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

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HunterMoon wrote:

@brightwaha

Want to say thank you for your awesome build, i had fun moments with stun locking everything. Also great forum guide. I'm done with build now, just want to share some thoughts about build.

Spoiler

I did red elder and shaper. Nothing special about elder, stunlock to portal phase and its done.

About shaper, stunning him is not that easy as i expect (as slayer), but i managed to do it.

My stats:

Life: 7K.

Life Leech per sec: 3.3K

Shaper DPS: 493K (746K with Flasks)

Spoiler

Things that i loved about build:

1- Safe mapping with slayer leech and ability to doing every modes except No leech and Phys ref. (Have to be careful about this mode "Monster can't be stunned").

2- Combination of Ancestral call support and Impact ascendancy is satisfying.

3- Best character for me to doing uber runs.

4- Abyss rare monster and Lich boss was like joke.

Things that hurt me with this build:

1- I never learn anything about boss mechanics, Kappa.(Most of the time they were stunned)

2- Dark Forest map boss is pain in the ass.

3- Guardian of the phoenix was hard for me.

Tnx again for nice build and guide.

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Bibibabibu wrote:

Heya I'm running a berserker version of this.

1) Will I have survivability issues endgame?

2) What do I take instead of dmg on full life support (since no endless hunger)?

3) What are your thoughts on a 6L warchief on belly of the beast chest with stun support?

Thanks!!!

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brightwaha wrote:

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ZzeDarKNesS wrote:

Does this build work as a more "offensive" version without tidebreaker? I know the point is stunlock and its going well for mine but I recently swapped to a high dps mace I found and it feels good to destroy everything faster.

I love the stunlock idea and have a decent tidebreaker but I simply want to know if its possible to still survive or do ok without that wep - will there be absolutely no stuns on high tier maps or guardians, etc? Or still stun some bosses just less cosistent, but you will have higher damage too maybe even respec for another weapon type.

Thanks for the guide and your time!

Good question. Maybe I should add a section in the thread talking about it.

Let’s start by putting up some numbers. Tidebreaker offers 49% r.E.S.T. and the mace passive wheel offers 18%. If we use another mace and compare the 130% we currently have with 130%-49%=81%, it means a difference in stun capability with an equivalent of 158% difference in DPS. This means you need over 1000 PDPS on your weapon, which is not realistic.

But there is a better way to do it, and this better way is to sacrifice a gem slot and use Stun Support. If we replace Maim Support with Stun Support, which offers exactly 49% r.E.S.T., it basically means we will have the same total r.E.S.T. but losing a 1.3 damage multiplier. This way you only need 560 PDPS and that’s achievable.

If we consider a non-mace type weapon, then it means that we get 112% r.E.S.T. after using Stun Support. The difference is equivalent to 29% difference in DPS, and you will need over 1000 PDPS again in your weapon to reach the same stun capability.

The mace wheel provides some stun duration as well, so using a non-mace weapon is pretty bad when it comes to stunning. Tidebreaker, compared to other maces, provides endurance charge generation; this is a very useful utility but difficult to quantify.

Also another problem with the calculations above is that high DPS weapons usually offer local attack speed, which means a bit more to DPS than to stun capability.

If we now consider that we don’t fight Shaper or Guardians but just fight up to t15 bosses, the story is a bit different. Guardians have 8 million life while t15s have 3, this difference is very close to the 158% difference we obtained above. Which means that if you can consistently stun Guardians with your Tidebreaker, you will consistently stun t15 bosses with a rare mace with the same DPS. Again, you won’t be able to generate endurance charges, but you do clear faster.

One thing I do want to mention is that you usually need to run a different gem setup for mapping; whether you do Sunder or Heavy Strike Ancestral Call, it’s some DPS loss over there. So you do need to have a good plan as to what setup to use for mapping and for bossing.

To compile all the mess above: if you aim to stun Shaper, non-mace weapons are almost not viable; rare maces are doable but you will need Stun Support and the cost is a 1.3 damage multiplier from Maim Support. If you aim to just farm maps, you will be able to stun them safely with any rare mace with the single target setup; but with an AoE setup it’s very difficult again. Non-mace type for mapping is fine, but to stun map bosses you also need Stun Support.

And to speak from my experience: I have been playing with my Mirrored rare mace for quite some time, and with Sunder and Onslaught Support I cannot stun even t13 bosses without flasks. A good setup for AoE usually is pretty bad for stunning bosses and that’s why it’s best to have two weapons when you are rich enough to afford doing so. And when you have a weapon for clearing purposes only, knowing that you have your alternative weapon ready for boss stunning, you can play with what you want; you can use any weapon with any reasonable skill and still stun most trash or rare mobs you encounter.

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brightwaha wrote:

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Bibibabibu wrote:

Heya I'm running a berserker version of this.

1) Will I have survivability issues endgame?

2) What do I take instead of dmg on full life support (since no endless hunger)?

3) What are your thoughts on a 6L warchief on belly of the beast chest with stun support?

Thanks!!!

1. Previously when reflect was a thing, I had to be very careful spotting reflection mobs. Now my Berserker character just doesn’t really rip anymore. So you won’t need to worry about survivablility unless you are under-geared and are challenging dangerous maps.

2. Damage on Full Life will work most of the times. Because we stun enemies we mostly only take damage from projectiles from ranged mobs. There are not really any gems on the same power level.

3. You can do so but I don’t recommend doing so. Kaoms just provides way more max life and a 6-link Warchief doesn’t really provide too much damage compared to Heavy Strike. If you really want a 6-link Warchief, it’s fine, but Stun Support is unnecessary in my opinion. Your Warchief will have far far less stun capability then your Heavy Strike and you either encounter weak enemies that you’re gonna stun with your Heavy Strike 100%, or encounter end game bosses that your totem has 0% chance to stun anyways.

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ZzeDarKNesS wrote:

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brightwaha wrote:

"

ZzeDarKNesS wrote:

Spoiler

Does this build work as a more "offensive" version without tidebreaker? I know the point is stunlock and its going well for mine but I recently swapped to a high dps mace I found and it feels good to destroy everything faster.

I love the stunlock idea and have a decent tidebreaker but I simply want to know if its possible to still survive or do ok without that wep - will there be absolutely no stuns on high tier maps or guardians, etc? Or still stun some bosses just less cosistent, but you will have higher damage too maybe even respec for another weapon type.

Thanks for the guide and your time!

Spoiler

Good question. Maybe I should add a section in the thread talking about it.

Let’s start by putting up some numbers. Tidebreaker offers 49% r.E.S.T. and the mace passive wheel offers 18%. If we use another mace and compare the 130% we currently have with 130%-49%=81%, it means a difference in stun capability with an equivalent of 158% difference in DPS. This means you need over 1000 PDPS on your weapon, which is not realistic.

But there is a better way to do it, and this better way is to sacrifice a gem slot and use Stun Support. If we replace Maim Support with Stun Support, which offers exactly 49% r.E.S.T., it basically means we will have the same total r.E.S.T. but losing a 1.3 damage multiplier. This way you only need 560 PDPS and that’s achievable.

If we consider a non-mace type weapon, then it means that we get 112% r.E.S.T. after using Stun Support. The difference is equivalent to 29% difference in DPS, and you will need over 1000 PDPS again in your weapon to reach the same stun capability.

The mace wheel provides some stun duration as well, so using a non-mace weapon is pretty bad when it comes to stunning. Tidebreaker, compared to other maces, provides endurance charge generation; this is a very useful utility but difficult to quantify.

Also another problem with the calculations above is that high DPS weapons usually offer local attack speed, which means a bit more to DPS than to stun capability.

If we now consider that we don’t fight Shaper or Guardians but just fight up to t15 bosses, the story is a bit different. Guardians have 8 million life while t15s have 3, this difference is very close to the 158% difference we obtained above. Which means that if you can consistently stun Guardians with your Tidebreaker, you will consistently stun t15 bosses with a rare mace with the same DPS. Again, you won’t be able to generate endurance charges, but you do clear faster.

One thing I do want to mention is that you usually need to run a different gem setup for mapping; whether you do Sunder or Heavy Strike Ancestral Call, it’s some DPS loss over there. So you do need to have a good plan as to what setup to use for mapping and for bossing.

To compile all the mess above: if you aim to stun Shaper, non-mace weapons are almost not viable; rare maces are doable but you will need Stun Support and the cost is a 1.3 damage multiplier from Maim Support. If you aim to just farm maps, you will be able to stun them safely with any rare mace with the single target setup; but with an AoE setup it’s very difficult again. Non-mace type for mapping is fine, but to stun map bosses you also need Stun Support.

And to speak from my experience: I have been playing with my Mirrored rare mace for quite some time, and with Sunder and Onslaught Support I cannot stun even t13 bosses without flasks. A good setup for AoE usually is pretty bad for stunning bosses and that’s why it’s best to have two weapons when you are rich enough to afford doing so. And when you have a weapon for clearing purposes only, knowing that you have your alternative weapon ready for boss stunning, you can play with what you want; you can use any weapon with any reasonable skill and still stun most trash or rare mobs you encounter.

Thank you for such an in-depth answer, and no it wasn't a mess at all to read. That pretty much clears it up for me, I'll stick with tidehunter for the stunning and viability, maybe swap to a decent rare mace for packs that don't hurt me atm anyway for clear speed instead of stun (have an elder one that gives 20% attack speed if killed recently, helping with mobility in leap slam too). I'm not rich enough to get a second set up going, namely six linking any other wep, and so far I'm still relying on a generic six link chest as opposed to a linked tidebreaker. I'm really enjoying the build though, and seeing bosses stunned is an absolute treat, thanks for creating it.

As a follow up to your explanation of using other weapons being non viable in terms of stunning as there are nearly no weps with enough dps to stun like maces can, do you think a sword can be viable in terms of being 'able to do content' without stunning ? With the loss in defensive stun being made up for some destructive offensive with like a starforge or something? Now that you've explained how the stunning is non viable with other weapon types against any decently high health boss I will pretty much always respec to keep maces and tidebreaker my main, but I'm still itching to know if I can try a barbarian version of the build where we go for the highest damage possible and forgo the stunning (not intentionally, just as an unfortunate side effect). I guess another way to put this is if you were to optimise this set up around starforge, losing the ability to stun high tier bosses but with such high dmg from maybe even crit (imagine the hits with all the crit multi, heavy strike double dmg proc, ruthless), can u still do end game bosses?

Thanks for the answers and guide again, was actually almost touched you gave such an indepth reply lol.

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Bibibabibu wrote:

Is the fire roll on kaom's important? I was thinking of buying the cheapest one due to budget!

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brightwaha wrote:

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Bibibabibu wrote:

Is the fire roll on kaom's important? I was thinking of buying the cheapest one due to budget!

It’s not important at all. Just buy what’s cheapest.

EDIT: The difference between the lowest and highest rolls is 20% increased fire damage. With and without flasks, the ratio of our fire damage compared to our total damage is 4.6% and 6.4%, respectively. So basically this 20% increased fire damage is equivalent to 1% increased attack damage.