The Story of My Quarter-of-a-Warrior with Gathering Storm and Infernal Cry - StickyBonkers

Hello, so I've been sitting on a totally not optimal build that I found by accident. So I figured I could share my thoughts, my progress, and maybe someone with two braincells can figure out whether I hit the ceiling yet or not.

So, we decided to run co-op campaign with my friend and because I didn't want it to be boring, I wanted to run some weird build based on a unique that I find interesting.

IDEA:

I decided on "Jarngreipr" Ringmail Gauntlets. Simple idea of warrior stacking strength but using different melee weapon and melee skills.

There are however, few issues with this unique as of today:

1. There is only one melee weapon that uses stats different from strength - Quarterstaff
2. It only works for melee skils, which means most spirit gems are unusable
3. It doesn't work on your gear other than weapon, so you are still tied to STR based defenses but without a shield
4. There is still a bug present where you cannot upgrade your gems even if you have the STR required as a substitute for other stats
5. Giant's Blood doesn't allow you to use Quarterstaff despite it being 2H melee weapon, scam

So, as any sane person would do, I dismissed all of those boring things and started the build.

Initially I leaned into Vaulting Impact, but I felt like it was mostly Vaulting and little Impact.

In the second act where I wanted to decide on ascendancy, I quickly looked through the warrior skills I could use without hammers, because since I have a lot of STR I migtht as well use them. I found Warcries and Totems. I have thought about going Titan, but since I heard by that time that it was objectively better, I chose Warbringer.

On top of that, after quick search I found that someone had already done Quarterstaff Warrior going for Titan ascendancy and Wind Blast, so that spot was already boring for me.


GAMEPLAN:

I immediately knew I wanted to base my gameplay idea on ignoring warcry's cooldown and blowing up corpses. So I was left with a choice of Infernal and Seismic cries, and since using Seismic didn't give me enough satisfaction, I leaned into Infernal and I planned my gameplan fundamentals:

I would use Infernal Cry to Empower my Next Attack.
I'd use it immediately.
Then, because my Cries have no cooldown, I'd to that again over and over.

I go by the rule that if your gameplan fundamentals have more than three steps, then it's wrong. Also I cannot count past 3 sometimes.



CAMPAIGN AND DISCOVERY:


Going through the rest of campaign was a nightmare, I respecced, I saw no damage, I saw no survi, I respec, like 5 to 10 times total.

So, around act 6 when I had the ability to unlock any skill available I began last experiments. And I thought about using Gathering Storm as my my main skill. And then since most of its damage is elemental, i began to look for that on the skill tree on the warrior side.

And I found my core passive nodes: Sigil of Lightning, Sigil of Fire. Increasing my damage by 60% on Ignited and Shocked targets.

I get close to enemies, I empower my Gathering Storm with Infernal Cry - It already has a good baseline damage because of warrior nodes like Crushing Verdict etc. So on top of that it gets at least 35% extra fire damage (up to 150% extra near bosses). So it ignites AND shocks, and the next Storm is even more deadly.

Boom, I defeated Stupid Monkey in Act 6 in THREE moves - it worked.




YAPPING AND MAPPING:

On the idea itself, I progressed up to t10 with no issues and quickly hit level 85. But then I encountered a big wall. I could do some t14/15 maps with easy mods and if I played extra careful. But that was not the point. I needed more. So I started BIG experimenting and learning.




DEFENCES:

Going from south west skill tree, you have 3 options:

Full Armor
Armor + Energy Shield
Armor + Evasion

Going Full Armor was simply not enough. Having no other layer of defence than pure damage reduction is not enough for this game. There's too much one shot mechanics, and everything on higher levels still hits like a truck even on full resists.

As much as Armor + Energy Shield gives you more time to regen your effective hit pool, it is still also not enough for higher tiers of maping. Lack of Block and Evasion makes it so that you get hit by anything, so there is no filter between you and enemies.

The only logical outcome after countless trying was Armor + Evasion, but on its own it still wasnt enough to improve survi. But I found some tricks on the south tree that make it a little more viable.



BREAKING THROUGH:

Barrier Quarterstaff Base - You can get 15% Block Chance as a warrior while not having shield. And you have acces to a lot of block nodes, so you can increase it to 20/25 max. It's not much but its something. And if you are using Armor + Evasion route, you will have access to the Glancing Blows, increasing your base block to 30% without a shield (up to around 50 from my calculations), and with Lay Siege, then it gives you at least 30% more damage.

So going for Armor + Evasion + Barrier Quarterstaff can easily get you:
- 70/80% Physical (depending on if you pick Jade Heritage)
- ~70%+ Evasion with Wind Dancer active
- at least 30% Chance to block 50% damage, which is also filtered through your resists
- Access to the OP stat stacking cluster, so you can easily drop Jarngreipr and use full armor gloves to use the Leather Bound Gauntlets passive

I also expanded my gameplan fundamental with one more step as I finally was able count to four. I added Shattering Palm with Sigil of Ice, with core plan looking like this now:

Shattering palm to apply chill and make ice and get in the middle of everyone
Infernal Cry to Empower GS with fire
Skiddadle with GS
Repeat from step one

I also run Herald of Ash because I can, Herald of Thunder, and Wind Dancer. I used to run Time of Need instead of HoT for more survi. I tried running Herald of Ice instead of Wind Dancer, but Wind Dancer is too OP.

And on Infernal Cry it is important to run Raging Cry and Enraged Cry since then you don't have to count the enemies around you and the game will tell you. Yes I have a counting problem.

Dont forget Window of Opportunity, Concentrated Effect and Momentum on Gathering Storm for MAXIMUM DAMAGE.

With that, I could break through and finally level up, wich means I am going forward. I can currently do most T14 and T15 maps, sometimes its risky but I am no longer stuck, but I feel like I'm going to hit another wall soon.

I don't have time for details today, so I will try to update this with some info if anyone finds this build interesting and would like to improve it or try it out.

Here you got the PoB with my Skill tree and Skill gems and example weapon, so any gaps you'll have to fill for yourself.




Cheers and thanks for reading!