[3.11] Shaper = Stunned, Tidebreaker Heavy Strike Stunner Build

I'm using your stun build right now and I'm loving it. Couple of questions though:

1. I'm constantly running low on mana from spamming abilities. Is ONE item with -9 reduced mana cost of skills good enough for this build...or do I need two items with that modifier?

2. Every time I used heavy strike on the boss, the boss always gets knock back, how do I prevent that so they stay in one spot?

3. When will you release the updated version of your build in delirium league?

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MasterChief22530 wrote:

I'm using your stun build right now and I'm loving it. Couple of questions though:

1. I'm constantly running low on mana from spamming abilities. Is ONE item with -9 reduced mana cost of skills good enough for this build...or do I need two items with that modifier?

2. Every time I used heavy strike on the boss, the boss always gets knock back, how do I prevent that so they stay in one spot?

3. When will you release the updated version of your build in delirium league?

1. One -9 mana cost is definitely enough. Or alternatively, use Blood Magic Support on your Leap Slam and other abilities if you have spare sockets.

2. One way to fix that is to use Empire's Grasp, but I personally don't like having a glove offering nothing but knockback reversal. Usually I set Heavy Strike to NOT always attack in place, which solves the problem of knockback for me - we will automatically follow up to chain the next hits.

3. The only major change this league would be to implement the cluster jewels. Well rolled cluster jewels can be very strong, but poorly rolled ones are complete trash. Since the jewel is limited by its availability, you should treat it as some endgame upgrades that you do after getting all pieces of the build together. So my suggestion is to only worry about it later.

I have put up a list of useful cluster jewel notables in the guide and I hope you guys can figure out the notables you like and make your own decisions. This is partly due to the fact that, if I put up a "perfect choice", that would probably drive the price up and make it really pricey and unnecessary. Another reason is that, the cluster jewel is a perfect opportunity to make personal customizations to your build - since the reallocation of cluster jewel nodes is free, imagine having a stun oriented jewel for Shaper fights and a clear speed oriented cluster jewel for mapping.

But to answer your question, I am playing the new league myself and as I test things out I will make changes in the guide. I won't promise a date for anything but I can promise many updates regarding cluster jewels.

EDIT: after making this reply I went back and made quite a few changes to the cluster jewels section, you might be interested in checking it out.

Hmm, I'm still a confused by the gems needed to be in tidebreaker with heavy strike judging by my confusion in POB.


1. What 6 gems would YOU run on a tidebreaker for the HIGHEST POSSIBLE DPS WITH GUARANTEED STUNNING if you don't have the fortify implicit on the tidebreaker (just a regular 6L tidebreaker).

Thanks.

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MasterChief22530 wrote:

Hmm, I'm still a confused by the gems needed to be in tidebreaker with heavy strike judging by my confusion in POB.


1. What 6 gems would YOU run on a tidebreaker for the HIGHEST POSSIBLE DPS WITH GUARANTEED STUNNING if you don't have the fortify implicit on the tidebreaker (just a regular 6L tidebreaker).

Thanks.

Simplest answer I can give:

Normal gears -
Heavy Strike + Brutality + Melee Physical Damage + Ruthless + Bloodlust + Damage on Full Life or Stun

Optimized gears -
Heavy Strike + Awakened Brutality + Awakened Melee Physical Damage + Ruthless + Bloodlust + Awakened Multistrike

*Compared to Damage on Full Life, Stun Support offers better stunning, but having a lower DPS may raise a concern that the fight may outlast your flask charges.

*Never use Multistrike with mediocre gears; this will kill your stun capability.

*This doesn't mean that you shouldn't consider other choices like Fortify Support, especially if you do not have other sources of Fortify (like cluster jewel notable Overlord). If you're not going to fight Shaper any time soon, and can stun and kill regular map bosses easily, getting more mitigation can safe lives sometimes.

The Heavy Strike gem setup is not as straight forward as 99% of the builds out there, and that's because of the fact that we have to worry about both our DPS and stun capability, the complicated nature of the interactions between Ruthless and Multistrike, the fact that this build might have or not have other sources of Fortify, and depending on the fight how likely Bloodlust or Damage on Full Life are active.

So, I do recommend giving the gem set up a thought and try to understand the choices. On the other hand, you will be 100% fine using the 2 examples I gave above, this includes anything from daily mapping to Shaper and Sirus.

What's the main endurance charges generator here?

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Flying_Mage wrote:

What's the main endurance charges generator here?

Tidebreaker's built-in Endurance Charge on Melee Stun Support.

There are also some minor sources of charge generation, like Stun Mastery or Enduring Cry.

I'm using Smite the Weak, Fuel the Fight and Drive the Destruction and just skipping all the leech nodes, not going towards Retribution and going up through Berserking and then to the life wheel.

The benefit, for me, was solving my mana issues much earlier and much more easily and it's probably cheaper also than having to find the perfect item with mana leech on it.
It also appears to be more raw damage and less strength. I'm hitting the Constitution life wheel sooner because the frontloaded damage offered by the cluster jewel is netting me XP faster than if I didn't have the jewel at all and had to grind towards that life wheel, normally the only damage bump you'd get up there is Retribution it's self and I guess jewels, but the entire process is more expensive and drawn out than slapping on the right Large Cluster.

Why you consider Warrior's Blood Mandatory? The 20% Stun Threshold on it is related to the player and not to the enemy right?

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MetalSlave wrote:

Why you consider Warrior's Blood Mandatory? The 20% Stun Threshold on it is related to the player and not to the enemy right?

The stun threshold there indeed applies to us not the enemy.

I think it's overall a solid notable. 1.8% life regen is quite solid, each second, it regens more life than what you get from a 5% max life node. In other words, if you die within 1 seconds of taking damage, the 1.8% regen alone is better than a life node.

20 strength is worth about 0.3 to 0.4 passive points, and the 20% stun threshold helps as well.

For Berserker, the life regen is quite necessary to counter its degen from Rage stacks and Blood Rage, so it's pretty mandatory.

For Slayer, it's not so important. If you really have other good nodes to spend your points on, sure, you can ignore this one.

Thanks. Probably I will ignore it (as Slayer).

BTW, can we stack Heavy Hitter (x2)?