[3.3] Unstoppable Gladiator 78% Max Block/Spells. Best Low Budget League Starter

"

Rays727 wrote:

For those who've played the Aegis build has anyone experimented with Cospri's Will / Essence Worm set-up? Being able to run both (Blasphemy) Vulnerability and (CoH) Enfeeble seems pretty good especially since we can scale poison pretty well and helps the one weakness of the build (ST damage). It has good base armour (IR) and with Essence Worm we can Grace, Discipline and Blasphemy (with enlighten). Seems like that option gives good defense and offense from 2 slots. Definitely at least seems better than what I was using in Atziri's Splendour and Voidheart (or Steel Ring/Ming's). The chaos resist on Cospri's is nice too.

It does mean you need some real good resist rolls on your gear and some all elemental on your jewel (going Red Nightmare helps as you essentially double dip into resistances on the tree as well).

Thoughts? I'll be trying this out shortly to see how it goes.

The only problem I see with Cospri's is the 183 Dex requirement (since we're mostly on the strength side of the tree) and coloring it (Pure evasion when you need 3+Red slots and a blue dending on skill used). If that doesn't bother you, go for it. I'm a huge advocate of the item.

Also, try the new unique item in Breach (unless you plan to play in standard, then they're pretty unavailable barring HC deaths)



It's basically Aegis on steroids for life-based builds. You don't need to stack armor or energy shield. No need for discipline aura, can use HOA, AA, or whatever else you may fancy.

My suggestion: Go for Cospri's if you think the colors and dex aren't an issue, otherwise you may just get frustrated with it. Instead you can use 6L Astral, good unique armor, or stick with BoR. If you get your hands on the Red Nightmare, you can use the extra Block chance to path into more damage, maybe go for the Dirty Techniques Cluster+Voidheart (I have not tested this) if you want to go the poison route without Cospri's. Personally I chose to take off The Anvil for a different amulet with damage; and after using voidheart by itself, opted to get a Life/Damage/IAS ring instead.

TL:DR version:

use this:


and Cospri's is hard (Dex req/colors), I recommend going 6L Astral (Fairly budget) or 6L unique. No 6L? Stick to BoR because you won't be able to make up for the damage loss otherwise.


PS, for those who want to be kept updated I have made the following purchases/upgrades:


I haven't really covered my flasks because they sucked. (Lol) I just purchased those two and my clear speed has gone up significantly, I basically just pop them whenever I see blue/yellow packs, breaches, and bosses and repeat as needed. Very nice damage boost.
These ran me 190 chaos for the both of them.

THE AMULET! I decided to buy a bunch of these and corrupt them. Goal was to get +1 Frenzy or +1 Curse, whichever came first. Got the Frenzy Charge on the 9th one. After buying them, corrupting them, and reselling the corrupted ones, it cost me about 34-35c total. Pretty good I'd say.

So yeah, Some nice DPS upgrades there :)

"

Gryphenprey wrote:

"

Rays727 wrote:

For those who've played the Aegis build has anyone experimented with Cospri's Will / Essence Worm set-up? Being able to run both (Blasphemy) Vulnerability and (CoH) Enfeeble seems pretty good especially since we can scale poison pretty well and helps the one weakness of the build (ST damage). It has good base armour (IR) and with Essence Worm we can Grace, Discipline and Blasphemy (with enlighten). Seems like that option gives good defense and offense from 2 slots. Definitely at least seems better than what I was using in Atziri's Splendour and Voidheart (or Steel Ring/Ming's). The chaos resist on Cospri's is nice too.

It does mean you need some real good resist rolls on your gear and some all elemental on your jewel (going Red Nightmare helps as you essentially double dip into resistances on the tree as well).

Thoughts? I'll be trying this out shortly to see how it goes.

The only problem I see with Cospri's is the 183 Dex requirement (since we're mostly on the strength side of the tree) and coloring it (Pure evasion when you need 3+Red slots and a blue dending on skill used). If that doesn't bother you, go for it. I'm a huge advocate of the item.

Also, try the new unique item in Breach (unless you plan to play in standard, then they're pretty unavailable barring HC deaths)

It's basically Aegis on steroids for life-based builds. You don't need to stack armor or energy shield. No need for discipline aura, can use HOA, AA, or whatever else you may fancy.

My suggestion: Go for Cospri's if you think the colors and dex aren't an issue, otherwise you may just get frustrated with it. Instead you can use 6L Astral, good unique armor, or stick with BoR. If you get your hands on the Red Nightmare, you can use the extra Block chance to path into more damage, maybe go for the Dirty Techniques Cluster+Voidheart (I have not tested this) if you want to go the poison route without Cospri's. Personally I chose to take off The Anvil for a different amulet with damage; and after using voidheart by itself, opted to get a Life/Damage/IAS ring instead.

TL:DR version:

use this:

and Cospri's is hard (Dex req/colors), I recommend going 6L Astral (Fairly budget) or 6L unique. No 6L? Stick to BoR because you won't be able to make up for the damage loss otherwise.


PS, for those who want to be kept updated I have made the following purchases/upgrades:

I haven't really covered my flasks because they sucked. (Lol) I just purchased those two and my clear speed has gone up significantly, I basically just pop them whenever I see blue/yellow packs, breaches, and bosses and repeat as needed. Very nice damage boost.
These ran me 190 chaos for the both of them.

THE AMULET! I decided to buy a bunch of these and corrupt them. Goal was to get +1 Frenzy or +1 Curse, whichever came first. Got the Frenzy Charge on the 9th one. After buying them, corrupting them, and reselling the corrupted ones, it cost me about 34-35c total. Pretty good I'd say.

So yeah, Some nice DPS upgrades there :)

I definitely hear you on the Dex requirements, but fortunately, I'm running Astramentis (Shaper's Touch build) and I currently have 268 Dex (more when I get a Emperor's Mastery). As for the colors, I got kinda lucky and got RRBBGG (my inner MTG wants to write Blue as U) in like 15 chromes. My links once I get the 6th will be Blade Flurry-Melee Phy-Melee Damage on Full Life-Faster Attacks-Added Chaos-Inc. AoE (for boss Conc.). I like Aegis more than Surrender because I get to run Melee Damage on Full Life and that 59% more multiplier cannot be beat by any stretch from Surrender builds. Also, it's quite easy to scale armour up (I have 18.5k without any flasks) especially when I'm running Sin's Rebirth and Lion's Roar. Sin's gives me about 5.5k armor and Lion's gives me like 7k and with Overflowing Chalice they're pretty much up 100% of the time (and Sin's Rebirth is just broken since you can get almost 6sec uptime and it only costs 10 charges....AND it gives a ton of armour when you're running IR!).

As for Cospri's, I had to do a little tinkering to maintain resists and bought a new ring and had to respec out of one my attack speed nodes for Diamond Skin. It's worked out a lot better. Damage is much better and being able to run Enfeeble too is real nice, though I wish I could just run them both as Aura's, but Discipline is too good in conjunction with Shaper's Touch and Astramentis to ditch (I get like 750+ES from it).

I'll definitely try out a Surrender build later in the league. I do like the item a lot.

You should take a look at my character and let me know what you think. I definitely like the pick up of Lion's Roar. It's extremely good.

This build is amazing. Enjoying every second of it this league.
Currently progressing T14/T15 maps. Was able to do double Vaal Maze map with rippy mods and one boss with ghost inside :)
Cleave is my favourite skill for chain reaction mob explosion. Static strike doesnt seem to be better, even on single target. Breach bosses are easy mode. Currently upgrading jewels.

@Rays727

Can You elaborate more about your build choices? I am mostly interested in synergies etc.

I am judging from items/passive tree but:
1. How much life/es you have?
2. Isnt that sword way too slow? (i sit with 11+ attacks per sec with frenzy charges)?
3. How come You dont use even one single hp flask?
4. If You have 18.5k unbuffed armor no point to even stack more armor, simple use nice rolled basalt flask and you will have 90% reduction (i have 15k armor with recent surrender block buff and reach 90% with flask).
5. Your gems look like mess to me (might be wrong), but why you you dont stack attack speed especially with that slowpoke sword?
6. You have no mana problems?

Btw, dont underestimate The surrender dps itself, i tested it in Lair Map yesterday.
During boss aoe breath i had 48 block stacks and i saw boss hp slowly dropping from Reckoning procs alone - was standing still doing nothing to test.

"

sultangurde wrote:

@Rays727

Can You elaborate more about your build choices? I am mostly interested in synergies etc.

I am judging from items/passive tree but:
1. How much life/es you have?
2. Isnt that sword way too slow? (i sit with 11+ attacks per sec with frenzy charges)?
3. How come You dont use even one single hp flask?
4. If You have 18.5k unbuffed armor no point to even stack more armor, simple use nice rolled basalt flask and you will have 90% reduction (i have 15k armor with recent surrender block buff and reach 90% with flask).
5. Your gems look like mess to me (might be wrong), but why you you dont stack attack speed especially with that slowpoke sword?
6. You have no mana problems?

Btw, dont underestimate The surrender dps itself, i tested it in Lair Map yesterday.
During boss aoe breath i had 48 block stacks and i saw boss hp slowly dropping from Reckoning procs alone - was standing still doing nothing to test.

1. Right now I have 5.1k HP (but really this will go up to almost 6k once I hit 90 and get the Red Nightmare jewel) and 1.5k ES.

2. It's not the most ideal, however, it's almost 285pDPS and it cost me almost nothing as I got a good deal and the higher base damage does work better with poison/bleed so it's not all downside. Right now I sit at like 5.5 APS. 11 APS with Blade Flurry seems like overkill. You lose a lot of efficiency because you sit at 6 stage for too long. I feel like somewhere between 7 or 8 is optimal. Eventually I want to get a good Dragoon Sword because of the bleed and higher APS.

3. It's not even needed. The only thing that is remotely dangerous to me so far is bleed. On average I get back around 500 ES from blocking. I'm going to see if I can try and get to 2k ES as that's probably where I want to be in the "final form" lol.

4. Using Aegis the more armour you have the better your EHP from Aegis is (I also do run a Basalt flask as well). So, it's not moot unlike with Surrender builds or other non-Aegis builds in general where the DR from more armour is not worth it. It's not like it cost a lot really. I want to run Grace anyways and it's lvl 22 from Essence Worm (when I get mine to lvl 20) which is real nice. I also want to run the 4 damage flasks anyways and they coincidentally provide a big EHP boost too.

5. What are you talking about with the gems? Can you be more specific? Some of the gems are there for leveling and what-not because I don't have a lvl 2-3 Enlighten yet or Vaal Haste. (E.g. blood rage) Honestly, I should just go and buy it all ready since it's relatively cheap. At that point my gems will be done. My weapon gems will be Flame Golem-Vaal Haste-Inc. Duration and Enlighten in the gloves. Grace, Discipline, Blasphemy is the final aura setup.

6. Mana is not an issue because I got leech from a jewel mod. You need a leech mod either from jewel or on your weapon. It's probably better on your weapon because finding a good jewel with mana leech on it is hard/expensive.

Again, if you could provide more elaboration about my gem set-up I'd appreciate it since I'm always looking for ways to improve that area.

(End it will look like this)
6L - BF/FA/MeleePhys/MDFullLife/Add Chaos/Inc. AoE (sub Conc. on boss)
4L - WB/FA/BM/Fortify
4L - Reckoning/Riposte/CoH/Enfeeble
4L - Enlighten/Blasphemy/Vulnerability/Discipline
3L - VaalHaste/Inc. Duration/Summon Flame Golem
3L - CwDT/IC/Tempest Shield
1L (EW) - Grace

Thoughts?

The build is super tanky and does a lot of damage (T12-T13's melt like butter no matter the mods) and that's with a pretty meh 280DPS sword and lvl 18-19 0 quality gems :p

"

im666im666 wrote:

Hi people, i've started using this build after my CoC assassin got deleted past 2.4 and Cospri's nerf. I would like to ask a thing - there are 2 alternative setups mentioned by the author, one for better DPS and the second one for better survivability. Given any amount of currency (on standard) - is there some "ultimate" combo between these 3 (main + 2 alternatives)?

Bump, still really interested to find out :)

"

Rays727 wrote:

Thoughts?

The build is super tanky and does a lot of damage (T12-T13's melt like butter no matter the mods) and that's with a pretty meh 280DPS sword and lvl 18-19 0 quality gems :p

Hmm, thanks for fast answer.
I personally play Cleave variant of the build, but i did loads of research before the league to incorporate Blade Flurry into this Gladiator build. I decided to drop it because simple it didnt do enough single target damage on guardians.

1. To be more specific i am not sure about that add chaos damage gem. If You have full hp all the time (i assume you have, because you skip hp flasks) go for MDFullLife. Maybe even Added Fire Damage would do better, if you have pure phys build.

2. I would also incorporate Ancestral Warchief totem somewhere.

3. ES replenish is nice, but it comes with cost of no blood rage.

4. I prefer to have damage from auras, instead of potions. Why no Taste of Hate in this setup?
With aegis aurora it would be 87% cold resist :)

5. What about endurance charges?

6. That leech can be problematic on Players cannot leech from monsters maps, or mana regen reduced by 60%.

"

sultangurde wrote:

"

Rays727 wrote:

Thoughts?

The build is super tanky and does a lot of damage (T12-T13's melt like butter no matter the mods) and that's with a pretty meh 280DPS sword and lvl 18-19 0 quality gems :p

Hmm, thanks for fast answer.
I personally play Cleave variant of the build, but i did loads of research before the league to incorporate Blade Flurry into this Gladiator build. I decided to drop it because simple it didnt do enough single target damage on guardians.

1. To be more specific i am not sure about that add chaos damage gem. If You have full hp all the time (i assume you have, because you skip hp flasks) go for MDFullLife. Maybe even Added Fire Damage would do better, if you have pure phys build.

2. I would also incorporate Ancestral Warchief totem somewhere.

3. ES replenish is nice, but it comes with cost of no blood rage.

4. I prefer to have damage from auras, instead of potions. Why no Taste of Hate in this setup?
With aegis aurora it would be 87% cold resist :)

5. What about endurance charges?

6. That leech can be problematic on Players cannot leech from monsters maps, or mana regen reduced by 60%.

Interesting that you found Blade Flurry to not have enough ST damage (perhaps abusing poison double-dipping is the answer :p).

1. I am using Cospri's Will and trying to get the most out of poison as I can in the build. Added Chaos is simply the best gem for doing that if your build doesn't naturally have other ways of getting a lot [of chaos damage]. Of course, I could be wrong and the 54% of extra chaos damage I get from Sin's Rebirth+Atziri's Flask is enough, but for now it feels good (especially with Vulnerability!).

2. I simply don't have the slot and so far into red maps I haven't felt "slow" (boss kills are quick), but suggestion duly noted. Maybe I find a way to incorporate it down the line. It's definitely not a bad gem to have available :p

3. I'd much rather the ability to use MD on Full Life since it is a huge more multiplier! (49% more then 10% increased melee dmg with 20 qual) Where I can I try to maximize on the multiplicative bonuses. It's why I was so attracted to Aegis and Shaper's Touch since it allows for a nearly 100% uptime.

4. Fair enough, but the aura's eat into your defenses, where the flasks give both offense and defense...I'd rather defensive auras and get more damage from my flasks (which I feel add more damage than the aura's do (I get like 600 tooltip from Sin's Rebirth for instance)). Different preferences for different folks and builds :p (Just for the record I do consider Blasphemy>Vulnerability an offensive Aura...and it adds an incredible amount of damage (nearly 30% more roughly)) As for ToH...it's a nice defensive flask, but I'd rather run Basalt, and my other flasks pull way too much double duty to use ToH over them.

5. Those will come with the Red Nightmare jewel. So far Enfeeble is more than adequate on that front.

6. Mana regen I don't care about - I've done plenty of those maps and you don't really notice. The leech one is probably the biggest worry with the build, but every build has a mod or two they really don't want to see. Just scour and alch if it shows up. I haven't really seen it yet so it's pretty rare.

By the way the reason why I'm not running MD full life right now is because it is the way the chromes and fusings lined up so far. I got RRBBGG super early (in like a dozen chromes) and I'm not one to mess with where each color is when it can be a PITA to get those colored sockets on that piece of gear (pure evasion chest). Then when I went to fuse (I had 100 at the time) I got 5L in like 15 again and I didn't want to chance not being able to use it as I was using a 5L Atziri's at the time. In other words, circumstances aligned to where I had BB instead of RR available. Once I bank up enough fusings to where I'm confident I'll either get 6L or another 5L (probably save up 800 before I go for 6L) that's what I'm stuck with. It's unfortunate as MDFL would be more damage than added chaos, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.

@Rays727

For normal mapping that added chaos is more than ok, but i try to take a look at guardians fights and judge build capabilities on that fights ONLY.
Hydra/Chimera is poison immune, Minotaur and Chimera is bleed immune.
Your build might be more expensive, Red Nightmare got its name for a reason :)
It can cost 6-7 Exa per piece:)

P.S. Let me know how Your build perform on guardians.

"

sultangurde wrote:

@Rays727

For normal mapping that added chaos is more than ok, but i try to take a look at guardians fights and judge build capabilities on that fights ONLY.
Hydra/Chimera is poison immune, Minotaur and Chimera is bleed immune.
Your build might be more expensive, Red Nightmare got its name for a reason :)
It can cost 6-7 Exa per piece:)

P.S. Let me know how Your build perform on guardians.

I am aware. Also, my build is definitely more expensive. Cospri's isn't cheap. Sin's Rebirth & Lion's Roar isn't cheap. Red Nightmare isn't cheap. Astramentis is actually not that cheap either (40C+).

Aegis Aurora went down a lot. A good reckless defense jewel is also 15-20C itself (4%).

Will do. My inclination is that by the time I hit the Guardians I'll have my gems all up to 20% qual and high level which should help cut the time down on Chimera. I don't expect to have any trouble killing them. Where the poison builds shine more is on the Shaper since he isn't immune. That should be interesting anyways :p I'll report back when I do.