Too low dps for endgame. Need some advice.

For the first time in my POE life I'm trying to build a character that could possibly beat shaper. I have very little endgame experience (once beat Minotaur boss, that's about it) and reflexes are as bad as you could expect from a 40+ senior like myself.

So I built this very tanky guy - FelixFirestarter, you can look him up in my characters - using a vintage Aegis Aurora, that I had lying around from the old days. Currently I'm at 70% melee and spell block, 5.4K HP and 570 energy shield. Capped resistances and all that stuff, so I'm dying not so much as I'm used too (as I should with this kind of build!).

Problem is my DPS: I don't understand how to increase it above my current 40K, around 70K with all the procs and frenzy charges going on. My gear is not that bad, I... think... Yes, I know my gems are only at lvl 19, some quality is missing still, I'm only lvl 89, whatever, but around 45K dps will be the limit for me, I'm guessing.

And then I read some of the peeps here on the forums, talking about 400-500k dps, like it's not even enough for Shaper (?!). I mean, how do you ever get to these kind of numbers? Or is it just that my Gladiator is not build for that kind of damage output?

Its a big weakness of max block generally that you have to sacrifice a great deal to get it, obviously its great but you just can't compete in damage with most other ascendancies and that gaps only gotten bigger with the addition of the extra damage as element offhand statsticks in war for the atlas.

Similar problem with just about any resolute technique build, sadly crit is the be all and end all for damage and RT really caps you hard.

What i'm saying really is this kind of characters never going to be a boss killer, being strong defensively comes at a price. If you really want to kill shaper with this character i'd probably recommend getting a molten strike setup (3 extra proj helm enchant, 2x wildfire for jewel sockets, looking at PoB that'd give you around 150k dps on shaper which isn't enough that it'd be easy but is doable.

It takes some practice but shaper is actually very fair in his moves and execution the only thing i'd be worried about is if you can kill the adds fast enough when hes trying to take zana down without juggling a bunch of gems around (a capped spellblock character can probably survive the bullet hell anyway so might not matter)

4-500k dps figures are usually a cheese build or with all flasks up (though the full cheese builds get more like 15mil lol), but if you genuinely have 500k its pretty simple to do shaper so don't be discouraged if your numbers that much lower, he has about 20mil health so 500k dps means he'd only take 20 seconds to change phase.

You could get way better rings with flat phys dmg.

Also you could run offensive flasks. Right now you are using 3 life pots, thats overkill.
Consider a Lions Roar flask or a sulphur flask. They both come with defensive and offensive perks. And it would be a rather cheap dps upgrade


Cheers

I have a level 93 Gladiator very similar to yours. I've seen my tooltip damage reach 100k in fights, my actual DPS is probably capping at around 130k. I've tried to kill the Shaper two or three times with this character and still can't beat him. I don't think I'm going to try it again, maybe if I get more farm I will build a character that's better at killing him, like Berserker with Heavy Strike.

I think a lot of people run into this problem with the Gladiator blocking build. It works great clearing maps but you hit a wall when you encounter the Shaper. The guide for it https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1647240, isn't a bad guide. He does a good job outlining everything but fails to mention that it sucks for the Shaper fight. Not only is your damage too low but the Shaper does a lot of damage over time which can't be blocked.

If you have a reflex problem, I honestly don't think age has to do with it unless you're 90 and can't drive a car. Learn to use the shift key when you are attacking a boss. Hold down shift while you attack but move your pointer some wheres else on the screen. As soon as you see a wind up from the boss, such as the Shaper charging to fire his beam. Stop attacking and hit your Shield Charge or Leap Slam, whatever movement skill you have. You'll save a fraction of a second because you don't have to slide your mouse before you escape. Which a lot of times is enough to save your life.

As for your build, I'm not sure why you decided to not use bleeding. You got Outmatch and Outlast which is for duel wielding, but you're not duel wielding?

Thanks guys, for the help. I really appreciate it.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

If you really want to kill shaper with this character i'd probably recommend getting a molten strike setup (3 extra proj helm enchant, 2x wildfire for jewel sockets, looking at PoB that'd give you around 150k dps on shaper which isn't enough that it'd be easy but is doable.

I've thought about Molten Strike, but choose Sunder because I expected it to be a better single target skill. Either way, I considered MS at the same level of op-ness as Sunder. But if these numbers are right... 150k dps would really be a big improvement.

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Orbaal wrote:

You could get way better rings with flat phys dmg.
Also you could run offensive flasks. Right now you are using 3 life pots, thats overkill.

The 3rd pot was temporary. I usually carry 2. But you're right about running an extra offensive flask.

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Opiate wrote:

If you have a reflex problem, I honestly don't think age has to do with it unless you're 90 and can't drive a car. Learn to use the shift key when you are attacking a boss.

Of course I was a kidding a bit, with the age reference. But my reflexes do kinda suck compared to what I see with some of the streamers (yes, they also put a lot more time in this game than me). A fine example today: I died to the Dominus boss of the Palace map, just after his infamous "The touch of God" yell. I know I have to get out of there, but the multistrike needs to finish it's triple hit thing before I could... hit the button 3 times... hard... I was a goner :(

Thanx for the tip with the shift-key though. Didn't know about that one.

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0piate wrote:

As for your build, I'm not sure why you decided to not use bleeding. You got Outmatch and Outlast which is for duel wielding, but you're not duel wielding?

The Outmatch and Outlast is for the frenzy charges. The endurance charges come from Warlord's Mark, so don't need to come from a left hand weapon. You're saying I should consider Gratuitous Violence instead?

molten strikes tooltip will be ~ the same as sunder but the addition of 11 projectiles is where the damage comes from, just make sure you use supports the benefit both the projectiles and the main skill (added fire, ele focus, elemental damage with attacks, multi-strike etc) if you can grab point blank on your tree that actually gives the projectiles +50% too (plus your doryani's catalyst gives you slightly more scaling on an elemental ability rather than straight sunder) i'd probably run hatred over determination too if your really trying to squeeze the max out.

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bablo wrote:

The Outmatch and Outlast is for the frenzy charges. The endurance charges come from Warlord's Mark, so don't need to come from a left hand weapon. You're saying I should consider Gratuitous Violence instead?

I'm not sure if it would be worth the 10 refunds at this point. Bleed builds go better with an axe, and you decided to go with a mace. That's something that needs to be planned out from the beginning. I'm just saying you're not optimizing that skill because you have no off hand weapon.

That Dominus look alike character in the maps, I think is what you are referring to is hard to dodge. He killed me to with his Lightning Slam when I first encountered him. I think that's when I figured out how to use the shift key trick and it worked. You might want to get rid of the multi-strike for that fight only so you can escape faster. He actually dies pretty fast so you could stand to lose some damage against him.

As others have already mentioned, if you build for defense, you are unlikely to take on Shaper. And Shaper especially, because the fight gets worse and worse the longer it is. I personally think it is a terrible design, but it is what it is.

For Shaper you need close-to glass cannons and have to rely on your dexterity (as a player) to not get hit by too much stuff. Gladiator's premise isn't about offense, so he isn't the best pick for the job, sadly.
You cannot tank things that Shaper throw at you. And if you can, you will have DPS so little you will barely damage him at all. :@

That said, if you're building for bosskiling, you need to avoid on-kill effects. They are worthless against bosses, even if they look good for map clearing.

On your builds: you probably want to go for dual wielding. Shields are nice, and so is Aegis, but it won't get your DPS numbers. Also, try Path of Building - you have some optimizations to be done on your gem setups and/or weapons.
You probably should get fast-hitting main hand and stat-stick for your off-hand. Steel Rings, Abyssus, Phys flat amulet. That will help immensely, but will hinder your defenses a bit.





I'm using these on may Raider, using Ice Crash so that I'm not hitting the off-hand dagger stat-stick. She is still able to hit around ~60 block, while doing ~1mil DPS to Shaper. Gladiator won't be doing as much as Raider, but you will have Spell block, and you still should be able to reach at least 400k-500k (which is perfectly viable for Shaper).

You can "do the deepz" on a max block character.
But not like this.

1) Every gem in your 6L wants to be a more multiplier. Faster attacks needs to go, for Ruthless or Maim. Added fire can also go for "damage on full life" (that's the whole point of Aegis Aurora)
2) Run the Hatred Aura. There's no reason not to use it.
3) Save up for a "Red Nightmare" jewel. In the Marauder socket, it grants 15% block, which saves a ton of passives and awkward pathing to grab block chance.
4) Do not use "The Anvil". The amulet slot is too important for DpS to waste it on block chance.
5) Get a "Lion's Roar" flask.
6) Buy some 4-stat jewels (life+3x damage, or 4x damage, that's a bit cheaper)
7) Get flat phys damage on jewelry, attackspeed on gloves, helmet enchant
8) Your passive tree is too spread out. Take shortcuts and remove skillpoints that don't really do too much. Stuff like "bloody budgeon" or the minor nodes in "Blunt instrument".
9) Vulnerability instead of Warlord's Mark.
10) Maybe consider "Elemental Overload" instead of "Resolute technique".

With stuff like this, you'll get ~200-400k "situational DpS" (flasks up, warchief down, etc). This should be ok for Shaper.

But if you want "real damage" (millions of situational DpS), you'll need to...

1) stack every "more damage" multiplier you can find
2) abuse crit chance and multiplier for a massive DpS increase
3) abuse elemental conversion and elemental penetration
4) abuse additional projectiles (Molten Strike) and Point Blank as more "more" multipliers

You don't have to do all 4 of those. You probably can't, because you also want block.
But a couple of those should be within reach.

Edit:
https://pastebin.com/1D6CkLqP
Here's a DpS oriented setup.
(I didn't bother to add resists to the rare pieces or fill all sockets)

5L Sunder (in Elder Helmet with Conc Effect)
6L Molten Strike with a ton of extra projectiles and full conversion
~5k life, 75% block/spellblock with red nightmare