The builds both look pretty similar. Which one would you guys use and why? Cause right now I'm kinda doubting to use the one from OP or the on I linked.
Cheers.
Have both of these bookmarked next to each other :)
As you mentioned, builds are similar, especially at earlier levels. Late game it seems this build opts more for HP, whereas the other one has some points in dex and int (no doubt to allow for the green and blue gems).
Additionally there's a small difference in the types of gear recommended.
I feel this one is "easier" to begin with, as you get to understand the game mechanics without having to worry about too much else.
Thanks for this guide, I've only started playing path in the last week and this is a great build to play and enjoy the game.
Had a question - couldn't see this covered earlier but I saw in the guide it mentions all the support gems are Red. I've only got a couple of support gems so far but clicking on the Faster Attacks gem it seems to be a Green gem, does that mean we need a 4 link with 3 red and 1 green for these skills?
Also, do the faster attack green/red gems come from a quest?
Cheers
Last edited by selvyr#1936 on Apr 8, 2013, 7:53:58 AM
Let me present you well known cookie cutter build: Ground Slam Mace Marauder. It is made especially for new players, so they can learn the ropes, simultaneously creating very powerful end game character.
» Are you tired of dying at normal Merveil?
» You don’t have shitloads of alchemists to afford equipment that will make your build at least… viable?
» Keep trying to get past cruel Vaal?
» Or maybe game mechanics is too hard, and you want easy build to start off?
This build is especially for you!
» You will generally allow to rush through ALL difficulties with gear bought… form vendors!
» For maps… you will have to get some crap rare items of course, but those are end-game feature. They are to be hard!
How is it even possible?!
» This build is connecting two of very powerful features: Endurance Charges and Life Regeneration for minimalizing your defense.
» Simultaneously build dish out very high damage (that will allow you do one-shot white critters), because of wielding two-handed weapons. Precisely speaking: maces, as they are most powerful melee weapons in game (no, not axes!)
» High damage output will improve our defense even more, due to enormous amount of life leeched form enemies (this build can reach up to 20% life leech cap).
Yea, sure. So this build is either highly complicated or expensive…
» Your main statistics (as for Marauder) is strength, and you won’t need intelligence nor dexternity
» All equipmentpieces you will wear are strength-type. Additionally they add armor rating!
» Also all sockets you will need are red. Additionally they are most common in strength type equipment we wear!
» Your gems are all strength based!
» Also, all gems are quest rewards! You won’t need to buy a single one!
All this features makes your character unbelievable easy, and cheap. What is more, build has another, awesome ones:
» Resolute Technique will make you forget about accuracy
» Blood Magic will make you forget about maintaining mana – pure skill spam!
» High Life Regeneration will make you forget about drawbacks of Blood Magic. It looks like skills have no mana cost!
» Unwavering Stance will make you immune to deadly stuns. Yes, stun in end-game is also known as “furiously smashing <<resurrect>> button”.
NEWBIE FRIENDLY BUILD:
Spoiler
Newbie friendly tag DOES NOT mean it lacks something or is somehow worse. No, I just put here informations in more accessible way.
NEWBIE FRIENDLY BUILD<<CLICK ME>> How do I follow it? Which nodes are to be taken first?
1. Resolute Technique
2. Blood Magic
3. Right part of the tree
4. Upper part of the tree
PR0TIP! Don’t get Armor Nodes and Elemental Adaptation by 60th level! You won’t see any effects before! Why only 96 points! Tree allows you to use 120 of them!
» You won’t reach 100 level. There is no physical possibility.
» Best players reached about 90 level, what gives us about 110 points.
» You will probably reach maximally 80 level, equally 100 points.
» But you will want build to be finished by 70 level, to be able to map safely and powerfuly, which is 90 points.
There are various end game options, and they are quite complicated, so they are shown in different section – I don’t want you to overload you with informations.
If you are curious major paths are:
» Butchery
» Inner Force
» Iron Grip’s life circle
For sure you want some explanation
General assumptions:
» General assumption of build is collecting as much life as possible. This is our main source of defense. And I can say – it’s a bit overpowered, when used along with life regeneration. You will reach 200 life per second. Yes. PER SECOND. (This is not maximum, as you can reach even 600 life/s)
» Second general assumption is getting those overpowered Endurance Charges. This is the best defense against physical damage in the game (To be honest, you won’t need it by Cruel or Merciless).
Additional features:
» We take Resolute Technique, because always-hitting will skyrocket our damage output. Critical hits? 5% chance to deal 50% more damage? It’s like 8% increased averaged damage. It simply does not worth sacrificing tonnes of nodes, equipment’s mods and even sockets for such minor upgrade.
» High Life Regeneration allows us to take safely Blood Magic. Seriously – don’t be afraid of it, because build is prepared for this. You won’t see ANY disadvantage of Blood Magic in terms of sucking life. But you will notice advantage of mindless skill-spam, that will improve both: your play comfort, effective damage output and even survivability (more life leeched per second).
» Iron Reflexes will let us benefit from evasion. Also using Grace will give us free 1k base armor.
» Some Armor Nodes are strongly related to END-GAME. Don’t take them before 60s, because they will give you nothing! You need over 3k armor to see difference! Why? Check how does armor works.
You take nearly no damage nodes! I will deal no damage, you idiot!
Your damage will be more than sufficient with no damage nodes. Why is that? Because of strange and complicated why damage is calculated. 6% increased damage nodes are nothing, they won’t increase your total damage by even 1%. We will get damage in much more effective ways, so even 50% increased damage won’t affect it much.
Do you want general rule? Over 10% increased damage per node => does worth it.
SKILL GEMS:
Spoiler
With this guide you will need just two skill gems with supporting them support (sic!) gems. What is more: all of them you will get very early and from quest rewards! Those skills are most often used in melee builds. Let me point, that all those skills require red socket - color, which is most probable for us to get.
PR0TIP! You don’t have to have 3 times 4-linked equipment. You can wear one 4-link, and swap gems according to your needs!
ACTIVE SKILL GEMS:
» "GROUND SLAM"
It’s yours primary AoE attack. It has everything: high range to keep us safe from enemies, also high range let us hit bigger packs of enemies, and one of the highest damage rate of all AoE Melee skills. No, you can’t use Cleave nor Sweep, because they suck. You won’t notice it in normal, but you WILL notice it in curel and later. Support Gems:
1. "Life Gain on Hit"
2. "Melee Physical Damage"
3. "Fire Physical Damage"
4. Faster Attacks
PR0TIPIf you want estimate Life Gain on Hit versus Life Leech relation more precisely:
1. Take your dps you have multiplay it by % of damage leeched
2. Take your amount of life gained per hit and divide it by your attack speed and then multiplay it by 0.7 (for Ground Slam) or 1.5 (for Heavy Strike)
3. Compare those two values: higher means more life gained per second
» "LEAP SLAM"
It’s yours secondary AoE attack. It is not as powerful as Ground Slam, because it orders you to leap into enemies – what often cause death. But it is very useful in few situations: for example it’s perfect for hit-run technique for bosses, also does good for those awful flicker-strike critters. Support Gems:
1. "Life Gain on Hit"
2. "Melee Physical Damage"
3. "Fire Physical Damage"
4. Faster Attacks
PR0TIPIf you want estimate Life Gain on Hit versus Life Leech relation more precisely:
1. Take your dps you have multiplay it by % of damage leeched
2. Take your amount of life gained per hit and divide it by your attack speed and then multiplay it by 0.7 (for Ground Slam) or 1.5 (for Heavy Strike)
3. Compare those two values: higher means more life gained per second
PR0TIPIf you want estimate Life Gain on Hit versus Life Leech relation more precisely:
1. Take your dps you have multiplay it by % of damage leeched
2. Take your amount of life gained per hit and divide it by your attack speed and then multiplay it by 0.7 (for Ground Slam) or 1.5 (for Heavy Strike)
3. Compare those two values: higher means more life gained per second
» "ENDURING CRY"
Enduring Cry is a kind of spell, that creates a buff named Endurance Charges. It provides enormous physical damage reduction. Therefore is your main source of defense against this type of damage. It is the best one, because 7 charges result it 35% lower physical damage. Support Gems:
Enduring Cry needs no support gems.
PR0TIP: Probably you won’t use it by cruel, or even merciless difficulty. So don’t bother taking early nodes related to it.
PR0TIP: Armor is not viable against high-physical critter, because of the way it works. Don’t look at <<estimated physical reduction>> - it works only against white critters. High-physical ones will pierce majority (if not all) reduction from armor. They won’t pierce Endurance Charges.
PR0TIP: Increased Duration Gem and Buff Duration nodes and Inner Force does not improve Endurance Charges.
WEAPON:
Spoiler
We use 2-handed maces. They are simply best in terms of dps.
No, you can’t use axes or swords. Well, you can, but then – you will be far, far worse.
Also 1h+shield makes no sense. We will lack too much damage.
What mods should we look for?
1. % Increased Physical Damage
2. +x-y Increased Physical Damage
3. % Attack Speed
No other mod makes difference for us.
Simply:
1. Look at written damage range
2. Take average of it
3. Multiplay it by “hit per second”
4. Compare those values, and choose mace with highest one.
PR0TIP: +x-y Increased Elemental Damage or even % Elemental Damage does not influence our damage. Don’t even look at it, while comparing weapons.
EQUIPMENT
Spoiler
This build is very gear independent. But it does not mean we can run Merciless naked. There is one thing we have to fulfill: reached elemental resistance cap (default 75%).
What type of equipment do we use
You can use any equipment piece you can wear. It doesn’t matter if it is evasion-, armor-, or even energy shield-related. Just use that, with highest mods.
» Helmet – best used with life mod
» Chest – best used with life mod
» Boots – best used with movement speed mod
» Gloves – best used with life mod
» Rings – best used with resistance mod
» Amulet – best used with resistance mod
PR0TIP: Do not look at armor-rating. It is very likely to be pierced by enemies. Make a rule: 500 more armor makes a difference. Also don’t look at armor before 60th level.
PR0TIP: At the very first level buy coral amulet and two coral rings. This will enormously increase your survivality
PR0TIP: You can get awesome life/resistance mods from… vendors! Really!
Equipment Samples (feel free to post yours!): Halinn, level 54, act 1 merciless
Spoiler
Fusion33, level 65, act 3, merciless
Spoiler
BANDIT'S REWARD
Spoiler
NORMAL DIFFICULTY: Health - there are no skill point that will give you so huge benefits. Note, that this health is multiplied by our 'increased health' - resulting not in only 40 points, but over 100.
CRUEL DIFFICULTY: Physical Damage - 12% increased Physical Damage is something only few nodes (already taken) may grant to you.
MERCILES DIFFUCILTY: Endurance Charge or Skill Point - it depends on you, how often you use charges. If you use them often - Endurance Charge. If not - choose a Skill Point.
IMPROVEMENT
Spoiler
Being built
CHANGELOG
Spoiler
GTM+1
13.03 14.03 - v3.00 Guide has been completely rewritten
12:24 03.02 - v2.02c Progress skill trees
12:40 03.02 - v2.02b Added example equipment. Thank you guys!
22:15 02.02 - v2.02a Some minor changes in skill gems section
22:52 01.02 - v2.02 Another minor changes in build.
14:16 30.01 - v2.01 Build section and builds itself rebuilded - to be more visible.
01:41 28.01 - v2.00a Added ChangeLog and To-Do Sections
14:51 26.01 - v2.00 ULTIMATE MAKEOVER, because of massive feedback in the thread
22:48 24.01 - v1.00 First, basic build
Thanks for this guide, I've only started playing path in the last week and this is a great build to play and enjoy the game.
Had a question - couldn't see this covered earlier but I saw in the guide it mentions all the support gems are Red. I've only got a couple of support gems so far but clicking on the Faster Attacks gem it seems to be a Green gem, does that mean we need a 4 link with 3 red and 1 green for these skills?
Also, do the faster attack green/red gems come from a quest?
Cheers
As a Marauder, you get your first Faster Attacks support gem as a quest reward in Merciless difficulty. It comes from the "Mercy Mission" (A1 Medicine Chest) quest. You then get the option for two more later on in Merciless, one from "The Siren's Cadence" (A1 Boss) and "Sever the Right Hand" (A3 General Gravicus quest). Alternatively, you could save up a couple of Alchemy Orbs or Chaos Orbs and buy them from players on Trade Chat. As a new player, you don't really have to opt for Quality gems so don't go over what you're willing to spend on a gem. Hope that helps!
armor and life is your problem, also your weapon is rather weak. Try to get the Geofris Baptism Unique( gets traded for 1 gcp so rather cheap), it will buff your dmg(used it myself until lvl 66)
Are you using Enduring Cry? How many Stacks can you get? Your Resistance also doesnt look really good... can you post your skilltree?
ps: if you give me your ingame name i can give you a armor and a few boots i have in my stash, free of charge of course ^^
Ing: _DerikEX_
Last edited by DerikEX#1243 on Apr 9, 2013, 5:41:35 AM
What kind of end game DPS can I expect out of ground slam? I have a 1% off perfectly rolled marohi erqi and I'm at about 3400 DPS at level 66. My heavy strike does 7000. Just wondering what DPS on GS people have achieved?
Also thinking about taking out life leech, using a carnage heart for now and running concentrated effect with a couple increased aoe nodes.
What kind of end game DPS can I expect out of ground slam? I have a 1% off perfectly rolled marohi erqi and I'm at about 3400 DPS at level 66. My heavy strike does 7000. Just wondering what DPS on GS people have achieved?
Also thinking about taking out life leech, using a carnage heart for now and running concentrated effect with a couple increased aoe nodes.
Discuss!
5linked marohi with ground slam + concentrated effect + melee phy + added fire dmg + faster attacks should give you around 10k dps. You can swap out faster attacks for weapon ele dmg, but its up to you. Quite a big difference in mana cost though. 170% vs 110% iirc.
You can consider using carcass jack for its 20% increased aoe. Pretty decent stats, 70life, 20 all resists. With carnage heart's ~50 all attribs you should be able to equip it. I am using one myself. Pretty good.
