[2.4] How to smash Heads. Extremely detailed guide about the Facebreaker gloves and builds!

Hello fellow exiles and welcome to my guide! This is not only a Facebreaker based build guide but also an attempt to create a thread that explains everything related to the Facebreaker unique gloves and the possible builds that it enables. This thread will give you only tested information. No guesses, no theorycrafting! I hope that you find it useful!

"This build is amazing and enjoyable"

"This is a very awesome build even for a beginner."

"Really liking the build and have made this my main"

"The end game build is very well thought out. I have studied the end game build and there really is not anything wasted...Not to mention it is crazy fun!"

"I've been running a Marauder IB build for a while now, just now came across your guide - I'm impressed!"

"Such a detailed guide, everything is put in categories, and simply it's more easy to understand in that way"

I want to thank all of you guys for helping me and this guide for the past couple of years. Your help is immeasurable! Stay awesome!
Special Thanks to That1Guy who switched his 1000% Facebreakers for my 990% ones. It was incredibly nice of him and i really appreciate it!

Reddit thread : http://redd.it/2ndn5y
Twitch : http://www.twitch.tv/korgothbg



Now what the hell are the Facebreaker gloves?
The Facebreaker Strapped Mitts are unique gloves which provide a huge physical damage boost to your unarmed attacks. Because of them it is possible to create a powerful character who has no weapon and uses only his bare fists! There are two versions of the Facebreaker gloves - the legacy and the new versions. The legacy version of the gloves is more powerful but can no longer drop, they only exist in the permanent leagues( standard and hardcore ) and you can get them only by trading with a player who wants to sell them. The new version of the gloves provides less damage ( 600%-800% instead of the 800%-1000% of the legacy ones ) and you can get them as a monster drop in all leagues.

Which attack skills are usable with the Facebreaker gloves?
Not all attacks are usable while you are unarmed. Currently there are seven attacks that you can use without holding any weapon : Dominating Blow, Infernal Blow, Cyclone, Frenzy, Ice Crash, Shield Charge and Elemental Hit. The Riposte and Reckoning counter-attack skills are also usable. I'll explain everything about those skills later except for the Elemental hit. The Facebreaker Gloves give huge physical damage boost, unfortunately Elemental Hit deals only elemental damage and because of that the Facebreakers have absolutely no effect on that attack skill. As for Shield Charge, well creating a viable build that relies on Shield Charge is simply not possible at the moment.

How to increase my damage?
There are several ways to increase your damage while using the Facebreaker gloves.

Support gems
The support gems linked to your attack skill. I'll talk more about these later.

Flat physical damage
Flat physical damage from your gear. This is your main damage source. Some uniques give flat physical damage ( like the Meginord's Girdle Heavy Belt ). The rare rings and amulets can also have flat physical damage mod. You want to get as much flat physical damage from your gear as possible! For an example a simple normal(white) iron ring which gives 1-4 physical damage combined with 1000% Facebreaker gloves actually gives 10-40 physical damage! And that's with the gloves only, now add your attack skill, support gems, passive skill tree etc. etc. you've got the idea. I’ll say it again – this is your main damage source! Never forget that!

+X% increased physical damage
+X% increased physical damage ( from your skill tree, from your strength or from gear ) will also boost your damage. It is worth it to invest in it when it comes to the passive skill tree ( without sacrificing too much defenses of course ). But when it comes to gear it's not nearly as effective as the flat physical damage. The unique items that will give you % physical damage are not worth it at all compared to the other items that you could use instead.

Attack speed
Attack speed is also a very important thing when it comes to damage. More attack speed means more hits per seconds and that means more damage per second. The main way to increase your unarmed attack speed is with support gems, but there are also some nice passives. Gear pieces can have bonus attack speed as well( but that's definitely not a very important part of your gear ). The base attack speed of your unarmed attacks is 1.2 attacks per second.

Frenzy charges
The frenzy charges are a great way to increase both your damage and your attack speed. Each Frenzy charge gives you 4% increased attack speed and 4% more damage ( note that there is a difference between “more” and “increased”, you could read about it in the wiki but to make it short “more” is well more than “increased” ) The best ways to get frenzy charges is by using Frenzy or by using the Blood Rage buff.

Hatred aura
Another thing that will greatly increase your damage is the Hatred aura. It adds x% of your Physical Damage as Cold Damage. Keep in mind that this is extra damage. So if you deal 100 physical damage with Hatred you gain 30% extra damage as cold in the end you'll deal 130 damage ( 100 physical and 30 cold )

Herald of Ash
A buff which adds 15% of your Physical Damage as Fire Damage. Keep in mind that this is extra damage. So if you deal 100 physical damage with Herald of Ash you gain 15% extra damage as fire in the end you'll deal 115 damage ( 100 physical and 15 fire ).

Counter-attack skills
The counter-attack skills deal very good amounts of damage when you block. And you don't even need to link them to many support gems in order for them to deal good damage.

Curses
Curses can also increase your damage by debuffing your enemies. I'll talk more about these later.

Anything else about the Facebreaker gloves that i need to know ?

Critical Strike
The Facebreaker gloves have 60% increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier but keep in mind that unarmed attacks have 0% base critical chance. That means that your attacks will have 0% chance to crit and increased critical chance passives/mods/gems won't have any effect because .. well... they will be multiplied by the base 0% chance .. and the end result is still 0%. Note that this applies only to your attacks! If you cast spells while wearing Facebreakers those spells can crit. The explosions of the Infernal Blow attack can also crit because they have a base crit chance of 7% and they are not considered an attack. So the infernal blow attacks can't crit but the explosions can. An interesting fact is that your attacks can actually crit if you first curse your enemies with Assassin's Mark. The curse makes your enemies to have an additional x% Chance to receive a Critical Strike. Example: your unarmed attack base crit chance (0%) + the additional x% Chance to receive a Critical Strike(9% at level 20) = 9% chance to crit. Unfortunately this 9% crit chance can only be increased by +X% Increased effect of your curses. So in the end you can't really get good enough crit chance to justify the absence of Resolute Technique from your build!
Note that in the Talisman League ( patch 2.1 ) there is a unique talisman called Rigwald's Curse Wereclaw Talisman which gives you "+7% Base Critical Strike Chance while Unarmed" (see below) and that opens up the possibility to make a crit based facebreaker build... but i won't be discussing this possible build approach in this thread (yet).


Weapon Elemental Damage
All sorts of weapon elemental damage won't affect your unarmed damage. That includes the Weapon Elemental Damage support gem, +X% Weapon Elemental Damage from your gear, +X% Weapon Elemental Damage from passive skills, including the passive skills Lava Leash, Ice Bite and Arcing Blows.

Elemental Damage
+X% increased fire/cold/lightning damage will increase your fire/cold/lightning damage. Spending points for such passives is usually a waste tho. The main way to get elemental damage unrelated directly to your physical damage ( i.e. Hatred, the fire portion of your damage with Infernal Blow ) is by flat fire/cold/lightning damage from your gear or from the Wrath and Anger auras. But unlike your flat physical damage , your flat elemental damage is not increased by your Facebreaker gloves. Also the one most awesome support gem related to elemental damage (Weapon Elemental Damage support gem) is not usable with unarmed attacks. Furthermore you can't use Weapon Elemental Damage at all ... So trying to make an elemental damage build with Facebreaker gloves is pure madness... you'll do better if you just use any other pair of gloves because the Facebreakers won't give you anything. I'll mention it again - that's why Elemental Hit is usable but useless with unarmed attacks. The elemental damage portion of your Infernal Blow. Ice crash and he Hatred aura damage will be increased by +X% increased elemental damage, but simply using +X% increased physical damage is more effective because it increases both the elemental and the physical portion of your damage ( when it comes to Infernal Blow, Ice Crash and Hatred ). So spending points into X% increased elemental damage is not justified at all.

I want to use mana for my attacks! How to achieve that?
In order to achieve that you'll need mana leech from your rings and/or amulet ( the more the better.. but even 1% can be enough ) enough physical damage dealt and possibly some mana regeneration from your tree ( i.e. the Mana Flows passive ) and/or from your gear. At this point only Infernal Blow, Ice Crash and Frenzy are usable without Blood Magic because of their low mana cost. Cyclone has a relatively low mana cost too but due its “spammy” nature it is very difficult to use it without the blood magic support gem. Casting with mana means that you won't be using Blood Magic support gem and that means that you can use a different support gem. But that also means that you won't be able to reserve all of your mana for auras, you'll also have problems in maps with no/half mana regeneration and you'll probably need to carry around a mana flask instead of something more useful. Is it worth it ? I’m not a big fan but if that’s your choice then yes, it can be done in some cases.




What is Infernal Blow?
Infernal Blow is an attack that will explode your enemies when you kill them. The explosions deal 8% of the monsters life as fire damage and that damage cannot be reflected. With the Melee Splash support gem you'll have a good AoE radius and you’ll explode all enemies affected by your attacks resulting into awesome bloody clouds of exploding body parts. Killing and exploding whole packs of monsters becomes a very easy task because of the chain effect of the Infernal Blow and Melee Splash - you kill a monster while damaging all monsters around it, it explodes and deals damage to the already damaged monsters, they die from the explosion of your primary target and they also explode because you were hitting them with your splash damage. The Quality of the Infernal Blow (+0,5% increased Area of Effect radius for each 1% quality) will affect the explosion's radius as well as the splash damage radius and the same goes for the Melee Splash quality. Since all map bosses have a pack of magic(blue) monsters the explosions will help you to bring them down. Half of your physical damage is converted to fire damage and the fire portion of the damage will be affected by fire, elemental and physical damage increases. Infernal blow has the lowest mana cost of all unarmed attacks. Because of that it is absolutely possible to use mana to cast it. Not leaving corpses behind is also a good bonus of the Infernal Blow. No corpses means no way for them to resurrect and it also stops some on death effects from occurring. Infernal Blow has no level requirements and can be used from level 1, that makes it the best attack when you first equip your Facereakers. Overall it is an ok skill but definitely not the best option for your end-game build ( or even for your mid-level build ). The rather low explosion damage combined with the need of Melee Splash and the fire damage conversion ( that means less leech and less damage vs monsters with fire resistance ) makes this skill rather mediocre. The damage is nothing special too, but the Area of Effect is pretty decent. It sure looks cool too!

Support gems

Melee Splash
You just NEED this support gem! It makes your infernal blow an area of effect attack and all enemies affected by the splash will explode! So you end up with half a screen of exploding monsters! But that's not all! The quality bonus of the Melee splash is increased AoE radius ( 10% at max quality ) and so is the quality bonus of the Infernal blow ( 10% at max quality ). They both affect each other and that results in a very nice area of effect of your attacks. Oh and on top of that with each level Melee Splash increases your physical damage.Awesome support gem, get one as soon as possible and use it as soon as possible. If you decide to go with the Slayer Ascendancy sub-class you'll get melee splash from it so you won't be needing the support gem ( though personally i do not recommend taking the Slayer ).

Fortify
Amazing support gem and an absolute must! With this gem whenever you hit someone with a melee attack you get the Fortify buff – this buff gives you a flat 20% damage reduction from hits! And on top of that it gives a nice chunk of increased melee physical damage (23% at level). The quality is nothing special – 0,5% increased Fortify buff duration, this isn’t much because you are reapplying it whenever you hit. If you decide to go with the Champion Ascendancy sub-class you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't be needing the support gem.

Melee Physical Damage
It's simple - more physical damage! What's not to love about it ? The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Faster Attacks
It's simple(again) - more attack speed! What's not to love about it ? Oh and the Mana Multiplier is only 115%! The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Attack Speed at max quality.

Multistrike
Now this support gem ... i just can't make up my mind about it. On one hand it gives huge bonus to your attack speed but on the other hand it reduces your damage. It makes you attack 3 times and you spend mana/life only for the first hit, but it also has 180% Mana Multiplier ( that means that your attacks will cost a lot more to use ). If you deal high amounts of damage and you one-shot your enemies Multistrike will still perform the other two hits even if there's nothing left to hit and that is annoying and in rare situations it can be dangerous. So in the end should you use Multistrike? If you have huge damage and it takes only 1 sometimes 2 hits to kill things then maybe Multistrike is not the best support gem for you, especially if you don't want to use blood magic and want cast with mana instead. Also keep in mind that faster attack speed + more mana used + less damage per hit (that means less mana leeched per hit ) is not the best combination for your mana pool. On the other hand if it takes more hits to kill your enemies and if you don't care about the mana cost of your infernal blow ( i.e. if you use Blood Magic support gem ) then Multistrike might just be the thing that you need. Also remember that you can't kill bosses with just 1 hit .. so Multistrike is definitely helpful there. The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Blood Magic
Great support gem. With it you'll never have to worry about your mana ever again! Because of that you can spend all of your mana for auras. With it you'll use life instead of mana to cast but don't worry it's not a big problem once when you have good amounts of life, life regeneration and life leech - you'll never even notice the cost. The downside is that you lose a socket for another support gem. Keep in mind that using this support gem early on is not a very wise thing to do because you might not be able to handle (yet) the life cost of your own attacks.

Added Fire Damage
Good support gem that will add fire damage to your attacks ( based on your physical damage ). Note that it adds the fire damage before the Infernal Blow converts half of your physical damage into fire damage. The quality of this support gem is pretty nice + 15% increased fire damage which affects the damage added by the support gem itself and also the fire portion of the damage of the Infernal Blow.

Life Leech
Very good support gem which gives you huge amounts of life leech. Unlike the usual physical damage leeched as life ( from gear, buffs and passives ) this support gem leeches life based not only on your physical damage done but based on all types of damage ( the fire portion of the damage of Infernal Blow and the cold damage from the Hatred aura ). That makes this support gem very useful for the Infernal Blow. The quality of the gem increases the recovery rate of the life leeched.

Life gain on hit
Not really a good support gem for Infernal Blow. You don't hit extremely fast but you hit extremely hard .. and after all it's life gain on hit ... The good thing is that you gain life for each monster hit including those hit by your splash and the life is gained immediately ( unlike the life leech which is not recovered instantly but for a certain period of time ) . The monsters hit by the explosions won't trigger the effect of this support gem because it is triggered only by attacks and the explosions are considered spells. In the end .. Life leech support gem is better. The quality of the gem further increases the life gained per hit.

Concentrated Effect
The melee splash support gem makes your Infernal Blow an area of effect attack and all increased area of effect damage mods affect the splash damage. So Concentrated Effect won't affect the damage you deal to the target that you hit but will increase the damage dealt to the enemies around it which you hit with your splash. Even so this support gem is not really a very useful one because it will decrease the area of effect of your splash, it will take the space for a more useful gem and it has a high Mana Multiplier. The quality of the gem reduces that multiplier.

Increased Area of Effect
Well what can i say .. bigger area of effect for your splash. Not bad but there are certainly better support gems that you can use instead of this one.

Fire Penetration
You penetrate portion of the fire resistance of the monsters that you attack. That means that you'll deal more fire damage to them. Not very useful given the fact that you don't deal only fire damage and that the % of fire resistance penetrated is not that big.

Culling Strike
Culling strike increases your damage ( and the quality increases your attack speed ) and also you will instantly kill an enemy if he is left with 10% life or less after getting hit by your attack while it is supported by Culling Strike. Not bad , but not that great either. And if you decide to use the Slayer ascendancy sub-class you won't be needing it at all.

Melee Damage on Full Life
It basically does the same as the Melee Physical Damage support gem. Yes it says Melee Damage but it actually increases only your physical damage. Sounds good but the problem is that you need to be on full life to get that damage. Even if you are missing just one life this gem will give you absolutely nothing. Not a good support gem for a life based Facebreaker build. On the other hand if you are Energy Shield based build with Chaos Inoculation you'll always be at full life so this gem becomes a very good option.

Physical to Lightning
This support gem converts 50% of your physical damage to lightning damage. It also gives extra lightning damage based on your physical damage ( 29% at level 20 ). It's not that bad but the thing is that you don't want to convert your physical damage to lightning damage because you don't have anything that increases that lightning damage, also you'll leech less life and mana (unless you use life/mana leech support gem and/or Warlord's Mark ). The 29% extra lightning damage is nice but it is still less than what for example added fire damage support gem gives you.

Pros. and cons.
+Good area of effect
+Exploding enemies (more damage, no corpses left behind, prevents some on death effects)
+Low mana cost
+Perfect for low levels
- Half of your physical damage is converted to fire. You'll deal less damage vs. fire resistant monsters and also only the physical part of your damage will leech mana and life ( unless you are using a mana/life leech support gem ).
- It is a single target attack and because of that you need to use Melee Splash

Recommended support gems for Infernal Blow
Infernal Blow + Melee Splash*
Infernal Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify*
Infernal Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Melee Physical Damage
Infernal Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks/Blood Magic
Infernal Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks/Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage/ Multistrike ( pick two )

*If you are going to pick the Champion ascendancy sub-class, you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick three of the options listed for the 6L gem setup ( Faster Attacks/Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage/ Multistrike )
*If you are going to pick the Slayer ascendancy sub-class, you'll get melee splash from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick three of the options listed for the 6L gem setup ( Faster Attacks/Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage/ Multistrike )

Personally i would use ( i will pick Champion for my ascendancy class ):
Infernal Blow + Melee Splash + Melee Physical Damage + Blood Magic + Faster Attacks + Added Fire Damage

A video of a legacy white Courtyard ( level 78 ) map with Infernal Blow. The map is not properly rolled because this way you can compare the attack skills performing under the same conditions. Gems used: Infernal Blow + Melee Splash + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic
click me



What is Dominating Blow?
The amount of damage that Dominating Blow deals is pretty low compared to the rest of the unarmed attacks. But you compensate with dominating your foes. When you kill a monster it will gain all of its life back and will serve you! You will be affected by the auras that it has(and monster auras are very powerful) and your enemies will be affected by the negative auras that your minions have. All you need to do is to keep killing monsters so you can sustain your army with fresh additions.
It's awesome that all support gems which are linked to the Dominating Blow will affect the minions dominated by it( if their attack is compatible with the support gems). So if you have for example Fortify linked to your Dominating Blow your minions will also have Fortify.
Some monsters make better minions than others. For example charging monsters(Blackguards; Rhoas etc.), Flicker Strike monsters(Leaping Spiders), Leaping monsters(the frog things from act 3 i can't really remember their name) and Rolling monsters(Golems) will kill their former allies extremely fast. Others like almost all undead and most of the rangers won't do much due to their slow movement speed. The good thing is that all minions are great for tanking for you. You'll take very little amounts of damage even if you have just 10 minions ( usually you will have 20+). Flicker strike bosses won't hit you at all... but they will move around a lot so that may be a little annoying. Killing bosses in general is easy and safe. Overall Dominating Blow is a very safe way to do maps. Usually having a lot of minions won't affect your fps(rarely happens to me and my PC is old and slow) but i guess it is possible. The mana cost of Dominating Blow is very high so make sure that you have enough life regeneration and some life leech and Blood Magic support gem linked to it. Because of that it could be difficult to sustain the life cost with blood magic at low-mid levels so i really suggest that you stick to Infernal Blow and later on Ice Crash until you have big enough life pool and high enough life regeneration so that the cost of this attack won't cause you any troubles!
It's important to remind you that you don't have to actually land the killing blow to dominate a monster. It is enough to make some damage to a monster with Dominating blow ( be it from a direct hit or from splash damage ) and even if one of your minions lands the killing blow your enemy will still be dominated.
Sadly the minion damage was nerfed in 2.0 (from “Minions deal 15% more Physical Damage” to “Minions deal -20% of Base Damage”) but Dominating Blow still is a good and interesting attack skill. And as already mentioned ... the damage of Dominating Blow is nowhere near the rest of the unarmed attacks.

Support gems

Melee Splash
You just NEED this support gem! It makes your Dominating Blow an area of effect attack and all enemies affected by the splash will be dominated on kill! So you'll end up with half a screen of dominated monsters! Oh and on top of that with each level Melee Splash increases your physical damage. Awesome support gem, get one as soon as possible and use it as soon as possible. If you decide to go with the Slayer Ascendancy sub-class you'll get melee splash from it so you won't be needing the support gem ( though personally i do not recommend taking the Slayer ).

Fortify
Amazing support gem and an absolute must! With this gem whenever you hit someone with a melee attack you get the Fortify buff – this buff gives you a flat 20% damage reduction from hits! And on top of that it gives a nice chunk of increased melee physical damage (23% at level). The quality is nothing special – 0,5% increased Fortify buff duration, this isn’t much because you are reapplying it whenever you hit. And of course should I remind you that when you link this support gem to your Dominating Blow your minions will also have the awesome fortify buff! If you decide to go with the Champion Ascendancy sub-class you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't be needing the support gem .

Melee Physical Damage
It's simple - more physical damage! What's not to love about it ? The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Faster Attacks
It's simple(again) - more attack speed! What's not to love about it ? Oh and Mana Multiplier is only 115%! The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Attack Speed at max quality.

Multistrike
Now this support gem ... i just can't make up my mind about it. On one hand it gives huge bonus to your attack speed but on the other hand it reduces your damage. It makes you attack 3 times and you spend mana/life only for the first hit, but it also has 180% Mana Multiplier ( that means that your attacks will cost a lot more to use ). If you deal high amounts of damage and you one-shot your enemies Multistrike will still perform the other two hits even if there's nothing left to hit and that is annoying. So in the end should you use Multistrike? Dominating Blow has less damage compared to Infernal Blow so one-shotting with it is a lot harder.. so using Multistrike with Dominating Blow is not such a bad idea. The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Blood Magic
A must for Dominating Blow because of the huge mana cost of the attack . With it you'll never have to worry about your mana ever again! Because of that you can spend all of your mana for auras. With it you'll use life instead of mana to cast. Keep in mind that using this support gem early on is not a very wise thing to do because you might not be able to handle (yet) the life cost of your own attacks especially with Dominating Blow and its huge mana cost.

Added Fire Damage
Good support gem that will add fire damage to your attacks ( based on your physical damage ).The quality of this support gem is + 15% increased fire damage which affects the damage added by the support gem itself.

Life Leech
Very good support gem which gives you huge amounts of life leech. Unlike the usual physical damage leeched as life ( from gear, buffs and passives ) this support gem leeches life based not only on your physical damage done but based on all types of damage ( like the cold damage from the Hatred aura ).The quality of the gem increases the recovery rate of the life leeched. A good option for Dominating blow and its huge casting cost with Blood Magic support gem.

Life gain on hit
Not really a good support gem for Dominating Blow. You don't hit extremely fast but you hit hard .. and after all it's life gain on hit ... The good thing is that you gain life for each monster hit including those hit by your splash and the life is gained immediately ( unlike the life leech which is not recovered instantly but for a certain period of time ) . In the end ... Life Leech support gem is better. The quality of the gem further increases the life gained per hit.

Concentrated Effect
The melee splash support gem makes your Dominating Blow an area of effect attack and all increased area of effect damage mods affect the splash damage. So Concentrated Effect won't affect the damage you deal to the target that you hit but will increase the damage dealt to the enemies around it which you hit with your splash. Even so this support gem is not really a very useful one because it will decrease your area of effect, it will take the space for a more useful gem and it has a high Mana Multiplier. The quality of the gem reduces that multiplier.

Increased Area of Effect
Well what can i say .. bigger area of effect. Not bad but there are certainly better support gems that you can use instead of this one.

Melee Damage on Full Life
It basically does the same as Melee Physical Damage. Yes it says Melee Damage but it actually increases only your physical damage. Sounds good but the problem is that you need to be on Full Life to get that damage. Even if you are missing 1 life this gem will give you absolutely nothing. Not a good support gem for a life based Facebreaker build. On the other hand if you are Energy Shield based build with Chaos Inoculation you'll always be at full life so this gem becomes a very good option.

Culling Strike
Culling strike increases your damage ( and the quality increases your attack speed ) and also you will instantly kill an enemy if he is left with 10% life or less after getting hit by your attack while it is supported by Culling Strike. Not bad , but not that great either. And if you decide to use the Slayer ascendancy sub-class you won't be needing it at all.

Increased Duration
It will increase the Duration of your minions but you'll lose the potential damage from another support gem that you can use instead of this one and to be honest the minions are alive long enough for you to dominate new ones and never run out of minions.

Physical to Lightning
This support gem converts 50% of your physical damage to lightning damage. It also gives extra lightning damage based on your physical damage ( 29% at level 20 ). It's not that bad but the thing is that you don't want to convert your physical damage to lightning damage because you don't have anything that increases that lightning damage. The 29% extra lightning damage is nice but it is still less than what for example added fire damage support gem gives you.

Pros. and cons.
+Dominating monsters. That means that you'll have minions to take and deal damage instead/with you. Also you'll get the auras of the rare monsters and the enemy totems.
+No corpses left behind
-Low Damage
-Huge mana cost
-It is a single target attack and because of that you need to use Melee Splash

Recommended support gems for Dominating Blow
Dominating Blow + Melee Splash*
Dominating Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify*
Dominating Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Blood Magic
Dominating Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage/Faster Attacks
Dominating Blow + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage/Faster Attacks /Multistrike/Added Fire damage ( pick two )

*If you are going to pick the Champion ascendancy sub-class, you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick three of the options listed for the 6L gem setup ( Melee Physical Damage/Faster Attacks /Multistrike/Added Fire Damage )
*If you are going to pick the Slayer ascendancy sub-class, you'll get melee splash from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick three of the options listed for the 6L gem setup ( Melee Physical Damage/Faster Attacks /Multistrike/Added Fire damage )

Personally i would use( i will pick Champion for my ascendancy class ):
Dominating Blow + Melee Splash + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks + Added Fire Damage

A video of a legacy white Courtyard ( level 78 ) map with Dominating Blow. The map is not properly rolled because this way you can compare the attack skills performing under the same conditions. Gems used: Dominating Blow + Melee Splash + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic
click me



What is Frenzy?
Frenzy is an attack that grants a frenzy charge per hit. It also gets extra physical damage and attack speed bonus for each frenzy charge that you have. The quality of the gem further increases your attack speed. Melee splash will only grant one frenzy charge no matter how many monsters you hit at once and Multistrike will give a frenzy charge only for your first hit.
The mana cost of the attack is rather low ( even tho it's higher than the Infernal Blow ). Because of that it is absolutely possible to use mana to cast it. Having a lot of frenzy charges all the time gives some interesting gear options like the Blood Dance unique boots which grant 1% life regenerated per frenzy charge or the Darkray Vectors unique boots which give 2% chance to dodge attacks per frenzy charge and each frenzy charge gives awesome 4% increased attack speed and 4% more damage ( “more” not “increased” which is awesome! ) . If you decide to play with frenzy you can play with a very different skill tree ( compared to the rest of the attacks ) due to the position of the extra frenzy charge nodes on the tree. An acrobatic + phase acrobatic evasion based build could be potential approach to such a build.

Support gems

Melee Splash
You just NEED this support gem! It makes your Frenzy an area of effect attack! And that's something that you want to have at all cost. Note that the splash damage won't produce frenzy charges, so it's still one frenzy charge per one attack. Awesome support gem get one as soon as possible and use it as soon as possible. If you decide to go with the Slayer Ascendancy sub-class you'll get melee splash from it so you won't be needing the support gem ( though personally i do not recommend taking the Slayer ).

Fortify
Amazing support gem and an absolute must! With this gem whenever you hit someone with a melee attack you get the Fortify buff – this buff gives you a flat 20% damage reduction from hits! And on top of that it gives a nice chunk of increased melee physical damage (23% at level). The quality is nothing special – 0,5% increased Fortify buff duration, this isn’t much because you are reapplying it whenever you hit. If you decide to go with the Champion Ascendancy sub-class you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't be needing the support gem.

Melee Physical Damage
It's simple - more physical damage! What's not to love about it ? The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Faster Attacks
It's simple(again) - more attack speed! What's not to love about it ? Oh and Mana Multiplier is only 115%! The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Attack Speed at max quality.

Multistrike
Not such a helpful support gem for Frenzy ( compared to Infernal and Dominating Blow ). With Frenzy and Faster Attacks you have a lot of attack speed so you don't really need even more attack speed from the Multistrike. Less damage and lot higher mana cost traded for attack speed which you don't really need is not really the best deal. Note that Multistrike will give only 1 Frenzy charge per Frenzy cast ( so three hits = one frenzy charge ).

Blood Magic
Great support gem. With it you'll never have to worry about your mana ever again! Because of that you can spend all of your mana for auras. With it you'll use life instead of mana to cast but don't worry it's not a big problem once when you have good amounts of life, life regeneration and life leech - you'll never even notice the cost. The downside is that you lose a socket for another support gem. Keep in mind that using this support gem early on is not a very wise thing to do because you might not be able to handle (yet) the life cost of your own attacks.

Added Fire Damage
Good support gem that will add fire damage to your attacks ( based on your physical damage ). The quality of this support gem is+ 15% increased fire damage at max quality which affects the damage added by the support gem itself.

Life Leech
Very good support gem which gives you huge amounts of life leech. Unlike the usual physical damage leeched as life ( from gear, buffs and passives ) this support gem leeches life based not only on your physical damage done but based on all types of damage ( like the cold damage from the Hatred aura ).The quality of the gem increases the recovery rate of the life leeched.

Culling Strike
Culling strike increases your damage ( and the quality increases your attack speed ) and also you will instantly kill an enemy if he is left with 10% life or less after getting hit by your attack while it is supported by Culling Strike. Not bad , but not that great either. And if you decide to use the Slayer ascendancy sub-class you won't be needing it at all.

Life gain on hit
Not really a good support gem for Frenzy. You attack pretty fast but Life Leech is still a better choice. The good thing is that you gain life for each monster hit including those hit by your splash and the life is gained immediately ( unlike the life leech which is not recovered instantly but for a certain period of time ) . The quality of the gem further increases the life gained per hit.

Concentrated Effect
The melee splash support gem makes your Infernal Blow an area of effect attack and all increased area of effect damage mods affect the splash damage. So Concentrated Effect won't affect the damage you deal to the target that you hit but will increase the damage dealt to the enemies around it which you hit with your splash. Even so this support gem is not really a very useful one because it will decrease your area of effect, it will take the space for a more useful gem and it has a high Mana Multiplier. The quality of the gem reduces that multiplier.

Increased Area of Effect
Well what can i say .. bigger area of effect. Not bad but there are certainly better support gems that you can use instead of this one.

Melee Damage on Full Life
It basically does the same as Melee Physical Damage. Yes it says Melee Damage but it actually increases only your physical damage. Sounds good but the problem is that you need to be on Full Life to get that damage. Even if you are missing one life this gem will give you absolutely nothing. Not a good support gem for a life based Facebreaker build. On the other hand if you are Energy Shield based build with Chaos Inoculation you'll always be at full life so this gem becomes a very good option.

Physical to Lightning
This support gem converts 50% of your physical damage to lightning damage. It also gives extra lightning damage based on your physical damage ( 29% at level 20 ). It's not that bad but the thing is that you don't want to convert your physical damage to lightning damage because you don't have anything that increases that lightning damage, also you'll leech less life and mana (unless you use life/mana leech support gem and/or Warlord's Mark ). The 29% extra lightning damage is nice but it is still less than what for example added fire damage support gem gives you.

Pros. and cons.
+It generates Frenzy charges per hit
+High attack speed
+High damage
-It is a single target attack and because of that you need to use Melee Splash
-You need to spend some passives for extra frenzy charges to get the maximum out of this attack

Recommended support gems for Frenzy
Frenzy + Melee Splash*
Frenzy + Melee Splash* + Fortify*
Frenzy + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Melee Physical Damage
Frenzy + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks/Blood Magic
Frenzy + Melee Splash* + Fortify* + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks/Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage ( pick two )

*If you are going to pick the Champion ascendancy sub-class, you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick all three options listed for the 6L gem setup ( Faster Attacks/Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage )
*If you are going to pick the Slayer ascendancy sub-class, you'll get melee splash from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick all three options listed for the 6L gem setup ( Faster Attacks/Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage )

Personally i would use:
Frenzy + Melee Splash + Melee Physical Damage + Blood Magic + Added Fire Damage + Faster Attacks

A video of a legacy white Courtyard ( level 78 ) map with Frenzy. The map is not properly rolled because this way you can compare the attack skills performing under the same conditions. Gems used: Frenzy + Melee Splash + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic
click me

What is Cyclone?
Cyclone is an area of effect attack. You spin at your attack speed and deals area of effect damage twice per spin. Cyclone moves to where you clicked at your movement speed. Clicking further away from you means you will go further, but as soon as you start cycloning you cannot stop it and will continue until you have reached the final destination.
While cycloning you are immune to Stun and Knockback but Freeze and Bear traps will stop you. The base area of effect of the Cyclone is determined by the type of weapon ( in the case of the Facebreaker build the lack of weapon ). Cyclone has lowest area of effect while unarmed and without good amounts of extra increased radius modifiers ( from Carcass jack, the Warlord’s Reach jewel, passive tree, increased area of effect, the quality of the cyclone gem etc. etc. ) the area of effect of cyclone is pretty small.
Because Cyclone is already an area of effect attack you don't need melee splash with it.
The mana cost of Cyclone is not extremely but you'll still need Blood Magic support gem linked to it because cyclone is very “spammy” and thus mana hungry. Because you need AoE related passives and items it takes some time for Cyclone to really shine so I recommend that you switch to cyclone later on and start with Infernal Blow and then Ice Crash. Cyclone does many small hits fast and because of that reflect is not that dangerous.
The quality of the Cyclone gem is pretty nice and much needed +0,5% increased Area of Effect Radius per 1% Quality. Definitely a must have!
The Warlord's Reach and Martial Artistry unique jewels will further help you to improve the AoE radius of cyclone.
Cyclone deals a lot more damage compared to the rest of the unarmed attacks and it performs excellent against Bosses and it is the perfect attack vs. Atziri!
Cyclone is definitely one of the if not the best attack skill that you can use.

Support gems

Melee Physical Damage
It's simple - more physical damage! What's not to love about it ? The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Fortify
Amazing support gem and an absolute must! With this gem whenever you hit someone with a melee attack you get the Fortify buff – this buff gives you a flat 20% damage reduction from hits! And on top of that it gives a nice chunk of increased melee physical damage (23% at level). The quality is nothing special – 0,5% increased Fortify buff duration, this isn’t much because you are reapplying it whenever you hit. If you decide to go with the Champion Ascendancy sub-class you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't be needing the support gem.

Faster Attacks
It's simple(again) - more attack speed! What's not to love about it ? Oh and Mana Multiplier is only 115%! The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Attack Speed at max quality.

Multistrike
Multistrike does not work with Cyclone anymore ( after 1.2.0 ).

Blood Magic
Great support gem. With it you'll never have to worry about your mana ever again! Because of that you can spend all of your mana for auras. With it you'll use life instead of mana to cast but don't worry it's not a big problem once when you have good amounts of life, life regen and life leech - you'll never even notice the cost. Pretty much a must for Cyclone which has a high mana cost. Keep in mind that using this support gem early on is not a very wise thing to do because you might not be able to handle (yet) the life cost of your own attacks.

Added Fire Damage
Good support gem that will add fire damage to your attacks ( based on your physical damage ). . The quality of this support gem is+ 15% increased fire damage at max quality which affects the damage added by the support gem itself.

Life Leech
Very good support gem which gives you huge amounts of life leech. Unlike the usual physical damage leeched as life ( from gear, buffs and passives ) this support gem leeches life based not only on your physical damage done but based on all types of damage ( like the cold damage from the Hatred aura ).The quality of the gem increases the recovery rate of the life leeched.

Life gain on hit
Awesome support gem for Cyclone. You hit twice per spin so you'll get alot of life . The life is gained immediately ( unlike the life leech which is not recovered instantly but for a certain period of time ). The quality of the gem further increases the life gained on hit.

Concentrated Effect
It will greatly increase your damage. The problem is that it will greatly reduce your area of effect ( which is already small ). Using concentrated effect non-stop forces you to use Increased Area of Effect non-stop as well. That means that you'll need to give up Fortify ( huge defensive boost ) or Melee physical damage ( huge offensive boost ) and it's really not worth it to give up any of those. You could use Increased area of effect most of the time and swap to concentrated effect when you fight bosses because you don't need big aoe in this situations.

Culling Strike
Culling strike increases your damage ( and the quality increases your attack speed ) and also you will instantly kill an enemy if he is left with 10% life or less after getting hit by your attack while it is supported by Culling Strike. Not bad, but no great either. And if you decide to use the Slayer ascendancy sub-class you won't be needing it at all.

Increased Area of Effect
Well what can i say ... bigger area of effect. Pretty good when you take into consideration that the area of effect of the unarmed Cyclone is terrible ...

Melee Damage on Full Life
It basically does the same as Melee Physical Damage. Yes it says Melee Damage but it actually increases only your physical damage. Sounds good but the problem is that you need to be on Full Life to get that damage. Even if you are missing 1 life this gem will give you absolutely nothing. Not a good support gem for a life based Facebreaker build. On the other hand if you are Energy Shield based build with Chaos Inoculation you'll always be at full life so this gem becomes a very good option.

Physical to Lightning
This support gem converts 50% of your physical damage to lightning damage. It also gives extra lightning damage based on your physical damage ( 29% at level 20 ). It's not that bad but the thing is that you don't want to convert your physical damage to lightning damage because you don't have anything that increases that lightning damage, also you'll leech less life and mana (unless you use life/mana leech support gem and/or Warlord's Mark ). The 29% extra lightning damage is nice but it is still less than what for example added fire damage support gem gives you.

Pros. and cons.
+Great damage
+Many hits per second
+The best unarmed attack vs Bosses
+It's an area of effect skill
+The best attack for Atziri
+You cannot be stunned nor knockbacked while cycloning
+You are moving while you are attacking
-Low area of effect with unarmed attacks until you get enough increase AOE from gems/gear/passive tree
-Mana hungry
-No control while cycloning from point A to point B ( it takes some practice before you get the hang of it. )

Recommended support gems for Cyclone
Cyclone + Fortify*
Cyclone + Fortify* + Faster Attacks
Cyclone + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Blood Magic
Cyclone + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage
Version 1.
Cyclone + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage + Added Fire Damage
Version 2.
Cyclone + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage + Concentrated Effect/Increased Area of Effect

Version 1. Gives a bit less DPS but you don’t have to worry too much about your AoE radius
Version 2. More damage, much less AoE radius unless you are using Carcass Jack ( and in that case you lose the defenses of the other possible unique chests )

*If you are going to pick the Champion ascendancy sub-class, you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't need the support gem, instead use increased Area of Effect support gem in both Versions ( or possibly Culling Strike for the first Version )

Personally i would use( i will pick Champion for my ascendancy class ):
Cyclone + Faster Attacks + Blood Magic + Melee Physical Damage + Added Fire Damage + Increase Area of Effect

A video of a legacy white Courtyard ( level 78 ) map with Cyclone. The map is not properly rolled because this way you can compare the attack skills performing under the same conditions. Gems used: Cyclone + Added Fire Damage + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic
click me



What is Ice Crash?
Ice crash is an Area of Effect attack skill with three stages. The second and third stage deal less damage but cover a larger area, sadly an enemy will take damage only from one of the three stages ( if a monster was hit by the first stage of the attack the send and the third stage won’t deal any damage to that monster ). The Area of effect is absolutely amazing even without any effords from your side ( by gear, passives etc. ).
Ice crash is a skill that converts 50% of your physical damage into cold damage ( just like infernal blow converts it to fire ) and the cold portion of the damage will be affected by cold, elemental and physical damage increases. Ice crash deals insanely huge amounts of damage but the drawback is that it has 25% less attack speed. It hits slow but it usually hits once. It’s awesome that you can target the ground and still trigger the attack. Because it is an AoE attack you don’t need Melee Splash. Multistrike doesn’t work with Ice crash. Ice crash is the ultimate mid-level skill in my opinion ( not low-level because sadly it requires level 31 ) and it is a great end-game skill. Because it doesn’t attack very fast and because you don’t have to hit too many times to kill a thing casting with mana sure is an option.

Support gems

Melee Physical Damage
It's simple - more physical damage! What's not to love about it ? The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Melee Physical Damage at max quality.

Fortify
Amazing support gem and an absolute must! With this gem whenever you hit someone with a melee attack you get the Fortify buff – this buff gives you a flat 20% damage reduction from hits! And on top of that it gives a nice chunk of increased melee physical damage (23% at level). The quality is nothing special – 0,5% increased Fortify buff duration, this isn’t much because you are reapplying it whenever you hit. If you decide to go with the Champion Ascendancy sub-class you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't be needing the support gem.

Faster Attacks
It's simple(again) - more attack speed! What's not to love about it ? Oh and Mana Multiplier is only 115%! The quality of the gem is useful but nothing special +10% increased Attack Speed at max quality.

Multistrike
Multistrike does not work with Ice Crash.

Blood Magic
Great support gem. With it you'll never have to worry about your mana ever again! Because of that you can spend all of your mana for auras. With it you'll use life instead of mana to cast but don't worry it's not a big problem once you have good amounts of life, life regen and life leech - you'll never even notice the cost. Great support gem, though not mandatory because Ice Crash can be sustained with mana (at the cost of passives and the inability to reserve all of your mana for auras)

Added Fire Damage
Good support gem that will add fire damage to your attacks ( based on your physical damage ). The quality of this support gem is+ 15% increased fire damage at max quality which affects the damage added by the support gem itself.

Cold Penetration
Because half of your physical damage is converted into cold damage and because on top of that you get plenty of cold damage by your Hatred aura using Cold Penetration is also a solid choice.

Culling Strike
Culling strike increases your damage ( and the quality increases your attack speed ) and also you will instantly kill an enemy if he is left with 10% life or less after getting hit by your attack while it is supported by Culling Strike. Not bad , but not that great either. And if you decide to use the Slayer ascendancy sub-class you won't be needing it at all.

Hypothermia
With this support gem you gain 10% to freeze chilled enemies and you deal 20% more damage against chilled enemies. Not a bad support gem though at certain point you kill most of your enemies with one or two hits without it but still – not a bad choice. The quality gives you 1.5% increased chill duration, something that you have no need for so don’t worry about getting quality Hypothermia.

Life Leech
Very good support gem which gives you huge amounts of life leech. Unlike the usual physical damage leeched as life ( from gear, buffs and passives ) this support gem leeches life based not only on your physical damage done but based on all types of damage ( like the cold damage from the Hatred aura ).The quality of the gem increases the recovery rate of the life leeched.

Mana Leech
Like the Life Leech support gem the Mana Leech support gem will leech mana from all types of damage that you deal and not only from the physical portion of your damage. There isn't really a point wasting a socket for it, since you can easily get mana leech from the passive tree (if needed) or simply use a blood magic support gem (thus allowing you to reserve all of your mana for auras/buffs)

Life gain on hit
Because you don’t attack very fast this is not the best support for Ice Crash.

Concentrated Effect
It will greatly increase your damage. The problem is that it will greatly reduce your area of effect. I would not recommend it. If you decide to use it though pair it with Increased Area of Effect.

Increased Area of Effect
Well what can i say ... bigger area of effect. Ice crash already has nice AoE radius so this one is not mandatory but it is a good option. If you are going to use Concentrated effect I’d strongly suggest to use this one as well.

Melee Damage on Full Life
It basically does the same as Melee Physical Damage. Yes it says Melee Damage but it actually increases only your physical damage. Sounds good but the problem is that you need to be on Full Life to get that damage. Even if you are missing 1 life this gem will give you absolutely nothing. Not a good support gem for a life based Facebreaker build. On the other hand if you are Energy Shield based build with Chaos Inoculation you'll always be at full life so this gem becomes a very good option.

Physical to Lightning
This support gem converts 50% of your physical damage to lightning damage. It also gives extra lightning damage based on your physical damage ( 29% at level 20 ). It's not that bad but the thing is that you don't want to convert your physical damage to lightning damage because you don't have anything that increases that lightning damage, also you'll leech less life and mana (unless you use life/mana leech support gem and/or Warlord's Mark ). The 29% extra lightning damage is nice but it is still less than what for example added fire damage support gem gives you.

Pros. and cons.
+Huge damage
+Great Area of Effect
+You can target the ground
-Low attack speed

Recommended support gems for Ice Crash
Ice Crash + Fortify*
Ice Crash + Fortify* + Faster Attacks
Ice Crash + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Melee Physical Damage
Ice Crash + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Melee Physical Damage + Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage/Increased Area of Effect/Hypothermia/Cold Penetration
Ice Crash + Fortify* + Faster Attacks + Melee Physical Damage + Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage/Increased Area of Effect/Hypothermia/Cold Penetration ( pick two )

*If you are going to pick the Champion ascendancy sub-class, you'll get permanent Fortify from it so you won't need the support gem, instead pick an extra gem from the given options for the 6L setup (Blood Magic/Added Fire Damage/Increased Area of Effect/Hypothermia/Cold Penetration)

Personally i would use( i will pick Champion for my ascendancy class ):
Ice Crash + Hypothermia + Faster Attacks + Melee Physical Damage + Blood Magic + Added Fire Damage

A video of a legacy white Courtyard ( level 78 ) map with Ice Crash. The map is not properly rolled because this way you can compare the attack skills performing under the same conditions. Gems used: Ice Crash + Added Fire Damage + Melee Physical Damage + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic
click me






The auras reserve portion of your mana and in return they boost your damage or defenses. The mana reservation cost can be reduced by some passive skill tree nodes, jewels and by the Enlighten support gem tho the optimal use for auras at this point and for this build is just using 2x50% auras or 1x50% aura and Herald Of Ash if you are not using blood magic support gem

Hatred
Mana Reserved : 50%
You and nearby allies add x% ( 26 - 36% ) of your Physical Damage as Cold Damage
This aura is an absolute must! The cold damage that it gives is based on your physical damage and you'll have plenty of physical damage. Awesome aura i strongly recommend it!

Determination
Mana Reserved : 50%
You and nearby allies gain x% ( 32 - 51% ) more Armour
A good aura that will boost your Armour.

Grace
Mana Reserved : 50%
You and nearby allies gain x ( 227 - 2575 ) additional Evasion rating
A nice aura which provides flat evasion instead of a % bonus. Sadly even if you use Iron Reflexes Determination gives you more armour than Grace.

Purity of Fire
Mana Reserved : 35%
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 22 - 41% ) to Fire Resistance
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 0 - 4% ) to max. Fire Resistance
An aura that gives the sweet +4% max fire resistance at level 20. It can be very useful vs. some Bosses.

Purity of Lightning
Mana Reserved : 35%
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 22 - 41% ) to Lightning Resistance
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 0 - 4% ) to max. Lightning Resistance
An aura that gives the sweet +4% max Lightning Resistance at level 20. It can be very useful vs. some Bosses.

Purity of Cold
Mana Reserved : 35%
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 22 - 41% ) to Cold Resistance
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 0 - 4% ) to max. Cold Resistance
An aura that gives the sweet +4% max Cold Resistance at level 20. Not as useful as the Purity of Fire/Lightning auras because there aren't many ( or even any ) Bosses who deal huge amounts of cold damage.

Purity of Elements
Mana Reserved : 35%
You and nearby allies gain +x% ( 12 - 27% ) to all Elemental Resistances
Well it gives you elemental resistances. Keep in mind that you can get what this aura offers you with a few passive skill points and unlike the Purity of Fire/Lightning/Cold it won't increase your max. resistances. Not a very useful aura, you can use your mana for better things

Haste
Mana Reserved : 50%
You and nearby allies gain x% ( 4 - 9% ) increased Movement Speed
You and nearby allies gain x% ( 9 - 16% ) increased Attack Speed
You and nearby allies gain x% ( 9 - 16% ) increased Attack Speed
More attack speed = More damage. That's true but the 16% that this aura will give you at level 20 for 50% mana reservation cost is just not enough! Sure it gives movement speed too ... but you'll need to give hatred ( which gives more damage + chill ) or determination ( huge survivability boost )

Anger
Mana Reserved : 50%
You and nearby allies deal x–y ( from 12-83 to 21–138 ) additional Fire Damage with attacks and spells.
You can't really increase the flat fire damage that this aura grants. Using it is a total waste of mana.

Wrath
Mana Reserved : 50%
You and nearby allies deal x-y ( form 2-16 to 37-248 ) additional Lightning Damage with attacks and spells.
You can't really increase the flat lightning damage that this aura grants. Using it is a total waste of mana.

Clarity
Mana Reserved : 34-279
You and nearby allies regenerate x (2.9 - 17.2) Mana per second
The only aura that reserves a flat portion of your mana instead of a percentage. That makes this aura practically unreservable on mana but you can reserve it on your life if you link it to Blood Magic Support gem. Keep in mind that with the Blood Magic Support gem the reservation cost will go up. If you want to use your mana to cast your attacks but you have problems with your mana a low level Clarity ( yes low level, mind the reservation cost ) can prove to be useful.

Discipline
Mana Reserved : 35%
You and nearby allies gain x ( 60 - 303 ) additional Energy Shield
An aura that gives flat amount of Energy shield. An absolute must if you are making an Energy Shield based ( instead of a life based ) Facebreaker build. If you are not making such a build don't use Discipline.

Vitality
Mana Reserved : 35%
You and nearby allies regenerate x% ( 0.70% - 1.65% ) Life per second
Not such a bad aura given it's low reservation cost but the 1.65% life regeneration is not really a big deal.

Arctic Armour
Mana Reserved : 25%
Arctic armour is not technically an aura but it reserves 25% of your mana so i'll talk about it here. While active you take less fire (8% to 12%) and less physical (8% to 13%) damage when hit, you leave chilled ground when you run around and when hit the attacker is chilled for 0.5 seconds

Herald of Ash
Mana Reserved : 25%
Herald of Ash is not technically an aura but it reserves 25% of your mana so i'll talk about it here. You gain 15% of your physical damage as extra fire damage ( just like the added fire damage support gem ). If you kill an enemy while this buff is on a small ring of fire will erupt from the monster burning the nearby monsters for X% of the overkill damage ( if you deal 500 damage and the monster has 300 life, the fire ring will ignite for 200 burning damage ). You could run 2x50% auras and Herald of Ash if you link them to level 3 Enlighten and if you grab the Sovereignty passive. The thing is that Herald of Ash is not worth all those passives, you'll get more if you just spend them on damage nodes. If you want to cast with mana though Herald of Ash is the perfect second "aura" for you.

Herald of Thunder
Mana Reserved : 25%
Herald of Thunder is not technically an aura but it reserves 25% of your mana so i'll talk about it here. It adds lightng damage to your spells and attacks (from 2-19 to 7-76) and when you kill a shocked enemy it casts Lightning bolts which deal lightning damage to enemies in an AoE. Like i already said there is no good way to increase your flat elemental damage when you use Facebreakers to make it really viable nor there is a way to actually shock enemies in order to trigger the secondary effect of this buff. All that makes the Herald of Thunder a complete waste of mana.

Herald of Ice
Mana Reserved : 25%
Herald of Ice is not technically an aura but it reserves 25% of your mana so i'll talk about it here. It adds lighting damage to your spells and attacks (from 4-38 to 5-56) and upon shattering an enemy, the enemy explodes dealing cold damage to surround targets in an AoE. Like i already said there is no good way to increase your flat elemental damage when you use Facebreakers to make it really viable nor there is a way to actually freeze enemies in order to shatter them and trigger the secondary effect of this buff. All that makes the Herald of Ice a complete waste of mana.

So what combination of auras i'd suggest ?
I strongly suggest that you use Hatred + Determination. Even if you use Iron Reflexes Determination still gives you more armour than Grace, and Hatred is ... simply the best damage aura for you.
If you are casting with mana you'll have to loose the Determination and use Herald of Ash or Arctic armour instead. That way you'll reserve only 75% of your mana and you'll be able to cast with the rest. Keep in mind that Determination has a huge impact on your armour !




You can manually cast your curses or cast them with a Cast when Damage Taken support gem ( i'll talk about it later ). The good thing about manual curse casting is that you can curse the right enemy exactly when you need to. The triggered cursing with Cast when Damage Taken support gem is also good because you don't have to worry about your curses at all... all you need to do is to punch monsters!
Keep in mind that an enemy can be cursed only by one curse at a time ( unless you have items which allows you to dual/triple etc. curse... which you probably won't have .. and for a Facebreaker build there is no reason to have any actually ).

Temporal Chains
Awesome curse. It slows the movement, attack and cast speed of the cursed enemies. The attribute requirements of the curse are rather low which is a pretty good thing.

Enfeeble
This curse reduces the cursed enemies chance to hit, their chance to deal a critical strike, the damage multiplier of their critical strikes and their overall damage. Great defensive curse with one problem - high intelligence requirements.

Vulnerability
This curse increases the physical damage that the cursed enemies take ( alongside other debuffs which are not really helpful for a Facebreaker build ).

Warlord's Mark
When you hit an enemy cursed with this curse you leech mana and life from them based on the damage that you deal ( physical + elemental ). Also when you kill a cursed enemy you have a chance to gain an Endurance chance.

Poacher's Mark
With Poacher's Mark you get life and mana gained per hit vs the cursed monsters. Cursed enemies grant 100% Increased Flask Charges and have up to 29% chance to grant a frenzy charge when on kill. The curse also lowers the evasion of your enemies but since you will be using Resolute Technique you already can't miss so that part of the curse is irrelevant.

Elemental Weakness
This curse reduces the Elemental Resistances of the cursed enemies. That means that you'll deal more damage to them with the elemental part of your damage ( cold damage from Hatred, fire damage from Infernal Blow and Added Fire Damage support gem ). Unfortunately just like the Enfeeble and Vulnerability curses it has a very high intelligence requirements. Also you are dealing physical damage too which won't be affected by this curse.

Flammability
This curse reduces the fire resistance of the cursed enemies. That means that you'll deal more damage to them with the fire part of your damage ( fire damage from Infernal Blow and Added Fire Damage support gem ). Unfortunately just like the Enfeeble, Elemental Weakness and Vulnerability curses it has a very high intelligence requirements. Also you are not dealing only fire damage but also cold and physical which won't be affected by this curse.

Punishment
Punishment is an offensive curse. When a cursed monster hits you with a melee attack, you gain a buff which gives you great amounts of increased attack speed and more melee physical damage. Better than Vulnerability in terms of power but it won't work very often because of the fact that the monster has to actually hit you.

I can use curses as auras?!
Yes, you can use your curses as auras if you link them to the Blasphemy support gem. The downside though is that when activated each curse linked to blasphemy will reserve 35% of your mana and because of that i really don't suggest that you do that.

So which curse should i use?
It depends on whether or not you want an offensive curse or a defensive curse.
If you want an offensive one - Punishment or Vulnerability.
If you want a defensive curse you'll have to choose between Temporal Chains and Enfeeble, both are awesome and both will serve you well.



Warcries
The warcries are buffs that taunt all enemies within their radius and at the same time they give you a certain buff. It’s important to note that all warcries have cooldown which they share. That means that if you cast enduring cry you can’t cast Abyssal cry right away. Personally I’m not a big fan of the warcries because you must recast them over and over again, but if that doesn’t bother you – feel free to use any of them, they are all nice.

Enduring Cry
When you cast Enduring Cry you gain endurance charges, some life regeneration and you taunt all enemies.

Rallying Cry
This warcry increases your damage for 8 seconds and you regenerate some mana.

Abyssal Cry
The Abyssal Cry slows the affected monsters and causes them to explode when you kill them. The explosion ( just like the Infernal Blow’s explosions ) deal 8% of the monsters’ life in an area as chaos damage and that damage can’t be reflected.

Golems
The golems are cool summons with own set of attacks, a passive buff and on top of that they are pretty tanky at high levels so you don’t have to worry about recasting them very often. All we really need them for is the passive buff that they give. The quality bonus increases the life and damage of the golems. You can use only 1 golem at any given moment. You can link your golem to Minion Life and/or minion and totem elemental resistance support gems. Even though the golems have a lot of life they do die quite often in high level content.

Flame Golem
A nice ranged attacking golem that increases your damage with up to 20%.

Lighning Golem
This golem increase your attack speed with up to 9%. It has rather high intelligence requirements though ( for this build at least ).

Ice Golem
Well this golem gives you increased critical chance and accuracy, and you don’t need any of them … so this golem is not a good choice at all.

Chaos Golem
This is a close range golem that gives 3% additional Physical Damage Reduction up to 4% at level 20. That’s nice of course but the problem is that this golem has high intelligence requirements ( 155 at level 20 )and some might struggle leveling it ( personally I can level it up to 17 )

Stone Golem
The Rock golem gives up to 105 life regeneration per second. It's true that this build has lots of life regeneration ( tons of it with the Blood Dance unique boots ) and when it comes to regaining lost life you have leech and flasks on top of that, but having even more life regeneration is also nice. It is especially good while leveling due to the flat amounts of life regeneration that it gives.

So which golem should I use?
Well if you can level up the Chaos Golem high enough it is probably the best one if you want to boost your defenses and if you want to boost your offense i'd say go for the Lightning Golem, again if you have enough intelligence to level it up to 20. But if you can’t don’t worry about it, the Flame Golem is also a good choice if you want to boost your damage and the Rock Golem - if you want to boost your defenses, is also very nice and the requirements for them won’t trouble you at all!

Movement Skills
Phase run
Phase run gives you a great movement speed bonus when you activate it for a short duration or until you attack a monster. When you attack with Phase run on you’ll lose the movement speed bonus but you’ll get big huge boost your damage for a short duration. Phase run uses your frenzy charges to prolong the duration of the damage buff.

Flame Dash
Flame dash is basically a short-ranged teleport that leaves a flaming trail behind you. It has 3 charges and after you've used them all there is a brief coooldown. The downside of the skill is its low range and even worse if you click beyond that radius your character will run to the point where you are in the said radius and will perform the flame dash. That's extremely annoying and unpractical.

Shield Charge
Well it's an attack that makes you charge fast in a straight line and finish the charge with an attack. It helps you move around faster. The downsides are that you will stop after a collision with any obstacle ( big or small ) and while you perform the attack you can't do anything else. To make the finishing attack faster you can link faster attacks to the shield charge.

Other
Blood Rage
Blood Rage is a very good buff which gives you a 25% chance to gain frenzy charge whenever you kill a monster ( and each frenzy charge gives you 4% increased attack speed and 4% more damage ), it also gives you great amounts of life leech and if that’s not enough – on top of that it gives you increased attack speed! The duration of the buff resets whenever you kill so you don’t have to manually recast it often. Blood Rage has a drawback though - it deals to you % of your life as a physical damage. The thing about this build is that you end up with so much life regeneration that you’ll never feel the damage Blood Rage does to you … and you’ll even have spare life regeneration. I strongly advise you to use this buff!
You could link your blood rage to an Increased Duration support gem to almost double its duration. That way you won't need to recast it in the middle of a map ... ever again.
I strongly recommend that you don't use Blood Rage until you have at least 4% life regeneration from your passive skill tree, and of course don't use it in maps that have the no regeneration mod ( the reduced by X% regeneration mod is ok as long as you have enough life regeneration )
It is also important to mention that the Fortify buff doesn't reduce the life degeneration of your Blood Rage, on the other hand the physical damage reduction from the endurance charges does.

Immortal call
The immortal call makes you immune to physical for a very brief period of time. In order to make it work well you need to spend passives for extra endurance charges and you’ll need to cast Enduring Cry frequently. Definitely not my cup of tea… but again ... if that’s your thing go ahead and use it!

Ancestral Protector
The Ancestral Protector is a totem that attacks nearby enemies with melee attacks. It is active always while you are around it and while you are in its range the totem will give you up to 20% more attack speed. Compared to the Golems, the totem gives much more powerful buff and actually deals good damage, but on the other hand the golems have almost twice as much life, their buffs are not limited by your proximity to them and they are not stationary. Nevertheless the Ancestral Protector is a very nice buff and addition for boss fights.

Ancestral Warchief
The Ancestral Protector is a totem that attacks nearby enemies with AoE melee attacks. It is active always while you are around it and while you are in its range the totem will give you up to 18% more damage. Compared to the Golems, the totem gives much more powerful buff and actually deals very good amounts of damage, but on the other hand the golems have almost twice as much life, their buffs are not limited by your proximity to them and they are not stationary. Nevertheless the Ancestral Warchief is a very nice buff and addition for boss fights. If it's properly supported it can hit quite hard.




What is Cast When Damage Taken?
Cast when Damage Taken is a trigger support gem. When you link a spell to it( including curses and buffs) it will trigger the linked spell when you take a certain amount of damage(440 at level 1). When you level up the Cast when Damage Taken gem the damage threshold is increased ( i.e. 560 at level 3) and the damage that the linked spells will do when triggered is increased( at level 1 the spells deal 70% less damage and at level 3 - 62%). The spells linked to the trigger gem can't require a higher level than the trigger gem itself or they won't be casted. Because of that you'll need to link the skills that are useful only on a higher level(i.e. Molten Shell ) to a high level Cast when Damage Taken and the skills that are good even at level one(i.e Tempest Shield) to a level 1 Cast when Damage Taken. Note that a higher level requirements of the support gems ( like the Increased Area of Effect support gem ) don't affect the Cast when damage taken - you can have a level 20 support gem linked to a level 1 spell and level 1 trigger and the spell will be triggered. Totems and Warcries cannot be triggered with Cast when Damage Taken
Note that the spells trigged by Cast When Damage Taken are "free" - they don't cost any mana at all!

Skills to link to Cast when Damage Taken

Molten Shell
It greatly boosts your armour. It's incredibly effective against damage reflect ( the reflected damage can trigger Cast When Damage Taken ). At higher levels Molten Shell gives more armour and a higher damage threshold. This skill is not very useful at low level but it helps a lot at high levels. If you decide to use it I recommend to level it up to level 20 and link it to level 20 Cast when Damage Taken . It won't trigger that often but when it does it will count.

Curses
Using a Curse with Cast when Damage Taken is pretty much the best way to use it . I've talked about curses already, pick the one that you like most keep it at level 5 and link it to level 1 Cast when Damage Taken

Tempest Shield
Tempest Shield is a duration buff that gives you 3% block chance. Whenever you block an attack the Tempest Shield will release a chain lightning and its duration will refresh. There is no need to level this buff because we want it for the extra block chance and that chance doesn’t increase with the level of the gem. IF you decide to use it keep it at low level and link it to level 1 Cast when Damage Taken.

So which skills should I link to my Cast When Damage Taken?
Well there isn’t much of a choice really… I’d suggest:
Level 1 Cast When Damage Taken + Level 5 Curse of your choice + Level 5 Tempest Shield


What are the counterattacks?

The counterattack gems are an awesome utility and/or damage dealing skills. They trigger when you block an attack.
Culling strike is a good support gem for all counterattack gems because the -X attack speed has no effect on them ( though if you decide to use slayer you'll won't be needing a culling strike support gem ). Actually attack speed in general has no effect on these gems at all. Because of that gems like faster attacks and Multistrike are unusable with them and the quality of the Culling strike is completely useless. Support gems like added fire damage and melee physical damage are a good way to increase the damage of the counterattack gems. Concentrated effect will greatly increase the damage of Reckoning but it will reduce its AoE radius significantly.
Endurance charge on stun support gem is also a nice option for your counterattacks.

Reckoning
Reckoning is a counterattack that automatically triggers when you block. It deals cone-shaped AoE damage casted towards the direction of the source of the blocked attack/spell.
The quality of the gem gives 0.5% AoE radius per 1% quality.
Reckoning has the lowest cooldown time of all counterattack skills - 0.40 sec.
The gem is a great utility and/or damage source. It deals plenty of damage even with just melee physical support gem linked to it, another good damage support gem would be added fire damage. Since it is an AoE skill things like life gained on hit are very useful. This skill due to its big radius is good to distribute your curse ( while linked with the curse on hit support gem ). You can also link blind to it in order to reduce the hit chance of your enemies. Using enduring charge on stun gives you a charge basically every time the counterattack triggers. Definitely the best counterattack.
Personally I use Reckoning with Life Gained on Hit, Melee Physical Damage and Endurance Charge on Stun.

Riposte
Riposte is a counterattack that automatically triggers when you block. It is a single target attack but it can be supported by melee splash. It deals nice damage and has an ok cooldown time - 0.80 sec. It gets +1% increased damage per 1% quality. Because it's a single target only attack you can use it primarily as a damage source, though linking it with a life leech support gem won't be a bad idea. Riposte will only activate if the source of the damage is within your melee range. It is a cool skill but due to the limited sockets that we have I’d suggest that you don’t use this one.
Personally I don’t use Riposte but if did I would’ve used it with Melee Physical Damage, Endurance Charge on Stun and Culling Strike.

Vengeance
Vengeance can’t be used with unarmed attacks.




Normal
Personally i like to help Kraityn on Normal because the 10% all resistances are always helpful and in many cases will save you at least one passive skill point( which will give you 6% all resistances so you get 4% bonus resistances with this reward). The thing is that with so many gear pieces which provide no resistances but are mandatory for a Facebreaker build it would be impossible to cap your resistances with just your gear. Don’t forget that overcapping your resistances is not a bad thing because there are curses that lower your resistances. Helping Oak is a good choice as well, it's always good to have more life especially when you have so many +X% life nodes. The bonus mana from Aliara is useless compared to the other rewards.

Cruel
The attack speed bonus that Kraityn gives will boost your DPS a bit and it is a good option though it won't affect your counterattacks. The +16% physical damage from Oak will also boost your DPS and it will boost your counterattack skills so perhaps it is a slightly better option. Aliara here is useless for you... once again. Killing all bandits for an extra passive skill would be a good choice as well.

Merciless
Killing all bandits would be a good decision. Helping Oak is also nice if you use Daresso’s Defiance or if you use Enduring Cry. Of course you can also generate endurance charges with your reckoning but it’s hard to maintain even 3 endurance charges that way. So if you are relying only on reckoning to generate endurance charges, then Oak is not really worth it. The reward from Kraytin is an extra frenzy charge and that’s great! If you are using Blood Rage or Frenzy you’ll get a nice DPS boost with that extra frenzy charge, of course if you are not using any of those two, then you get nothing by helping him. As i've said before unarmed attacks can't deal critical strikes so the extra power charge from Aliara is useless.

Let's talk about the passive skill tree
The good thing about the Facebreaker builds is that you can focus your passive skill tree only on defenses and still do huge amounts of damage. There are nodes such as Retaliation provides both defense and offense which is great!
The most important defensive stats are: Life, Resistances, Block Chance, Life Regeneration and Armour.
First of all you need +X% life nodes. Lots of them! Do i need to explain this? More life = harder kill. Path of Exile is a game where it is very easy to get one-shotted ( or to one-shot yourself with reflect ) so please don’t make the mistake to neglect your defenses. Around level 80 you should have at least 4000 life.
Your resistances ( fire, cold, lightning ) are very important and you need to have them capped ( 75%) at all costs! If you can't achieve that with your gear ( and you probably won't for quite some time ) you need to invest passive skill points in order to cap them. You can use the single resistance nodes next to Diamond Skin and the nodes in the Scion start to cap your resistances. Barbarism is also a very good passive - it gives you life, fire resistance and +1% max fire resistance and the other two nodes in the circle will give you some more life and all resistances. It's not a bad idea to even overcap your resistances - it's helpful vs. curses ( Elemental Weakness, Conductivity etc. ).
Now let's talk about block chance. Successful block prevents all damage taken from the blocked attack ( range or melee, physical and elemental ). You want to have as much block chance as possible. You can also block reflected damage. Higher block chance also means a higher chance to use your counterattacks.
Usually only attacks can be blocked, but there are unique items ( like the Saffell's Frame ) that apply a percentage of your block chance to spells.
When an attack is blocked, the game also calculates if the attack would have caused a stun were it not blocked. If it would have caused a stun, the blocking animation is played, stunning you briefly. If it would not have caused a stun, then you get a "free" block with no animation. Don't worry about that, with big enough life pool you'll rarely get stunned and if you do it will be for a fraction of a second.
The life regeneration is also an important thing. The more the better! There are plenty of life regeneration nodes. Combat stamina, shaper, Golem's and Warrior's blood etc. Don’t forget that you need at least 4% so that you can use Blood Rage without worrying that it will drain your life!
There are some notable passives that I should mention. First of all Resolute Technique. With it your attacks always hit but you can't deal critical strikes... after all unarmed attacks already can't deal critical strikes ... so this passive is a must have. The Iron Reflexes keystone can be good if you want to use the Grace aura, and if you on top of that use an evasion shield. You'll get a nice boost to your armour but you'll have to spend some passive skill points to get to the Iron Reflexes and you’ll be left with your base evasion chance ( which is 5% ). Unwavering Stance is an ok keystone especially if you don't have a lot of evasion ( or evasion at all ). With it you are immune to stun and can't evade attacks. Note that with big enough life pool you'll rarely get stunned anyway. If you use Cyclone while cycloning you can't get stunned.
Increasing your area of effect and area of effect damage with the Amplify passive could be a very good decision. After all you'll be using an area of effect attack or a single target attack combined with Melee Splash which ends up as an area of effect attack anyway. It's extremely helpful if you are using Cyclone or Ice Crash.
If you want to cast your attacks with mana and not with a Blood Magic support gem the Mana Flows passive skill will really help you out with that! Another helpful mana related passive is the Shaper passive. But the absolute best mana elated passive that you can get is the Revelry passive, if you are casting with mana grab it right away. In your early and mid-levels you don’t yet need the blood magic support gem so grabbing Revelry is strongly recommended!
The Quickstep passive is awesome if you are using cyclone otherwise it’s still good but probably there are better ways to spend your 2 passive points.
About the jewel sockets, I want to say that the suggested trees have 3 jewel sockets ( the easiest to acquire ) but if you have jewels that are worth spending the points to grab the additional sockets needed – then go ahead !
Acquiring more Endurance Charges by taking the Vigor passive or even the Endurance and the Stamina passives can be useful especially if you find it easy to get a lot of Endurance charges up ( via manually casting Enduring Cry, using Bringer of Rain or Daressso's Defiance ). It's also very helpful if you are using Immortal Call in order to prolong its duration.
The Blood Magic passive keystone is not a good thing to have because with it you won't be able to use any auras at all, and you definitely don't want that! The damage that you'll gain from the "free" socked (which otherwise you would've used for Blood Magic support gem ) is a lot less compared to the loss of Hatred for example ( not to mention the loss of a defensive aura o top of that )
Another possible approach to a Facebreaker could be one that relies on dodge and evasion. Getting the Acrobatics and Spell Acrobatics keystones will be crucial as well as getting some life/evasion hybrid passives. Keep in mind that such a build has it's downsides - no physical damage reduction comes to mind, sure you'll be able to dodge, block ( at lowered chance ) and evade physical damage attacks... but what about physical damage spells, and nasty things like physical damage reflect ( which you won't be able to evade while you have Resolute Technique )? And when you take a hit it will hurt. I won't talk about a dodge/evasion Facebreker build in this guide.

Suggested Passive skill tree for every ten skill points
First a few words about the suggested passive skill trees. Because everyone has different gear and because of that - different resistance needs, the suggested trees will only have the absolute must have resistance passives. It's possible that you'll need more and just like i've already said - cap your resistances at all cost! And another thing, the trees won't have any Mana related nodes ( Revelry, Mana Flows, Shaper etc. ) so if you want to use mana to cast (Infernal Blow, Ice Crash or Frenzy ) don't forget to invest a couple of passives points for these passive skills if you are having mana issues! If you are using Cyclone or Ice Crash make sure to take Amplify ! Taking it if you use Infernal Blow is not a bad idea too!
If you don't have enough attributes ( i.e. for Hatred ) spend a point or two for +30 attribute nodes or just leave the gem at a lower level.
It is possible to run 2x50% auras and Herald of Ash if you link them to level 3 Enlightenment and if you grab the Sovereignty passive, but it requires a lot of passives to do that and in the end the Herald of Ash is not worth all those points.
After 110 points spent you can use your passives for physical damage/attack speed ( if you want more DPS ) or more life/armour if you want more survivability.


Duelist version





Marauder version





Ranger version




When you complete the Labyrinth in Normal you can pick between 3 ascendancy sub-classes of your class. You will get 2 ascendancy points which you can spend in the mini-skill tree of the ascendancy class you've picked for each of the 3 game difficulties and when you complete the end-game labyrinth for a total of 8 ascendancy points.

Duelist
The three Duelist sub-classes are Slayer, Gladiator and Champion

Slayer
The Slayer sub-class seems to be a two-handed oriented sub-class, but even if some of the non-notable passives increase the two-handed damage, the Slayer has many extremely awesome things for a facebreaker build. If you decide to pick the Slayer i'd suggest that you take Endless Hunger, Bane of Legends, Brutal Fervour and Headsman if you are using Cyclone or Ice Crash. If you are using a single target attack ( Infernal Blow, Dominating Blow or Frenzy ) instead of Brutal Fervour or Headsman ( the choice is yours to make ) take Impact.
Impact gives you melee splash and will increase your AoE radius thus it will free you up a socket if you are using Infernal Blow, Dominating Blow or Frenzy because you'll no longer need to use the melee splash support gem.
Endless Hunger gives you the ability to leech 20% of your overkill damage (i.e a monster has 100 life and you deal 150 damage to it, the 50 damage is your overkill damage in that case thus you will leech 20% of it) be it physical or elemental damage. On top of that your life leech effects will not be removed when you reach full life.
Bane of Legends is an insane passive which gives you doubled culling strike effect and you gain Onslaught (20% increased attack, cast and movement speed) for 20 seconds after killing a rare or unique monster. 20 seconds are a lot of time and in reality that means that you’ll have onslaught active almost constantly.
Brutal Fervour increases your life leech rates by 10% and doubles your life leech values. It also grants you stun and bleeding immunity while you leech (remember that with Endless Hunger you still “leech” even when you are at full life).
Headsman reduces the reflected physical damage that you receive by 50% and it gives you 20% more damage and 20% increased AoE radius if you’ve killed a monster in the past 4 seconds.

Champion
The Champion has awesome fortify related passives (including permanent fortify effect which will free you up a socket ), good offensive and defensive capabilities and movement speed increases (also taunt related passive which are not ideal for this build in my opinion ). With Champion I’d suggest that you pick Unstoppable Hero, Fortitude, First to Strike, Last to Fall and Inspirational
Unstoppable Hero increases your attack speed, armour, evasion and melee damage while you have the Fortify effect.
Fortitude gives you … well … permanent Fortify effect, which frees up a socket in your Flicker Strike gem setup.
First to Strike, Last to Fall it significantly increases your damage, armour and evasion while you are not on Low Life (aka pretty much always), it removes any status ailments from you when you reach low life (chilled, frozen, shocked and ignited) and your hits permanently Intimidate (thus increasing the damage you deal to the intimidated enemies by 10%).
Inspirational increases the damage and movements speed of you and your allies.

Gladiator
The Gladiator has awesome block related passives as well as some other pretty cool things like buffs while you are at max frenzy and endurance charges, and bleeding related bonuses. If you decide to go with Gladiator i'd suggest to go for Painforged, Versatile Combatant, Outmatch and Outlast and Gratuitous Violence.
Painforged gives you extra block chance if you’ve been damaged by a hit recently ( aka if you did not block an attack ) and it increases your damage if you haven’t been damaged recently
Versatile Combatant gives you spell block chance equal to your regular block chance and that’s absolutely awesome! After all this build has tons of block chance.
Outmatch and Outlast gives you way to generate frenzy charges ( not really something you need, after all you should be using blood rage which is enough ) but on top of that it gives you more physical damage when you are at max frenzy charges and extra physical damage reduction when you are at max endurance charges.
Gratuitous Violence gives you a 25% chance to cause bleeding, it increases your damage against bleeding enemies and when you kill a bleeding enemy it explodes dealing 10% of its max life to all around him.

So which sub-class should I pick?
It’s a tough choice really … at this point I’m leaning more towards Gladiator if you want some extra survivability and towards Slayer if you want some extra offensive capabilities. Champion is somewhere in the middle. I honestly can’t tell you which one to pick… I’m sorry.

Marauder
The two Marauder sub-classes suitable for the build are Juggernaut and Berserker

Juggernaut
The Juggernaut sub-class has great defensive passives. If you decide to pick Juggernaut I’d say take Unstoppable, Unflinching, Unrelenting and Unyielding.
Unstoppable is a great movement speed related passive that increases it and prevents you from being slowed below your base speed.
Unflinching gives you +2 max endurance charges and gives you 20% chance to generate one per hit.
Unrelenting increases your damage per endurance charge and reduces the elemental damage dealt to you by 8% when you aer at max endurance charges, oh and on top of that whenever you are to gain an endurance you have a 30% chance to gain the max number of endurance charges that you can have.
Unyielding will increase the fortify effect on you with 25% ( that’s 5% extra physical damage reduced by hits ) and will boost your damage and life regeneration while you have the fortify buff.

Berserker
The Berserker is of course an offense-oriented sub-class. If you decide to pick Berserker go for the Rite of Ruin, Crave the Slaughter, Aspect of Carnage and War Bringer.
Rite of Ruin reduces the damage that you take if you’ve killed recently ( most of the time ) and greatly increases your attack speed if you haven’t killed recently ( rather rarely )
Crave the Slaughter will greatly increase your attack speed if you have been hit recently and will increase your movement speed if you haven’t.
Aspect of Carnage will give you 40% more damage, but you’ll take 10% increased damage ( note that “more” and “increased” are two very different things in Path of Exile )
War Bringer greatly increase your Warcrys’ duration and cooldown recovery speed and it will recover 25% of your life and mana when you use one. I’d say that you definitely want to take advantage of this passive if you use Berserker and thus you need to fit in a warcry in your build, I’d say that Rallying cry would be a great choice. If you under no circumstances want to use a warcry then pick the Pain Reaver passive for some extra leech ( though I really don’t see a need to do that )

So which sub-class should I pick?
Well if you want a more defensive sub-class – go for Juggernaut, if you want a more damage-oriented one – go for Berserker. Personally I prefer the Juggernaut.

Ranger
The only sub-class of the Ranger suitable for the build is the Raider

Raider
The Raider has awesome frenzy and onslaught passives and in my opinion the best sub-class if you plan on making a frenzy facebreaker build. If you pick the Raider I’d suggest that you take the Way of the Poacher, Avatar of the Slaughter, Rapid Assault and Avatar of the Chace
Way of the Poacher will give attack speed and extra chance to generate a frenzy charge ( which in this case is… well ... useless )
Avatar of the Slaughter greatly enhances your frenzy charges and gives you +1 max frenzy charges
Rapid Assault will increase your damage and will give you a 20% chance to gain onslaught on kill
Avatar of the Chace will buff you while you have onslaught by giving you more chance evade, by increasing your damage whill and on top of that will increase the effect of onslaught by 50%.


Jewels are special items that can be placed in jewel sockets within your passive skill tree. There are magic, rare and unique jewels.
There aren't many unique jewels that are worth it.
Martial Artistry is a unique jewel that increases your area of effect radius by ( 10-15% ). It is a very good jewel and especially useful if you are using Cyclone or Ice Crash, but since you'll be using melee splash if you are going with Infernal Blow, Dominating Blow or frenzy it is still not a bad choice.
Warlord's Reach is a jewel that increases your attack damage by 8% and it also gives you +1 melee weapon and unarmed radius. Insanely good if you are using Cyclone, but not worth it if you are using anything else. This jewel is a quest reward for the "Through Sacred Ground" quest in act 2 Cruel.
The Pugilist unique jewel will give 1% increased melee damage and evasion rating while unarmed. Even though a rare jewel can surpass it, it is still a nice one if you put it in the socket above Command of Steel. Many thanks to Vongraven for pointing out this jewel and providing us a screenshot which shows which socket i'm referring too:


As for the rare jewels - when you consider grabbing extra jewel sockets for rare jewels you have to calculate if the jewel that you want to use is worth the passive points that you have to spend to get the socket. If by using these passives to get regular nodes you'll end up with a better result, then do that, but if these passives would be better used for getting a socket - then grab the socket!
For example if you consider spending 2 points for a socket for your jewel that will give you a total of 20% increased physical damage you have to ask yourself if spending those two points elsewhere will or will not give you more than the jewel and act accordingly.

There are many possible combinations of jewel mods and you might need something more specific ( like a certain resist, mana leech or mana on hit etc. ) but generally what you want is a combination of damage( X% increased physical damage; X% increased melee damage; X% increased area damage; X% increased damage; X% increased damage while holding a shield ), attack speed ( X% increased attack speed; X% increased attack and cast speed; X% increased attack speed while holding a shield ) and life ( X% increased life). There are block mods ( which only give 1% ) and armour mods which are nice but i think that they are just not ideal.

Here's an example of an ok 3 mod jewel:


In my opinion the best way to get what you want from a jewel is to use a transmutation orb then start using alterations ( and augmentation orbs when needed ) until you get 2 desired mods then use a regal orb and prey for the best. If you end up with 3 nicely rolled mods that you need you might use an exalt on it .. but personally i prefer to wait until i know all about the possible mod values, prefixes and suffixes and of course who knows ... a jewel master might come out at some point providing a cheap and safe 4th mod jewel crafting.

The ideal perfectly rolled jewel will have these properties (only Crimson[red] jewels can have all of these mods ) :

prefixes
16% increased Physical Damage
7% increased maximum Life

suffixes
12% increased Area Damage
12% increased Melee Damage



Basically what you want from your gear is as much flat physical damage, life and resistances as possible!


What can i say... this is a Facebreaker guide ... so there are only one gloves that you want to use - Facebreaker gloves. Start using them at level 16. If possible get the Legacy version of the gloves, but don't worry the nerfed ones are good enough if you can't get your hands on the Legacy item.



The helmet is an important part of any Facebreaker build because it is one of the few possible gear pieces with flat physical damage. You have two options to choose from - The Abyssus and The Bringer of Rain. The Abyssus gives significantly more damage but you take more physical damage. It gives nice + all attributes bonus, but it has no life and no resistances. The Bringer of Rain gives less flat physical damage compared to Abyssus, but you don't take any extra physical damage. The cool thing about Bringer of Rain is that it comes with three build-in support gems - Faster Attacks, Melee Physical Damage and Blind thus making the helmet a 7 linked item ( 4 from the sockets and 3 from the build-in support gems ). The problem is that these build-in supports are not level 20 and have no quality and because of that you loose some damage, it's even worse with the current Bringer of Rain version. The nerfed Bringer of Rain gives less life too. This helmet gives nice life boost and pretty cool 15% block chance but the huge drawback is that you can't wear a chest while you are using it. Because of that capping your resistances becomes a harder task because yes you've guessed right the Bringer of Rain doesn't ... bring ... any resistances.
Both helmets have their good and bad sides. It's up to you to choose one of them. Personally i prefer the Abyssus because of the huge DPS boost and the possibility of using a chest which can improve your armour and resistances. But if you don't have at least a 5-Linked chest the Bringer of Rain is definitely a better choice!



The shield is an important part of your gear. You want your shield to give high amounts of armour, life, block chance and possibly resistances. The ideal shield would be a rare shield with extra block chance, very high armour, life and resistances roll. Those are pretty hard to get. But don't worry there is a unique shield that fits in perfectly - The Lioneye's Remorse! Awesome armour, awesome life, awesome block, the only problem is that it doesn't give any resistances.
Another important shield is the Saffell's Frame. It gives some resistances and +4% to all max. Resistances ( +5% if it's the legacy version ) . It's important because (70 to 80)% of your Block Chance is applied to Spells ((100 to 120)% if it's the Legacy version) . Unfortunately you can't block attacks(only spells) while you are wearing it. So you need this shield on swap. Use it when you are facing tough spell casting bosses! You'll have more max. resistances and you'll block their spells and because of all that those fights will be like a walk in the park. However if you've picked the Gladiator sub-class you'll have 100% of your chance to block attacks applied to spells thus diminishing the necessity of the Saffell's Frame shield, don't forget though that the shield gives you + max resists which is always a plus.
The Crest of Perandus is the best leveling shield that you can get. Very high block chance (31%, 40% if you have the legacy version), very good life , life leech, lightning resistance and you can start using it at level 8! And it's cheap too! I was using one up to level 70 when i put on the Lioneye's Remorse.
Other unique shields worth mentioning are the Aegis Aurora and the Daresso's Courage.
The Aegis Aurora replenishes 2% ( 4% if it's the Legacy version ) of your armour as energy shield when you block. It is a popular combo to use it with Rainbowstride boots. You''ll have some Energy shield and you'll replenish it every time when you block ( and you block a lot ). The Aegis Aurora has a high block chance and it gives some resistances, it also increases your max cold resistance. The problem with it is that you lose alot of life if you are using one ( even more if you use Rainbowstride with it which also has no life ) because it gives none and it also gives very small amounts of armour ( and the boots don't give armour at all ).
Great Old One's Ward is a unique shield which gives huge amonts of DPS, ok block chance and life and extra 10% chance to block spells. The drawback is the lack of armour in my case that means ~13000 less armour compared to Lioneye's Remorse. If you want to use one i'd suggest that you also take Iron Reflexes and the Grace aura.
I'm only talking about the Daresso's Courage shield because many players think that it is a good shield for a Facebreaker build because of the 20% increased physical damage. That of course is not true at all. 20% increased physical damage is close to nothing... it is basically the difference between 740% Facebreakers and 760% Facebreakers and it is surpassed even by 1-4 flat physical damage iron ring. The shield gives some resistances and it has a reasonable chance to block. Unfortunately it hardly gives any armour, it also has no life. Not a good shield compared to Lioneye's Remorse ( which is not expensive ) or a good rare shield.



Well when it comes to chests there are 2 unique chests that stand out - Daresso's Defiance and Belly of the Beast. The Belly of the Beast gives a huge life boost and some resistances, while Daresso's Defiance gives less life compared to the Belly and gives no resistances but it has more armour and evasion, it gives you some life leech and 6% dodge. On top of that it gives you an endurance charge on kill and when you receive a hit yo loose all endurance charges but gain the Onslaught buff which gives 20% increased attack, cast and movement speed. The cool thing about Daresso's Defiance is that you get onslaught very often but because you kill very fast you are able to generate back the lost charges so you end up with max endurance charges almost all the time. If you are using Cyclone and you decide to support it with concentrated effect using Carcass Jack to negate some of the AoE loss that comes with concentrated effect is very much advised, you could still stick to Daresso or Belly of the beast ( which give much more defenses ) and use concentrated effect if yo are ok with the AOE radius ( which is pretty small ). Using a good rare chest with high resistances and life is also an option though it certainly isn't as good as the unique chests mentioned above.



Good rare boots with a lot of life, resistances, armour and movement speed will do the trick. There are some unique boots that are worth mentioning.
The Atziri's Step boots are pretty nice due to the cool spell block chance, awesome movement speed and evasion and the good amount of life. No resistances tho.
The Blood Dance boots are a pretty good good choice if you are using Frenzy. They give 1% life regeneration per frenzy charge so you can end up with huge amounts of life regenerated per second ( with the passive skills you can get 10%+ ). They also give other frenzy related boosts like movement speed and extra damage vs. enemies on Low Life per frenzy charge. The Blood Dance boots are pretty cheap so you can buy a lot of them and try to corrupt them for +1 maximum Frenzy Charge. Unfortunately they don't give any life or resistances and slightly reduce your attack speed per frenzy charge ( -3% per frenzy charge ).
The Darkray Vectors are another possible option for a frenzy using Facebreaker build. They give +1 maximum Frenzy Charge, 2% dodge and 5% movement speed per frenzy charge and they have a good amount of lightning resistance(up to 40%).The Darkray Vectors are pretty cheap so you can buy a lot of them and try to corrupt them for another +1 maximum Frenzy Charge. The drawback is that they don't give life and that they reduce the duration of your frenzy charges with 50%.
The Rainbowstride boots are a popular choice for all builds with high block chance because (20 to 25)% of your Block Chance is applied to Spells . That means that if you have 40% block chance you'll also have 10% chance to block spells. They also give resistances , good amount of movement speed and great amounts of mana( which is helpful if you want to cast with mana ). Absolutely no life tho and also they are energy shield boots... and you don't need energy shield.
The Kaom's Roots give unmatched amounts of Life. With them you have Unwavering stance ( cannot evade, cannot be stunned ) and you can't be knocked back. The downside is that they have no sockets, no resistances and no movement speed.
The Redblade Tramplers are another option. They have mediocre amount of fire resistance and no other resistances (20%-30%), mediocre increased movement speed (20%) and no life. However they have good armour and they are the only boots that provide flat physical damage.



The belt for any Facebreaker build is called Meginord's Girlde. You can't get anything better. Large amounts of flat physical damage, a lot of strength, 10% maximum life and some cold resistance. It is not very expensive and can be used from level 8! An absolute must, get one now!



The rings alongside with the amulet are the only rare pieces of gear that can give flat physical damage. So your rings must have as much flat physical damage as possible! Remember flat physical damage is the thing that actually makes a Facebreaker build possible! Your rings can have up to 9-15 physical damage. Rings, amulets and gloves are the only rare gear pieces which can have mana and life leech but since you'll be using Facebreaker gloves it rests on your rings and amulet to get you the much needed mana leech ( if you want to cast with mana ) and the helpful life leech. Aside from all that you also want your rings to give life and resistances, high amounts of mana regeneration can also be helpful if you want to cast with mana. Note that usualy your rings are the items which take care of your resistances. As for the type of rings , the iron rings give 1-4 physical damage which is good but i'd say that a resistance ring will be much more useful. There are no unique rings that are good for a Facebreaker build.
The Ming's heart unique ring is not a bad option. The damage it brings is the same as 8-15 physical damage ring and it has awesome chaos resist. The problem is that it has no elemental resistances and not only that it gives no life but it actually reduces it.



You want your amulet to give you the same things as your rings. Keep in mind that the amulet can give you more flat physical damage(15-26), life leech(6%) and mana leech(4%) compared to a ring. Try to get an amulet with attributes as a base mod, after all the Hatred aura has dexterity and intelligence requirements and having more strength is always a good thing. As for unique amulets ... there are none that are worth mentioning. Remember flat physical damage is the most important thing for a Facebreaker build and your amulet gives a lot of it ( only your helmet will give more ) but sadly none of the unique amulets have a flat damage mod.
With the new Talisman league a new type of items were introduced - talismans. You can wear them instead of an amulet and they can have awesome implicit mods ( opposed to the usual attribute bonus that you've used to get from your amulet ). Mods such as 8-12% max life; 2% life regen; 25-35% increased damage and many more! So if a talisman and an amulet have the same rolls ... the implicit mod on the talisman pretty much guarantees that it will better than the amulet.



The Flasks are an important part of your gear. If you want to use mana having one mana flask with instant recovery is very helpful. You also want at least one life flask just in case. Other than that you want to have a Quicksilver flask for faster movement and a Granite Flask( get the unique Rumi's Concoction Granite flask if you can afford it) for more armour. Having Resistance flasks in your stash is also important. Put one on your belt when you are about to fight dangerous elemental damaging bosses if you are not that sure about the fight. The Atziri's Promise is an awesome unique flask. It will increase your damage and your life leech. Get one - it's not very expensive. The Taste of Hate is another awesome flask - increases both your damage and effectively reduces the physical damage you take, the chance to avoid being frozen and chilled is also very nice. The Divination Distillate could be a good choice too if you want to have some Increased Item Rarity and Quantity, both are hard to get with a Facebreaker build. The +6% max all res is also great, keep in mind though that you get those things only while the flask is active ( i.e. until you reach full mana/life or until the flask expires ... and the first one happens pretty fast )



Upon completing the Labyrinth you can enchant your gloves, boots or helmet with a random enchantment. In normal you can enchant only your gloves, in Cruel you can enchant your gloves or your boots and in Merciless you can enchant your gloves, boots or helmet. There are 3 tiers of enchantments - Word, Edict and Decree being the most powerful. It's important to mention that you can re-enchant your gear if you are not happy with the enchant that you get ( when you complete the Labyrinth again of course )

Gloves Enchantments
The Gloves Enchantment are basically offensive trigger skills. Some are triggered when you hit, some - when you kill, some - when you take a hit and some - when you take a critical strike. For a glove enchantment you'll want to have one that is based on X% of your melee damage and not a spell which has X-X damage on it's own.

Boots Enchantments
The enchantments applied to your boots are buffs triggered by things like taking critical strike recently, killing an enemy recently, if you were hit recently etc. Enchantments such as X% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently; Regenerate X% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit Recently; X% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently and X% chance to Dodge Spell Damage if you've taken Spell Damage Recently are perfect for you.

Helmet Enchantments
The helmet enchantments boost the power of the skills you use. For example there is a helm enchantment that increased your attack speed with cyclone by 15%. For a helm enchantment of course you'll want to have one that affects the attack that you are using. The 12% increased attack speed from your blood rage is a good option too.


Helpful uniques for low and mid character levels




Gear


My Passive skill tree


Defenses ( the same for all attack skills because the gear is the same ) ( Fortify is not counted in the characters' defensive stats )


Offenses

The Ascendancy Labyrinth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a96vmPzFHfI

Apex of Sacrifice ( AKA Atziri ) video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt8B4Bb2D9c&feature=youtu.be

The new level 81 Palace boss fight :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aTZC-CEaiU&feature=youtu.be

and the new level 80 Courtyard boss fight :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqlk0V1dfCg&feature=youtu.be

Merciless Malachai :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKfrC6Qw1Pc&feature=youtu.be

All of the videos below are made prior the Awakening, new videos will be added soon enough!





First of all a video:
Apex of Sacrifice

General tips
Use cyclone because it is the best possible attack when it comes to killing bosses. Bring Ruby and Topaz flasks, if you can - bring the unique Rumi flask ( especially if you don't have a capped spell block with your Saffell's Frame ( if it is the nerfed version ). You can use Lightning Warp if you want to .. i don't. Don't use reckoning when you fight her! You might hit the mirror holding Atziri in her split form and that's a 100% guaranteed death.

Make sure that you have the following things:
Capped resistances ( a must )
At least 5000 life ( recommended )
30k cycolone DPS ( recommended )
At least 50% block chance ( a must )
Saffel's Frame ( a must )

Areas between the boss rooms
Between the boss rooms ( and before the first boss room ) in The Apex of Sacrifice there are areas full of magic( blue ) monsters.
They have increased life and damage but it shouldn't be a problem for you to deal with them. I'd suggest that you kill them all because they drop tons of loot and if nothing else you'll get plenty of items with 6 sockets for you to sell. The experience from them is not that bad too even if they are only level 70. With a level 91 character i've gained around 3% experience from 4 times clearing the Apex of Sacrifice .
Use Lioneye's Remorse for these areas.

First boss room
The first boss room contains two Vessels of the Vaal. They look like the act 2 boss - Vaal Oversoul but besides it's regular skills they also cast multiple balls of lightning and an Ice version of Firestorm. After killing one of them the cast speed of the other drastically increases. Because of that I'd advice that you leave one of them at low life , kill the other then finish the first one. These bosses are pretty easy but watch out for their smash attack - it is deadly! Use Saffell's Frame for this fight.
There is a trick that allows you to spawn one of the Vessels before the other. What you need to do is when you enter the room walk south sticking to the walls then go up so that you end up on the right side of the Boss spawning pyramid and as far as possible from the spawning pyramid of the other boss. The boss on the right ( next to whom you are ) will start spawning and after 5-6 seconds the other one will start too. That gives you 5-6 seconds to leave one of the bosses at low life before the other joins the battle. The time is enough( at least for me ) to even kill the first Vessel.

Second boss room
The second boss room contains 3 bosses - A'alai, Q'ura and Y'ara'az.

A'alai
She is a ranged Boss. She casts Rain of Arrows with a very large area of effect which deals chaos damage and a physical damage version of Firestorm. Don't stay in that skill because it deals huge amounts of damage and it will kill you!
I suggest that you kill her first. After killing her portals will appear and they will start spawning tentacle and burning miscreations.

Q'ura
He is a melee boss using a two handed weapon ( looks like a sword ). He casts cyclone which leaves a bloody trail. That trail degenerates your life, don't stay in that trail!
I suggest that you kill this guy second. He get's corrupted blood after you kill a boss and he also grows bigger and has larger AoE radius.

Y'ara'az
He is a dual wielding boss. He get's corrupted blood after you kill a boss. I kill that guy last because he seem to pose no thread.

When you kill one of the bosses the others are healed to maximum life and gain abilities. Also on death a boss starts spreading a black fog which slowly becomes larger and larger. The fog degenerates your life very fast so don't stay in it! It disperses when you kill all bosses.
Be sure to bring remove bleeding flasks! I use 2 of those! Things like immortal call and enduring cry are very useful here although i don't use immortal call at all.
Don't go straight ahead for the A'alai because you don't want Q'ura to leave a degeneration trail on top of her. Use Lioneye's Remorse for this fight.

Queen Atziri
The final boss room contains Queen Atziri herself!
She has a lot of resistances and immunities (Cannot Be Frozen, Cannot Be Stunned, Cannot Be Chilled, Cannot Be Ignited, Cannot Be Shocked , Resists Elemental Damage, Resists Chaos Damage, Immune To Knockback ). Atziri also reflects any curse that you cast on her. The way to take care of that is by bringing a flask with remove curse mod, use spell totem with your curse, or don't use any curses at all.
She has 3 forms.
When you kill her she will drop one of these items:

Most of the time it would be the flask which is an awesome item but due to the huge amounts of these flasks they are practically worthless .. i don't even bother to pick them up. She can also drop a fragment for the Uber Atziri level. Don't forget to equip your topaz and ruby flasks ( if you haven't done that yet ). Use Saffel's Frame for this fight. You can also switch your determination/grace aura for level 20 Purity of Fire just to feel safe.. after all her flameblasts are the thing that hurts the most!

Her true form
Her attacks in that form are:
An arc of spears that apply bleed - use remove bleeding flask.
Flameblast, sometimes multiple blasts simultaneously - you should be able to handle one fully charged blast ( even if not blocked ) if you use a Ruby flask. Multiple flameblast are deadly if you don't block them so i'd suggest that you pop-up a quicksilver flask and run out of the area of effect as fast as possible.
Yellow storm calls - survivable if you are hit by a small number of them and if you use a Topaz Flask. If you get hit by many tho ... if your luck fails you and you don't block enough of them they might kill you. Getting out of their way is advisable.
Red storm call - she cast less of those ( compared to the yellow storm calls ). Use a Topaz flask and you should be ok.

Her split form
Atziri summons four copies of herself. This phase happens at fixed intervals: only when she loses a quarter of her life (so at 75%, 50% and 25%). If the minions heal her back to one of those life levels, she will not do this phase again. If you kill one of the copies Atziri will go back to her true form.
Her four copies are:
One that holds a spear in her hand that deals bleeding damage over time. I kill this one because it's very easy to recognize it thus knowing that it's not the reflecting one.
One that has fire on her hand and uses Flameblast.
One that has lightning on her hand and uses Storm Call.
One that has a mirror and reflects a high amount of damage. Don't attack this one! NEVER!

Her defensive form
Atziri shields herself, rendering herself untargetable. She summons minions that walk towards Atziri and heal her when they reach her.
Use a quicksilver flask to move quickly from one minion to another. This form is awesome because it helps you to refill your flasks and you should be able to kill all minions before they reach her if you have enough DPS.



1. Never switch to Saffell's Frame in a physical reflect map! Not being able to block your own reflected attacks = death.
2. Don't run maps with stupendously dangerous map mod combinations! You might be able to do it but if there is the possibility of you dying.. it's just not worth the risk ( especially if you are high level ) No one cares if you run a physical reflect; vulnerability; +4 projectiles; + 30% monster damage; +30% boss attack speed and 25% damage; double boss Academy map!
3. Play smart, play safe. No one is immortal!
4. Cap your resistances, get as much block as possible, stack flat physical damage and life, stack life regeneration and armour, if possible overcap your resistances. In that order!
5. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight Piety ( act 3, Temple map, Shrine map ) when she is in her "normal" lightning casting form, use you regular shield when she is in her fire/cold form.
6. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight Dominus ( act 3, Residence map, Palace map ) when he is in his first form. The touch of God smash attack is infact an attack so you won't be able to block it... run away from it while he is charging it.
7. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight Merveil ( act 1, Necropolis map ) when she is in second form.
8. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight the Vaal Oversoul ( act 2, Maze map ). Be careful when he uses his smash attack you won't be able to block it... run behind the boss while it is charging the attack.
9. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight the Vessels of Vaal. Be careful when they use their smash attack you won't be able to block it... run behind them while they are charging the attack.
10. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight Queen Atziri.
11. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight map bosses which use spells to deal damage.
12. Use Saffell's Frame when you fight rogue exile spell casters.
13. Be extremely careful around enemies who throw bear traps!
14. Always have a flask that can remove bleeding. Use it when you are fighting monsters with the Corrupted Blood mod once when you have too many bleeding stacks. Also use it when needed when you fight the second form of Dominus.
15. Always have a flask that can remove “frozen”. ( but the remove bleeding flask is more important )
16. Always identify strongboxes before opening them! Run away after you open a box with ice nova/firestorm/lightning call/exploding just to be safe!
17. Use your flasks. They are not there just to look pretty!
18. Always roll your maps. Use alchemy orbs and chisels for your highest level maps!
19. Always check out the prices of similar items before buying a gear piece. You don't want to overpay for things!
20. Use the crafting options of the forsaken masters. You can turn a mediocre item into something that you really need!
21. Keep rare items in your stash for the chaos vendor recipe!
22. Use low quality gems for the gemcutter's prism vendor recipe!
23. Don't waste your highest level maps until the rest are giving you plenty of experience.
24. Always go back to town when you go AFK. It sounds stupid but so many people died because of that... me included.
25. Don't spam craft with chaos orbs ... you are usually wasting them!
26. Don't yolo exalt your gear... especially now when you can use the forsaken masters crafting options.
27. Don't spam fusings on gear that is not worth 5-6 linking!
28. I highly recommend that you get the Facebreaker gloves, the Crest of Perandus shield and the Meginord's Girdle belt before starting this build!
29. Don't use Blood Rage in No mana regeneration maps!
30. Flame/Frost/Storm Bearers are deadly! Be careful and run away from the explosions!
31. It seems that many players don't really know how physical damage mitigation works ( how armour works, which damage increases or reductions come first etc. ) so hopefully the explanation below will help you with that:

32. If you want to upgrade your Lioneye's Remorse Shield, search for Pinnacle tower shields because they have 25% base block and high armour. You'll need the following mods : block chance, flat armour, % armour, life, resists ( if you need any ) and you can craft flat physical damage on it with a master's crafting bench.
33. With the introduction of the Ascendancy sub-classes i'd say that the Duelist is the best class for the build, followed by the Ranger and sadly the Marauder is third.
34. 1% increased attack speed = 2% increased physical damage ( approximately )


"How to Flicker. Two Handed Weapon Edition!"
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/528011


Non-guide threads
"Results from map farming ( currency drops )"
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1581803


Old stuff ( most likely non-relevant now )




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With the risk of repeating myself more reduction for less life ( alot less life because the 6 passive points should be respect from somewhere and most likely that would be life nodes) is not a good trade it never was and it never will be. I've tested this character with Iron Reflexes and Grace on a rare level 72 map. It was much less effective and more dangerous than without it.
If someone is using Abysuss i guess it could be better. But this build doesn't use that unique.

The damage is more than sufficient - you one-two hit everything. And actualy nodes that give % melee physical damage doesn't add that much to your dps, ofcourse you can test that out for yourself. As for the two 0.4% life regeneration nodes i personaly like my life regeneration to be as high as possible. But i admit that they are not really necessairy.
I personaly prefer the Duelist due to the easy early acess to the Mana Flows passive. It won't be needed later but you wll use mana for some time so it helps alot. Unwavering stance is the other passive that is extremly helpfull for the first levels. The bonus attack speed from Berserking and Acceleration are very important aswell. They are not as effetive later but for the first levels 27% attack speed is alot.
On the other hand as a Marauder you can reach Resolute Technique very fast...
In the end the decision is yours and it won't affect your build at the higher levels.

I'll do passive trees for every 10 points up to 100 today. As for the switching to mana. I suggest to switch to blood magic once when you have the Bringer of Rain equiped... before that you just don't have the free socket for the blood magic gem.