1.3 [Newbie Friendly] GROUNDSLAMMER BUILD

Just wanted to say thanks for the build, it's awesome :)

I would continue to keep the blood magic passive imho.
My grace is currently level 17, and will be able to run it even when it gets to 20. I only have about 2,650 health, and I don't run into a problem with having too much life getting reserved. The trick is to make sure you have plenty of resists on your gear so you can drop resist nodes and put them into other passives (life, etc). Check out my skill tree, I'm at about 8904 ground slam dps and I'm doing fine with the 4% life leech (from the passive, and from my ring), and using Warlord's Mark at times for the extra life leech. You gotta make sure you are using the "Core" recommendations for this build to have it effective. Hatred and some other auras are nice, but at the cost of that much reserved life, or having to worry about mana isn't worth it. I just replaced my sapphire ring, so my resists should be great for when I swap out my chest in the future. I dropped my last resist node, and put it into a large dmg output node. Also once you level gems to 20 it is recommended to vendor them with a gcp to get a 20% quality gem. Some of the recommended gems will get even more powerful once they get leveled back up, which usually doesn't take very long at all. I will be dropping the two 4% aoe nodes and will be placing them in life nodes, and any further points I get will be placed in life nodes as and maybe some armor nodes if need be.

I'm wondering on whether people are actually reading my posts or not, because I think I've tweaked the original build for the better, for late end-game level 70+. I don't have really any issues anymore, and now I'm just saving up for a 6L near or perfect Marohi, and a Death's Oath 6L chest (more attack speed, more resists, more armor, more attributes, and more life leech!) I'm also keeping an eye out for a better pair of gloves as well.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAnEEswUtDjwOrQ_MFCAUTRRxFHUY2xkuGjghAiFVIWAn7Si1KS4ppSr2Mgk5DjpSOtg8BT38QKBBP0GqQ5xN2E4qUEdQUFHmVElWBFb6WGNZ81uvXz9gS2CIYVJqk3KpdEF07XTxeu97jHy4fNl89YFvgziGYIoijHaMz5BVnjyfy5_fogCmZKcwp4SpaKyqtC-2QbndvqfAD8AawKbA88bYyZjSTdSP1e3ewd-_5K3nUuw47w7vTu988B_z3fZI9zL3vvjr

@Darkfury
Not only are your responses read by me, they are appreciated. The build presented in this guide is excellent for beginners where as your suggestions are great for when people start to want to tweak their build slightly to better fit their needs.

Good to know :)

It seems that staves do more damage than 2 handed maces. Or am I missing something?

Edit: It just occured to me as I played around with the Marauder some more that you need intelligence to use any slightly higher level staves. Soooooo I see now. Either way, they still do a lot more damage. The two handed swords also seem to be in that boat but then again, they use dexterity I think. So idk, MACES IT IS.

Thanks for this build, I am pretty new to PoE but my first play through was a ton of fun with this marauder.

Thanks, NAS. I've learned a lot from your newbie friendly build and built upon it for end-game. Keep up the good work!

From my experience, this build is extremely easy to play and quite fun too. It's a combination of good defense (lots of hp and stuns), good dps (all damage is physical and therefore heavily buffed by nodes) and perks of being ranged (ground slam hits almost offscreen). I'm in a3 merciless now and have been able to facetank almost everything the game throws at me. Even Weaver did not pose major problem with my -60% chaos resists. Chain life potting and crazy life leech let me stand in front of it and take a beating. Of course, my gear is reasonably good, but nothing special - 4 gcp worth at most.

I dispute the cruel bandit reward change of taking the passive point instead of the 18% phys dmg.

And the reason is straight forward: you cannot get 18% by spending one point.

Obviously, there are nodes on the tree that afford you more than 18% phys, and one node only requires one point.

However, they are not just sitting right at hand. They are always behind some other nodes. When they are behind other nodes, you need to take the average of the dmg inc % over the number of passives you have to spend to get the actual value.

When you do this, the only place where you can beat 18% phys for 1 passive is Bone Smasher, the Mace cluster straight west of the Templar start where you can spend two points for 40% inc mace damage. Everywhere else it falls short, usually in the 16% range.


Frankly, if you could spend just 1 point to get 18% inc phys, you would do it. But it's just not on the tree, so why not take the Oak gift?

Hey, thanks for the guide. Just started playing and I'm using it for my first character. One question, though. What about chaos resistance? Do I not need to max that as well? I'm currently in Act 3 cruel, and those snakes can take me down pretty fast.