Suggestions for my build? Templar Ambush with Ground Slam, Heavy Strike and Searing Bond.

Hi everyone,

I would appreciate it if someone could make a comment on how he / she would progress with that build.
I´m running a Level 52 Templar in Ambush league at the moment and I just entered Act 3 Cruel. I have 11 passive points left to spend and I think I did not do too bad so far, but I wonder where you would spend that 11 points.

Why do I have 11 points left? Because I have basically no real Idea how to make a good build, I always save my points to a point where gameplay gets harder for me and then think about where my character lacks and try to improve it in that direction.

This is NOT the case at the moment, but mid-game I thought maybe it´s a good idea to ask for some opinions before I start spending these 11 points soon.

With this Char, I use Ground Slam and Heavy strike the most. For difficult mobs I sometimes use my Searing Bond as a support. Since Ground Slam is supported by a Life Gain on Hit Gem, I mostly run around to accumulate some Mobs and kill them with Ground Slam most of the time which seems to be pretty time efficient and gains me lots of Life also.

In the game itself I went through Act I and Act II Cruel without any problems. Generally it´s a piece of cake. Even the Chamber of the Wyvern with that big spider, where I had a hard time in normal to kill it (I did not die, but was close to), was a no-brainer in Cruel. But in Cruel I had 2 Corrupted Zones where the Bosses nearly one-shotted me and I had to respawn multiple times to finally kill them. One of them was doing Chaos damage, and my Chaos resistency is at -20% which, as far as I understood, can be compensated best with Gear (Rings?).
Also the Vaal Oversoul (in the Pyramid) which I managed to kill without dying in Normal made me respawn a few times in Cruel. But this might probably be more because I was not patient enough and tried to kill him quicker with my Heavy Strike which is not a good Idea when he shoots his Flashes right into my face :-)

Dominus in Normal killed me 3 or 4 times with his Blood Rain where I had no idea where I could hide, nor what kind of Damage this is to boost one of my (Elemental?) resistances.


My current, active gear:


About the Cap, Shoes and the Mits: I have gear with better base stats in my Stash, but the current ones gives me huge boosts in Elemental Resistances, Strenth / Dex and some additional Life gain, so whenever I thin about to exchange it with another gear with better base stats, I refrain doing so because of the other benefits. I´m not sure if this is really a good Idea though.

Passive Skill Tree
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUAAnEEswVbDhQUIBRNGJEZLhnpGjgjTSSLJ-0yiTwFQDZEclBHVw1X4lnzZ1hyqXK7fLuDOITEiuSQVZJ9mG-b7J7Nn9-hbaIApzCnhKyqr2y0-bnNwBrFitIh2WHeweSt73zwHw==

Having resists and life on your gear is always a good thing. The one thing you want to do is get better sockets and links on what ever you use. This will allow you to enhance your offense and defense with support gems. You can always farm for currency and buy a few jewelers and fusings from the vendor. Keep your eyes open for whites with links you can transmute. A good blue can sometimes be better than a poor rare or unique.

My advice:
1. Try to never run with white gear. The worst blue is going to better than a white. Transmute your shield, you might get some resists on it. Watch this video to see how to use transmutes. It's not my video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7nKhReWj1g
2. I see a lightning strike gem. If you're leveling it, try to do that on your alternate weapon. Always try to use sockets on your main gear with gems that can help you.
3. You main attack should always have the best links. heavy strike should be on the 3L on your chest. Why is there a LS gem if you're not going to use it?
4. Use 1 point to take Blood Drinker on you tree. The life leech is a very good thing for a melee build.
5. As a melee build life on tree is your king. You're going to be hit a lot, so the more life the better. Don't waste too many points on DPS, Saving points is a good idea. When you use them try to figure out what your immediate need is. Are you dying a lot? Add more life. Are you staying alive but the mobs are taking too long to kill? Maybe some damage on the tree might help. When you use you points try to figure out if you're going to stay in an area. if you aren't don't use too many points because you want to be able to respec out if you have to.
6. You always want to be near a life node on your tree. As you progress later in the game you may find you need to add more. You have too many points in DPS. Work your way over to the Path of the Warrior. You can add more life there.
7. You're going to need more DEX and INT. The INT will get you more mana and the DEX will allow you to use DEX gems like faster attacks.
7. Use 3 points to take Warriors Blood. The life regen ca save your life as you're running away when you need to.


I'm no build master by no stretch, I really think you should have started in the marauder area with the skills you're using. If you keep working your way that way you can squeeze more life out of the build. This what I would do with your points. I took four points out of area of effect radius and added some life and dex. I took two points from one handed critical strike chance and added life. Work your way over to Diamond Skin but don't waste too many points over there. Get resists on your gear
The goal with this tree is to keep working your way over towards Master of the Arena. It should help with the heavy strike and ground slam attacks. I can't help you with searing bond. I've never used it and have never researched what can help it. I don't like totem skills, I like hitting things. Searing Bond could be the most powerful skill in the game and I don't see myself using it any time soon. Understand these are suggestions and will cost you a few respec points if you use them. You really need to work on getting better gear too. I play as a solo, slow paced and non trading player. This is how I improved my gear

Anyone else feel free to critique my advice. It's all about trying to be helpful

First, let me try to tell you how much I appreciate the time and efforts you must have put in your reply. I really did not expect such a thorough reply and I´m speechless how much time you must have spent to really look at my gear, my build and reading and thinking about my post. Thank you very much! :-)

And I´m happy that it seems that I not completely did every wrong so far. And after posting my question, I played a bit more, spend time in the skill tree and exchanged my shield because I think I found one that fits me quite well. But more on that later.

Also it seems we have a similar play style. I´m also a slow player and probably no wizard with the controls, so I play on a slow pace and try to make the best out of the gear I find. I don´t trade (maybe in the future) and only vendor in things I found while playing and try to do some of the vendor recipes.

1. You are probably referring to that shield and you´re so right. The main reason was the high armour and the 3L I had with this. One of the things I´ve read over and over again was, that it´s not worth crafting until late in the game, so whenever I found a shield which had some good stats, but bad links (wrong colour etc.), I kept the white one. But yesterday after I opened this thread I found another shield. It had 3 Red slots, but no links. So I spent 2 fusings on it (the first time I craft at all, apart from a Race) to make it 3L and now it´s part of my main gear.

Shield


I think it´s quite an improvement to what I had before :-)

2. I use that Lightning Strike occasionally. I use it for example when I face quite a few mobs which do not want to stick together and cannot be reached well with Ground Slam. So I use Lightning Strike to hit the "leader" and a few more of the mobs more behind, because Lightning Strike seems to go pretty far. But yes, I also tend to occupy all Gem slots I have to level some other Gems I don´t really need now and to not waste Slots and XP.

3. I hope I understand this correctly. The reason you would do this is because you can use more Support Gems on it. And Accuracy probably does nothing for Lightning Strike, but will help me a lot with Heavy Strike, so I hit the Target more often. Did I get that right?

4. Makes absolutely sense, I can´t believe that I went past this one without using it. Looking at that now makes me feel stupid :-/

5. If I remember correctly I put those points into Damage early because I had to stick to a pretty bad Mace for a very long time, so these points helped me to kill the mobs. So I probably basically did what you are suggesting (spend points where you need them), but somehow I never had the respec points in mind. Later I found another Mace (the current one) which did nearly twice as much Damage as the previous one. And now, thinking about it, those Respec points make much more sense to me. I could have used them to remove the Damage points from the Skill Tree and invest them into something else which is needed more now, because I got more Damage from the better Mace in the meantime.

6. I´m still overwhelmed by the skill tree. I´ve read multiple times that people tend to pick a few Key points the want to have for their build and then figure out the best paths to reach them to grab what they need the most (most of the time life it seems) on their way. But what you write makes it a bit more clear to me. Do not pick up all the life immediately. When they are close to your path through the skill tree, you can skip them first when you don´t need them to get what you need and later spend a point here and there on life when you really need it. Thanks :-)

7. That´s what I also only realized after I have opened this thread. I was not able to level the Searing Bond Gem anymore because I was lacking INT. DEX and INT, both make a lot of sense now especially as you mentioned faster attacks, which my char is lacking a bit. It´s always good to be a bit faster to "interrupt" the attack of a foe, so he has no time to hurt you. And I have a few sweet gems sitting in my inventory which could be useful later with more DEX and INT. I´ll keep this in mind.

8. (and Skill Tree): I went through your changes and look close at the nodes around the ones you selected. Thank you very much for taking the time to think about what you would do. Everything you point out makes absolutely sense to me and the skill tree gets clearer and clearer to me the more I look at it and the changes you made.


My first Char (in the open Beta) was a Marauder (only Lvl. 10 or so), later I played a Ranger a bit longer (I think Lvl 22). Also in races I always chose Marauder or Ranger. I can´t tell you why I picked the Templar, probably I wanted to do something different. And I did not expect that I play that long with this Char. This is the first Char with which I really spent a lot of time in this game and Heavy Strike, Ground Slam and Searing Bond were amongst the first Gems I found with it and somehow I sticked to them. So it´s not an optimum build it seems, but not everything´s lost either.

With your suggestions I have more confidence in progressing and spending my points and I´m curious how far I can get with my Templar. Your input is appreciated very much, so thank you very much again for taking the time to reply to my post in your precious free time.

And thanks for the Link to Newbie Guide of how to improve my gear. By coincidence I stumbled upon this one yesterday too and it´s a permanent open Tab in my Browser now (as the Vendor Recipes). So this one also helps a lot. And just now I realize that this Guide is from you also. Great work! :-)


Thanks again!

You're welcome. I'm glad I was of some help. Here's a couple more suggestions after I read your response. The first one involves crafting. I've also read that you shouldn't craft until late in the game. What they're mainly referring to is don't use the really rare currency like exalts, regals and divine orbs until end game. Why waste an orb, that you may only see 1-2 of in months of playing, on a low end piece of gear that will end up getting vendored? An alteration or transmute orb are easily obtained though. I usually only try to use them on whites with links though. Some people don't use alchemys until late game either, but my thinking is I'll get another by doing the recipe. Don't get me wrong I don't alch any and everything, but they do me no good sitting in my stash. Sometimes it's on need, sometimes it depends on mood. Just like people go gambling because they feel lucky, sometimes I'll use an alch on something for the same reason.

On your use of Lightning Strike. I use Spectral Throw for the same thing. I was using Ethereal Knives, which can be absolutely deadly with the right gems, but then they introduced ST. I tried it and liked the fact that it hits going and coming. I like using it with Life gain on Hit, but i really like using it Like this:
It will freeze and shatter certain mobs and some it will ignite. That softens them up a little before I run in for the kill.
If you need more range you can use it like this The faster projectiles gives a range of a off screen. The bad thing is it takes longer for the projectiles to return to you. I think a perfect 4L setup would have 4 green sockets and a faster attack gem. I haven't tried that yet because I don't have enough FA gems per character. The only thing I swap between characters is the portal gem.

As you can see having the sockets and links allows me to use those support gems. That's why you should keep your eyes open for gear with links. A good support gem can really help both offense and defense. This is my main builds heavy strike setup This is for defense What ever you do get a Cast when damage taken gem. The fact that it will trigger those gems automatically has saved my life too many times to remember. Just make sure you don't level the gems too high once you get one. Mine are where they're going to stay for awhile.

You can use accuracy with LS and it would help HS as well, but a lot of people use Resolute technique so they don't have to worry about accuracy. You never miss but you don't get critical strikes either. I don't use RT though. When I first did my tree i didn't know about it so I'm too far away. I like having critical strikes though. If you have to use accuracy with HS for now go ahead, but I think it's waste of a green socket for later on. Faster attacks is a much better support gem for it.

In closing maybe you might want to try this. When i get to the point where 4L gear starts dropping I pick up several with different socket color combos. I pick up body armor, boots gloves and helmets. Some I may try to use for upgrades, but sometimes when I get bored and just want to kill some mobs, I'll experiment with different gem combos. I'll go to a lower level just to see what happens. I don't care about exp penalties, I play for fun. I know I could read wikis but sometimes it's fun to figure out stuff for myself. Plus, when I feel the need to gamble I already have some linked whites to play with.

Thanks again for your thorough response.
You gave me some good Ideas and the combinations you use now make me want to get more links on my gear for such experiments :-)
I have quite a few Gems sitting around in my inventory now, but I refrained from switching to other Gems because I leveled my current ones already. But doing some experimentation and going back to easier zones for those experiments is a good Idea to play around a bit and to learn how things work together. I definitely should do that too.

I´m also playing for fun and not to end up having lots of stuff I can trade and accumulate a lot of wealth. Normally I don´t have much time to play anyway (only a few hours during weekends), apart from holidays. So doing some experiments with gears, gems and linking might be a bit more relaxing for my anyway than trying to reach Level 80+ or something like that.

And "Cast when damage taken" sounds brilliant. I need to look now if I have one of those. Now having more gems active than slots in the hot bar makes sense to me too. And having a good set of "emergency" skills which trigger when you get hurt sounds fantastic. I need to try this :-)