[3.25] Splitting Steel Gladiator - All Uniques, Cheap League Start, Explody Mapping

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dreais wrote:

Playing attack, and especially melee, is different compared to spells. You mostly played spell based chars that got to endgame or followed builds for attack ones. But you did make mistakes on the splitting steel

1. you have 2 banners, only one can be used at a time
2. No totem. That's a huge dps loss
3. No herald of purity. Big dps loss
4. GMP. The overlap is minimal at the early stages, you should go for Vicious Proj first. You shouldn't mind the extra proj for now.
5. Blood rage. If you have enough life sustain, good dps boost + frenzy during clearing
Also early, you need to craft with vendor recipe the highest dps base that you can find, be it 2h axe or 2h sword. Yours is good enough but you could go with a vendor recipe + AS craft


TL;DR, the build is functional, it just might not be for you at the moment

EDIT: i forgot one main point: the gem hasn't been buffed yet.

Thanks for the comments.

1. I tend to have 'spare' gems in slots to level them up just in case I find a use for them later, or want to switch or whatever. Same deal with determination here, cause I don't have the mana to run that + grace. Probably a few others too. Or in weapon swap.

2. True, I don't have totems, and it's a big dps loss I suppose. But I just don't like the totem / ballista playstyle. If it was a minion that followed me around, it would be different, but needing to place these support wheels every few seconds is frustrating. Fine in boss fights cause you're in an arena, but otherwise it's a pain. Wish GGG changed that and baked damage into gems, but oh well... maybe next league, huh?

3. Fair point, maybe I should have used that instead. Herald of Ash was nice at times, but due to the pitiful damage it only really procced on white mobs, where it wasn't all that needed anyway.

4. GMP. I play on PS5, so can't easily check dps in PoB or whatever, and picked this up cause it looked like a good fit. Sounds like it wasn't.

5. Sure, blood rage would be nice, but I'm always a bit concerned by the degen from it. Good for juggs and such, but yeah. Didn't think about blood rage here, but perhaps it would have been a good option.

6. I actually did craft with that recipe. Not on the current weapon I think, cause it was better than the one I crafted later, so didn't swap to it. But I had made a rule in my filter (filterblade.xyz) to look for 2-handed swords, so eventually would have upgraded with something better.

Just wanted to comment back to try to explain things a little bit. I usually have a bit of a mess of gems and sockets while levelling, cause it's hard to get what you ideally want. Played in SSF here to try to mimic a league start scenario, so that's why I couldn't spam fuses or whatever to get what I would have wanted. From my practice runs lately, just getting a suitable 4-link can be real rough. RNG is often a mean mistress!

Anyway, best of luck with this build. I'll probably have it in the back of my mind, maybe try it at some point, but don't think I dare to league start with it given this experience during the first half of the campaign. Killing stuff, especially bosses, took way too long. Sure, I could have made better choices, but it wouldn't have made a seismic difference I think. Have seen quite a few people say that levelling with splitting steel is kinda torturous. Hopefully less so this league with the changes, but that remains to be seen I suppose. People say it scales really bad with gem levels, but at high levels it scales really well. Makes for a rough campaign.

"

Pangaearocks wrote:

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dreais wrote:

Spoiler

Playing attack, and especially melee, is different compared to spells. You mostly played spell based chars that got to endgame or followed builds for attack ones. But you did make mistakes on the splitting steel

1. you have 2 banners, only one can be used at a time
2. No totem. That's a huge dps loss
3. No herald of purity. Big dps loss
4. GMP. The overlap is minimal at the early stages, you should go for Vicious Proj first. You shouldn't mind the extra proj for now.
5. Blood rage. If you have enough life sustain, good dps boost + frenzy during clearing
Also early, you need to craft with vendor recipe the highest dps base that you can find, be it 2h axe or 2h sword. Yours is good enough but you could go with a vendor recipe + AS craft


TL;DR, the build is functional, it just might not be for you at the moment

EDIT: i forgot one main point: the gem hasn't been buffed yet.

Spoiler

Thanks for the comments.

1. I tend to have 'spare' gems in slots to level them up just in case I find a use for them later, or want to switch or whatever. Same deal with determination here, cause I don't have the mana to run that + grace. Probably a few others too. Or in weapon swap.

2. True, I don't have totems, and it's a big dps loss I suppose. But I just don't like the totem / ballista playstyle. If it was a minion that followed me around, it would be different, but needing to place these support wheels every few seconds is frustrating. Fine in boss fights cause you're in an arena, but otherwise it's a pain. Wish GGG changed that and baked damage into gems, but oh well... maybe next league, huh?

3. Fair point, maybe I should have used that instead. Herald of Ash was nice at times, but due to the pitiful damage it only really procced on white mobs, where it wasn't all that needed anyway.

4. GMP. I play on PS5, so can't easily check dps in PoB or whatever, and picked this up cause it looked like a good fit. Sounds like it wasn't.

5. Sure, blood rage would be nice, but I'm always a bit concerned by the degen from it. Good for juggs and such, but yeah. Didn't think about blood rage here, but perhaps it would have been a good option.

6. I actually did craft with that recipe. Not on the current weapon I think, cause it was better than the one I crafted later, so didn't swap to it. But I had made a rule in my filter (filterblade.xyz) to look for 2-handed swords, so eventually would have upgraded with something better.

Just wanted to comment back to try to explain things a little bit. I usually have a bit of a mess of gems and sockets while levelling, cause it's hard to get what you ideally want. Played in SSF here to try to mimic a league start scenario, so that's why I couldn't spam fuses or whatever to get what I would have wanted. From my practice runs lately, just getting a suitable 4-link can be real rough. RNG is often a mean mistress!

Anyway, best of luck with this build. I'll probably have it in the back of my mind, maybe try it at some point, but don't think I dare to league start with it given this experience during the first half of the campaign. Killing stuff, especially bosses, took way too long. Sure, I could have made better choices, but it wouldn't have made a seismic difference I think. Have seen quite a few people say that levelling with splitting steel is kinda torturous. Hopefully less so this league with the changes, but that remains to be seen I suppose. People say it scales really bad with gem levels, but at high levels it scales really well. Makes for a rough campaign.

That's more than fair. But for the gem setup, this is also why it's really important to follow the build guides and if you're not sure, you can always check the why with more experienced players, either on chat or on the forum - we're all here to help :)
For the totems yes, even I only use them during boss fight/tough encounters. It's annoying but I made peace with my fate.
And for blood rage, that's a tip for later builds - try to see if you can sustain with your leech here and there, at some point you will and it's gonna feel way better than not using it. Should be in the levels 40s, usually

Viable 3.23 ?
Pob soon ?

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corosou wrote:

3.23 Call of Steel still exists!





That's why the Call of Steel Masteries are still in the 3.23 tree ;)

But that's because it's a transfigured gem, no? The 3.23 patch notes still say regular Splitting Steel doesn't have Call of Steel anymore.

This version does interact with Steel Shards because they're required to grant the "Steel Ward" buff.

And yeah, the masteries are still there because Splitting Steel was the only one that got the Call of Steel removed.

So we're keeping regular Splitting Steel, right? For the QOL?

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kandynsky wrote:

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corosou wrote:

Spoiler

3.23 Call of Steel still exists!





That's why the Call of Steel Masteries are still in the 3.23 tree ;)

Spoiler

But that's because it's a transfigured gem, no? The 3.23 patch notes still say regular Splitting Steel doesn't have Call of Steel anymore.

This version does interact with Steel Shards because they're required to grant the "Steel Ward" buff.

And yeah, the masteries are still there because Splitting Steel was the only one that got the Call of Steel removed.

So we're keeping regular Splitting Steel, right? For the QOL?

Call of Steel was also removed from regular Shattering Steel. From the base steel skills, only Lancing Steel (base) will have Call of Steel.

And that doesn't change anything - all base skills are viable day 1, even stronger if you can scale the AOE (with minor investment). The transfigured are now even stronger than before (at least for Splitting), but the base Splitting is really good nonetheless

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Raikoben33 wrote:

Viable 3.23 ?
Pob soon ?

Homie... did you even bother to read the main post? It's all there.

Why there is only videos of bossing ? You could have release at least one video of mapping :/

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MeTeC wrote:

Why there is only videos of bossing ? You could have release at least one video of mapping :/

I gotchu... Gimme a few mins just recorded and uploading one rn!

Video Update: Juiced Mapping Showcase

As requested, a Juiced Mapping Showcase video:

T16 Minotaur (Juiced Mapping Showcase)



Was basically just rushing the boss and some mechanics to showcase the build clear-speed.

Enjoy & GL

Realized your 3.23 pobb high budget has tattoos...but those are all in standard.