Improve survivability on Ground Slam Berserker

Hello


This is my first time playing PoE, so I followed a guide on a Ground Slam Berserker, as it sounded fun.

But I am dying a lot in T14-T16 maps, so I wanted to ask for help on improving survivability.

I seem to die a lot to spell damage even though i have 6400 HP and max resists. What can be done to improve this? Craft spell dodge on an armor? Any passives I should look for?

Also new to the forum, but I assume you can check my char (as I can view other peoples char's) but the quick rundown is:

Vaal Groundslam - Multistrike - Melee Phys - Impale - Brutality - Ruthless
Leap Slam - Fortify - Blood Magic - Faster Attack
Ancestral Warchief - Brutality - Melee Phys- Ruthless
Molten Shell - Increased Duration
Dread Banner
Pride
Aspect of the Crab (from body armor)

I have around 10 ex to upgrade with, but any meaningful upgrade of weapons is at least 28 ex.

Any help would be appreciated.
Last bumped on Nov 15, 2019, 7:26:57 PM
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Apfen wrote:

Also new to the forum, but I assume you can check my char (as I can view other peoples char's) but the quick rundown is:


Hey there,

you need to change to privacy settings in your account settings.
Right now your characters are hidden and we cant check them.


Cheers
Last edited by Orbaal on Nov 15, 2019, 10:10:13 AM
Orbaal beat me to it!
Last edited by GreyLensman on Nov 15, 2019, 10:11:29 AM
It is public now (I think/hope) :)
Yes its public now :)

1st off:
Your flasks are terrible. Sry, but it has to be said.
You dont need 5 life flasks. Reduce it to 1 or 2 life flasks tops.
The other flasks should be utility flasks to either boost your offense or defense, whichever you are lacking the most.

Id advice to look for a flask guide on youtube. Its not just about the type of flasks you are using, but also the flask mods you are rolling onto the flasks.

As a sort of tl;dr:
Flasks often times provide half of your dmg and also half of your defense - and thats what you are missing out

2nd:
I cant find methods to generate endu charges (besides the groundslam jewel providing endus on stun).
Thats not reliable for bossfights.
Try to fit in an Endu Cry gem into your setup, if you can.

3rd:
You are running a pure phys build.
Nothing wrong with that, but you might want to add a "Vulnerability" curse and then manually apply the curse to tough mobs.
Right now, it would increase your dps from ~160k to ~223k dps (using a lvl20 curse). Thats a massive boost, for just one gem.

4th:
Add a blood rage gem
You´ll suffer a little from degen. But its phys degen and your build should be able to outregen and outleech that easily.
You´ll get more attack speed and also the ability to generate frenzy charge for even more attack speed and more dmg, while those charges are active.
With frenzies up and the curse being applied, your dps would go up to ~266k.

Thats almost twice your dps right now, with 2 minor changes and will be even more dmg with some offensive flasks added.


Cheers
Your char looks fine. Id personally prefer War Bringer ascendancy over Pain Reaver.. You already got leech from other sources and this would give you more damage and free instant healing (pair with instant warcry passive) as well as more reliable endurance charges uptime with enduring cry (btw how do you keep them up against bosses when you need them the most?)

when talking about bosses, do you die to them or to "ordinary" content? Many bosses have slow "one-shot" actions you have to dodge manually. In PoE you are not supposed to facetank everything

also flasks.. its the weakest part of your setup. You should have at max two life flasks (one is enough with war bringer), they should have instant recovery.. and the rest should be utility/damage with freeze/bleed/curse immunities

* stibnite flask.. it works wonders for melee chars. blinded enemies will have 50% less chance to hit you, its a big deal really. also its cheap and great to pair with chill/freeze immunity

* there are many choices actually, basalt/granit of iron reflexes to boost phys mitigation, Wise Oak against elemental damage (if you fiddle with your resists a bit), Lion roar for damage/knockback/armour, etc



IGN: Eric_Lindros
CET: Timezone
Last edited by Ludvator on Nov 15, 2019, 10:46:30 AM
Which guide are you using?

Since you are full phys and going Impale, have you maxed it out? I see 40% (gem) +35% nodes but not seeing it on your weapons, for example. Getting Impale chance to 100% is important for DPS if you aren't there yet.

Didn't take a close look at your PoB or gem interactions, but you seem to have solid basic defenses. I would guess you either aren't moving enough or don't know the boss fight mechanics; those are very common new player challenges.

Aspect of the Crab is probably not that useful for you as you already have high phys mit and are going to be taking phys hits quite often, which will keep resetting it. It would work better with a dodge/evasion build where you don't get hit that often, so can build up full stacks more easily, and don't have much phys mit to begin with. This is not a big deal in your build, just an observation on the subtleties of defensive interactions. The chest is still great for everything else it brings.

Cheers!
Last edited by GreyLensman on Nov 15, 2019, 11:36:55 AM
Hi there,

some good advice above so just add an extra tips:

1) max your fire resistance (it´s more important than chaos res)

2) Put fortify to main link. It gives you fortify buff that reduced hit damage by 20% (without an extra modifiers)
You can drop Ruthless gem. You will loose a bit of damage but having fortify buff without relying on leap slam.
I don't want to undermine who ever's guide that is, but it's really not set up well for Ground Slam. Ground Slam is better with a two handed weapon, your stun threshold would be higher, meaning more stuns, more stuns means better survivability. The Tidebreaker is a good two handed mace that works good for a Ground Slam and/or a Heavy Strike combo.

If I were you I would drop Ground Slam completely. Sunder, Lacerate, or Cleave looks like it would scale better with what you have. I would also get rid of Aspect of Carnage and replace with War Bringer. You don't need that 40% more damage boost until you get to Shaper, before that it will just make you die more making it take longer to level up.

And as noted, learn to use utility flasks. My preference would be Lions Roar Granite Flask, Sulfer Flask, Basalt Flask, then two life flasks, one life flask with a quick recover mod to keep you from dying suddenly and one with a slow recovery for things with a slow damage over time, like chaos and burning.

Some of your skill gem chains don't make any sense. For example your melee physical damage supporting a portal? I'd suggest you build a four link chain with Cast When Damage Taken > Steelskin > Blood rage > Increased Duration. You can look at my Duelist character if you want to see how to level the gems so they all fit.
Builds
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2149153
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2245701
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2664371
Shaper Guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2252008
Thanks for all the great input.

The guide I was following was this: https://www.poe-vault.com/guides/ground-slam-berserker-build-guide-blight-38

It evens mentions Blood Rage itself, but I somehow missed it, and it appeared to be of less signifigance than the other skill-chains.

I knew my flask-game was weak, but to be honest I am having a hard time using the skills I already have, and adding more timed buffs seems very overwhelming.

What do you guys do to manage all the skills? I mean there are only 7-8 slots for buttons, and I don't really know how to bind stuff to CTRL+E for example, but the game does it for me. Is there some macro-thing that is common to use, or do you just have to deal? How do you guys set up a Vaal skill? Do you assign a different button for each mode?

The changes I have adopted so far:
- Added Blood Rage and Vulnerability to the setup
- Removed Aspect of the Crab
- Moved Fortify to main 6-link and dropped Ruthless

The changes I plan to adopt when I have time to shop:
- Max fire res
- Get my flask game on point

If I where to add a Warcry to the setup, what should be removed?

Right now the setup is:
Right-click: Ground Slam (Multistrike-Melee Phys-Impale-Brutality-Fortify)
Q: Leap Slam (Blood Magic-Faster Attack)
W: Blood Rage (what support gems?)
E: Molten Shell (Increased Duration)
R: Ancestral Warchief (Brutality-Melee Phys-Ruthless)
T: Vulnerability (what support gems?)

As for the random gems in the setup that didn't make sense, I was simply leveling stuff in empty spots to sell.

As for the Cast When Damage Taken-Steelskin-Blood Rage-Increased Duration link, does this mean you don't actively ever cast Blood Rage? If so, then I am in :)

Will eventually try everything suggested here. Good stuff guys, thank you.

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