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

To respond to above,

Just like how every league start has been a disaster until they roll out like 5 patches after half a month, GGG isn't known for making the best changes. Things get changed and optimized if enough people are complaining, but somethings without much attention remain stupid, just like the stun immunity of all Syndicate members.

So, since I am not expecting the best from GGG's balance team to begin with, this change doesn't really surprise me at all.

As for permafreeze, most endgame bosses have the cannot be fully slowed mod, and freeze is a 100% slow effect. As the result, you can freeze a boss, but a frozen boss can still move around and attack and cast spells - the boss does perform actions slower though, just like the chill effect.

Yikes, glad I didn't invest anything on PoE yet because it really doesn't sound like a long term game if it already has a fame like this. Yeah, I did notice the Syndicate with immunity, but the GLARING issue I have with them is the game LAGGING, truly tanking during interventions; leaving you a sitting duck to get assassinated.

Oh, yikes. I thought freeze counted as an ailment, well then...so much for finding a replacement. I was pondering about glacial hammer because of the freezing and its own "culling strike" effect against frozen enemies. If the target has less than a third of their health they are executed.

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Praef wrote:

Yikes, glad I didn't invest anything on PoE yet because it really doesn't sound like a long term game if it already has a fame like this. Yeah, I did notice the Syndicate with immunity, but the GLARING issue I have with them is the game LAGGING, truly tanking during interventions; leaving you a sitting duck to get assassinated.

Oh, yikes. I thought freeze counted as an ailment, well then...so much for finding a replacement. I was pondering about glacial hammer because of the freezing and its own "culling strike" effect against frozen enemies. If the target has less than a third of their health they are executed.

Well, it's not like they have a fame like this, it's just it's one of the aspects they are not very good at in my opinion. No developer is perfect, and there are countless dev teams that are much bigger than GGG but are way worse.

The lagging issue could be hardware related. I personally don't encounter this issue at all, and I suppose this is due to the game trying to pull Syndicate data right when the fight starts, and I suppose an SSD should solve the issue for most people.

I do think this game is great as a long term game, I have been playing on and off for quite a few years, and although there are always a lot of flaws in the details of their changes, the game has been on track for the most part and has definitely improved a lot over the years.

Yeah but it is kinda concerning and also annoying to know that your build could just die in a random patch and make your investment pointless. And leaving bothersome bugs/problems unsolved for so long. Honestly I am not sure, still going to try this league of course and try to form an opinion but right now I can't say it is very positive.

They try to offer a lot of options but at the same time limit them and end up trying to push some certain playstyles. The whole forcing "slow and strong" just doesn't sit well, one thing is offering the option; another is trying to enforce it as the only style for 2h.

And I am not sure about that, I can run the whole game without lagging unless there is a lot going on screen-But on some very specific occasions the game gets these crazy lag spikes. Specifically Syndicate and the Hall of Grandmasters. So your theory could be correct as both do have to pull data, but I feel like it is one of those things that could be fixed/optimized considering not everyone has an SSD for that. It is troublesome when your game runs smoothly only to suddenly tank in the worst kind of situations.

I legit don't even know how I will start next league as melee is being slapped on the knees with a bat. What do you think about the freezing stuff? Like you can't -fully- slow them, but you can at least leave them with 99% penalty, no? So at least that could slow down the boss' deadliest attacks by a large margin. Of course I am just theorizing as I am not sure how effective chill/slow are on monsters. Probably might use ground slam and have glacial hammer leveling on a secondary weapon just in case.

Really bummed to see the changes affecting this build so harshly. It's disappointing especially considering they're trying to make 2h and stuns more popular. This has been my favorite build for years, but I haven't bothered playing in a few leagues because I'm just not as interested in grinding to the same spot on the same build again, I wanted to see some really interesting new stuff in the game.

Guess I'll keep waiting for 2.0 and see how these changes play out.

For now I am just trying to think about alternative ways to make obnoxious bosses less obnoxious without stunlocking them. Depending on the answer I get about freezing their asses, I might give it a test along with an aoe attack.

Tbh I've already reworked into a Warcry build. I'm gonna try out rotating 3 Warcries since they're on 8 second cooldowns now. Enduring obviously because the main plan still stays the same, still using Tidebreaker, plus Enduring is 2k regen a sec now.
The next is Seismic Cry for obvious reasons, but I'm questioning this with the EQ buff, I feel like it will be overkill, I will level Ancestral Cry just in case.
Third is Intimidating Cry.

This opens up a fork: you can either build towards Ancestral Heavy Striking everything, maxing out Slams or you can be this hyrbid type, doing a little bit of everything simultaneously at times.

I'm really leaning towards Enduring, Ances, Intimidating for the armor and single target and just swapping to Seismic when I'm only mapping or Delving.
Urgent Commands Support will be linked to them to see how that works.

I came up with this myself, but this is the most intuitive thing you could do with Warcry basically, but other people are using Tec Chieftan and other things as a base. People will avoid using this base because of the stun change, I hope Tidebreaker is really cheap this league.

Enduring cry is proving to be EXTREMELY strong right now, and earthshatter is proving to be a fine skill too. A pretty nice combo with endu and seismic cry, plus we have leap slam.

Yeah I ended up just going Earthshatter with Ancestral, Intimidating and Enduring Cry. Heavy Strike for single target, although I do have Ances Support on it for leveling.

Intim and Ances Cry are interesting. Ances Cry exerts only consume my Heavy Strike while Intim exerts consume slams and attacks.

It's very strong, but very painful to play without Resolute Technique. You can barely get attacks off sometimes and when you do you just miss. If I can go back I would rush Resolute Technique before getting anything else, like I'm mad I didn't get Resolute Technique first, such AIDS..

How can they nerf so many things melee related if this league is supposed to make melee more endearing again. I was so looking forward to playing (a version of) this build, but with the changes from this and last league it completely ruined stun builds.
Hell.. even those new slam skills/supports aren't really a buff to that melee play style...
I might just hold off on playing poe until the release of poe2 at this point.

P.S. Thanks for your guide and time.