[Gemling Legionnaire] 2ez2pz's strength stacking melee physical GL

Hey there, gamers!

As the title suggests, I'm seeking assistance in my efforts to transition/refine my build idea to be SSF viable.

https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/2044b717-3d37-4444-8047-f3f40e733cc6/builds/da554c8e-1a8c-45fa-8491-d00587c2aa18

The link above is the current version of the build that I was running in standard/trade league before starting my SSF adventure. I know for a fact that there are some places that I could absolutely improve the build both in terms of efficiency on the passive tree, such as pathing to critical damage bonus on the tree to take advantage of the fact that we get a guaranteed crit with sunder, and also with that in mind potentially swapping some of the gem setup (supercritical and inevitable critical on hammer of the gods), gear setup (critical bonus damage on helmet/neck potentially getting rid of the Titanrot Cataphract unique for a high armor/strength chest), and potentially even swapping one of the auras for Berserking after dropping the unique to allow health regeneration. The edits I have in mind are a WIP but are listed under the set 1 (PINK) lines and the original build is listed under the set 2 (GREEN) lines.

I'd greatly appreciate any and all feedback that you gamers are willing to provide me, as like I said before, I'd love to see how viable this build is for SSF, as in trade league I was able to easily blast through to t16, the citadel and pinnacles bosses comfortably by level 89.

I think I'm on the cusp of some big gamer tech for some sort of all-rounder melee gemling build, and would sincerely love to know what you guys think! So far, I've only just started my SSF journey yesterday but I am cruising through the acts, currently at act 1 Cruel, and will update as I go along.

As of 01/03/2024 I've cleared the leveling acts without any issue and am continuing on to mapping, I added hunter's mark to the build to at the very least synergize with sunder+armour break for more critical multiplier on the guaranteed critical, changed herbalism and clarity for vitality in the aura setup.

As of 01/24/2024 I've cleared my 4th ascendancy on SSF, and have made LARGE changes to the build overall, such as added infernal cry, stampede, changed our 3rd and 4th ascendency points to go Integrated Efficiency and Gem Studded (as the damage potential on our skills from being able to duplicate gems is massive, even moreso than +1 skill levels I believe). I also moved brutality off of HotG and onto AA so that way we can take advantage of infernal cry for even more damage on our Sunder/HoTG setup for rares and bossing, moved a ton of passive points around, etc.

It's been a couple of weeks, and as another strength stacker myself (on ranger though) I am curious to hear how you went with this :)

My build is similar to yours except I am trying (unsuccessfully so far) to get dual wielding to work well with Giant's Blood, rather than using a shield. And I realised pretty early on that my build might work a lot better as Gemling rather than ranger (I like a challenge).

Defenses are the issue. Damage is fine (dual wielding = I melt everything at lvl 72) but I get one shotted way too often without block or evasion! I might have to think about going energy shield instead (I won't invest in any int, I'll just get a Ghostwrithe)

Soo how is that doing in SSF?

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evilstarship#1007 wrote:

It's been a couple of weeks, and as another strength stacker myself (on ranger though) I am curious to hear how you went with this :)

My build is similar to yours except I am trying (unsuccessfully so far) to get dual wielding to work well with Giant's Blood, rather than using a shield. And I realised pretty early on that my build might work a lot better as Gemling rather than ranger (I like a challenge).

Defenses are the issue. Damage is fine (dual wielding = I melt everything at lvl 72) but I get one shotted way too often without block or evasion! I might have to think about going energy shield instead (I won't invest in any int, I'll just get a Ghostwrithe)

Hi there, and thanks for sharing your insights with me, and I'm sorry for the delayed response, that gamerdad life keeps me busy lol! I have to agree with you though, until armour sees significant changes, or we can figure out a dual-wield viable build that uses leech or something, you basically either NEED block or evasion as a second layer of defense to stay alive in maps. Even with a pretty significant health pool from the STR stacking and Enhanced Effectiveness Ascendancy passive, it just doesn't seem to be enough.

If I'm being totally honest, I've been slacking a bit with this build, as I've been working on another build I've been trying to proof-of-concept as SSF viable as well, (Dex stacking Molten Blast GL, just cleared 4th ascendancy in SSF as of 01/18) so this unfortunately ended up on the backburner as I have limited time to play. I do, of course, plan on continuing my efforts with this build, and will update you as best I can or answer any specific questions you may have for me. The only reason I put a pause on this build is because if I'm being honest, the second I got resistance and block capped, I tried a level 12 map that I randomly picked up in a ToS and breezed through it with ease at like level 74 or something, which to me, indicated that I'd have a semi-easy time climbing through content, just as I did in trade league. I'll update the mobalytics page with my SSF character's current gear when I get the time.

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coredump777#2286 wrote:

Soo how is that doing in SSF?

Hi there, as I stated in my reply to evilstarship above, I've definitely been slacking with progress on this build as I work on SSF viability for another concept that I had in mind. So far it has been a breeze, level two-hander, auto attack + boneshatter throughout campaign, transition to giant's blood + high block chance shield at the start of mapping and begin taking block nodes as you climb early maps, and should transition you into smooth t15+ mapping in no time. I just finished my 4th ascendancy on my other build, so I will likely begin putting progress back into this character and report back.

As a fellow SSF player myself I went with a fairly generic Mace Titan build and tested a bunch of skills but around act 1 cruel I started to feel the Titan nodes were pretty disappointing so I started looking at other ascendencies and the Gemling Legionnaire was the one that caught my eye and I thought I could make a better Mace build on it than what Titan could do.

My initial thoughts were how easy you could get towards the Warrior's nodes whilst having some very strong Block, 2 Handed and Physical nodes along the way along with and with how much strength we stack for Giant's Bane why not boost life a lot more and even the double accuracy bonus if we get Dex can add up very nicely as missing skills at endgame sucks.

Whilst everything is still just theory crafting due to time and needing to level up another class that I haven't done yet my thought with ascendancy points were you need to use 4 on getting the double bonuses from Enhanced Effectiveness and the Adaptive Capability you take along the way potentially opening up some interesting skills to test and see if they have a use from Dex and Int gems.

The last 4 points were interesting my initial thoughts were going Crystaline Potential into Implanted Gems for the 14% Gem quality and +1 skill level with the quality been the big boost on all skills for example Stampede has 30% Aftershock from 20 quality so compared to the Titan's 20% Aftershock chance node you gain around the same boost there and then all the other skills it also boosts as well looks quite powerful, The other route I looked at was integrated Efficiency > Thaumaturgical Infusion as a defensive option when you have max slots on all skills in the endgame along with Unnatural resilience and surrounding nodes to hit 80%+ Elemental resists.

I never really thought about the Gem Studded for double support usage as you just updated in the OP but I guess that one is an interesting option also.

Hopefully I can make some good leveling progress over the weekend and then start putting some theories to use and see if it turns out as good as I think it will.

Hi, I'm new to PoE and came up with my own build that's very similar to yours. I went with 2 2h maces rather then 2h/shield. I've found it pretty fun and can face tank most of the content, cruising through T15 maps.

Here's mine:
https://maxroll.gg/poe2/pob/vv4k40y5

I have some questions about your build:

1. How good is Time of Need? I've never tried it.
2. I tried a higher defense build trying to build up my armor and evasion, once I switched to more str the 500 extra hps was more survivability. What's the armor percentage in your build?
3. How much extra survivability does a shield give you? I focused moreso on blinding, stunning and dazing my targets with life steal.