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

This build is deader than a doornail.

We’ll see what kind of builds end up being meta, but I am highly doubtful that any of these slow is better changes GGG is making will work. The game is balanced around one shot mechanics and clear speed. Perma stun was our way around that fact, and now it is gone.

Anyways, thanks to OP. I learned quite a lot from making this build, so I suppose all is not lost.

I am incredibly sad, this was my favorite mechanic of the game. First no more Cops show, now this?!? :D

Thank you to the OP, and previous builds of old. I have learned much as well following this path, even though it still didn't feel as powerful as other classes and builds, it was the most satisfying to me to play.

Edit: After reading back a couple pages, I am curious how trying to rack up decent damage to out DPS phase bosses during an initial would turn out... I do not want to call it dead, we need to be creative. The increase in damage 2h is receiving might be an even exchange from required r.E.S.T. to dump into duration where possible.

Since I am seeing many posts here, especially many from very familiar names - out of the concern that I will likely not see many of the names again, I just want to say thank you to all of you for joining the effort of optimizing this stun build for such a long time.

I believe for many of us it has been an everlasting goal to find a build that can stun-lock the toughest bosses in the game and clear other contents comfortably. Now that I think this goal has ended for many, if not all of us. I do think this build still retains its strength in many ways, but its core strength and joy has been taken away, together with the stun-lock challenge it brings up.

To those that won't consider the stun mechanics and such builds ever again, it was my pleasure to have created the past legacy of stun-locking with you. To those that still want to check out this build and see the possibilities of the stun mechanics, I will still be around and making changes. Although due to time constraints I will fall short in updating the guide. If any has ideas on how to change the build for the new era, please feel free to leave your thoughts here.

I'll still be playing this build in 3.11.
The way I found this build started with the desire to deal high single target damage with a 2hander, to me the stunlocking aspect just happened to be a very nice bonus. In my mind I still find this to be the most versatile 2 handed build. (No choice but to run Enduring Cry on bosses, but this can activate Earthshatter now. This seems interesting to me and gives more incentive to use a 6l chest.)

I'll still be experimenting. I'll post anything interesting I come up with.

Good luck all and thank you for your contributions!

Gonna stick around for sure and try to see what people will cook up to keep this build alive. Now that ice crash doesn't even do cold damage anymore, it might be one of those options worth looking at whenever the reworked stats are revealed.

And the VERY LEAST now some cluster skills will be in the skill tree-which is good and bad at the same time. After all, there are only so many points we can spend.

I agree with the OP, Berserker will have very poor defense now, Slayer will probably take on. The whole change to war bringer might give berserker even more damage, but he does not really need it. The heal loss is substantial and probably crippling. Berserker will be best relying on Soul Tether + corrupted soul combo now, for leech at full life, basically mimicking Slayer playstile.

With that said, I will start as Slayer, exploring the new Slam changes, messing around with Earthquake, Ground Slam, Sunder and Earthshatter. Aiming for Marohi Erqi until I find a GG rare.

For clusters I think I'll just get Overlord, Weight Advantage and Surefooted Striker.

I'm also tempted on doing the Impaler + impale nodes. It looks interesting.

New gems and reworked gem details are out, and weapon base reworks.

Guess there is a bunch of aoe options to pick from, just dunno which one would work the best for early game.

Edit: Tried Sirus again, died over and over on the last phase. Boy is that phase punishing and absurd. I legit thought he would just shoot that insta-death beam once and move on with his life, instead he keeps shooting it from afar while you have to dance through those 4 constant beams. So really not a fun or fair phase compared to all the other combat phases that do give you SOME room for mistakes.

A comment to those that suggest stacking stun duration for boss fight stunning:

Now that the stun immunity is a thing, it may seem that stun duration is very useful in getting a better stun coverage in boss fights, but it's probably worse than you expected.

We used to achieve a high stun duration via Ruthless Support. The difference in stun duration is 0.8 sec to 0.35 sec with and without Ruthless Strike. The problem is that, the boss becomes immune to stun for 2 or 4 seconds after being stunned, and you simply cannot guarantee that the first stun you land after the boss leaves stun immunity phase would be a Ruthless Strike.

Say we get 200% increased stun duration, that translates to 1 sec and 2.5 sec in stun duration with and without Ruthless Strike. Because there are 2 non-Ruthless Strikes for each Ruthless Strikes, it's actually quite likely that even with this moderate investment in stun duration, you only stun for 1 sec.

Investing more into stun duration, unless you really go deep into that, may raise that 1 sec to maybe 1.5 seconds? I don't think this justifies the cost. I think the top priority now is simply to get a higher DPS and life pool, which are just more widely useful in my opinion.

This also shows how bad GGG's designs have been. The Ruthless stun duration is now just meaningless half of the time.

I am honestly still confused at why they would nerf something that already requires so much investment and is so niche. Like, there are so many builds you melt things without relying on a certain gimmick or are nearly unstoppable while this is a melee build that relies on stunning.

What about permafreeze? Do you think that is a possible thing to pull off with Slayer?

@Praef
I think it was the uploaded youtube vid that made GGG deciding to kill this build although it was a very small group playing this.
It was just to much showing 5 min on youtube how you make sleep every single boss in the total game killing them while stunned and playing 5 mins sleep well, sleep well music to it.
Just too much and we got the wrong attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K1ZsrknZY0&feature=youtu.be

sighs

IceFire