1.3 Static Slammer - Build Guide + Torment Thoughts

Greetings fellow exiles! As soon as static strike was revealed I decided that's what I wanted to do for my first character in these leagues. When the skill was first announced I thought it would function similar to Storm Call, building up charges which would all blow up at once after a certain amount of time, and thought it would scale well with attack speed. Once the mechanics were released and I saw that it was 1 explosion per strike, and with the vengeance skill being released, I decided I wanted to go for a tanky character with massive single hit damage. That's when I settled on the use of the Marauder with Marohi Erqi for a weapon. I'm currently sitting at level 80 and the character is feeling very strong, I'm loving it.

For those who don't know, I will quickly cover exactly how static strike works. Per level static strike grants an increase to physical damage. The skill converts 60% of your physical damage to lightning damage with the initial hit dealing 110% of base damage. At base duration, 0.75 seconds later an explosion occurs centered on your character which deals 70% of the damage of the initial hit in an AOE around you. Here is the Wiki: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Static_Strike

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEBAecEswUtCZYNzRLhFCAUTRiRGjgaPhv6HM4hNCFVJIsl3ycgJy8rUCz7LdI26DkOOlI62Ds7PQ89_EE_Qo5GaVBHUeZXDVhjXhNfP2BLYVJyqXTtdqx3U3rvfLt82X31ggeCm4VShmCHKYoijM-QVZHOlIeXeZgKmjuexZ7Nn8uiAKLqpBmnMK2NtC-2LLaku-28n8QVxPbG2M9-0iHZYdl83pbfsuFz4kPkUeoY6wnsOO8O707wH_Iv8kH2SPcy_Ev-VA==

In the passive tree I focused on Armor, Life, and Stun. I started by taking the shown path to Resolute Technique (grabbing diamond skin on the way), then dropping down to the Juggernaut cluster. Afterwards I grabbed Unwavering Stance and the Bloodless and Soul of Steel clusters, followed by the bottom pair of dexterity and intelligence nodes. Then I went back to the top area and continued on from Resolute Technique, grabbing the second pair of off-class stat nodes and the Unrelenting cluster, and continuing up to grab the nodes in the Templar area. Back down I grabbed the Stun Mastery cluster and the Golem's Blood and Executioner Clusters. I finished up by grabbing the three Endurance charges along with the life regeneration per endurance charge, and the Bone Breaker/Skull Cracking wheel.

For bandits I did Oak-Kill All-Oak, at some point in the future I may switch the cruel one for Oak's 18% damage, but with Notables being so good now and 18% barely being better than some of the regular nodes on the tree I felt like grabbing an extra passive point at the time.

You could get things in a different order, grabbing more of the health and armor before any damage if you are having trouble surviving, or grabbing more damage earlier if you are feeling weak.

Going forward from this point you are touching several great clusters, like Blunt Instrument, Bloody Bludgeon, Unyielding, and Armour Master. Any of these would be great choices to make the character stronger, I am planning on grabbing the Bloody Bludgeon cluster first.

For gear, I just grabbed as much Life, Armor, and Strength as I could while maxing all resists (including chaos) and getting a bit of extra flat physical damage where I could. Also make sure you try to go for 15% reduced enemy stun threshold on your belt. The set came together quite nicely for being less than a week into the league. The total gear cost was around 3.5 exalts, and feels very strong. I frequently run through 70 and 71 maps without using any potions other than quicksilver. I haven't found anything that I could sell for more than a few chaos, just spamming the chaos recipe from split Dominus runs, so anyone should be able to get the build going without too much trouble.

Now for a specific piece, why Marohi Erqi? Marohi has several great things going for it as a Static Strike weapon. First, the free increased AOE support is amazing with Static Strike, it is a gem you would absolutely want for the skill, so getting it for free and working to a potential seven link is great. Second, since you have to wait for 0.75 seconds from your last attack for your last instance of AOE damage to go off, attack speed is irrelevant, in fact with high attack speed it would be easy to waste a bunch of hits that all just blow up after the monsters have already died. That being said Marohi's massive single hit damage is perfect, you just hit an enemy once, then start walking through that pack towards the next one, and your explosion will go off and kill everything, with herald of ash working to clean up stragglers. Lastly, due to the nature of static strike having a delay before its damage goes off, a tanky character makes sense as you may have to eat shots before your damage kicks in. This makes the Marauder the logical choice, which puts us right next to resolute technique which pairs perfectly with Marohi Erqi.

Main Attack(In Marohi Erqi): (Increased AOE) + Static Strike + Melee Phys + Weapon Ele + Faster Attacks. For a fifth link you would want Added Fire, and for a sixth you would want Stun. If you want to perm-stun palace Dominus swap out Static Strike for Heavy Strike and Weapon Ele for Endurance Charge on Melee Stun.

Secondary "Attack"(In Chest Piece): Vengeance + Melee Phys + Increased AOE + Endurance Charge on Melee Stun. For fifth you would want added fire, and sixth you would want Stun. This new skill is straight up broken with a weapon like Marohi Erqi, it ignores attack speed and scales completely off of damage, dealing greater than 100% of base damage with levels. When it triggers it stuns any white or blue, and most rare mobs around us, filling our endurance charges and instantly killing weaker enemies. I currently have this sitting in my gloves just because, but as soon as I get more links in my chest it will switch places with Warlord's Mark

Four Link: Warlord's Mark + Faster Casting + Blood Magic + Increased AOE

Four Link: Hatred + Herald of Ash + Increased Burning Damage + Reduced Mana

Four Link: CWDT + Enduring Cry + Increased Duration + Immortal Call

I have posted a video of a level 70 bog map, with more videos to come in the future so you can see this in action, but I will briefly describe it here. You move around with your weapon-swap leap slam setup until you see a pack, then you jump into the middle of it, swap weapons, and cast Warlord's Mark. Give one Static Strike and watch everything die. Rinse and Repeat. You don't need to be scared of physical damage. You should have very high armor and your Vengeance setup plus Warlord's Mark will ensure you are always on seven endurance charges or in Immortal Call from your CWDT setup. The only thing you need to watch out for is Ele Reflect and extremely high bursts of elemental damage from bosses that you may be unable to stun at your gear level. We hit extremely hard with a ton of elemental damage, so if there is an ele reflect pack just slow down and work your way in from the edge, don't jump into the middle and hit an entire pack at once with your static strike explosion.

Level 70 Bog Map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUWcI7SKSfY

I will post more videos when I get more maps T_T

Defense without charges:

Defense with charges:

Static Strike Offense:

Vengeance Offense:

And finally a few thoughts on the Torment league. I have mixed feelings, for one I like it because I have never made a character like this before, 2-handed tanky style, and I am loving it way more than I ever thought I would, but that really isn't dependent on the league. As far as the actual league mechanics go I am a little disappointed. Ghosts seem far too rare, it seems like there should be at least one ghost per zone, you will notice I don't see one in the Bog Map video. It also seems like they should actively seek out nearby packs of monsters and spook them, rather than you having to herd the ghosts around and they usually just gravitate towards corners which they wont move out of. It is nice to see the bits of extra loot drop from spooked enemies, but it just seems to infrequent and the ghost behavior is a bit lackluster. Overall though I think it is a cool mechanic and I think it could be great with a few tweaks. Honestly I think it could be a fine addition to the core game at about the current spawn rate, but I think the spawn rate should be much higher for the Torment league.