[3.25 READY] Versatile Combatant Impale Shield Crush - Crush the Atlas - SSF Compatible
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Last Update: July 25th, 2024
Update Log
Foreword
This Shield Crush build is intended as a starter build for all types of players, including those brand new to the game. This build can currently scale into a character that can reasonably do all endgame content (ubers w/ investment and practice) utilizing easy to get gear, reliable scaling, and good amounts of safety. This build is also SSF friendly to an extent, as almost all gear can be easily crafted on your own as long as you can get the resources. Most Uniques are easy to obtain, but there are a few on the endgame push that are simply better to trade for. This build is comprehensive and breaks down nearly every aspect of the build including mechanic breakdowns, progression notes, crafting steps to make your own endgame gear, examples of gear that you should be aiming for, and video demonstrations of bosses. Ubers can be done with this build, but it will take investment and knowledge of the fights to do the hardest content in this game. I would personally recommend making a second character if you want a character to farm/kill uber bosses if you need the experience.
Videos
To Be Updated
PoB
These PoBs are built around baselines on what your character should look like at certain points of the game and assumes 0 chaos resistance + maxed elemental resistances (for the safe of showing eHP). Listed affixes on gear are general recommendations - fill with resistances and such as you see fit. You can also add more damage with open affixes as well - it's all pretty open so you know what is available to adjust on your character. The selections for damage are NOT minmaxxed, and there are additional things that can be thrown down such as banners or Berserk. Molten Shell is also disabled. 3.25 PoB (Slayer Precise Technique): https://pobb.in/EO10n5iqoUc-
How the Shield Crush Skill Works
Shield Crush is a bit unique compared to other skills. With Shield Crush, you are aiming to double dip on the shield cone damage for more dps. The outside cones still do decent damage, and as your damage and aoe increase, it'll easily wipe out packs without the need of any sort of corpse explosion or explode on death.
Pros and Cons
+ Easy, Effective League Start to get off the ground (only need a ~1750 armor shield to swap) + All content viable (Ubers doable but need skill/investment) + Tanky with lots of ways to keep your defense up (Versatile Combatant Max Block, Armor, Endurance Charges, Vaal Molten Shell, Evade, etc) + SSF Friendly. Required Uniques are very easy to obtain. No difficult to acquire Uniques required until you want to heavily invest. + Fast mapping and mobility utilizing Leap Slam (or Shield Charge). + Offensive, Defensive, and Flask Flexibility. - Not a one button build (Shield Crush, Blood Rage, Leap Slam, Berserk, Banner, etc.) - We must level with Sunder before swapping into Shield Crush. - Heavier respect to shield crush than average to ensure smooth levelling / early mapping. - Accuracy / Max life balancing to keep Precise Technique buff in effect. - Average Bossing speed (we do not insta-phase pinnacle bosses). - Reduced block chance modifier maps are dangerous (but doable). - Little hotbar space because of multiple buttons
Mechanics We Use
Precise Technique: Precise Technique gives us a whopping 40% more damage at the cost of using some gear affixes to hit the breakpoint. Fortification: We use Fortification for damage reduction, and end up getting about 22% less damage taken after passives. Due to the Fortify passive mastery, we get this with Fortify at the cost of roughly 5 skill points. At endgame, we will use Fortify Support instead of 5 skill points. Lifetap: We utilize Lifetap to bypass needing mana for most things. This also gives us slightly better life from flasks. As we get later into the build, we can drop Lifetap for more damage as our mana pool won't be a problem anymore. Block: Our main source of defense. We block the hit, we take no damage. We also get the ability to ignore enemy physical damage reduction on block. We get up to 68% block (70 in some cases) and 65% spell block through Versatile Combatant on Slayer with zero investment on gear. It's all on the passive tree. Armor: Armor is our big defensive tool while mapping. Paired with our shield, we can get to around 30k with flasks once they are automated via 'gain charges on getting hit' and 'use when charges are full'. Evasion: Evasion lets us evade attacks through a % chance, which works well alongside Block. We get to roughly 40% evade chance due to using an armor/evasion shield later on, which is a little bit more natural defense in our build without much opportunity cost. Impale: Impale is our best scaling option with Shield Crush, and the double hit lets us stack and apply Impale much faster. Since we have high attack speed with Shield Crush as well, it also has a natural synergy. Attack Speed: In tandem with above, Attack Speed gives us faster Leap Slam movement, faster shield hits, and faster Impale triggering when we attack. Leech: We use leech as our primary life (and mana) sustain. We get our leech through Jewels, Cluster Jewels, Gloves, Rings, or the passive tree. Since mana isn't as much of a problem for us (more details are in the 'gem' section), it is not as important. Rage: Rage is a new easy mechanic that we can use to get %more attack damage. In some places we get up to 36, while in most cases we get to 30. This falls off if we stop attacking / stop getting hit, but its relatively easy to obtain even in bosses. Stance Skills: Stance skills are used in this build. The general rule of thumb is Blood Stance is for damage, while Sand Stance is for safety. Flesh and Stone has been changed for enemies to take x% more damage in blood stance, and they deal x% less damage in sand stance. This is a VERY powerful skill for melee and this build. War Banner: Banner skills have been reworked, and they now gain charges by getting kills or hitting things with melee skills. Place the Banner down, and get a good damage boost. It's very straight forward.
Gems and Links
Key: (20/X) = Level/Quality. If you see X on quality, it can be whatever quality.
Shield Crush
6L - Shield Crush R R G R R R Explanation: Main skill, duh. Shield Crush (21/20) - We want 20 Quality on this for area of effect increase. This is top priority. Brutality (20/20) - Raw damage. No chaos or elemental damage though. Impale Support (20/20) - Impales for 100% Impale chance. Multistrike (20/20) - Faster attacks, also makes mana leeching easier. Pulverise (20/20) - Area of Effect + Area Damage. Melee Physical Damage (20/20) - Basic damage addition. If you progress on this build far enough to not need Impale Support, use Fortify as the replacement and drop the Fortify cluster wheel.
Shield Crush w/ Awakened Supports + No Impale
6L - Shield Crush Awakened Supports R R R R R R Explanation: Main skill with slightly better damage. This setup is used once we naturally get 100% impale chance. Anomalous Shield Crush (21/20) - Anomalous version for increased attack speed. Awakened Brutality (5/20) - Raw damage. No chaos or elemental damage though. Multistrike (20/20) - Faster attacks, also makes mana leeching easier. Awakened Melee Physical Damage (5/20) - Basic damage addition along with Intimidate support. Pulverise (20/20) - Area of Effect + Area Damage. Fortify (20/20) - Fortify defenses along with a damage boost. NOTE: Awakened Multistrike is VERY expensive, but you can buy it if you REALLY want to.
4L 1 - Auras
4L 1 - Auras R R R R
Pride (20/20) - Raw damage increase. Determination (20/X) - Armor Defenses. Flesh and Stone (20/X) - % more damage in blood stance based on distance. % less damage enemies deal in sand stance based on distance. Amazing aura for 25% reservation Blood and Sand (20/X) - Addition with Flesh and Stone to make the damage better for a relatively cheap cost. This is the starting point of what we use for reservations. As we progress and get better in this build, we will use Enlighten to help manage our mana reservation. 4L 1 Step 2 - Auras w/ Enlighten R R R B Pride (20/20) - Raw damage increase. Determination (20/X) - Armor Defenses. Flesh and Stone (20/X) - % more damage in blood stance based on distance. % less damage enemies deal in sand stance based on distance. Amazing aura for 25% reservation Enlighten (3/X) - A flat reservation multiplier to other auras. This is socketed with our most expensive auras for the best benefit. NOTE: As you get more mana res gear, you'll be able to add in more auras. Pay attention to what's causing more reservation space, and drop as needed. I'd recommend always having Pride, Determination, Blood and Sand, and Flesh and Stone on at least.
4L 2 - Leap Slam + Enduring Cry
4L 3 - Leap Slam + Enduring Cry + Blood and Sand R R R R
Explanation: Movement Skill + Endurance Charge Generation Leap Slam (20/X) - We use this over Shield Charge because it traverses terrain and is just as fast. Lifetap (1/X) - We keep this at level 1 for a free 20% increased Life from Flasks because of Lifetap. Enduring Cry (20/20) - Endurance Charge generation against bosses + Life regeneration boost on demand (Rage boost if running Kaom's Spirit). Maim (20/20) - Maim is socketed here for Leap Slam, as when you Leap Slam onto an enemy, you will apply maim so they take increased damage. As far as I am aware, this buff will be refreshed if any other skill maims the target while the Leap Slam maim hits it. Maim will always use the best possible version if available. Early on, you can use faster attacks to move faster, but once we get enough attack speed, this isn't really needed anymore.
4L 3 - CWDT + Extra Auras
4L 3 - CWDT + Vaal Molten Shell | Auras or Vulnerability R R R R
[/span]Explanation: CWDT for extra defense if you take a hard hit, then extra space for Vulnerability and Auras Cast When Damage Taken Support (CWDT) (6/X) - Take 1000+ damage, it activates. Tinker with the level as you see fit. (Vaal) Molten Shell (13/X) - We are an armor build, this is the best defense for us. Vaal skill can be used on demand, but is overall optional. You can use Immortal Call instead if you want, but I prefer the Vaal skill for on-demand usage. Both options are good. Vulnerability (9/X) - Your decision on if it's CWDT or not. I prefer manual casting. This will ultimately be replaced with a Vulnerability on hit ring (or glove corrupt if going Berserk). OPEN SPACE (20/20) - This is an open space for other Auras that don't fit with the Enlighten. Usually Blood and Sand, Vulnerability, or Both will be placed here depending on how far along you are with progression.
3L 1 - Shield - War Banner + Berserk + Open Slot
3L 1 - Shield - War Banner + Berserk + Open Slot R R R
Explanation: War Banner and Berserk are on demand damage when qualifications are met. The third slot is used for Auras when we start shuffling them around. War Banner (20/20) - A skill that gives accuracy and %more physical damage when dropped. At 50 Valour stacks, we get 40% increased accuracy rating and 20% more physical damage for a good amount of time. This is an excellent on-demand 'more damage' button when the qualifications are met. Berserk (13/X) - This increases the effect of Rage but it will make it drain. It's a good very temporary buff, but it doesn't have much other use, really. We use Berserk because there isn't much else for us that's available to use.
3L 2 - Weapon - Blood Rage + Precision
3L 2 - Weapon G G R
Explanation: We run precision with Arrogance because the life cost is pretty cheap, and we get the bonus Aura effect from Arrogance which helps with accuracy balancing. Blood Rage (20/20) - More attack speed and frenzy charge generation in maps is always a benefit. The physical damage is ignorable since we have leech and armor. Precision (20/20) - Precision gives us great accuracy for use with Precise Technique. Arrogance (20/20) - Arrogance moves the reservation to Life instead of Mana, and also increases the aura effect. This is the main reason we get to use Precise Technique.
Eldritch Mods - What to look for
Eldritch mods can only be applied to rare helmets, body armours, gloves, and boots. There are multiple tiers of these items and they replace implicit values on armor pieces. Use the lesser ones as much as you like on your armor pieces - it won't change the explicit modifier values. There are endgame options to use uniques or to use rare versions with eldritch mods. Eldritch mods are probably easier to tinker with, but you're free to pick your poison.
Helmet
Exarch Implicits: Increased Vulnerability Effect, Increased Area of Effect Eater of Worlds Implicits: Mana Reservation Efficiency, increased attack damage
Body
Exarch Implicits: % increased global physical damage, % increased effect of non-curse auras from your skills, all maximum resistances Eater of Worlds Implicits: % chance to block attack damage, % increased armor, all elemental resistances, pride/determination aura effect
Gloves
Exarch Implicits: Increased Attack Speed, added physical damage to attacks, herald of purity has increased buff effect, intimidate enemies on hit Eater of Worlds Implicits: increased damage per strength, impale chance on attacks
Boots
Exarch Implicits: Increased Action Speed Eater of Worlds Implicits: elemental ailment immunity
Gearing Breakdown
Shield
Priority - Crafted Shield OLD 3.15 SHIELD REFERENCE Budget Recommendation - Rare Shield with ~2000 Armor Explanation: A crafted shield will be very easy to do because of Essences. Using Essence of Dread, we can force up to +340-370 FLAT armor on our Colossal Tower Shield. This is big because although its slightly lower than the natural T1 modifier, it is significantly more consistent to make a budget shield. All we really need to do for a base shield is to use a T1 or T2 Essence of Dread, then put the tier 2 or tier 3 armor% craft onto it for about 1800 or so Armor. As we continue and get better shields, you'll want to look for a Cardinal Round Shield, which has the highest base armor/evasion and 26% block chance. This 26% block chance is VERY important, as it passes the 25% block breakpoint for a bit of extra block chance. This makes the cost of our passive points to block chance less by 1 or 2 points. As we continue on with our shields, we want to slowly get better and better shields. This will be done by rolling one shield via Harvest or Fossil spam (primarily Harvest). Since we can trade consumables now, though, it should be VERY easy to get Dense fossils to roll on shields. It will likely be 2c or so for the fossil + the resonator. Once we transition to armor/eva shields, we DO NOT use Essences anymore. We will still need essences though, as our helmet and gloves use essences for their crafts as well. Our boots can use essences too, if needed.
Endgame Shield Crafting
To create our endgame shield, we have two options (potentially three if you like Expedition) 1. Dense Fossil Spam 2. Harvest Reforge Defense Spam (this should be very cheap as blue essence is never the expensive one) 3. Rog RNG Getting T1 of flat armor/evasion and increased armor/evasion% is our best way to go, here. If you get two prefixes with both of these T1s, I would STRONGLY recomment crafting 'prefixes cannot be changed' on an open suffix slot (yolo Annulment Orb if you don't have it) and then reforging Defense in Harvest. This will guarantee a defense modifier in the prefix slot, and hopefully RNG will be in your favor. From here, you can either lock prefixes with 'prefixes cannot be changed' and go for a Veiled Orb roll for % chance to deal double damage, or you can reforge speed via harvest to try and get tier 1 attack speed. It'll get more difficult to perfect the shield from here.
Weapon
Priority - Prismatic Eclipse with G G R sockets
Endgame - Rare One-Handed Crusader Sword with Impale Effect, Attack Speed on Fortify, and % chance for double damage Explanation: Prismatic Eclipse gives us global attack speed per green socket. Since we only care about our Shield, this is the cheapest option for us to help pad Shield Crush damage, and is only beaten out by the Crusader Sword listed below. These are almost always 1-2c even on day 1. Very easy to trade for. If you are playing SSF, this is very easy to get through Heist or through Rogue Exiles in maps. Endgame Explanation: This will take investment, but later on a rare Crusader-influenced one handed sword has better value than a Prismatic Eclipse. You MUST have 'Impale Effect' and 'Attack Speed on Fortify' for it to overtake the power that Prismatic Eclipse brings. This should be one of your last damage upgrades unless you can get lucky with rolls. This can be made with essence of dread spam on your 1H sword until you hit the attack speed mod. I would recommend getting an ilvl75 one-handed sword with 40% increased accuracy, then either reforging speed on Harvest or essence spamming. If you are only going to essence spam, its slightly easier on an ilvl73 one-handed sword.[/b]
Helmet
Priority - Double Mana Reservation Efficiency Helmet with Life and Res Budget - Defenses Rare Helmet Explanation: Using Essences of Loathing and Eater of Worlds ichors, we can get around 17% increased mana reservation efficiency for all skills on our helmet. This is a big reason why we can fit in an extra aura to our aura set, and is important for that purpose. If you want to drop an Aura to not use this, you can run Crown of the Inward Eye instead as a budget option.
Body Armor
Priority - 6L Armor Item (preferably Astral Plate) OR Belly of the Beast Budget - Tabula Rasa (+2 to AoE socketed gems corrupt option) Endgame - Warlord's Astral Plate w/ +1 socketed active and +1 socketed strength mods OR Belly of the Beast with +2 gems corruption (EXPENSIVE) OR Exarch/Eater of Worlds double influence Armor plate with a fracture of your choosing Explanation: Using a 6L rare will let us craft whatever we want onto it, and can also allow us to put influences on our chest that could give nice QoL. Remember, do NOT use Eldritch orbs on your body if you plan to use that same piece for the Warlord's Crafting. It will brick your body armor if you plan to use that same piece for the endgame chest. Although this build can function just fine in white and even yellow maps on a 4 link, a Tabula Rasa is a nice boon for us to have since we'll get 15% increased max life (from the life passive mastery) as well as a 6 link. 6-link armors are pretty easy to acquire now, though, so this isn't as important as it sounds. Do NOT try and farm for a Tabula Rasa in Act 9, they nerfed the drop rate. Belly of the Beast option: Belly gives a lot of life, decent Armor, and good resistances. It's normally 4-5 div for a 6 link around league start and drops to 2-3 div after a week or so. If you just want more life to stack on, this is your best option. Corruption Option - +2 to AoE socketed gems: We use this in order to help hit Shield Crush 24. +2 to AoE socketed gems is pretty cheap on a Tabula, so this is a good medium if you don't need life/resistances from your body armor. Corrupted Bellys or other 6Ls with this mod will be pretty expensive and hard to find on trade. Endgame: Using an Astral Plate along with Warlord's Mods and Delve Crafting will get us a +1 socketed active and +1 socketed strength gems chest, which helps get us to gem level 24 without corrupting anything except for the 21/X Shield Crush gem. This also gives us a +1 to 4 of our 5 support gems as well, which will also apply to Awakened gems if you take Awakened gems instead. It also only costs a few divines to make! The other option to use is a double influenced body armor with 'increased aura effect of non-curse skills' and 'pride has increased aura effect'. You will want to use Eldritch Currency to upgrade the aura effect to the 4th level rather than spending a LOT of currency to roll for it using the t4 currencies. There will be a section later on explaining how to do this.
How to Craft your Endgame Chest
Pre-requisites: Level 80 character for Divination Card COST: ~3 Divine estimate (dependent on Lucent Fossil prices) Step 1: Purchase 6 'The Celestial Justicar' divination cards for your 6L Astral Plate. NOTE: The Astral Plate MUST be at least ILVL 80 for this to work. Step 2: Chromatic Orb to 5R1G Step 3: Purchase 1 Warlord's Exalted Orb Warlord's Exalted Orb and use on Astral Plate Step 4: Purchase the following Delve Fossils and Resonators: X = the amount for each. The average is about 4 per Craft of Exile. Craft of Exile math is here: HERE X faceted fossil X pristine fossil X dense fossil X powerful chaotic resonator Step 5: Fossil Craft on your Astral Plate until you land on the following modifiers: +1 to socketed active skill gems +1 to socketed strength skill gems Step 6: Craft either % max life or flat life. Flat life is almost always better if it is open, but check in PoB to make sure.
Other Good Rare Body Armor Influence Mods
Redeemer: % chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit (Suffix, ilvl80)
Hunter: % increased maximum life (Prefix, ilvl85) Warlord: +1 to Level of Socketed Active Skill Gems (Prefix, ilvl80), Socketed Attacks have -15 to Total Mana Cost (Suffix, ilvl85)
Gloves
Priority - Rare High Armor Gloves with Life, Attack Speed, and Added Physical
Budget - Rare Gloves with Life and Resists Endgame - Double Eldritched Gloves with Impale Chance and Attack Speed Explanation: Use Spiked gloves as a cheap option before Eldritch Currency starts reliably dropping if you wish. Added damage is just a bonus, attack speed is better than flat damage. Crafting 'increased damage with non-vaal skills during soul gain prevention' will increase our damage after using molten shell. If you want more damage and are already resistance capped, use this. This is found via Betrayal unveils. It might be unlikely to have an open suffix, though, as we will use Attack Speed essences to get 17-18% attack speed on gloves. Endgame Explanation: We take advantage of the Eldritch Implicit modifiers to get flat chance to impale along with attack speed for more damage. Utilizing the passive tree and this glove implicit will remove the need for Impale Support on our 6 link and let us use Lifetap instead. Hitting 100% requires a good amount of investment, though, so make sure you get all the pieces before making the switch.
Boots
BOOTS: Priority - Rare Armor boots with Life, Resists, and 30% Movement Speed Budget - Rare Armor boots with an open prefix to craft Movement Speed Explanation: Boots with 30% movement speed feels the best, but if you're on a tight budget then search an open prefix and the life/resists you need, then craft on the movement speed for 20-24% (found in Oriath after killing Kitava).
Amulet
Priority/Budget - Carnage Heart Endgame - Replica Dragonfang's with Shield Crush Explanation: Carnage Heart is cheap, efficient, and gives us everything we need (except Life) for a super low price. If you can't get a Carnage Heart, run a Turqoise Amulet with Life and Resists. Our endgame amulet is a Replica Dragonfang's Flight with Shield Crush. The +3 to Shield Crush Level is just too good to pass up, and we will almost guaranteed hit the breakpoint with this and a 21/X Shield Crush. We also get some resistances and mana reservation efficiency, which are always good.
Anointments
Priority - Gladiator's Perseverance, Cheap Version - Executioner OR Titanic Strikes, Accuracy - Weathered Hunter
Explanation: Gladiator's Perseverance is the best because of the attack speed and damage while leeching. If you have resistance problems, anoint Diamond Skin or Cloth and Chain.
Rings
Priority - Life, accuracy and Resist Rare Rings (Vermillion or Two-Stone or Prismatic). Budget - Two-Stone Rings with Life Endgame - Circle of Guilt with Physical Damage + Aura Effect and a Damage/Defense Ring Explanation: A way that we can get the accuracy to hit the breakpoint of life is to put accuracy mods on rings, as you can both craft them on and get them as natural rolls. The PoB only assumes that there are crafted mods, so you can focus on life and resists and then craft on the accuracy later. Vulnerability Ring: A vulnerability on hit ring is very easy to come by once you find and/or buy a Warlord's ring ilvl 75 or higher. Use Reforge Caster on your ring in Harvest for a pretty decent chance on getting Vulnerability on hit. Normally it takes me about 6-8 tries to hit something, and about 20ish tries to get something that isn't super bad. Assume you will not get extra life or resistances (unless its an implicit) on the ring while you do this. Circle of Guilt: After juggling some resistances to get the space, Circle of Guilt is the best endgame boost that we can get for damage. Remember that the implicits are always different on each Circle of Guilt ring, so you can find other beneficial implicits for this build.
Belt
Priority - Stygian Vise or other belt with Life and Resists, Hunter Influence for more Life if you want. Budget - Standard belt with Life and Resists Endgame - Ryslatha's Coil OR Arn's Anguish Explanation: Stygian Vise is best in slot for life and resistances. Endgame: Ryslatha's Coil and Arn's Anguish give good damage and life at the cost of resistances and an abyss jewel with (potentially needed) accuracy. Arn's Anguish is better if you don't mind being squishier. Otherwise, use Ryslatha's. Make sure to use attack catalysts on your Ryslatha's for more damage. Arn's Anguish is a Maven boss drop, and is relatively easy to farm.
Abyss Jewel
Priority - Life and Accuracy Explanation: More Life and Defenses. This makes life easier for us. We only use Abyss Jewels if we also have a Stygian Vise. Abyss Jewels are also a great option to help band-aid things such as attributes and resistances. You can add things such as increased physical damage or attack speed, but the benefits are minimal. Don't worry too much about this.
Flasks
Divine Life Flask of Staunching (Corrupted Blood + Bleeding) TOP PRIORITY Basalt Flask Quartz Flask of Heat (Freeze) PRIORITY FOR MAPS Granite Flask Rotgut (Add 'use when charges reach full' for automated Onslaught while mapping) Levelling: Quicksilver Flask of Heat Prefixes: Flagellant or Masochist gives nearly permanent automated uptime in maps tied with 'use when charges reach full' Explanations: Staunching Life Flask to deal with Corrupted Blood + Bleeding. We are weak to DoT effects. This is a must by maps. Basalt Flask for extra defenses Granite Flask for more Armor Beef Jade Flask for some extra evasion We use Rotgut due to consistent Frenzy charge generation via Blood Rage, which in turn gives us consistent Onslaught effect during mapping. This isn't required by any means, but the Onslaught benefits feel very good to use. Remember that you can use the Menagerie (Bestiary) to craft flask suffixes for immunity to elemental ailments. Don't burn all your alts on flasks if you don't have to. I would recommend having Grounding (shock) and Dousing (ignite) on the Basalt and Granite Flasks. It doesn't matter where the suffixes are at, as long as you're able to use the flask that has the suffix on it. Shock immunity is a higher priority than ignite, as ignites aren't threatening until red maps usually.
Jewels
Timeless Jewel: Lethal Pride Priority: Viridian Jewels with %life and 1 or 2 of the mods listed below: Increased Attack Speed Increased Attack Speed while holding a Shield increased Melee damage increased attack damage while holding a shield Honorable Mentions: % of attack damage leeched as mana (You do not need this if you are using another form of mana leech) Corruptions to keep in mind: Corrupted Blood Immunity, Mana Reservation Efficiency Explanation: Jewels get more pricey the more mods you look for in them, so start with %life and one of the listed modifiers above then work up from there. Jewels are also a great spot to band-aid things such as resistances or attributes. Do not look for % of attack damage leeched as mana along with %life, they're expensive. Choose mana leech + an offensive mod instead. Lethal Pride: Lethal Pride is a fantastic Jewel that we can use for the multiple effects that we get from notable bonuses. Lethal Pride drops from Karui mobs in the Domain of Timeless Conflict (Legion League). These bonuses include: Increased Physical Damage, Increased Melee Damage, Increased Maximum Life, % chance to deal double damage, and life regen. Because of passive masteries and Awakened Melee Physical Damage, we don't care about Intimidate on Hit. You can use PoB to search for Lethal Pride gems if you want, or plug the gem you see that you want to buy on the trade site to see if its good. Watcher's Eye: 25% chance to impale on hit - Relatively cheap on its own. Much more expensive as you look for synergistic mods. % chance to deal double damage while using Pride - Cheaper damage boost since we attack so much Impales you inflict last 2 additional hits while using pride - More expensive, but the best Watcher's eye damage boost. This is our endgame version. A double mod watcher's eye with 'impales last 2 additional hits' and '% chance to impale on attacks' is our primary endgame watcher's eye when we swap off of Impale Support. They usually go for anywhere between 5 and 20 divines depending on when they're posted. Just sticking with a Double Damage or a % chance to impale on attacks jewel is plenty enough for all content.
Cluster
LARGE:
Priority: 8 Passive Feed the Fury and Fuel the Fight Jewel (increased attack damage or increased attack damage while holding a shield) Martial Prowess as the 3rd slot if you want to invest. Explanation: Feed the Fury and Fuel the Fight give us attack speed, leech, and bonus damage while leeching. It's everything we want. As long as we are leeching, which we will be due to Slayer overleech, the bonuses apply. You can make this using 'reroll attack' or 'reroll speed' harvest crafts. It's not too difficult to craft yourself via harvest or alt/regal spam. Increased Attack Damage is easier to roll on, but Increased Attack Damage while holding a shield has slightly better damage. I'd recommend using just an attack damage passive setup.
Ascendancies
Our Ascendancy that we run is Slayer. Slayer is used because of the overleech, 20% cull, and built in aoe gains during maps. We also have better damage when close to a target, which we normally use for bosses. Skill Order: Brutal Fervor > Bane of Legends > Impact > Headsman Brutal Fervor - Lots of reliable leech and overleech during the acts. This will make the acts feel much safer. Bane of Legends - More damage against bosses. Bosses can start to feel a little beefy around Act 8/9 (Arakaali onwards). Impact - Accuracy, area of effect and more damage when enemies are closer. This is a big reason we can run Precise Technique. Headsman - Movement Speed, Attack Speed, and Culling by the time we hit maps. Mapping feels much better with this.
Pantheon and Bandits
Help Oak. We want the flat life. If you'd rather the passive point for any reason, then Kill All. MAJOR: Soul of Solaris - We use this primarily for bossing and for the critical strike node. No extra damage from critical strikes if you've taken one recently is a godsend for juiced maps. Honorable Mentions: Soul of Arakaali - Big Bossing (Maven, Sirus, etc) Soul of the Brine King - Freeze Immunity with the secondary passive you get with a divine vessel. MINOR: Soul of Shakari - More DOT and Chaos Damage mitigation BANDITS: Primary: Kill All - We need the passive points. Last edited by OMFGaTaco on Jul 25, 2024, 10:35:52 PM Last bumped on Jul 18, 2024, 10:07:27 PM
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Leveling Section
Weapon Slot During Leveling
For Levelling, we are going to start with Spectral Throw then eventually move to Sunder. The reason we use Sunder is because the scaling is the easiest with the new nodes and rage, and we generally have a similar path to level. The respeccing will take more than usual since we take more damage nodes, but this shouldn't be too big of an issue due to the respect points we already get + using gold to respect points as well.
VENDOR RECIPE
White Weapon + Magic/Rare/Unique Rustic Sash + Blacksmith's Whetstone
Levelling Tree Details
The core goals that we want while levelling is to get high damage while balancing accuracy versus life to keep the Precise Technique benefit. If you're low on accuracy, path up to the Weathered Hunter wheel. We will eventually spec out of this later.
FAQ
How do I get Precise Technique working? / My Damage Feels Terrible! What Happened?
There's a lot of ways that it can be done. Affixes on gear such as helmet and rings can assist (accuracy on weapon does NOT work), or you can use skills like Precision or War Banner to increase the rating. You can also use passive points to help fix the issues. The more you invest in the build, the less you need passive points to get precise technique working.
Where's Fortify?
Fortify is gained through Fortify passive masteries. Remember that we need 20 Fortification Stacks for the damage boost to take effect, which can be gained through the second fortify cluster or through Lethal Pride. Later on in endgame we can afford using Fortify as a support link.
How do I get a good Lethal Pride?
Path of Building allows you to check what each Lethal Pride gives stats-wise now. I would recommend only looking for one that gives 5% double damage to begin with, as that's what the build sets as a baseline. We DO NOT need Intimidate on hit anymore since we get that through awakened melee physical damage support. If you want to min-max, getting fortification nodes to get rid of the Steadfast cluster is our best use.
Why is there a big respec needed?
Changing from Sunder to Shield Crush takes a lot of nodes to respec, but the levelling process is better running a 2H axe instead of doing a 1h axe and a shield. Since we have gold with the Settlers mechanic, this process should be easier to adjust to.
I want to ask you a question, how can I do that?
The best way to contact me for questions and whatnot is either through messages on the PoE forums, or through whispers in game when I am online. I can't reply to everyone in the replies of this forum post, but I try my best to hit the most important pieces.
Why don't we use Shield Charge?
Since we have attack speed, Leap Slam feels better. You'll bonk into walls and hit terrain with bigger hitboxes than the visuals suggest when you run Shield Charge. It's annoying and becomes a nuisance. You can use a 4L Shield Charge for damage on trash mobs if you like, but the clear speed is only barely faster compared to just jumping around with leap slam and using Shield Crush once or twice.
Why don't you use X anoint/enchant/jewel? I think it's better.
There are other jewels that might be better when it comes to minmaxing, but this build is designed as a template and baseline for anybody to play. I do not want to make an extreme investment version past the one i have made already as I want newer players to feel comfortable with the damage that they see, and not think that the damage listed in the other versions of the PoB is 'bad' compared to the super endgame version.
Do you have plans to make other Shield Crush variant builds?
As much as I'd love to dig into critical versions, more defensive versions with Spell Suppression, and utilizing other ascendancies, I simply do not have the time to dedicate a build variant to the same depth as this build. Maybe one day I will, but for the forseeable future, this is the only build guide I plan on making. Last edited by OMFGaTaco on Jul 25, 2024, 10:42:41 PM
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Reserved
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Was fun to tinker with this. Let's go!
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How safe is it to start with this build for SSF? Don't want to use like 50-60+ regrets later on since they are a bit more hard to come by in SSF (can just buy them in trade league).
Is the LL version you mentioned a completely different build, as in a different class for example which would require me to reroll? Last edited by InsaneX3 on Jul 24, 2021, 9:08:38 AM
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" I would say that it's pretty good to start, as you can easily build up your own shield. You can farm for a Lioneye's Remorse via 'The Lion' prophecy in Act 6 Mud Flats (from the mob that drops the eye to allow you to get to Tukohama). You can also use Harvest Crafting to get a decent shield pretty easily (Defenses is common in Blue nodes). Apart from that, just working your way up and upgrading shields makes the process pretty smooth. You get about the range of Lacerate (which is roughly 40-50) once you hit maps as long as you have Pulverise and the Brinkmanship cluster. " It only requires slight tweaks to the current PoB listed with minimal regrets. Most of the changes come from socket color and gem changes. The LL version is something I will recommend to Pivot into once you get proper health and resistances. I haven't done enough research on Petrified Blood yet to say its EXPLICITLY better overall, but I do know that it is stronger in the damage department by quite a big margin due to our totems giving us a helping hand. For the time being I'd recommend sticking to the current PoB and levelling up that way into white/yellow maps. Last edited by OMFGaTaco on Jul 24, 2021, 11:00:12 AM
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I personally enjoy shield charge more than leap slam for travel skill when trying to finish the campaign.
With the shield damage tree we're getting and once Arena Challenger kicks in, I'm just ramming things to death and just shield crush any leftovers. Of course the cliffs is going to be your bane but with the movement speed buff, it felt trival. Last edited by bobohead1988 on Jul 24, 2021, 11:05:50 AM
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What about facebreakers is this build?
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" Shield Crush is not an Unarmed skill, so this does not work. | |
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Playing it rn, big mana costs btw D:
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