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

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Daniel_San76 wrote:

I know you said it'll be a little tougher to permastun with another weapon like a sword, for example. However, I played around a bit with someone's permastun build last patch, and it still works in 3.1 also. His build is here

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2018932/page/1

The build uses Starforge, and there isn't any mirror gear. Obviously defense is sacrificed because he uses Abyssus, but he still does 2-3million dps and permastuns even Shaper. So, to those wondering if it's possible to stun with other weapon types, while still doing respectable damage, it's definitely achievable. I'm not sure if there is something workable for axes or staves, but I can't see why not.

I am well aware of this build. But the DPS and stun capability might not be as good as it seems. I believe in his video he used a different set of GG items, I watched the video when it came out like months ago, and that's what people also discussed in the comment section.

In the PoB he shared, he does include normal items and as the result there is only 1.4 million DPS. This DPS includes not setting boss to Shaper/Guardians, Vaal Haste, 4 damage flasks, as well as 3 power charges and 3 frenzy charges that he cannot generate in single target boss fights. For some reason he did not select always on full life and he will have some shock on the boss, both will increase this DPS number.

With the correct config options as I always used(with flasks but not anything that shouldn't exist in a boss fight), the DPS should be around 1.3 million. With better gears this number and go up a bit and shock also helps a bit.

Now I plug in his stats into my simulation code, and I see 40% stun up-time on Guardians and 22% stun up-time on Shaper. Considering situation of better gears and shock, I tried to double his damage numbers and did another simulation, this time there is still only 40% stun up-time on Shaper. So to achieve a higher number, really good gears must be used. Usually, people will not be able to reliably stun Shaper with Starforge.

It's easy to see the problems here. His Starforge build has 79% r.E.S.T. with Stun Support, and we have 130% r.E.S.T. This difference means that he needs to do 278% of our damage to compensate for the lack of r.E.S.T.(I have the formulas listed in the Build Mechanics section.) The 152% inc. stun duration this Starforge build has is also much lower than what a Tidebreaker can achieve.

So in order to stun better than a Tidebreaker with a Starforge, one needs to achieve around 300% of our damage as well as a much higher attack speed(so more than 3 million DPS) on a 5-link(because 1 gem needs to be Stun Support). I don't think it's possible without very good crit gears.

However, his build does provide a some good experience with map clearing and that's what this Tidebreaker build falls behind. Being able to use Flicker with the secondary weapon is also an upside for people who likes Flicker.

EDIT: some changes were made after posting.

Hi, I would like to try this build in hc, and you mentidoned that it is very possible, with some additions. What would you consider good additions or changes ? I am planning to run as a slayer with iron reflexes and grace, to boost up my armour. I was thinking abour trying to get all the purity gems with an enlighten get running, but it does not seem confortably doable according to the planner. Any other suggestions ?

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Dinnyepapa wrote:

Hi, I would like to try this build in hc, and you mentidoned that it is very possible, with some additions. What would you consider good additions or changes ? I am planning to run as a slayer with iron reflexes and grace, to boost up my armour. I was thinking abour trying to get all the purity gems with an enlighten get running, but it does not seem confortably doable according to the planner. Any other suggestions ?

I am not a Hardcore expert; I tried to play a 1-hand variant of this build with Callinellus Malleus in Abyss HC and it ripped in Uber Lab trials. I did say it's very viable because I have heard from other people having success in Hardcore. So although I will try to give some advice below, you should be aware that I can be making bad suggestions.

My philosophy of surviving in Hardcore is to survive against anything that can potentially kill us in a very short amount of time. The reason I previously decided to do a 1-hand variant is that I believe having this small amount of block chance will help in a common scenario that: I Leap Slam into a pack of mobs, lag, so cannot stun or react in time, then mobs all hit me at once, Immortal Call on cooldown, rip. Grace and Iron Reflexes definitely can help you survive in this scenario.

The other common way to rip is from burst damage from bosses. I thought about using Belt of the Deceiver for the extra defense from crits, but not having a rare belt for this build really sucks. Since mostly the burst damage is elemental damage, building up a large life pool is the most efficient and reliable way.

I think there are 2 types of HC builds, the passive-defensive and the active-defensive(I made these names up, maybe people have already defined those types and have other names for it). The passive-defensive is like those with max block and high regen, so that they will survive in maps even if they are AFK. The active-defensive type is like the old pre-nerf Vaal Pact insta-leech ones, as long as they keep on hitting, they will be at full life. This stun build is also an active-defensive one, if we actively stun we are pseudo invulnerable(enemy don't attack = we don't take damage), but if we play while half-asleep or lagging, it's going to be rippy.

So overall, a list of suggestions:

1. Be alert while you play, stop when you're tired.

2. Prioritize life nodes in the passive tree as well as gears.

3. Choose the pure physical version and run Iron Reflexes and Grace. The second aura might be Arctic Armour, or it can be Enlighten + Haste, or can be Blasphemy + Temporal Chains. Usually Enfeeble is a better defensive curse but Temporal Chains can make our stuns last longer, so I like Temporal Chains over Enfeeble for HC content.

4. I think both Berserker and Slayer will be good choices. Although Berserker offers negative survivability we do get too much DPS and stun capability from it(so we can focus more on life nodes without having to worry about DPS too much).

5. I will maybe consider swapping out Empire's Grasp and/or Devoto's Devotion. This is debatable and I cannot really decide.

6. You can also try out other weapon types like Callinellus Malleus. But if you aim for high end content, Callinellus Malleus will feel lackluster.

EDIT: some minor changes were made after posting.

This is one of my favorite builds. I struggled at first but then I was able to tear apart mobs super fast. Anyway I'm going to use this build to fight Elder and his guardians. Any suggestions? I'm using the marauder variant btw

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BeoWulf981 wrote:

This is one of my favorite builds. I struggled at first but then I was able to tear apart mobs super fast. Anyway I'm going to use this build to fight Elder and his guardians. Any suggestions? I'm using the marauder variant btw

You should be able to stun-lock Elder and his guardians easily if you have collected some semi-decent gears, and all those fights are ridiculously easy if you can stun the bosses. That's how I did Elder and as the result... I can't really share any more suggestions. (How can one share his experience with Elder if Elder wasn't able to perform a single skill.)

Jokes aside, it is possible that Elder may not be perfectly stun-locked(red Elder has the 2nd highest life pool in the game if I recall correctly). If this happens there are several skills to dodge. Make sure you know about these skills before fighting the Elder.

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brightwaha wrote:

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BeoWulf981 wrote:

This is one of my favorite builds. I struggled at first but then I was able to tear apart mobs super fast. Anyway I'm going to use this build to fight Elder and his guardians. Any suggestions? I'm using the marauder variant btw

You should be able to stun-lock Elder and his guardians easily if you have collected some semi-decent gears, and all those fights are ridiculously easy if you can stun the bosses. That's how I did Elder and as the result... I can't really share any more suggestions. (How can one share his experience with Elder if Elder wasn't able to perform a single skill.)

Jokes aside, it is possible that Elder may not be perfectly stun-locked(red Elder has the 2nd highest life pool in the game if I recall correctly). If this happens there are several skills to dodge. Make sure you know about these skills before fighting the Elder.

I have a white elder and I'm about to take him on with a 5l Tidebreaker lol. All jokes aside I hope I'm ready.

So I'm strongly considering this build, as it looks quite fun and I have some currency to burn.

However, I'm having a really hard time deciding between Slayer and Berzerker. I read your blurb about them, and I'm torn because on the one hand I love slayer overleech and the AoE splash potential with ancestral call, but on the other hand, I don't want to suck for bosses (I want to be able to beat the game with this character, meaning uber atziri too). Would going slayer really gimp my ability to do that content? How big of a difference are we talking on shapers/guardians/uber atziri?

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Xyrm wrote:

So I'm strongly considering this build, as it looks quite fun and I have some currency to burn.

However, I'm having a really hard time deciding between Slayer and Berzerker. I read your blurb about them, and I'm torn because on the one hand I love slayer overleech and the AoE splash potential with ancestral call, but on the other hand, I don't want to suck for bosses (I want to be able to beat the game with this character, meaning uber atziri too). Would going slayer really gimp my ability to do that content? How big of a difference are we talking on shapers/guardians/uber atziri?

I need to talk about each boss separately.

Shaper: if you care about scenic effect of stun-locking Shaper then Berserker is much better. However, beating Shaper is another story. According to my code, my Berserker character has about 99% stun-up-time and my Slayer should have somewhere around 90%. This means that, considering also the factor of my mistakes while playing, you will have around 90% chance to stun-lock and finish one of Shaper's phases with Berserker and 70% chance to stun-lock and finish one of Shaper's phases with Slayer. If we are unlucky, we will fail to stun-lock. But this does not mean that we lose the fight. Shaper may start a minion portal if we fail to stun and that's perfectly fine, you just need to spend some more time to kill him. Both versions are able to kill Shaper, Berserker will have a much better time.

Chimera & Hydra: both versions are able to stun-lock and kill these 2 Guardians.

Phoenix: can be stun-locked but due to the existence of adds, both versions are recommended to not rely on stunning to fight the boss. Both versions are able to kill Phoenix.

Minotaur: stun-immune. Both versions are able to kill Minotaur, Slayer will have a better time due to better leech.

Uber Atziri, twin Vessel bosses: both versions will be able to stun-lock and kill the twin Vessels.

Uber Atziri, Trio bosses: both versions will be able to stun them, but due to the messy nature of this fight, both versions may end up kill them by kiting them, and Slayer might have a better time due to better leech.

Uber Atziri, Atziri boss: the main phase is stun-immune and both versions will be able to stun-lock and kill the clones. Both versions will be able to kill Atziri, but Berserker should have a better time due to better mobility and DPS.

TLDR: Both versions will be able to do those contents.

However, in the scenario of mediocre gears, Berserker will definitely have an easier time stunning bosses(but also have a harder time surviving maps).

Thanks for the quick reply!

One thing I noticed in your slayer tree is that you don't get any of the leech nodes near VP. How does the slayer get leech in your setup?

Also, you mentioned in your main post that the berserker is the better option if you have a lot of currency to spend. However, your previous post you just said:

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However, in the scenario of mediocre gears, Berserker will definitely have an easier time stunning bosses(but also have a harder time surviving maps).

I'm probably misunderstanding, but does this imply there's a route that slayer can go with enough currency investment to have similar stun capability? Could slayer compare with berzerker if I gave up impact for overwhelm?

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Xyrm wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply!

One thing I noticed in your slayer tree is that you don't get any of the leech nodes near VP. How does the slayer get leech in your setup?

Also, you mentioned in your main post that the berserker is the better option if you have a lot of currency to spend. However, your previous post you just said:

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However, in the scenario of mediocre gears, Berserker will definitely have an easier time stunning bosses(but also have a harder time surviving maps).

I'm probably misunderstanding, but does this imply there's a route that slayer can go with enough currency investment to have similar stun capability?

There is a 0.4% leech from the Bloody Bludgeon notable, which is already good enough.

The problem with playing a Berserker with a small budget is that, how do you switch between AoE and single target? With Slayer, one can AoE with Heavy Strike; With Berserker, if you swap to Heavy Strike before a boss fight, you won't be able to clear adds easily in the boss arena. So the reason that I suggested people to pick Berserker only if they have some savings is that Berserker kind of needs 2 weapons(or a 6-link body armour) to fully function(for AoE and single target separately).