[3.11] Shaper = Stunned, Tidebreaker Heavy Strike Stunner Build
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Hey bright, dope build.
Running 2 6L Belly and Tidebreaker with Slayer tree. Funny Story after being 3 ex down on 6L Tidebreaker, spent 2ex on fuse, linked Tidebreaker in 4 fuse, belly in the next 300. After Impact ramps up ground slam doesn't need the jewel anymore, replaced jewel with kaom lethal pride that gives me about 200 life in jewel slot near Skull Cracking. Shaper and Red Elder down. Rings and ammy are still super cheap and from week 1. Total life at 6000~. Using Hemophilia gloves for clear with Ground Slam is actually pretty crazy, jumping into a pack and 1 tapping, a lot of the times rares will get 1 shot from the explosions. Didn't vibe well with the Sunder setup from Slayer PoB feels too slow and clunky while outputting about the same damage as Ground Slam with less of an AoE. Gear:
Spoiler
 (Forgot to drop war banner lol) |
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I made a couple changes in the recommended tree recently, due to the realization that we have excess stun capability and at the same time great access to a new layer of damage mitigation.
Now I believe Bloodletting and the 2 Fortify clusters are great choices for the additive nature of their damage mitigation. For my math, check out More Info - Damage Mitigation section. Below is what really surprised me during a recent Uber Elder fight - I took less than 2000 damage from a Shaper slam.  Also, as a side note, try Cyclone out if you haven't, it's super good. |
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" They made my card a T1 drop, aka similar to Atziri axe drop, starforge drop, voidforge etc it is not really SSF farmable, but it drops on reef tileset and from reef bosses (brine king) |
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" Not using HS anymore? Is cyclone enough for stuns? |
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" It's still better to use Heavy Strike in single target scenarios. Heavy Strike is a magnitude better for stunning and has a much higher DPS. What I am suggesting is that Cyclone is a really good AoE skill. It's possible to stun with Cyclone, but because Ruthless Support doesn't work with Cyclone, the stunning is not too consistent against bosses. In the gif I was using Cyclone in Uber Elder fight because Cyclone makes it easier to dodge all the stuff while DPSing. For the same reason, I also recommend Cyclone in Trio fight or Pheonix fight. |
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After testing, abyssal warcry is in fact really pleasant with battle cry, not mandatory but surely more useful than the leech node on berserker.
A bit disappointed with cyclone in my build, I prefer the jumping ground slam style. But I understand why a mono touch can be more attractive. 5 flask + warcry + molten shell + focus is a bit tedious on every pack... For focus, I got a free affix on ring for shock on focus, it's really powerful, just have to wait for ggg to had 2 more skill slot bars ahah... |
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Does flesh and stone need to be in blood stance when linked with maim?
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" One trick regarding skillbar, is that you can use weapon swap to get access to a 2nd skillbar. For example, you can have Heavy Strike and Frenzy in your skillbar with your primary weapon, and Ground Slam and Portal in your secondary weapon. Well, this still sucks but that's an option you have. " You can still choose between the two. It's just, if you're at Sand Stance, your Maim Support is doing absolutely nothing besides reserving your mana. I usually just stick with Blood Stance. I did use Sand Stance when I was like 95% exp and wanted to reduce my risk of dying as much as possible. |
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Would Vigilant Strike be an option? Hits can't be evaded may open up critical variation plus free fortify. Tidebreaker plus Jugg probably offer enough Endurance Charge to sustain VS. Thoughts?
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" It certainly can work, so if you want you can go ahead and do a Vigilant Strike variation; but generally, I believe it brings more problems than it solves. Half of Jugg's decency comes from the accuracy. If you pick Jugg you probably don't have to worry too much about accuracy anyways, which kind of defeats the purpose of Vigilant Strike. But you do have to pick the accuracy node, as you probably don't want to clear maps with Vigilant Strike and you want some accuracy so that your mapping experience won't be too awful. Then you have to build crit on top of a 5% base crit weapon, which means you probably should get other sources of added local crit chance, which, unless picking Slayer, is difficult to find without huge sacrifices. After all these costs, you have to compete with our original choice, which comes with 38% more damage (20% more and 15% more from slayer) or 40% more damage (Berserker), and 72% double strike chance and 25% r.E.S.T. (heavy strike). Well, maybe there is a way to get a big DPS number out of this, but... what's the point, really? This build can stun-lock Shaper with Heavy Strike on a 5-link (if well-geared), and in Uber Elder fight you're probably better off using Cyclone so that you can dodge all the mess while dealing damage. There is also this embarrassing scenario that, what if you don't hit your first attack with Vigilant Strike so that you don't have any endurance charge to get it going... Overall, I see no point in trying to boost our single target DPS unless it comes at a very small cost. Because stun-locking is so easily achievable, this build should slowing switch to QoL and defense and mobility instead of DPS. So, considering the overall strength of this build, I would probably like an idea that offers great AoE DPS while maintaining good defense and mobility, but most effort to boost the single target DPS would seem pointless to me. |
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