[2.2] Drunken Wretch (Gladiator with The Retch + Broken Faith)

Faith in the empire broken, stuck on this stupid continent, this wretched gladiator deals with his problems by drinking. A lot...

The Perandus league has made previous league uniques very easy to acquire. This build came about after I bought The Retch on a whim to see if I could make a successful build with it. I wanted to stick to the belt's Chaos theme and on another whim bought a Broken Faith shield (a Warbands Unique) and decided that somehow I would make it work.

These two uniques together (both in name and flavour) gave me a great theme to work with; a gladiator who's down on his luck and drowning his sorrows - hence the Drunken Wretch.

The use of Cyclone with the increased movement speed during flask effect from The Retch nicely simulates the gladiator stumbling his way through hordes of monsters while completely off his face.

The build wasn't cheap (Retch was 150c, Faith 50c for a good roll) but it was extremely satisfying putting all the pieces together, and I'm currently enjoying putting it through its paces in red maps, which is going pleasantly well.

Damage and stuff

Traditionally melee builds use elemental damage gained/conversion to scale their damage (Hatred, Herald of Ash etc). This build uses chaos damage scaling instead, with Unholy Might (from Broken Faith) and Atziri's Promise adding physical damage as chaos, and using the Poison support gem to take advantage of this along with the Vulnerability curse.

The Gladiator ascendancy class helps to stack block in order to proc Unholy Might as often as possible. The Gratuitous Violence node makes the gameplay a little bit smoother by applying bleeds and exploding enemies.

A very long Pros/Cons list

Pros
- Tanky: 70/75 block/spell block (with Rumi's)
- Drunk: 9s flask uptime

Cons
- Relatively expensive

Passive Skills with some explanation to boot

Level 88 Passive Tree Link - this gives you over 5k life, and all of the life/armour nodes in the Marauder area still to take.

To make the build work, I took the Druidic Rite and Primal Spirit notables near Ranger. These offset the downside of The Retch so I ended up with +80% flask duration, and +40% flask charges gained, giving almost 100% uptime with enough button mashing/careful flask management.

The tree travels through the Marauder area to get Resolute Technique, and up into the Templar area to get the Amplify increased area of effect cluster, getting life, block and damage on the way.

Taking Spirit Void for mana leech means I don't need a Blood Magic gem to run cyclone. In no-regen maps if I run out of mana I have Leap Slam linked to Blood Magic to help get my mana leech started again.

A highly in-depth Gear + Active Skills break down

Because I already had one I'm using a Varunastra sword, but this isn't really a requirement; any decent 1h weapon (or as suggested by Jilvane, Facebreakers!) can be used with a few minor modifications to the tree.







Final ramblings

For those who are interested the cyclone damage goes up to 45k tooltip when fully buffed (including 4 frenzies which I only really use for bosses), and with Poison, Vulnerability and Gratuitous Violence on top of this the play/clear speed feels great, even in harder red maps.

1. Should post videos
2. a build was recently posted involving the wretch with a similar title https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1655814
3. Tree needs heavy work
4. if using a build involving the retch the best way to abuse it is via slayer + vinktar.

Welp gl on the guide needs lots of work

This looks pretty cool, enough to warrant a test on my facebreaker.

the accentency class on the passive tree is a champion??

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Jilvane wrote:

This looks pretty cool, enough to warrant a test on my facebreaker.

Awesome! Would be cool to hear how this turns out.

"

DUKE_OF_SNUFF wrote:

the accentency class on the passive tree is a champion??

Ah. This is because I respecced an old Champion build. I have fixed this, thanks =)

"

benjaminbona wrote:

1. Should post videos
2. a build was recently posted involving the wretch with a similar title https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1655814
3. Tree needs heavy work
4. if using a build involving the retch the best way to abuse it is via slayer + vinktar.
Welp gl on the guide needs lots of work

Thanks I guess. I would love to post a video but I'm currently using an older laptop (was amazing 4 years go...) - any suggestions about the best way to record on an older rig?

You're almost right, the best way to abuse the reflected leech damage from The Retch is use Vinktar + Slayer + Vaal Pact. That build you allude to does exactly this. But that's not what this build does, in fact I'm not trying to take advantage of the leech mechanic at all. Vinktar + Slayer is much more effective for a big-hitting kill-before-being-killed build, which this isn't really, this is a drunken master stumbling his way though enemies getting lots of small and effective hits on them!

What about the tree needs work? I think I've balanced it pretty nicely between offense, defense, and utility (to the point where I can enjoy playing hard red maps, all mods except no leech), it would be great to have proper feedback for tweaking my tree though, not just "it needs work"...

You don't mention whether you need Rumi's for max block, is that how you're getting it? If not I'd definitely recommend Lion's Roar flask instead. Also I question whether you need the Primal Spirit node in Ranger.

Otherwise it looks like a pretty sweet build, Ascendancy and Cadiro are really putting these build-around uniques to work. Does Broken Faith have 3D art? It's a cool shield.

Yeah the block shown is using Rumi's (have updated in the text). I'm considering getting rid of one of my health pots and adding another utility flask (Silver or Basalt?). Maybe I could swap Atziri's Promise for Lion's Roar - does the knockback cause issues with cyclone? - I've only ever seen it used with Empire's Grasp. Would certainly be a nice damage boost.

Primal Spirit helps generate flask charges which is pretty crucial for keeping the flasks going with the downside to The Retch. It does three other small things; it's helping me get enough int to run high level enfeeble and vulnerability, the extra mana helps me sustain cyclone in less recovery/no regen maps, and it adds a tiny boost to life and damage from strength, so overall it's actually really good.

Yeah it's nice to finally put some of them to use after rejecting so many Cadiro deals for old league uniques! Unfortunately no Broken Faith doesn't have 3D art, I wish it did!