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

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Crêpo wrote:

I have another comment on the Slayer vs. Scion discussion:

The Slayer DPS relies heavily on the writhing jar procs, while not only does Scion not need this, it also gets free intimidate from champion ascendency.

It looks to me like you have Slayer for mapping, Berserker for bossing and Scion as always is in the middle of the two.

Before reaching a conclusion, I think one statement we should make is that high DPS alone is useless. Say you can one-shot map packs, but you have poor mobility, then you are gonna clear much slower than a fast build with maybe a quarter of your DPS; or, say you're doing Shaper fight, as long as we can stun Shaper 100%, would you mind if Shaper gets to next stage within 5 seconds or 8 seconds?

The Champion variant I included in the guide, for example, obviously has the 2nd highest DPS due to Impale, and has good passive defenses as well. However, Impale does not help with stunning and Champion is slow. Which means, it's one of the worst in achieving stun-locking and one of the worst in mapping speed as well; also maybe one of the worst in survival, for it being slow and has no other means of life recovery. (Most people said they felt an improvement in survival after swapping rare helm to Devoto's, as mobility may be a more effective for survival than plain defensive numbers.)

So yes, Slayer looks awful in PoB; and I sometimes doubt Slayer's viability as well. But the experience playing Slayer isn't bad at all. The increased AoE, the potential to have melee splash, the life leech, and the Overwhelm stun nodes are all good utilities that will make sure that, although you have bad DPS and defensive numbers on paper, the actual mapping and bossing experience will be decent.

If we compare Berserker and Scion, we can see that they're quite similar. Berserker has significantly higher DPS and warcry heal; Scion has better passive defense and permanent Fortify while mapping. I wouldn't say one is objectively better than another, and my own gameplay experience with Berserker and Scion are almost equally good.

And as for mapping/bossing, I would say Scion is more suited for mapping purposes, as you get high mobility but no alternative life recovery, which can be crucial when you make a mistake.

Also want to point out: Deidbellow is a great budget helm if you are just entering maps.

It takes some time getting used to spamming warcries (and god forgive your keyboards/fingers) but you can keep the MS/AS buff up 100% with the warcry nodes besides unwavering and the stunning nodes for some good QoL for speed mapping

you can get it for 2-4c day 1/2 of new league and it also helps with dex requirements

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frawrst wrote:

Also want to point out: Deidbellow is a great budget helm if you are just entering maps.

It takes some time getting used to spamming warcries (and god forgive your keyboards/fingers) but you can keep the MS/AS buff up 100% with the warcry nodes besides unwavering and the stunning nodes for some good QoL for speed mapping

you can get it for 2-4c day 1/2 of new league and it also helps with dex requirements

Doesn’t “cannot leech when on low life” cause problems? I believe it means you cannot recovery life or mana via leech when on low life, but I also wonder if it cancels current leech instances.

Because if it does cancel current leech instances, it makes it very difficult to recover back to full health, and is a very significant defensive drawback.

i havent tested to see if it stops leeching once u drop to 20%, however i guess i havent noticed it either due to warbringer and the instant warcry nodes being so easy to heal from

probably not the most efficient but i find it very suitable for serker speed mapping

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brightwaha wrote:

RANT: GGG clearly does not know what "balance" means. In Betrayal, we almost had 30 times more Occultist players than Slayers - yes, 30. Now Slayer is getting a nerf and Occultist is buffed in every way possible. Meanwhile, it looks like Berserker (0.1% in Betrayal) is not getting any change and other really popular ascenancies like Elementalist and Jugg don't seem to get a nerf either. For the first time, I will say - GGG, you should feel ashamed for doing the worst balancing out of all games I have ever played.

Ahah yes it's a bit insane...
Sure self casting needed some buffs and Marauder/Duelist aren't the best for it, but maybe they should have inverted 3.6 and 3.7 focus to equalize the balance a bit...

At least the Berserker version just get the Hatred nerf, for now

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frawrst wrote:

i havent tested to see if it stops leeching once u drop to 20%, however i guess i havent noticed it either due to warbringer and the instant warcry nodes being so easy to heal from

probably not the most efficient but i find it very suitable for serker speed mapping

Yea I think I can agree that it's a pretty good mapping choice for Berserkers. During mapping, it's also pretty easy to gain multiple leech stacks anyway, so unless single-target scenario, the leech downside should not be very noticeable.

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Kirbynou wrote:

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brightwaha wrote:

RANT: GGG clearly does not know what "balance" means. In Betrayal, we almost had 30 times more Occultist players than Slayers - yes, 30. Now Slayer is getting a nerf and Occultist is buffed in every way possible. Meanwhile, it looks like Berserker (0.1% in Betrayal) is not getting any change and other really popular ascenancies like Elementalist and Jugg don't seem to get a nerf either. For the first time, I will say - GGG, you should feel ashamed for doing the worst balancing out of all games I have ever played.

Ahah yes it's a bit insane...
Sure self casting needed some buffs and Marauder/Duelist aren't the best for it, but maybe they should have inverted 3.6 and 3.7 focus to equalize the balance a bit...

At least the Berserker version just get the Hatred nerf, for now

Yea, inverting the 3.6 and 3.7 changes would have made it a bit better. But I do think that working on only one thing per patch can only break things, instead of fix things.

I hope they can try to address everything when it comes to balancing. Or, they may do something like mid-league balance changes, which forces a meta rotation and refreshes the league.

For now, I can only hope that the patch notes that should be coming out very soon will look good.

depending on the curse for bosses changes, pure phys may be buffed with vuln + blasph, and can use the imprescene neck to get 0% reservation, allowing for arctic armor and herald of purity and haste?

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frawrst wrote:

depending on the curse for bosses changes, pure phys may be buffed with vuln + blasph, and can use the imprescene neck to get 0% reservation, allowing for arctic armor and herald of purity and haste?

The ideal setup would still be a curse corruption on the gloves, but of course it’s expensive and the Imprescence sounds like a good replacement. However, without rare amulet, we have to make some compromises to get these resists. Maybe you will need to get rare gloves instead of Tombfist, which is some DPS loss as well.

I’m guessing that the curse effectiveness is going to be 40% for Shaper and 60% for unique bosses. If that is the case, Vulnerability is still not enough to justify losing Tombfist. I think we need to wait for the patch notes and then we can see if it will end up being a good choice.

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Leech Length Nerf
Previously, there was no upper limit on how much an individual leech effect could restore. This meant that a very high damage hit with enough leech could last minutes, if not longer, if you had an effect letting your leech remain on full life. Now, there is a limit of 10% restored per leech effect, so each individual leech effect can't last more than 5 seconds. For the Ascendant's Slayer Passive Skill, this is 5% lower.

This is a disaster for the Slayer, right? This change dramatically punishes big hits.