1.3 [Newbie Friendly] GROUNDSLAMMER BUILD

@SpidaFly

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- DEX! Am I supposed to be getting ALL of my dex from items? I don't have enough dex to get a Multistrike high enough for it to be a viable replacement for Added Fire Damage. And of course, optimally, I'd like a 5L so I can run HS/GS + life leech + added fire damage + mele phys dmg + multistrike - but I'm quite poor so that isn't an option yet unless I get lucky and get an amazing 5L armor drop.

I would love to help you out more but this is only one area that I know what most players would do to get the dex needed for Multistrike. They get a unique amulet called Carnage Heart then add in Quickness passive that is by Unwavering Stance area which is +30 to dex.

I also do not know how much a Carnage Heart runs so that is something else that I cannot help you with.

You should be able to get about 1/5 of the dex you need (~100) from the tree/intrinsic to the class. The rest will come from items. A Carnage Heart will run you (in Domination) anywhere from 10-12c on the very low end (with luck) to 20c. In standard you'll find crappy ones for about 10c pretty easy, but the really good ones with high resists will set you back an exalt or more. But they aren't necessary (I don't personally use one.)

Most people are trading out Faster Attacks for Multistrike near end game. Since FA has a higher dex requirement than MS, most people don't really "see" this I expect. As was pointed out, just one passive point can be used to pick up Quickness if you followed the build tree.

I had a much harder time with Intelligence, to be honest, as I wanted to run Cast When Damage Taken.

This build isn't really mana regen friendly, so it's pretty tough to run auras. Most people do so by adding a Blood Magic gem to their main damage dealer. Unless you can afford two 6L, you're generally better off NOT dropping a damage boosting support gem and just keeping BM.

Tree is fine. Refund the str and 2H damage nodes near the blood magic nodes. Pick Bloodless to connect. Eventually, you'll get rid of blood magic node which will let you refund all 3 str nodes, 2h and blood magic - giving you 4 extra pts.
Grab the Str node to left of Executioner - it will let you refund 2 pts in the 3/4 circle to the left.

@IC - that's the common one - CWDT+EC+IC+Molten Shell. I prefer to manually cast EC with Faster Cast support. You can try CWDT+IC+MS+Increased Duration as well. Yes, you will lose constant 6 endurance charges uptime. IMO it's worth it.
If you realize you like it too, you'll be able to refund 2 Endurance Charge passives. I live just fine with max of 4.

@Dex - grab an amulet with All attribs. If you still need Dex ASAP, grab Quickness passive. At worst, it will cost you 1 refund point later on. People recommend Carnage Heart - it has life leech, all res and the + all attrib. It's a great starter ammy. Later on I realized that I can use Blood Rage to give me the same amount of life leech, and Carnage Heart became old news.

@Mana - I've never had mana problems. After 5k DPS, you should be able to sustain GS and HS - as long as you have enough mana for ~3 attacks. You also should have at least 2%

@Master of the Arena - it doesn't affect GS, but it affects HS.

Thanks a bunch for the build guide! Here's my current gear:




5.2k life
7.2k armor (almost 11k with Determination)
77/77/77/-36 res

Groundslam: 15,412 DPS
Double Strike: 23,973 DPS

Current Build: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAecCcQSzBS0Jlg_MEuEUIBRNGJEZLhnpGjgaVScgJ-0pLi3SMZ4yCTWSNug62DrhPfxAoEE_RmlKyE3YTeNQR1BQUeZXDVhjWK9Z818_YEthIWSjZ1hnm2xGbqpybHKpdO14DXrve4x8uHzZgW-DOITvhymHaojxjHaMz5BVkc6ePJ65ns2fPp_LogCi6qZXpmSnMKeEqWipbqxZrKq0L7Xyud277cAaxtjJmNIh1I_ZYd7B5K3nY-sJ7DjvDu988B_yL_JF8932SPe-_In-Cv6P

Any suggestions on what to do next?

Could you modify the beginner portion of this build to go straight from RT to BM? Or would you die too quickly?

You can do that just fine if you can LoH / leech from gems/gear to handle it. It's what I did. Then I wrapped around to Blood Drinker. Just nix the two strength nodes between the first endurance charge and Blood Drinker, since they're no longer needed. As long as you're spec'd into BM there's no penalty. You're trading two str. nodes on the left for the two on the right you won't pick up on your way to Blood Drinker. Basically like this:

Modified Tree

The only caution is that it can be a PITA later to respec out of BM if you're connected on the left. You have to get two points to first connect up to the right side of the tree, then clear your two str nodes on the left. It can end up causing you to spend four respecs/regrets instead of 2 if you're not careful about planning your repsecs.

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magnon65 wrote:

What if I already killed Oak?
Is that a big problem?

If it were me and I was set on following this build, I'd reroll.

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j0zef wrote:

Tree is fine. Refund the str and 2H damage nodes near the blood magic nodes. Pick Bloodless to connect. Eventually, you'll get rid of blood magic node which will let you refund all 3 str nodes, 2h and blood magic - giving you 4 extra pts.
Grab the Str node to left of Executioner - it will let you refund 2 pts in the 3/4 circle to the left.

Thanks for the advise j0zef! I have followed your suggestions.

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@IC - that's the common one - CWDT+EC+IC+Molten Shell. I prefer to manually cast EC with Faster Cast support. You can try CWDT+IC+MS+Increased Duration as well. Yes, you will lose constant 6 endurance charges uptime. IMO it's worth it.
If you realize you like it too, you'll be able to refund 2 Endurance Charge passives. I live just fine with max of 4.

Again, followed this advice - I actually tried running CWDT + EC + IC + Increased Duration. Because I've held my CWDT at level 3, I don't see a significant advantage to running Molten Shell. Am I missing something? IC is far more powerful than I had imagined - one of things I had to test to understand.

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@Dex - grab an amulet with All attribs. If you still need Dex ASAP, grab Quickness passive. At worst, it will cost you 1 refund point later on. People recommend Carnage Heart - it has life leech, all res and the + all attrib. It's a great starter ammy. Later on I realized that I can use Blood Rage to give me the same amount of life leech, and Carnage Heart became old news.

Indeed. I have little currency, but I will start saving up for the Carnage Heart or perhaps a good Turquoise Amulet roll.

Question: As I mentioned above, my CWDT is at level 3. I've heard all sorts of numbers thrown around about the "sweet spot" for CWDT level... I've heard 3, I've got a buddy who runs 5, and I've heard 7.... what is your opinion?

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SpidaFly wrote:

"

j0zef wrote:

Tree is fine. Refund the str and 2H damage nodes near the blood magic nodes. Pick Bloodless to connect. Eventually, you'll get rid of blood magic node which will let you refund all 3 str nodes, 2h and blood magic - giving you 4 extra pts.
Grab the Str node to left of Executioner - it will let you refund 2 pts in the 3/4 circle to the left.

Thanks for the advise j0zef! I have followed your suggestions.

"

@IC - that's the common one - CWDT+EC+IC+Molten Shell. I prefer to manually cast EC with Faster Cast support. You can try CWDT+IC+MS+Increased Duration as well. Yes, you will lose constant 6 endurance charges uptime. IMO it's worth it.
If you realize you like it too, you'll be able to refund 2 Endurance Charge passives. I live just fine with max of 4.

Again, followed this advice - I actually tried running CWDT + EC + IC + Increased Duration. Because I've held my CWDT at level 3, I don't see a significant advantage to running Molten Shell. Am I missing something? IC is far more powerful than I had imagined - one of things I had to test to understand.

"

@Dex - grab an amulet with All attribs. If you still need Dex ASAP, grab Quickness passive. At worst, it will cost you 1 refund point later on. People recommend Carnage Heart - it has life leech, all res and the + all attrib. It's a great starter ammy. Later on I realized that I can use Blood Rage to give me the same amount of life leech, and Carnage Heart became old news.

Indeed. I have little currency, but I will start saving up for the Carnage Heart or perhaps a good Turquoise Amulet roll.

Question: As I mentioned above, my CWDT is at level 3. I've heard all sorts of numbers thrown around about the "sweet spot" for CWDT level... I've heard 3, I've got a buddy who runs 5, and I've heard 7.... what is your opinion?

Glad you're enjoying it!

@CWDT - There is no big difference between lvl3 or lvl5 CWDT. The major difference you need to think about is how much damage you'll take before activating the support skills. As an example, you would not want to link a Curse and Decoy totem to a lvl20 CWDT - because by then, you'll be 70% dead.

What a lot of people do is create TWO different CWDT setups, at different damage points. For example, I run a lvl5 CWDT that has a Decoy totem, curse (Enfeeble), and Blood rage. To translate that into english, it means:
"As soon as I take some damage (500), you need to attack my totem, you need to be weaker, and I need more life leech".

The second setup uses a lvl12 CWDT, with Immortal Call, Molten Shell and Frost wall. To translate it into english:
"As soon as I take a significant amount of damage, I want to improve my defense so I don't die."

This is also the answer to your Molten Shell question. A higher level CWDT is where you link MS. Again, there is no golden rule on what level the CWDT should be. It's about the damage point and the skills linked. I'm seriously considering moving my 2nd CWDT to about lvl15 (after 2k dmg).
The only thing I'd say is that you don't want the two CWDT to be too close together - try to keep at least ~1k dmg between them.