1H+Shield Scion. Capped block, Armor+ES. 100pts build. HC viable (I hope!)

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Aegis_Aurora
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Anvil

So this is the build I am planning to roll with, it seems to be pretty good.

The goal is to cap block chance with Aegis Aurora and The Anvil, and have those block sustains my survivability, in order for that to happen I need Armor+ES gear, because Aegis Aurora heals my ES for 4% of my total armor, so with ES/AR gear I can get a quickly regenerating ES pool. The Anvil restores a noticeable amount of mana on blocks (15-20) and some health (30-40), making this build really tanky as long as I have decent gear.

Blocking also acts as a passive damage dealer, each blocks dealing between 350-500 damage (with Tempest shield) to the enemy that has dealt it. Obviously it's not much, but it's something.

The nodes allow me to get a nice passive resistance boost just for having a shield (20%).

Unwavering Stance makes it so blocks never stun me, so I never lose the full efficiency of my shield. It also helps against desyncs.

The Auras I will use with this build will be Determination and Discipline. 50% more armor means that my blocks will heal much more ES, thus increasing my survivability tenfold. Will also help patching the lower armor value of AR/ES gear compared to pure AR gear. Discipline will be used for added survivability, that's all.

Molten Shell is gonna be used mostly for it's armor boosting properties, because the more armor I can stack, the more ES I regen on blocks.

Tempest Shield is a given, +4% Block is small, but it's very important in order to cap block chance, also deals some decent damage.

Enduring Cry is just there to be safe, to prevent yourself from getting murdered by large groups of foes.

Vulnerability will be used as the curse for this build. Enfeeble is good too really. Vulnerability will make you kill your foes faster, while Enfeeble will add survivability on top of what you already have.

This build is far from perfect I'm sure, but I THINK it's pretty good.


TL;DR :

100 points build that focuses on blocking everything and getting lots of survivability from it, depends on 2 uniques to work, Aegis Aurora and The Anvil.

Equipment :

Weapon : Any good 1h Sword
Off-Hand : Aegis Aurora
Amulet : The Anvil (Stone of Lazwhar could have its own use in some areas)
Flasks : One Granite, one Amethyst, then Life/Mana/Hybrid all with desired mods.
Rest : Anything goes as long as I can cap my resists and get good life and armor.

Used Skill :

Aura 1 : Determination (Linked with reduced mana, and Empower if you can get it)
Aura 2 : Discipline (Same thing as Determination)
Defensive Skill 1 : Tempest Shield
Defensive Skill 2 : Molten Shell
Defensive Skill 3 : Enduring Cry (you can link that to a Cast when Damage Taken gem)
Attack Skill 1 : Heavy Strike or Double Strike, both are good.
Attack Skill 2 : Shield Charge
Curse : Vulnerability / Emfeeble

Bandits :

Normal : Oak (+40% HP)
Cruel : Oak (+18% Physical Damage)
Merciless : None (Or Oak is I want more charges on Enduring Cry, I'll see)


Thanks in advance for the feedback.

I see a few problems right off the bat:

You want to use swords, but you have no Dex. Compounding this problem, you're tying up your amulet with an item that gives no dex, when this slot is one of the easiest sources of lots of it. Your chances of actually being able to use a sword are pretty slim.

Further, and tying into that lack of Dex, is accuracy. You don't take Resolute Technique, even though you've got no focus on crit, and you also have no accuracy nodes apart from the sword specific ones, which aren't nearly enough. You're going to be missing. A lot.

Overall, it just seems like you're trying to do too many things. You want to have high life, high physical sword damage, high energy shield, and high block, and the result is neglect in other vital areas (while on that subject, you're getting only +36 resists from tree, with your other shortcomings, you're creating a veritable gearing nightmare).

You'd be far better off simplifying your focus in some way. Running as a low-life build would allow you to shift points away from life and into RT and more ES / Resists, but also drives up the cost of the build for a Shav's. More expensive, but much easier to find than gear that has accuracy, resists, life, armor, and ES--oh, and some damage in there as well.

You could also shift away from physical damage focus to elemental. The shuffle would save you many points, and make for far more economical weapon choice. Weapon elemental damage has kind of fallen out of favor with the physical buffs and items like Abyssus and BOR, but it's still quite strong for less investment. +WED gear is getting cheaper, too, whereas the +Phys gear just keeps shooting up and up.

Still 100 points.

Got IR at the cost of a meager 8% Life and 18% Damage, also got +30 Dex, getting me at 70from passives. Which means I need 43 more to equip a Midnight Blade, sounds manageable.

Bump!

Last revision :

300 Strength, 110 Int, 110 Dex, fixes the stat problems.

Badabump.

I like your last revision a lot, actually. With the changes, it actually looks incredibly viable. I do think that itemization will be tricky since you will be looking for fairly specific mods on top of fairly specific whites.

The only real problem I see is that, while I think this build would be quite good and fun to play at end-game, getting there is going to be HELL. The build just kind of slowly gets better as you go on, there isn't really any "ok, now I'm badass" moment. If you can manage to stick with it until level 80, you just might have a nice build on your hands. Personally, I don't know if I could make it that far without rerolling.

Thanks for the feedback!

And yeah I am well aware this build is incredibly gear dependant. But I think it's gonna get very good as soon as I can get the Anvil. The ES regen on block comes from Aegis Aurora, but the massive block upgrades comes from that amulet, should already be at around 60ish% then, with health and mana regen on each block.

Gonna get the currency to afford them though, hah.

I'm working on a build that is slightly similar. I'm currently on Nemesis. I plan on posting a guide once I make it to 85.

Saved you a Point. :)

"

Normal : Oak (+40% HP)

Oak gives +40 HP, not +40% of current HP :)