Positives:

- Makes targeting a lot easier, if you hold shift and click even if you are desycned your second and third attacks will still auto target. If you missclick the same thing happens.

- The damage reduction and splitting the attack into three completely mitigates physical reflect (less damage per attack and time to leech).

- Makes mana management easier with slow regen - you have time to leech and regen between each attack (only charges you once every three attacks).

- Multistrike gives you more attack speed than faster attacks, making the skill a decent single target vs rares and bosses.

Overall I settled on Multistrike but I think the decision will ultimately be personal. I recommend that you try both yourself if you try this build to see which you prefer.
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I assume the Bandit order is "Oak, Skill point, Skill point"?
"
Scadrial wrote:
I assume the Bandit order is "Oak, Skill point, Skill point"?


I run a very similar build and I went Oak/Oak/Oak. Stacking phys damage helps a lot with leeching, and another Endurance charge really helps.
"
andaval wrote:
"
Scadrial wrote:
I assume the Bandit order is "Oak, Skill point, Skill point"?


I run a very similar build and I went Oak/Oak/Oak. Stacking phys damage helps a lot with leeching, and another Endurance charge really helps.


Makes sense. Thanks man.
Got a few more questions about the build real fast. Sorry.

Okay, I noticed in the final skill tree, you spec out of Blood Magic. Which auras should I be running while leveling? Right now I'm just using Hatred + Clarity because I'm level 23 and whenever I get into BM, I should switch for Anger and Wrath, right?
I noticed in the video that you put a point into the +phys damage node right at the start of the Mara tree but it's not specced on the actual URL to the passive tree so should I still spec it, or no?
Lastly, should I be using Enduring Cry and Warlord's Mark as soon as I get them?

Thanks!

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