[0.10.1g] The Groundshocker: Dual-Wield Elemental Ground Slam Marauder

Toazd nailed it when he said physical damage is the #1 problem of this build. Although it is by no means a deal breaker. I did 3 things in particular that helped me very much get over that problem.

First I switched to a shield instead of an offhand, I noticed the jump in survivability WAY more than i noticed the drop in DPS. I am now running 2 granite flasks that add extra armor on use. The most important thing is I got very good using leap slam to keep myself in good position and to get myself out of harms way. Leap Slam with a fast weapon socketed with Faster Attacks is simply amazing!

I just hit level 74 and I am having no problems what so ever in maps. I have been plowing through maps up to level 68 with very few deaths, and at about the same pace if not faster than my level 78 LA ranger.

I have ground slam 5 linked and socketed with WED-FA-LOH-(Concentrated effect or Elemental proliferation depending on the situation) When solo I pretty much run CE all the time unless I get a map with a lot of ranged mobs, especially the snakes. Proliferation is a pretty amazing gem for this build. It doesn't take long to get 3 stacks of shock with it. The best part about it is after you kill a mob that has been effected by it, the aura stays there until the shock effect would have worn off. So you keep things stunned at max range from you, it builds up a wall of the shock prolif auras, and new mobs walk into it and are instantly effected with 3 stacks of shock.

This is my gear


hps: 3458
armor: 2514 That is with a shield :(
res: 74 fire 80 cold and lightning -60 chaos
GS DPS: 5461(CE)/3313(Ele Prolif)
Glacial Hammer DPS: 6116

I am mostly lightning damage, so I run Conductivity, the extra chance to shock makes a big difference, especially when running Elemental Proliferation. Also I like to run Decoy Totem, its fun to put one down and stun lock every mob trying to run to it.

I think its important to get your flasks specialized. I am running 2 health pots, 1 that dispells curses and the other dispells frozen and chilled. 2 granites with extra armor mod, and a quicksilver with extra movement speed. When you get in the habit of popping the granites before you start taking damage instead of an oh shit button, things start to get much easier!

I also think running reduced stun threshold helps a lot if your damage isn't quite where you want it to be.

Edit: Forgot to link my build.

Very good gear , congratz!

Here is where I've ended up for the time being for my reroll character for this build (Reason why is explained in one of my previous posts). I will continue to try to tweak this to my needs. This allows me to try Inner force later on if I choose to, for the same amount of points, except I save a few points here and there on the smaller hp nodes that I personally will not need.

89pts



Where I go from here depends on my experience, and how I feel my gameplay style would benefit. Just thought I'd share!

Cyfen: Thanks for sharing! Lots of helpful advise ;) I just wanted to make sure you were aware of these 2 easily accessible nodes regarding reduced enemy stun threshold:



Of course the gem is better, I just wanted to make sure you knew they were there.

It seems in the end, is up to the players...

All the variants for me are good, and depends more in what do u want.

In my personal opinion, Iron Reflexes, is a good choice, if u want more armor for defense, but i think granite flask is good enough, mobs dont come closer, they die before that.

Using a shield or another offhand weapon, the difference normally is u get a little squishy with an offhand weapon but your dps got increased greatly, is a matter of gear more than is "bad or good" using a shield or not. for now, since for me, i like some survival, gonna go with the shield, and see if i can get a better shield, or increase the quality of my gear more (normally is a matter about Maximum Life, Resistances, Armour, and some random value)

Going more in the duelist tree, u can get more block % chance with and offhand weapon (, and attack speed. and it seems is a good variant, with dual weapons too. (with dervish, Acceleration)

And some guy post another variant build, where u can get the chance to curse 2 times (so u can use ele weakness and conductivity, with shock slam), seems fun, but i dont test this build.

In the end is up to the players. and what gear u can get. until then, im gonna take HP nodes.

PD: I like more shield charge instead leap slam.

So i started using this build,

few questions?

1) Is there a video guide for this or some gameplay footage?

2) Scepters are so hard to find, how do you guys itemize your waepons?

3) Survivability is weak :(

ty

So you are using almost the whole guide to tell us how usless a offhand weapon is with ground slam - and still u want us to dual wield with groundslam?

Worst.thread.ever.

How significant is the mod , 30% increased elemental damage from weapons. I do not find a significant increase in dps . my choice is between two belts. does a certain value of + integer addition of elemental damage outweigh this mod?

"

Zinja wrote:

How significant is the mod , 30% increased elemental damage from weapons. I do not find a significant increase in dps . my choice is between two belts. does a certain value of + integer addition of elemental damage outweigh this mod?

That all depends on how much elemental damage you have on your gear. 30% of 600 is going to be a lot more than 30% of 200.

"

Pesstrong wrote:

So you are using almost the whole guide to tell us how usless a offhand weapon is with ground slam - and still u want us to dual wield with groundslam?

Worst.thread.ever.

I am not exactly sure who or what you are referring to. Dual wielding with Ground Slam using a good stat stick will greatly increase your actual DPS. The tooltip DPS is way off when you bring in an offhand though. This is the offhand I was using.

When I equip it the tooltip drops a good 500 dps over a shield, but I attack noticeably faster and harder when I have it equipped. I would go back to the stat stick, but it screws with Glacial Hammer and I can't chill lock tanky rare and unique mobs quite as effectively so it looks like I will be using a shield permanently from here on out.

I was asked to post screenshots of the difference between Elemental Proliferation and Concentrated Effect. This is GS socketed with FA-LOH-WED-(EP/CE)


The only time I use CE now is when I am in full IIQ gear, including a quantity gem socketed to GS over WED. EP is just incredible, the auras almost make a wall that mobs can't get through because they stack up making every mob that tries to get through it take 120% more damage. I also like not having gimpy range. If there is any interest I can try to make a video of me doing a map, but I do have a pretty bad computer, so it might not work very well.

The 30% increased elemental damage from weapons is not getting added to the damage numbers directly like one would think it should. if i have 15 light minimum damage the damage with the 30% edw is not 15+ (15*1/3) which is 20 but actually a lot less than 20. more like 16.5
id give you this belt for you to check. which makes this belt totally usless .... as compared to straight up integer additions.
@Cyfen
very nice info,thanks for posting screens. i am at a few skill points short of your build
here's mine

my offensive damage screen shot of gs. Even I use a 5L and run 3 aura's wrath anger and hate, is just 2642.

I have been trying to find ways to increase my gs dps. your dps of 5K is pretty impressive. I assumed my gear and stats would have got me to atleast 4k but its not the case...
my gear at the moment


Comparing your screen shot , skills , gears and mine i am lead to believe that the difference in damage is owing to your 30% more attack, and you have a higher maximum main hand damage. ive noticed the damage numbers is a direct addition of physical + fire + cold + lightning damage numbers [main hand] .

Zinja,

I think you have a lot of room to easily fix your DPS. 2 things stick out big time. Added Fire Damage socketed to your ground slam, and also your use of Hatred. Both of them add a % of your physical damage. On your tool tip for ground slam it is showing you doing an average of 75 physical damage per swing. So that adds a grand total of 27 damage for the added fire and 16.5 damage for hatred per swing. Not to mention Hatred is taking off a HUGE chunk of your life, so I would get rid of that asap.

The WED you have socketed to Anger adds no DPS, it would be better off attached to Glacial Hammer with Faster Attack and Life Leech if you have them. The Life Leech is key here, because you should be able to heal enough HPs with that and a pot to take on the additional health or cant stun mobs that ground slam tends to have problems with.

Also I think Life on Hit may help you out a little more than the Life Leech for Ground Slam, the Hps are applied instantly rather than as a flask type effect.


I made a video, but i was getting right at 20 fps, so the gameplay is a bit bad and the quality is terrible, but you can get the idea of how well Elemental Proliferation works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_DERuUNwSY&feature=youtu.be