Poisonquake Juggernaut Prophecy Updated, Beginner friendly, cheap to start, Uber Atziri/Core

This thread is a build guide for playing Earthquake with a focus on adding a large poison DoT in addition to the large amounts of physical damage Earthquake naturally does. This build does not scale elemental damage in any way - no Herald of Ash, no Hatred, no elemental gems. I developed this build in Perandus league, and I am playing it again in Prophecy to further optimize with the addition of new ascendancy points.

This build does not require much gear to easily clear early and mid game maps! A 4l Marohi Erqi and a 3L Kingsguard chest are fine for non-red maps. I killed Atziri in prophecy with a 5L Marohi and a 3L Kingsguard chest

Videos

Prophecy league videos:
Uber Atziri Bosses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1kl76-bUHI&feature=youtu.be
Pale Council: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjkGrNJPyAI
Twinned Corrupted (8 mod) Abyss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr9anSo_lcY&feature=youtu.be
Core Malachai (phase 2 only): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6bhJCHLxKA&feature=youtu.be

Perandus league videos: Full gear. This is to show the potential of the build if you wish to try and gear it up for end-game
Normal Atziri bosses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XobZf0K2VTs

Palace Map (t14): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOH1vC83LYM

Double Beyond Shrine Map (t14): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt3a3G4BdK8

Triple cursed Abyss Map (t15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mlaSOgVWMw

Twinned/haste Colosseum (t15): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6rHe6FjNo8


I am a very lazy player, so my gem setup is focused on me having to press as few buttons as possible. With the buffs to charge generation in Prophecy, I now run a leveled up Immortal Call gem in my lvl 20 CWDT setup. This allows me to respec some of my passive points out of armour nodes into more life nodes.

Gem


Support gems are listed in order of priority

Main skill: Earthquake - Melee Physical Damage - Less Duration - Fortify - Faster Attacks/Rapid Decay - Increased Aoe/Conc Effect.

Poison and Bleed (acquired from the unique ring Voidheart) do a whole lot of damage thanks to double-dipping from Vulnerability curse and Area Damage. I use Inc AoE and Faster Attacks for clearing maps and switch to Conc effect and Rapid Decay for tough bosses. One thing I need to test when I get a 6l is Bloodlust over FA/Rapid Decay. Ancestral Warchief appears to gain bleed/poison on his attacks if you have Voidheart equipped, so Bloodlust may be more single target damage.

Curses: Blasphemy - Enfeeble - Vulnerability - Arctic Armour

This will reserve most of your mana, fortunately EQ does not cost much even in a 6L.

CWDT setup: lvl 20 CWDT - lvl 20 Stone Golem - Blood Rage (as high as you can level it) - Immortal Call

Passively maintains Blood Rage and Golem buffs, and provides significant physical mitigation.

Utility setup: Enduring Cry - Ancestral Warchief - Blood Magic - Increased Duration

Blood Magic is because of our low amount of mana available - not enough to cast EC and use EQ in succession, and with this build if you aren't attacking you will die. Totem is for bosses, Duration gem also increases the heal from EC. You want to EC to heal if you need it or right after a boss does a large hit, likely proccing your IC


Gear for this build is a little strange because you need a large amount of Dex and Int to use your skill gems
Gear

Weapon - This is the most important item, so its a good place to start. All you want is as much Pdps as possible. Unlike other EQ builds, attack speed is not a stat to avoid - due to the stacking nature of poison a high APS will add a lot of damage. Here is a list of the best weapons (my opinion of course):

1 - Rare Coronal Maul/Vaal Axe with 500+ pdps

2 - Atziri's Disfavour (most likely not cost effective unless it gets really cheap, due to Voidheart granting bleed. I went straight from a 5L Marohi to a 615 pdps mace)


3 - Marohi Erqi - Great stats, and cheap to get a 4L.


Chest Armour - Kaom's Heart is by far the best. If you are unable to get one, Kingsguard is a great, cheap alternative. With a 3L, you can run a Leap Slam setup. Belly of the Beast is significantly worse than Kingsguard with the buffs to charge generation.

Belt - High tri-elemental resists and high life are mandatory. A +1 to Endurance charge vaal corruption is huge if you can get it, but unlikely to be obtainable in a shorter race league. A physical damage Doryani's belt is great if you can get one for cheapish, but you will have to spend some currency to get a good life-based rare belt if you want the best.

Rings - Ming's Heart + Voidheart. No substitutes, these two rings give a huge damage boost.

Amulet - Astramentis or Rare amulet with high life, + flat phys, and high Dex + Int. You need very high Int and Dex for curses and Blood Rage. If you can get an open prefix, you can master-craft +chaos damage to attacks which will buff your poison dot. A +1 curse Astramentis is going to be easier (lol) to get, but a rare with absolutely insane stats and +1 curse is technically BiS.

Gloves - flat physical damage to attacks and high life for prefixes, high attack speed (10%+) for a suffix. Gloves are a great place to get Mana Leech, and you can master craft them with Haku if you have an empty prefix. For the other suffixes, you can get dex/int or you could get chaos resist.

Helm - High life and high elemental make for a good starter helm. Armour rolls are not necessary, but a nice bonus. Eventually, when you can afford to spend multiple exalts on really nice Gloves/Boots/Belt and don't need the resists on your helm, I would recommend Devoto's Devotion. A rare is still good, and I wouldn't say Devoto's is better, but it trades life for clearspeed which will be a choice that depends on your playstyle.

Boots - New Deaths Door boots are very good. High movespeed + all resist, +1 endurance charge, and bleed immunity. A rare boot with 30% movespeed, high life, and 25+ to Int/Dex is also really good, and if you can get chaos resist its probably better than Death's Door. I suggest getting an Energy Shield base boot so you can easily roll 3B1G sockets for your curse/AA setup.

Flasks - I use one HP flask, 3 DPS flasks, and a Quicksilver Flask/Vinktar's as my 5th. For HP, I use a Saturated Eternal Life Flask of Dousing for normal play, but it is a good idea to keep a Saturated Eternal Life Flask of Warding in your stash to switch in on relevant bosses. My dps flasks are Lion's Roar, Atziri's Promise, and an Experimenter's Sulphur Flask of Grounding, and Vessel of Vinktar (bosses only). Fun fact: the knockback from Lion's roar powers up the bleed from Voidheart.

Jewels - This build runs 6 jewels, and you want basically the same stats on all of them. In order of importance, the desired stats are:

1 - + Elemental Resists. Its unlikely you will have enough resists on your gear to be capped in merciless, so getting 7-10 ele resists on each jewel is mandatory

2 - Life %.

3 - Area Damage. More important than phys because Poison double dips if applied by an Area skill

4 - Phys/Axe/Melee/2h Melee Damage


Skill tree and Ascendancy points:
passives
There is nothing complicated with the skill tree, you just get a whole bunch of life, a few efficient damage nodes, and Resolute Technique/Unwavering Stance. For leveling, go straight for the two keystones, then path to all the Endurance Charge nodes, then just take life until you get to your mid 80s, at which point you can pick up the damage nodes if you feel your damage is lacking. In my opinion, however, damage nodes are not really necessary.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAEBAQHnBLMFLQU8BsYJuwthDc0S4RQgFE0UcRZvFrsYVhhqGJEaOBpVHM4dFCSqJy8rUC3SLlM1kjboNuk5UjrhPC09_EGHR35IeEnVTeNQR1gHWGNZ812kXz9hIWFSZU1mVGaeZ5toWGhlaHRo8nIPcql07XaseHp673uMfNmCB4Nfg8yE2YTvhmCHaonYjM-PRpBVkc6Ub5uhns2fPp_LogCi6qZXpzCpJ6mUrKquPq9sr6e3PrvtvJ-9Nr6nwAHE9sVTxq7G2M9-0iHTb9eW2L3ZfNpi2sHcMt3V42rkUeoY7w7wH_JB8kXzb_ON8930g_ZI9zL3ufjr-ej60vxL_gr-VP6P

Ascendancy - Unstoppable > Unflinching > Unrelenting > Unyielding. Unstoppable is probably one of the best quality of life passives in the entire game, and I think if the wording reflected what the passive actually did then Juggernaut would be more popular. I don't know if its a bug or not, but Unstoppable makes you completely immune to the negative effects of Temporal Chains and Chilled Ground. They don't slow you to base speed, they don't slow you at all. The only effects that slow my character are poison darts in the Labyrinth and Tar on the ground. In addition to being immune to temp chains/chilled ground, you are also 100% immune to Freeze and Immobilize effects (Bear Trap, Vaal Rain of Arrows, etc). In addition to all that, you also gain 10% movespeed.

Bandits: Oak - Skill point - Oak
.

This is my first guide, so I apologize if the formatting is a bit sloppy. If anything is unclear or if anyone has questions I would be happy to answer them.
Last edited by Kumbo on Jul 19, 2016, 8:06:01 AM
Last bumped on Jan 11, 2017, 11:24:58 AM
Curious, what map mods can't you run or are hard to run?
There is no individual map mod that I can't run, but double reflect might not be possible. For physical reflect I use my weapon swap for an elemental EQ setup with Physical to Lightning and Added Fire Damage.
Been running this for the 2 week, enjoying it quite well so far, stuck using bringer of rain while my marohi is stubborn about links though.
Currently cleaning maps in top 200 in psc flashback league with this build.. just 5l my disfavour and going for my kaoms next.. this build once u get a disfavour from marohi is like night and day... sick build.
I see a lot of other earthquake build use hatred + HoA. You prefer the dual curse setup with arctic armor?
Last edited by Protatoe69 on May 9, 2016, 1:28:35 PM
Yes, for two reasons. First, I personally just prefer more defense over offense, and second poison only scales off your physical damage, so Hatred/HoA will not affect it. Before you get your Poison linked to EQ I would recommend using Warlord's Mark as your second curse since it helps a lot with sustain early on.
"
Kumbo wrote:
Yes, for two reasons. First, I personally just prefer more defense over offense, and second poison only scales off your physical damage, so Hatred/HoA will not affect it. Before you get your Poison linked to EQ I would recommend using Warlord's Mark as your second curse since it helps a lot with sustain early on.


OK thanks that is a good point. I am currently level 84 and thinking of options to switch over to poison. I think I will switch to snakebite gloves then try to fill in my resists elsewhere, then switch to blasphemy / vulnerability. Then I'll switch my melee dmg on full life gem to rapid decay in my weapon.
Last edited by Protatoe69 on May 9, 2016, 1:37:13 PM
Hey! I'm making your build and I was wondering when the best time to start using poison is. I just got into cruel and am using it on a 4L, but the poison dmg feels very small and not noticeable. Does it get a lot better in later levels? Thanks!!
Don't worry about Poison until you can run Vulnerability and Enfeeble. The unique gloves Snakebite are good while you are gearing up since you can get Poison without needing a 5th link.

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