[2.6] Empire's Grasp CWC Aegis Tank
 ------------------ With the changes to poison and double-dipping and stuff coming in 3.0 clear would still be fine cause it's only reliant on bleed explosion but this build is very likely to have all its single target damage pulverized. rip ------------------ ___[ Introduction ]___ I always loved Aegis Aurora. It is without a doubt my favourite unique item. With the Legacy League we could get our hands on the legacy variant of the shield outside of standard. My goal was set: make a build with gladiator, get legacy aegis and see where it takes me.
Build explanation
These gloves makes knockback move enemies closer to you rather than away from you. To get 100% chance to knockback on our skill we need a flask. Stibnite is the best choice. Cyclone hits targets in an area around your character very rapidly.  This causes all enemies in your cyclone to bleed, and when they die they explode triggering a chain explosion killing the monsters in your cyclone. I currently have 66327 armour with my stibnite and sulphur flasks (they are always active when clearing) With Aegis Aurora that results in me recovering 2653 ES every time I block an attack or spell. For a non-legacy aegis (2% recovery instead of 4%) that number is 1325. Stacking strong defensive mechanics is the name of the game here. Blind from flask, lots of armour (60k+), 7 endurance charges, fortify and 78% block. Optimally, also life regen enchant on boots and "of Light" on gloves. Endurance charges are manually maintained with Enduring Cry. Face-tanking twinned crit dark forest rigwald, or Minotaur, no problem. It is suprisingly fast for being so heavily focused on defenses. Like with many builds, the more money you throw at it the better it gets. A 6L will double your poison damage compared to 5L. However. It is nowhere near other not-tank-focused builds in terms of killing speed. It's a build of lazy play where there are few dangers. Empire's Grasp was chosen to solve the equation of achieving decent clear speed while still being overly tanky. Clear with BFlurry CWC was just too horrible and clunky. Things that kill this build: - Volatiles (in t13+) - Caustic cloud zombies - Sea witches exploding spawn - Doorways - Hard-hitting spells. Our armour can't save us here, it's all up to rng if you block or die - Party play. If other people are deleting screens there's little you can do - Beyond boss Bameth. Its vaal detonate dead is really dangerous until you get Gratuitous Violence - Any map mod combinations of:
Things that this build kills: - Everything that deals physical damage - Beyond. You vacuum things around and beyond monsters usually spawn inside your cyclone - Labyrinth. Izaro phases don't matter (when you have enough ES to absorb his ele damage) - Maps. Mods listed above are dangerous but not impossible. All others are irrelevant I completed this map deathless while wearing Bisco's Collar instead of Anvil. The defences are of this gladiator are rock solid.
Spoiler
 Can provide some fun for others by vacuuming enemies and letting them nuke the monsters. Tooltip damage isn't very impressive. For clear it's not really needed because empire's + gv takes care of that. Single target poison damage is pretty good (wither, flasks) all things considered. Total poison damage on single target with all things going is probably in the 200k range.
Map specifics
The bad: T5 Spider Lair - Corpse explosion T9 Museum - Chaos damage T9 Canyon - Caustic Arrow T9 Orchard - Unblockable DoT T10 Quay - Takes forever T13 Plaza - The bane of your existence. Don't. Everything else is fine. Phoenix - Not yet attempted. Chimera - Nope. Poison immune. Hydra - Ditto. Poison immune. Minotaur - Super easy. He can't touch you. ___[ Passive Tree ]___
Spoiler
Level 93, 114 points 53 points If you do not have enough intelligence on your gear to use a vaal regalia you can put points in the +30 node until you do. Endurance Charges is low-priority until higher levels. Getting the block nodes will be more important the higher you level. In legacy league I leveled with glacial hammer and its new threshold jewels that give you a cheap pseudo-5L. It was not very fast but it got the job done. I used Glacial Hammer - Melee phys - Multistrike - Weapon Ele Dmg When you are a bit higher level you should look into getting a 1h sword or the like to use the Bflurry CWC setup. Upgrade your weapon often and it'll be less of a headache. Get Anvil amulet as soon as you can equip it. Getting Resolute Technique and Iron Reflexes early on will help with gear choices while leveling. The northern part of the tree, all nodes closer to Templar, is of lesser importance and are the among the last to fill out along with additional end charges. Gladiator Ascendancy 136% max life 15% ES 188% increased armour Resolute Technique Iron Reflexes 5 jewel slots Painforged -> Versatile Combatant -> Gratuitous Violence or Violent Retaliation I went with VR first as I thought killing speed was ´okay´. Getting GV first might be better though. Build can absolutely solo uber lab when you have enough armour+end charges. __Bandit Rewards__ Oak (life) Eramir (skillpoint) Oak (endurance charge) __Jewels__ Life Armour Intelligence I also use this for some extra damage: Using Warlord´s Reach is alright if you feel like having a tiny bit more aoe on the cyclone. I used it while doing shaped strands. ___[ Skills ]___
Spoiler
In order of importance: The 6L will add a lot of damage no matter which 5L you chose (conc/added). Alternatively you use a Blade Vortex instead of Bladefall for bosses that don't move too much and have lots of life. Damage builds up slower with BV but on prolonged fights (which, are few) it's better to use it. Cyclone go into your gloves for the 5L. If you don't have a +1 curse anvil you can use whatever curse you want. Before I changed to Vulnerability I used Warlord's Mark for automatic End Charge generation. Any related curse enchant on your helmet is a great boon. I went with TC because I got a +30% enchant from uber lab one day on my vertex and decided to stick with it as it also increases poison damage indirectly. Enfeeble would of course make you even more invincible. Put these in the helmet for +1 level of socketed gems. Helps increase armour and Enlighten's level. Be sure to use enduring cry before you summon the totem. ___[ Gear ]___
Spoiler
Gear listed here is as optimal it can probably get. Use it as an end-goal; it's not a minimum requirement. Can't be without them. Clear is definitely worse without these. For larger targets (bosses like minotaur, malachai, daresso etc.) where vacuuming monsters together for extra damage is not possible, these gloves are amazing. They give me 1000 more ES at the cost of less than 2000 armour. Alternatively, just bring a vaal breach and laugh at bosses' attempts to survive the bleed explosion madness. Vigilant Strike + the threshold jewel makes fortify last really long, for you and all nearby allies. Could fit Flame golem in here for the extra damage needed for single target.  Can't find a stronger helmet than this. Good armour and ES. Chaos resistance helps with chaos damage together with atziri's promise. The +1 is also good for our auras. A level 2 enlighten is enough to run both auras in the helmet. Yes, sin trek. They're slightly less rubbish now after the buff. They got int and dex, 30% movementspeed and a good amount of armour/ES. No life, however. Helps the build reach block cap of 78% and it is overall pretty awesome. And dirt cheap. Weapon is a gemini claw with the life and mana gain on hit implicit, very important. As high phys as possible. If it has chaos damage it's a bonus, but that won't do much on its own since we have no chaos% damage on the passive tree, nor use void manipulation. Crafted +weapon range will help, but is not needed. The Scourge is a good choice as it (example of ~260pds scourge) increases total poison dps by around 30%. The problem with scourge is that it has no life or mana gain on hit. X gain on hit has to be solved elsewhere. Since this is legacy league and all I'm now using a foil/legacy aegis with its amazing 4%. It is the older aegis that lets us reach these ridiculous values of ES recovered per block. Non-foil is no doubt still strong on this build, but the 4% will always be so much better/broken. Vanguard belt is naturally the best choice. Too much armour to pass up on. Rings like these are the best for this build. They might be expensive, might not. You want life, flat es, intelligence, resistance. Open prefix for es% is a luxury. About as good as things can get for a hybrid build like this. I started out with Carcass Jack, later got a cheap vaal regalia when I could cope with the armour loss from carcass (6-7k or so), then sold that and bought the one you see here. The flask setup is also very important. You need two stibnites (you can replace second stibnite with whatever, but it must have anti-bleed) - one with knockback on melee hit and one with anti-bleeding so you don't get rekt everytime you encounter a corrupting blood pack or rare. Sulphur flask for double dipping madness, extra armour and life regen. Atziri's Promise is cheap and adds a lot of extra chaos damage. Why not use Witchfire Brew? It doesn't have quality and the vuln only lasts ~6 seconds. Sulphur adds both to flurry/bf damage as well as the poison. ___[ Gameplay + Media ]___
Spoiler
Gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1r83JgmNTA Tier 12 Vault. Only notable mod is -60% recovery of life/es. In other words, tankyness is more than double in optimal conditions than what you see in the video.
Defence in hideout (Empire's grasp)
 66327 armour with flasks.
Defence in hideout (Shaper's Touch)
 63779 armour with flasks.
Pretty pictures!
 These are the moments the build lives for.  Easy.  Breach + x2 Beyond + Shining Tempest. Older screenshot, still wearing carcass jack. Trivia: The original plan was to use Cybil's Paw, hence my character's name, but a high-phys claw proved to be better in the end. Build guides for my characters:
Last edited by Angerelic on Jun 13, 2017, 12:08:50 PM Last bumped on Apr 14, 2017, 7:10:58 AM
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mapped with him and had a close look at the developement of this build. it has a surprising damage output for such a defensive build. poison was only a solution for single target, clear is great even without it. may also have some use for ghostbusting.
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Looks like a really interesting and fun build. Do you think it's guardians/shaper viable?
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" Minotaur? Very likely. Haven't tested yet but I have a feeling it'll be a breeze. Chimera and Hydra? Nope. Poison immunity. Phoenix? It's hard to tell. Maybe, or maybe not. Shaper has such a ludicrous amount of hitpoints that I don't really know if this build can play the attrion game for too long. I think the fight would drag on for so long the homing vortex balls would cover the arena. His only physical damage attack is the melee slap he does sometimes, so all our defence is for nothing. |
