[3.8] Budget HC Uber Atziri farmer — no skill required — works as early as level 79

Hi. I made a melee build that I used to safely clear the entire Alluring Abyss at level 79 with around 5k life and very cheap gear at the end of the second day of Blight HC. I believe I was one of the first five people on BHC to clear Uber Atziri (I know Dan entered the area a day earlier—not sure if he cleared, but knowing Dan he probably did—and there was another person who started farming it a few hours earlier than myself).

I kept pushing the character to find where the build's limits are, and instead found my own limits: it died to a user error (the build worked as intended, but I made a dumb mistake owing to my inexperience with the fight), but not before it had proved what I needed it to. Here I will document what enabled me to do so.

The trick is capping reduction to damage taken, which is something that's been in the game for a while but only a select few players took note of it enough to realize one can actually stack it to 100% and even way beyond in some scenarios. This is one of them, and many more are possible.

Highlights:
• hardcore-viable (actually made on HC);
• not a Juggernaut/Occultist/Guardian, although you can do it as a Juggernaut and several other classes as well;
• can do the entire area at 4.9–5.4k life;
• facetanks the empowered Flameblasts and Storm Calls taking no damage from them;
• does it all on a shoestring budget (less than 100c, potentially as low as 60–70c).

Reddit discussion here.

Research spreadsheet here.

Excellent news: this will be heavily nerfed in 3.9. It was too easy to do for what it enabled. I will update the build with the new information as I get it.

Videos

Alluring Abyss (first run) at level 79, made around 00:00 GMT 2019/09/10.
• Alluring Abyss (second run with live commentary), made the following night: [Twitch VODs down].
• Earlier version made with level 81 Juggernaut on Legion HC (2019/07/31): part 1, part 2.
• Bonus: Shaper done on the Juggernaut version (level 83, same character as above, permanent HC league).

Note that I don't have a lot of experience tanking through these fights on HC and I never bothered doing it on SC, so I was still figuring out strategies trial-and-error as I was recording these runs, hence why I'm so hesitant at times and am double-checking things a lot.

Tree, gear, and skills

Tree
Vaals/Atziri PoB.
Trio PoB (you will need to respec 5 points and then respec them back for Atziri if you're doing this at level 79).
Bonus: Juggernaut version (level 78, no respec required—strictly better in most respects).

Ascendancy nodes: Born in the ShadowsExplosives ExpertPyromaniac.
Uber Lab isn't required because it provides nothing useful to builds that aren't using traps/mines—not even the travel nodes. (GGG: Take note!)

If using the Juggernaut, take UnflinchingUnbreakableUnrelentingUnyielding.

Pantheon
Major: Lunaris with Ancient Architect and Sebbert, Crescent's Point (all areas except Atziri); Solaris with The Gorgon and Jorus, Sky's Edge (Atziri only). Add The Infernal King if doing the Juggernaut version.
Minor: Tukohama with Tahsin, Warmaker. Switching to Gruthkul with Erebix, Light's Bane for the Trio might be worthwhile.

Gear and links
Prices below are based on the early (appr. day 2 to day 7) economy of temp HC leagues and may not be representative of softcore experience or particular points in the league.

Chestpiece:

Just a Tabula Rasa for a cheap 6L. The reduced fire damage taken isn't strictly necessary (but nice to have); in my case this one was only 3c more expensive than a normal Tabula at the time of purchase (21c vs. 18c) so I went for it. This is the most expensive item in the entire gear set.

Possible alternatives: a corrupted RRRGGB or RRRRGB 6L with life and armor. Mind the resistance balance!

Links (RRRGGB): Cyclone — Fortify — Infused Channeling — Pulverise — Brutality — Close Combat (change to Maim for Atziri).

Cyclone is by far the most useful skill for this area because it keeps you out of the line of fire of ranged enemies, allows taking fewer hits at the beginning of the Trio fight, and provides free stun immunity which is a lifesaver (Unwavering Stance is an option, but costs an extra passive and renders your blind useless, thus making you take more hits and more crits—not a good thing). Fortify is a build enabler, and Infused Channeling is quite useful for defense. Pulverise, Brutality, and Close Combat give the most damage we can possibly get out of Cyclone supports without any significant downsides. Swap CC out for Maim because we need to ensure that the adds don't reach Atziri during the healing phase if our damage is still low. Alternatively, put Maim on Ancestral Warchief (take out Abyssal Cry to make room). Quality on Cyclone is important but depends on the weapon and ascendancy you are using; for Sabo with Ahn's Might it's 18%.

Helmet:

By far the cheapest (1-2c) and most convenient option. Almost every mod serves a purpose here, most importantly the 5% reduced elemental damage taken. The Petrification Statue skill has a 30 sec cooldown but no level requirement, and it can be rather useful to reduce the incoming damage, so we put our high-level CwDT here to summon it automatically every now and then, so this essentially turns it into a 5-link setup.

Possible alternatives: a rare craft on an armor base with high life, 25% increased Fortify Effect and the "Nearby Enemies take 9% increased Physical Damage" mod (makes us more reliant on having Fortify up but provides more DPS and defense against physical damage). Frankly, it's too expensive to bother, so don't bother; Gorgon's Gaze is plenty good.

Links (RRGB): Cast when Damage Taken level 11 — Blood Rage level 14 — Summon Holy Relic level 16 — Molten Shell level 16 (change to Warlord's Mark level 14 for Atziri).

Blood Rage gives us extra DPS and leech (get a high quality gem if possible), Holy Relic is a nice cheap source of extra regen; quality is good to have for this gem. Molten Shell is most useful during the Trio fight, and Warlord's Mark is the only curse we can use on Atziri that has zero downsides for us. You can use something else in place of Warlord's Mark (a Jugg may get more mileage out of Immortal Call thanks to his free 7 ECs, especially during the Trio fight) or just leave in Molten Shell, but it's not all that useful on Atziri, either.

Weapon:

Ahn's Might is just a cheap (2–5c) good weapon with very solid DPS figures (this one is 340 pDPS at 20%, top roll is 383.5 pDPS at 30%) and a 10% bonus to AoE of all skills which is quite useful.

Possible alternatives: Breath of the Council (similar price, pDPS, and AoE bonus, no penalty to Frenzy charges), Soul Taker (quality of life, better mana reservation options, way more expensive), Nebuloch (best Jugg option but may not be available early on).

Links (RGG): Shield Charge — Culling Strike — Faster Attacks (change to Arctic Armour for the Trio and Atziri unless playing Jugg).
The regular movement cull setup. Try getting Culling Strike with quality — it usually costs 1c or so to get a 14–16% gem, and you get extra attack speed out of it which is never useless. Having quality on Faster Attacks achieves the same effect but at a much higher cost in chaos orbs.

Shields:

Kongming is the unsung star of the build and its main enabler. It's really confusing how this shield flied under everyone's radar for years despite being one of the best defensive options for many specific cases and Saboteurs in general. You can corrupt it further with up to 6% RDT from area hits which for Atziri in particular allows over 1/3 of total damage reduction just from a single slot:

This is just wrong. But since it's there, we can use it, and we can buy it for as little as 1c. There are no alternatives for it although you can potentially make up for it with a lot of extra flask and Fortify effect and some passive tree magic.

The other shield is helpful during the general clear (although you can still use Kongming for it if you're careful) and against the Trio since they cast no spells—at least none that you can stand in safely. It's just a rare shield I found as a random drop; if you're looking for one on trade, look for high life and armor/phys reduction. A common alternative is Lioneye's Remorse—it hits all the right marks but can hurt your wallet very much in the first couple days.

Links (RBB): Cast when Damage Taken level 8 — Cold Snap level 12 — Enfeeble level 11 (change to Purifying Flame level 12 for Atziri).

This is our second, lower-level CwDT setup. Cold Snap is taken for the strongest area chill available for a CwDT setup. Enfeeble is all-around useful (get a quality gem if possible—it makes a difference) except on Atziri where we swap it out for Purifying Flame which provides us with a consistent source of Consecrated Ground, giving us breathing room to conserve flask charges. You can potentially get the levels lower (e.g. to CwDT level 2 which caps at 40) to try ensuring a more consistent upkeep of the effects, but I don't know if this will actually increase survivability in the earlier fights. You might also have two sets of gems: CwDT 2 — PF 12 — CS 8 for Atziri, CwDT 8 — Enf 11 — CS 12 for the rest of the Alluring Abyss. This is probably the best option, if a bit clunky.

Gloves:

A random rare with life, damage mods, Intelligence, resistances. Cost me 3c or so. Shitty base so I had to get 4 off-colors on it (cost me a few more chaos in chromes and jeweller's orbs). Don't be me—use an armor base; just try to get some good damage mods on it because gloves potentially contribute more to DPS than other gear slots.

Links (RRRR): Determination — Dread Banner — Flesh and Stone (Blood) — Maim. Disable F&S for the Trio and Atziri in favor of Arctic Armour. Use F&S in Sand Stance if playing as the Juggernaut and put Maim elsewhere.

Determination is, unfortunately, one of only two sources of physical damage mitigation we can have as a reservation buff, but it scales better the more armor we have (such as from a Granite flask or the shield) and works during movement unlike Arctic Armour. You can scale it further using a jewel like this:

(Note to GGG: Please give us more reservation-based defense options. Most of current ones—such as Determination itself—aren't even worth using without a Watcher's Eye. Maybe make WE mods less powerful and transfer some of that power to the auras in question, how about that?)

Boots:

A random rare with high life and movement speed. I initially looked for boots that have between 13% and 20% fire resistance so that I could craft an appropriate amount of lightning resistance to compensate for that + the 8% fire resistance from Barbarism, since the 21..28% craft is cheaper to reroll compared to the more expensive 29..35% craft. But I changed one of my rings later on and ended up balancing my lightning resistance on another slot. If you can get something with a lot of armor on it, that'd be good.

Links: Blood Magic — Ancestral Warchief — Enduring Cry — Abyssal Cry (change to Maim for Atziri, or permanently if playing as a Jugg).

Belt:

Lots of damage, good life, good resists, crit damage reduction. Excellent and cheap (1-2c) option.

Rings:

Look for something with a lot of total life (having strength/all attribute mods helps), resistances (mind the fire/lightning balance!), and preferably some damage and mana leech. If you lack Int, you might want to add that to the list of mods. Here's an example search query (for Standard, so that it doesn't break when the current league ends; ignore the prices). Prefer the ones with open suffixes so that you could craft the missing resistances on them. I paid around 10c for each of those rings above.

Amulet:

Bloodgrip is a cheap (1–2c) and safe option. It's got good life, good damage, gives you some protection from the snake puncture attacks and an absolute shitton of life recovery from flasks, enabling some serious good time during the Trio fight. Anoint it with Silent Steps: it saves 6 passive points and a ton of money since it uses three cheap oils (around 5–6c in total).

Alternative: an Essence of Horror craft on an Elder base. Don't bother unless you're SSF.

Jewels: anything with 6-7% life and missing stats (e.g. resistances, Int, mana leech, damage). Here's an example query. Play around with mod counts in the mandatory (res/int/leech) and desirable (damage/attack speed) groups to fine-tune the results.

Alternatives:


Flasks:
2x

This one is important. We don't need it at any specific point but we use it for overprovisioning during stuff like the beginning of the Atziri split phase when our Fortify isn't yet up and/or one of the clones is out of range (the transition doesn't give you a lot of time to properly assess the situation, so it's better to be on the safe side). Have two just in case.


Just an instant life flask. There are no particular suffixes that are needed on it since Sabo is already immune to both Ignite and Shock. You can go for the freeze removal (of Heat) since you might accidentally get crit by a rare Vaal Fallen. Go with ignite removal (Dousing) if playing as Jugg.


Many things cause bleeding and/or corrupted blood in the area. Ideally this flask should be self-sustainable.


These are mainly for the Trio (I suggest also using one of them for the Vaal fight in case you aren't confident in your slam dodging abilities). The Flagellant prefix is a huge enabler and allows sustaining the biggest chunk of physical mitigation during the fight on flasks and buffs alone.

The math involved

Note: this is based on the 3.8 numbers and hasn't been updated with the 3.9 numbers yet!

We don't raise our maximum resistances for this build (because it isn't helpful), and we don't use block or dodge since those are statistical defenses which can't be relied upon against potential one-shots—you still need to survive the hits that come through, so you might as well not bother with everything that doesn't help mitigating that. The main parameter we care about is reduction to damage taken (RDT), and we pursue it religiously in whatever forms are available to us.

This particular build has:
• 15% RDT from blinded enemies (all damage) from Born in the Shadows and Silent Steps;
• 30% spell RDT from Kongming's Stratagem;
• 13% area hit RDT from Explosives Expert and Brinkmanship;
• 32% all hit RDT from Fortify with extra effect from the Rampart and Steadfast clusters;
• 5% elemental RDT from Crystal Skin and 5% extra from Gorgon's Gaze when stationary;
• 5% RDT from bleeding enemies from Brinkmanship;
• 10% elemental RDT from The Wise Oak;
• 8% elemental RDT after 4 seconds without any hits from Soul of Solaris.

Now the fun part. Atziri is truly unique in the sense that everything truly dangerous that she does is an 1) elemental 2) area 3) spell 4) hit. Which means every source of RDT that only specifies one of these keywords will still stack with the others additively. And thus our RDT value sums up to 123% when all of our buffs are in effect, or 105% sustained, meaning we take zero damage from all of her spells. The last 5% might not be truly necessary, but as they say, better safe than Standard. :^)

The physical damage reduced this way sums up to 52% for strike hits and 65% for area hits if all of our sustainable buffs/debuffs are up. The actual formula for the final mitigation gets a little busy with Endurance Charges, AA, Pantheon souls, Infused Channeling, Enfeeble, and armor boosted by Determination, but all things considered, we can put the overall mitigation figures for the physical damage hits between 70% and 90% depending on the nature and magnitude of the hit and the active flasks—which is more than enough to do well against almost every fixed-damage boss in the game. However, since a major part of this mitigation suite doesn't apply to the three different physical DoTs possible in the Trio fight, we still need to take special care during this fight. I also suggest avoiding Vaal slams unless

Strategy guide

General areas
• Bodyblock the door entrances with Ancestral Warchief and wait for it to soak up the first bunch of projectiles from Ancient Constructs. They have chaos conversion and will hurt if all projectiles land on you at the same time.
• Once you engage the enemies, don't stop moving. When you're moving, you're safe.

Vaals
• The safest spot is actually right next to them. So if both Vaals pop up on top of each other, this is actually good. The only thing that can hurt you in this case is their slam, but you can just cyclone through them to the other side. If you start running away you'll quickly bleed flask charges since most of your buffs/debuffs quickly fall off at a distance.
• Keeping them on top of each other also makes it easier to time their deaths so that when one dies the other is already in the cull range. Escaping an enraged Vaal is not very trivial.

Q'ura, Y'ara'az, and A'alai
• Respec and refresh the pot charges before the fight if necessary and start the fight with full Endurance Charges if possible. You can use Ralakesh's Impatience or leave one enemy alive before the Trio room to cast Enduring Cry on.
• Kill A'alai first (preferably in the center) because she's the most annoying one. To do so, run around in circles chipping away at her life while staying on the move and recasting Enduring Cry when you get hit. If you take less than half your life pool's worth of damage at a time, kite and outregen it instead of wasting pot charges.
• You have a choice which boss to kill next. If you have immunity to corrupted blood or a ton of regen, go with Y'ara'az first. Otherwise, go with Q'ura.
• Stay in the line of fire of the spawning adds to replenish your Flagellant flasks instantly, preferably close enough to them to enable the Soul of Lunaris's proximity bonus. Try not to move around too much to avoid disturbing the cumulative buff from Soul of Tukohama.
• Mental fortitude is the key to this fight. The arena is huge, so running away is (almost) always an option. Just take your time and don't panic. The enemies aren't really that great at pursuit.

Queen Atziri
• Don't let your buffs fall off. Always make sure you have Fortify up before she even starts casting spells. When unsure, take a sip of The Wise Oak. Don't be me. :)
• During the split phase, stay close to the center to keep the clones in the debuff range of your blind aura. Keep in mind that this might delay the activation of Fortify as Cyclone needs to ramp up the range. Don't be me: prioritize Fortify.
• Technically this fight is the simplest of the three. If you stay on her and keep attacking, you'll stay completely safe and won't even need to pot in most situations. And if you fuck up, you'll die a horrible death. :) So just stay on her, keep attacking, and let mechanics do their work.

Bonus: The Shaper
I've only done the fight on the Juggernaut version of the build, but I've determined the following holds true for either version.
• Yugul is the minor soul to use.
• Teleport slams are tankable. They hurt without ECs, but still aren't in the deadly range.
• Cold balls are tankable. Stay close to the Shaper to keep him blind for extra damage reduction.
• Bullet hell is tankable if you have something to refresh Fortify duration on (leftover adds from the portal or a worm flask will do).
• The beam and the ground DoTs are not tankable without a bigger life pool and much better gear. But since you can afford moving around the arena freely without worrying too much about what the Shaper does at any given moment, you can sidestep the beam and stack the ground DoTs around the perimeter without too much trouble.


FAQ

Q: What other classes can do this?
A: Juggernaut, for sure. Technically, if you optimize your gear and passives, you can do this on any class, just not on the first week of a new league (see the section below for details and discussion).

Q: Is this possible on SSF?
A: Not as of 3.9.

Q: What other bosses can be abused this way?
A: Most of them, and to a very high extent. You cannot be immune to all damage at all times, but you can be immune to the worst attacks/spells and sustainably tank the rest. Using corrupted gear (mainly Tabula Rasa and Kongming's Stratagem), the Pantheon, and amulet anointments, you can very flexibly adjust your build to any particular boss with minimal expenses. The only exception is extreme deep delving where a number of conditions (such as being stationary or DoT immunity) cannot be satisfied easily. This can partially be mitigated with high-end gear, but even then will not necessarily perform better than a glass cannon in the sense that a minor slip-up will cost you the character. It will very likely get you further down on a HC league compared to a glass cannon, though!

Q: Did you take this idea from player XYZ?
A: I didn't have to take anything. I've researched PoE's defenses for many years, and one of my guildmates is the author of the build that prompted the first serious nerf to maximum resistances back in the open beta. I also made several heavy-duty tank builds on hardcore leagues dating as early as version 2.0 and discussed them and possible improvements with my friends and guildmates pretty much every time something relevant was introduced to the game. You can see some of my tanks in this playlist. I expect the next version of my Gladiator Supertank to be able to AFK in all of the Alluring Abyss except the Atziri fight, and tank Shaper's bullet hell.

Q: What leagues do you play?
A: Almost exclusively temporary hardcore leagues, no SSF. Sometimes I hop onto my dead characters in Standard to see if they still work or run some experiments.

Q: Do you stream?
A: Occasionally.

Q: I have this idea I'd like to discuss...
A: Awesome! Reach me on Discord (moozooh#3956), Telegram (@moozooh), or ingame (@moozooh).

Build goals, history, and the meta discussion

Note: this discusses the 3.8 situation and hasn't been updated to the 3.9 realities.

This build is a proof of concept intended to demonstrate that neither grinding, nor skill, nor investment is needed to put endgame bosses like Uber Atziri on farm in the current meta, and also to point out to the devs that it is not simply possible but also way too easy to stack the most potent defense in the game—reduction to damage taken—to 100% and beyond. This abuse has been in the game for a while, and I did an Alluring Abyss run back in July on Legion HC with a level 81 Juggernaut, but with the common sentiment being that Juggernauts are too cheesy, I decided to do this on one of the Shadow classes instead. That was basically the only reason to take Saboteur. Don't worry, Jugg stays the cheesiest class on par with the Guardian. :p

Doing this was actually possible as far back as Incursion which introduced some of the RDT-enabling corruptions, and I tried to do it in Betrayal HC, but with no convenient way to propagate blind over a large enough area to solve the split phase, I stopped trying. I mean I could potentially do it with a well-placed Charged Dash, but... eh, this was still too dangerous and clunky to bother. And then Flesh and Stone happened which solved the last problem I had with making this work, and after 1.5 months without any news about tanking Uber Atziri's Flameblasts I decided to do this myself. To my knowledge, I'm the only person who has run Uber Atziri with a build like this on a temp HC league, because otherwise the market would be full of her items, Reddit would be teeming with related videos, and poe.ninja would list at least one person using Kongming's Stratagem—none of which happened. And Atziri is, by far, the least-run endgame boss (I swear there are more Aul items on the market, and he's the RNG-gated one) and at the same time the best case scenario for damage reduction. There's no way it would've have cropped up considering this is the safest and easiest way to build for the area.

The thing is... despite the recent reports of people awakening to the issue, I have a strong suspicion that no-one appreciates it to the extent it deserves. I mean, sure, damage reduction tanks have been a thing since the dual-Nebuloch Juggs of 2018, but we've gone quite the distance since then. If you're willing to see how deep the mitigation rabbit hole goes, take a look at the spreadsheet I compiled in the process of making this build. This sacred scripture is the list of every source of RDT for each of the possible ways of taking damage available in the game as of version 3.8. And if after looking at it you thought the numbers added up to something absolutely silly with rather little investment—well, you'd be completely right! It should be easy to see that if you really put your mind to it, you should be able to reach some 75–90% sustainable reduction to certain kinds of damage even in SSF conditions, with up to 100% reduction reached temporarily. For instance:

• 20% from Fortify with additional 20% from the extra effect on tree and self-crafted gear;
• 20% from four notables—three taken in the Duelist area and one anointed onto an amulet;
• 18% from ascendancy points (let's say this is still about the Saboteur);
• 24% temporarily from the veiled chestpiece mod (extra Fortify effect while Focussed).

Congratulations, you've just capped your RDT from elemental area hits, of which you can sustain about 78%. To put this into perspective, it would be roughly equivalent to having 94% maximum elemental resistances while in combat (which, even if it weren't hard-capped at 90%, would still be an optimization nightmare to sustain). And the same setup will also RDT from physical area hits by 73–97%. The only price you'll have to pay is taking a potentially suboptimal class (again, not necessary on a trade league) and ensuring that enemies are blind (and bleeding, if you want to make use of Bloodletting). Not bad, huh? And by that I mean it's absolutely damn broken. Such protection should not come so easily. In fact, it probably shouldn't come at all. Reaching even 50% RDT against anything should be a significant gearing challenge—not something you can gain with levels and one support gem on every class possible, still rocking millions of DPS because the opportunity cost is so laughable.

GGG, if you are hoping for security through obscurity when you empower an accelerating-returns mechanic by such copious amounts with easy access, well... I can see the logic working to an extent, but simply because most players still haven't caught on to how powerful a mechanic this is doesn't mean you shouldn't balance it. My suggestions would be the following:

0. When you introduce or buff an accelerating-returns mechanic like RDT, always keep a spreadsheet like the above at hand to keep track of what's currently possible. It's very easy to avoid overtuning if you have it, and very hard otherwise. Save yourself time and effort. History has shown that you have repeatedly ignored this simple practice, leading to prolonged abuse of overtuned mechanics which was then overcompensated by heavy nerfs. This could have been avoided if the scaling was kept reasonable in the first place.

1. Make Fortify "less damage taken" rather than "reduced damage taken". With it alone contributing anywhere from 20% up to ~75% (or ~50% sustainably) to one's RDT from hits I think it's painfully obvious that it can no longer stay additive. It would still be crazy powerful even as a multiplicative mechanic (it essentially was like this in 2.0–2.1 when other sources of RDT didn't exist at all, yet every build—even non-melee ones—still wanted to incorporate Fortify somehow). But at least this way it won't be something one would plan their entire defenses around a la Acrobatics. (Oh, did I mention it coexists with Acrobatics with zero drawbacks, unlike, you know, armor which already has plenty of drawbacks by design? There, I mentioned it.) I would also love to have Fortify from a supported skill fall off the moment you'd switch to a non-melee weapon to prevent people with bows and wands from running around with semi-permanent Fortify from the Vigil and a weapon swap, but with Hardened Scars being a thing now, I don't even know if this suggestion is technically feasible anymore. Maybe it's time to remove the Vigil entirely: all it does is takes a mechanic that was intended to help keep melee builds alive and makes it easily available to everyone else. Melee builds don't even use the Vigil!

2. Change the Wise Oak RDT mod to something else of high value but less relative power (please don't settle on simply making the flask rarer—it makes very little difference to players who are most likely to abuse it).

3. Cut the RDT numbers on all relevant passives and items by around 1/5 (e.g. from 5% to 4% per node/mod).

4. Cap RDT at 75% just like it's done with block. You can then give the Juggernaut or some other class a thematic +3% to this cap akin to the Gladiator to make up for the numeric nerf and further specialize it in this particular form of defense.

Acknowledgements

rogueyoshi — my friend and guildmate, an experienced theorycrafter and the author of the original godmode build. Also a world-class fighting game player known for making Nappa competitive in Dragon Ball FighterZ.
Mortezzah — the creator of PoE's first supertank build which served as a huge inspiration for me to explore this direction of build-making.
Redoxe, Goratha, and Ceryneian — their layered-defenses tanks from the 1.x era were also a huge inspiration.
u/whssp and u/Saint_Yin — these bright lads also explored the extreme damage reduction idea and discussed it on Reddit.
JyonTheThird — still the only other person I know who came up with corrupting Kongming's Stratagems for the extra 6% reduced damage taken. :) I know because I've been monitoring the market and HC ladders for this particular shield with this particular corruption for several leagues, and came up empty and had to corrupt them myself. (If you're reading this, I'm the guy who bought your shield on LHC!)

Changelog

2019/12/28: Minor update in preparation for a bugger update sometime in January (?).
2019/12/10: Added a note about the incoming 3.9 nerf; further updates pending.
2019/11/07: Expanded the Pantheon section (I forgot to add the minor soul), changed wording in a few places.
2019/09/17: Added a link to a Shaper video with bullet hell tanked; some sections lightly edited to include the new info. To do: Uber Elder (maybe next league).
2019/09/11: Build posted.
<Tyrfalger> Exactly, the next act is going outside Sarn and into those wheat fields (see the map) to become a farmer. Then we can spend our days endlessly farming. Wait a minute...
Last edited by moozooh#4289 on Dec 28, 2019, 12:50:43 AM
Last bumped on Mar 11, 2020, 5:22:41 PM
Really impressive work! Have been searching for a similar build for the last two leagues given the trouble of playing dodge mechanics on console. Thank you for sharing this and giving me a reason to play the blight league :)
"
JJohnnieQ wrote:
Really impressive work! Have been searching for a similar build for the last two leagues given the trouble of playing dodge mechanics on console. Thank you for sharing this and giving me a reason to play the blight league :)

Thanks! Glad it was of use. I've also recorded a Shaper video on the Juggernaut version of this build (mostly the same tree, three notable changes in the gear) since I had the gear and character left over after Legion HC. Shaper slams, balls, and bullet hell tanked. 5000 HP is enough for everyone. :p





I'll update the post above with the new information in a moment.
<Tyrfalger> Exactly, the next act is going outside Sarn and into those wheat fields (see the map) to become a farmer. Then we can spend our days endlessly farming. Wait a minute...
Awesome work, thanks for sharing !

Now Im very interested in other super tank builds from you..
Your knowledge about game mechanics are awesome^^

I play right now a Chieftain - Life regen Tank with Holy Flame Totem.


Spoiler
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VEVfKe8z-FCr7xQ4G_CUbJ8WZ7E81hmAoZVrZCFOInRZu2hAtyju7Rb_b0cPSQMWo4ClUdrXy9m-Poxc2g0Bjb8WQOF86UIvZeKmfvsjou3Gg4l2jiD2O490sNOUD1K8uVvNHTk0Cl20NVmCRTTSXHs-BNYgEG4iWvMvFhC6f8aBw7ZzqMO_fATUeAeUM9tfliqUdunC8GFBVY9gzDYgmLbx8X0fDAEZu0hEksygsabrjM-D99YlOevzO_5ES1gWpJL3xdO0nHFrRawXnZqcKJnKJnv6xwkYkimFP0C_6lK9CYIKynH2E7rEaOIHrCM-ypHVg06oHaQwcm46sr30tyqQdZb0lb_0vD_1aY5k-2rT5jJCyVPFhwNbGiNP0iZQyWcrC16qXMDhTdYo_XngZvY8HXvTnbu80otEeSFnp1QmhTdTy9OkL69uaNRiO7cU6Q_akouHPZcO_IlvhTWquEhFZPJohRe7S1Fw-Xdo9Q6wXNs4eEHKAbnbNT5SfInLFagg7Re0DxWpiomN46HLO36B3AMAxM54JGqpsYhaW4lUOhKTdIbK657b2wVQqG9TtSoYb2KTKmBYEpryselIFeKgcOweLt9r0lumk97in9LblkQ6ZFphfC9ctjfs87LcUFl-pa2czyuH_UQ6HHvyyegsyUbsDp-dx7NfwHru1JrlfwK7-atY4l9OPrisptv-tFUs-xEs1DqW2_Ei-jdd7COm6dCip3IPQO0GxPShBZ7Qv6nHndTQs-fZBLvJTX-eGzJq_nfFh5gINaGTzntrhe31pvdPXwDOy7g4SzG6ONv9O4_-DYU-OVM=


Maybe you can link some of your builds ?
Last edited by DiamondSnake#0898 on Sep 24, 2019, 4:33:22 PM
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DiamondSnake wrote:
Now Im very interested in other super tank builds from you..

I have a new version of my Gladiator supertank in the works; it will use efficient combinations of damage conversion and damage reduction to take less damage, evasion + block + slow + minion taunt to take fewer hits, and high regen + life on block for passive sustain. Most of the defenses will be passive to minimize user error. I'll make a comprehensive build guide when I finalize and assemble it (most likely somewhere in late December/early January, since I'm skipping the rest of Blight).

I'm expecting the ability to safely tank all of the current endgame bosses (except maybe Uber Atziri, since she needs either sustained >90% reduction or nothing), delve below level 600, and be generally safe in the widest range of gameplay situations, including being reflect-proof and packet-loss-proof. On the clearspeed side, it will have excellent pack clear thanks to automatic corpse explosion and a ton of movement speed while having at least 200k sustained Shaper DPS with 350k+ burst with optimized gear and links. A lot more single-target DPS is possible if using Herald of Agony, but I very much dislike Herald of Agony (and don't want to rely on minions in principle) so I won't be using it. That being said, the build will provide a lot of flexibility for those who want more damage at the expense of some of the defenses.

I also have a Champion Ancestral Warchief build I used for a solo private league playthrough with all damage mods and no stash, but it wasn't really an original creation and it died to an incursion at level 75 before I could really emphasize on its strengths, so I don't feel the need to elaborate on it. Here's the link to the character if you want.
<Tyrfalger> Exactly, the next act is going outside Sarn and into those wheat fields (see the map) to become a farmer. Then we can spend our days endlessly farming. Wait a minute...
Last edited by moozooh#4289 on Sep 25, 2019, 1:14:21 PM
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moozooh wrote:
"
DiamondSnake wrote:
Now Im very interested in other super tank builds from you..

I have a new version of my Gladiator supertank in the works; it will use efficient combinations of damage conversion and damage reduction to take less damage, evasion + block + slow + minion taunt to take fewer hits, and high regen + life on block for passive sustain. Most of the defenses will be passive to minimize user error. I'll make a comprehensive build guide when I finalize and assemble it (most likely somewhere in late December/early January, since I'm skipping the rest of Blight).

I'm expecting the ability to safely tank all of the current endgame bosses (except maybe Uber Atziri, since she needs either sustained >90% reduction or nothing), delve below level 600, and be generally safe in the widest range of gameplay situations, including being reflect-proof and packet-loss-proof. On the clearspeed side, it will have excellent pack clear thanks to automatic corpse explosion and a ton of movement speed while having at least 200k sustained Shaper DPS with 350k+ burst with optimized gear and links. A lot more single-target DPS is possible if using Herald of Agony, but I very much dislike Herald of Agony (and don't want to rely on minions in principle) so I won't be using it. That being said, the build will provide a lot of flexibility for those who want more damage at the expense of some of the defenses.

I also have a Champion Ancestral Warchief build I used for a solo private league playthrough with all damage mods and no stash, but it wasn't really an original creation and it died to an incursion at level 75 before I could really emphasize on its strengths, so I don't feel the need to elaborate on it. Here's the link to the character if you want.


nice ! sounds really good. but its not on a budget ?
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DiamondSnake wrote:
nice ! sounds really good. but its not on a budget ?

It's flexible enough to accommodate a modest budget if you're willing to compromise on offense and/or defense (although if you go HoAg, I suppose you could prioritize defense and still have solid enough offense, but this is untested). The version I will be building is the reference one with highly-optimized tree and gear—i'm expecting it to cost at least several thousand chaos by temp HC prices—but I will list plenty of cheaper alternatives for every expensive piece of gear.
<Tyrfalger> Exactly, the next act is going outside Sarn and into those wheat fields (see the map) to become a farmer. Then we can spend our days endlessly farming. Wait a minute...
I'm looking for Uber Elder farmer build and this one seems to hit my expectacions. Is this the best miner build for UE? Or maybe you can recommend a different one?
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Pure wrote:
I'm looking for Uber Elder farmer build and this one seems to hit my expectacions. Is this the best miner build for UE? Or maybe you can recommend a different one?

Well... Likely not the best because this isn't really a miner build, and I've never tried Uber Elder with it. :) It should possible to adapt it to mines, but you need to be able to consistently proc Fortify and you will lose some of the mitigation granted by the Duelist area passives which you will not visit. I've fiddled around with PoB and threw together this "build" which you can use as the baseline for further tweaking (for the Pantheon, use Lunaris + Tuko/Gruthkul/Yugul, whichever works better in practice). Gearing is similar, except you want as much life as possible on every piece, a good caster dagger, an Essence of Horror amulet, and a Vitality Watcher's Eye (life recovery mod is best but flat regen is good enough). Minimum EC mods on the jewelry aren't strictly required; you can substitute them with Enduring Cry and go for the Frenzy Charges instead, or just craft 16% increased damage if you're low on budget. For the shield corruption, I'd go with projectile damage because area hit damage doesn't come often and should be very tankable already.

You probably won't sustain 100% reduction this way, but 85–94% should be sustainable for projectiles and around 75% for area hits, with an extra bonus of up to 59% spell dodge and roughly 80% chance not to be hit by a melee attack, which should give you enough breathing room to outregen the damage you end up taking. Thus it should be possible to tank just about everything (including Elder's area slams) except the DoTs with this setup, but you must absolutely ensure that your Fortify doesn't fall off. If my calculations are correct, it should also be possible to reach some 450–500k Shaper DPS with it. Idk if this is sufficient for you if you want to farm UE. Also note that it is entirely untested and will remain so because I dislike mines and don't want to play them.

That said, mines are incredibly powerful in the current meta so I think you could be better off just stacking damage up the wazoo instead of stacking mitigation, especially if you're playing on SC. I think it's possible to almost instantly phase the bosses, so you basically only have to dodge a couple of spells which should be easy enough if you're experienced with the fight. But don't take my word for this! I'm afraid I can't recommend any particular builds because I don't keep myself up to date with what other players do, but if you search for "uber elder miner" and look at the top few results, you should be able to pick up on what's common between them.
<Tyrfalger> Exactly, the next act is going outside Sarn and into those wheat fields (see the map) to become a farmer. Then we can spend our days endlessly farming. Wait a minute...
hi, ty for posting guide.

I personally wont be able to do endgame content without builds like this.

noob player here got couple of questions.

1. If using marauder Juggernaut version what is source of blind to fully utilize Kongming's Stratagem shield?

2. Can you please explain those 5 points respec thing in shadow version? never did those bosses(?) mentioned.

Thank you and Have a nice day.

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