[3.7] Failed 3-Layer Defense Build

Hello and welcome to the build guide. Why post a build guide for a failed build? To learn from my mistakes. Hope you enjoy the roast.

For starters, the main theory. I wanted to uses a three layer EHP pool to make the build tanky, with ES, life and MoM. Now the issue with this is one of these layers often gets hammered the hardest, stripping it away too quickly and leaving you either without mana, energy shield, or dead. I wanted to split the damage between these three simultaneously, so they each get a chance to regenerate or leech while fighting. The results were kind of. . .meh.

3 Layer EHP
Spoiler
So how did I plan(and fail) to do this? With a combination of items.


Will cause a portion of the damage taken to be delivered as chaos damage. Which is normally a bad thing if you aren't using a CI build. So how about we use something to divide that between energy shield and life?


This will divide the damage between our three layers of EHP so as to not drain one all at once and leave us without a resource. Since Incandescent Heart converts a portion of elemental into chaos, it too gets divided in a small fashion as well.

But this does leave the issue of us taking quite a bit of chaos damage, which is often left with negative resistance to. I have a plan to help with that as well.


Using this jewel and some chaos resistance included in our gear, we can use purity of elements to get ALL of our resistances capped at 75%. The clarity buff also helps a bit with the MoM requirements. Cool huh?


The Tree
Our tree wants to support our EHP by grabbing Life, Mana, and ES. That's quite a shopping list, So we begin at the templar starting area, head to the MoM mana nodes and finally hit the mixed life and ES shadow wheels. The lack of damage is one of the components of this builds downfall. Classic example of trying to do too much and not being good at anything.

Spoiler
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.7.3/AAAABAUCAQSzBx4I9AthES0RlhRxFVAWbxhWGF0abBzcIvQkqiycMgky0TWSNuk8BTwtPO89Xz3sQYdDyEVHRZ1JUUmxTaxPBFJTUzVTUlugY7tkvWh0aPJqQ2wLbEZtGXJscql8DnyDf8aCm4Nfg8yFMo8akyeVLpf0muCdrqIApwinValArv-vbLXytz686sBmwmzE9sau1abXz9i92mLjaukz6hjr7u9874jwH_DV9zL46_k3-ej-Cg==

Please note that this is what I wound up with after swapping to Mjolner, hence the strength nodes.

The Journey
Spoiler
Leveling was a chore, which really should have clued me in on this being a flop beforehand. I tried leveling with Molten Strike and Consecrated Path initially, and found the damage painfully lacking due to the skill tree being focused on the EHP.

Somewhere around here I swapped from Chernobogs Pillar to Aegis Aurora, each has their own strengths. Your armor isn't really high enough to gain much back from Aegis Aurora, but having flat ES to add to your pool is nice.

Things got a little better when I swapped to Ice Crash, with my DPS hitting between 20-30k without aurabot while using Doryanis Catalyst. I really should have stopped here, given how mediocre things were turning out.

Still unsatisfied, I respecced the skill tree from mace elemental attack to strength, and tried slapping a Mjolner onto it. I went with Wave of Conviction since I figured everything else about the build was a special snowflake already. I tried using Smite to get a little boost from the lightning aura it puts on you. Still not very good, though I suppose I could switch to Cyclone for more consistent casting procs. Changing my jewellery wouldn't be a bad idea either, since it is leftover from Ice Crash being the main source of damage.


Ending Gear
Spoiler

Needing corrupted items to get Corrupted Energy effect, I found that the belt and jewelry would be best to trade for since you might want to recolor your gems. Plan what you want in one of the shield or weapon slots before corrupting one of those(maybe have a backup in case it breaks).


Gems
Spoiler
Honestly, I went though so many setups it is hard to keep track of them all. So lets make a list as best I can.
Main Damage
Consecrated Path-Molten Strike(Various link setups)
These did terribly, making leveling a chore.

Ice Crash-Elemental Damage With Attacks-Concentrated Effect-Energy Leech-Multistrike/Faster Attacks
This did okay, much better than the previous options. But it still felt slow.

In Mjolner
Wave of Conviction-Physical to Lightning-Iron WIll
Kind of lost the will to play this build around here. So i honestly can't tell you if it's a viable setup or not.

Totem
This was tacked on as an afterthought, and the type of totem should be altered based on your chosen damage type.
Holy Flame Totem-Fire Penetration-Added Fire Damage-Elemental Focus

Auras
Purity of Elements-Clarity
Pairing these with the right Watchers Eye gets your resistances capped and helps with the demands of MoM.

Movement
Shield Charge-Leap Slam-Fortify-Faster Attacks
Pretty basic, just for moving around.

Misc
Some Defensive stuff. Not really important and up to the user.
CWDT-Immortal Call-Increased Duration
Summon Chaos Golem-Summon Holy Relic



Well, there you have it. Tried to make a 3 layer EHP build but found it too lacking in damage due to my poor passive tree. Panicking, I started swapping between damage dealing setups in hopes of finding a winner. This meant that my gear became mismatched and didn't support the end product. Roast away, gentlemen. . .roast away.
Last edited by Paulwrath on Jul 7, 2019, 5:54:28 PM
Last bumped on Jul 6, 2019, 11:55:59 PM

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