1.3 [Newbie Friendly] GROUNDSLAMMER BUILD

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j0zef wrote:

You can't run 1% (or 3% if you took passive, can't see your tree) life leech, not at those low DPS levels. Your damage mitigation is alright (minus horrible CWDT setup), it's your sustain that's not working. Here's what I would suggest:

-Get a new belt (rustic sash). Your current belt does virtually nothing for you. Sash will give a nice boost to DPS, and you can also get life or 1 res. This kind of belt will run you ~1C.
-Your cast when damage taken setup doesn't work. The required level on the supported skill (Immortal Call) can NOT be higher than the required level of CWDT. Since your CWDT is lvl59, and your IC is 62, your cast when damage taken setup does not do anything at all.
-You should have endurance charges to take advantage of immortal call. Otherwise, Immortal call only lasts half a second. Use Enduring Cry.
-You need more life leech. Either grab a Carnage Heart, use blood rage, or simply replace your Added Fire damage gem with Life Leech. Added fire doesn't get multiplied by the +dmg passives, so the damage boost you get from this support gem is very low. Also, you do not leech life back from elemental damage.
-Spell Totem+Skeletons is a good skill.. but without faster cast, it's not effective to cast during combat. Into your boots, put: Enfeeble->Cast When Damage Taken->Decoy Totem->Enduring Cry. CWDT should be less than lvl5.

Are you wearing Chest armor? If yes, get at least 4 sockets and put:
Cast When damage taken (between level 10-15), Molten Shell, Immortal Call and Increased duration. Use the highest level of last 3 skills that is LOWER than the CWDT. For example, if you use a lvl10 CWDT (required level 49), you should use: lvl12 Molten Shell (req lvl 47) and Lvl10 Immortal Call (req lvl 10). The increased duration can be any level.


Thank you for your detailed response, I will try all this now. Lots of things I did wrong it seems. I ended up vendoring the immortal call with a scour so it would be the same level as the cast when damage taken. I found an extra faster cast gem so I plan to chrome my boots so I can use it with my skeleton totem cause I prefer it to decoy, unless the decoy CWDT Enfeeble Enduring Cry is better.

I forgot my chestpiece last time, here is what I'm using, mainly cause the super high armor.


I also changed my helmet, I could use blood rage with it.


I'm gonna look for a rustic sash soon.

Edit: Here is my current setup since changing things. It seems to be doing better. Thanks for all the help. If something still isn't optimal, feel free to tell me. :) I know I need a new necklace sometime which is my next thing on my list and I was just using the sapphire for a bit of extra quantity when I did maps.
Spoiler

"Come along fool, a direct hit to the senses will leave you disconnected."
Last edited by KimchiGirlx3 on Feb 26, 2014, 9:53:10 PM
It's looking a lot better Kim! A couple of improvements I see are:
-Your two CWDT setups are close together (lvl12 and lvl16). In general, you want them to be more spaced out - you want a low lvl one that activates as soon as you take a decent (400-600) amount of damage, and another after ~1500-2k dmg.
In the lower CWDT, you want to put skills that don't really need a high lvl - Enfeeble, Enduring Cry, Decoy Totem. I also throw my Blood Rage here. So basically it activates automatically at beginning of each fight.
In the higher CWDT, you want to put skills that can use higher level. Molten Shell is on top of that list, since the protection it adds is exponentially better at lvl 20 than lvl1. The other one is Immortal Call, since it lasts longer.
Here's my setup:


-Try Enfeeble or Temporal Chains with your CWDT instead of Warlord's. I know it sounds like nothing, but it improves your survivability tremendously. The popular one is Enfeeble. I've played with Temporal Chains for a few days and just don't like it as much as Enfeeble.
Keep in mind that if you decide to put Enfeeble in that Blue slot on the helm, you need to take Warlord's out since you can only apply 1 curse at a time.

-Lastly.. I can tell you're not rich, and probably think that quality gems are too expensive. The trick (as I've learned, cuz I'm still not rich) is to learn which gems add significant value through quality, but are not popular or expensive. For example:
--Quality on Heavy Strike adds a SIGNIFICANT amount of damage. You can find a 10% quality heavy strike for ~1gcp. It's one of the biggest boosts to your DPS you can grab.
--Quality on Blood rage adds 1% leech for every 5 pts. I have a 15% blood rage and a 2% passive for life leech. No other leech on gear. It works like a charm - 2% is plenty to survive small encounters when first CWDT does not activate Blood Rage, and when you get into a big fight, BR gives me 9% leech total which is terrific. The downfalls of Blood Rage is the % life drain as chaos. This is more noticeable if you have a large HP pool - over 6k life and with low chaos res, it will become a problem. But if you have a decent amount of regen (150ish), and mediocre amt of life (3k-4k), you wont even feel it.
As a boon, Blood Rage also gives Frenzy charges, which is a free DPS boost.
--Molten Shell with quality gives a chance to ignite... which increases damage enemies take. It's also incredibly cheap. A 10% Molten Shell costs 1c and gives you a chance for extra 10% DPS.
--Faster Attacks & Faster cast give direct boosts and help out. Grab a mediocre one for cheap and enjoy it.
I nominate J0zef for the "Nicest Player around" Award. Great job, buddy!

The Sirus fight is a disgrace.
Great post j0zef. I am still leveling, but I am thinking of using the vendor recipe to get quality gems when mine hit level 20. Should I just get quality ones now?
Heh, let me put it this way. My mara is currently lvl85, and his highest gems are Lvl19, about 1/4 of the way to lvl20.

For cheap quality gems, buy a semi-high version now (Q15-18 for me). But more expensive ones like Multistrike or Melee Physical cost 2 ex each.. so waiting may be a good idea.
For me is this the best newbie-build i read so far. Playing it and loving it :) Thanks for your work man ;)
Had stopped playing for some weeks now but a new patch is up. I'll probably be trying to make this build work again.
As many before me, I will say it again: Great job on this guide !
Following it (with a few variations), I am now lvl 89 and run 78 maps without major problem.

Btw, a major patch comes this week and I am wondering about the impact of it on our beloved marauder; as you may read in patch notes, Marauder starting area will be reworked and the big life wheel near Scion area (that we use on this build) will be nerfed.
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The Marauder starting area has been reworked substantially.
The area between the Duelist and Marauder has been reworked substantially.
The wheels of primary defenses around the Scion opening area have been changed to allow fast lateral progress. The values of the life wheel have been reduced. The Elusiveness notable has been removed.


This doesn't bode well for the build. :(
On my command, unleash hell.
I'm more worried about how the Life Leech changes will affect this build. Any thoughts?

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