[1.2.0] Strength-Crit Reave Block Tank 8k+ HP, 50k-180k+ DPS. [1.3.0=RIP]

No change in passive tree.

With a capped block chance, 75% of all attack damage is mitigated completely. Spell damage is mitigated by 38% chance to block spells, high elemental resistances and in some cases, Immortal Call.

Once you start getting into Path of Exile’s end-game you may hear players discussing “Effective Health Points” or “eHP”. Basically this refers to methods one can use to increase the survivability of their character beyond stacking more and more Life or Energy Shield (which may already be done to the greatest extent possible). Some examples include: Mind-Over-Matter, High Life Leech, Instant Life Leech, High Regeneration, High Max Resistances, High Life/ES Pool, Block, Armour/Evasion/Dodge.

Although such a high percentage of incoming damage is completely or drastically mitigated, occasionally some big hits or a succession of hits will penetrate the defences. For this reason it is necessary to have quite a high Maximum Life total in addition to high Maximum Resistances. The more HP you have the harder it will be for you to be the victim of a 1-hit Knock-out/Instagibbed etc (one of the very few weaknesses an Aegis build has – if you know of any 6L Aegis builds with >8k HP let me know ASAP)

With 8296 HP and a 20/20 Blood Rage I can leech life at a rate of 1659 HP/s (20% - The rate all Life Leech defaults to) so even large hits to my life pool are being healed exceptionally fast. For extreme circumstances or intensive physical damage reflection I have made sure I have an Immortal Call which lasts longer than 5 seconds. Potential recovery during Immortal Call = 20% per second x 5 seconds = 100% of Maximum Life recovered. During this time all of my other forms of damage mitigation are still 100% active. The result is a character which is neck-deep in dangerous situations yet incredibly survivable.

One thing to be aware of is that you need to deal enough Physical-Damage-Per-Second (pDPS) to stay above the leech cap. With 10% physical life leech you need to deal at least 200% of your Maximum Life as pDPS. Basically your pDPS*Life Leech needs to be greater than 20% of your Maximum Life. Some attempt, at least, must be made to maintain a balance between offence and defence.

To facilitate the use of Blood Rage it is necessary to have some resistance to Chaos Damage, as well as some Life Regeneration from passives, and if necessary, Auras. I currently regenerate 524.5 HP/s which is equal to roughly 6.3% of my maximum life. This is enough to sustain Blood Rage whilst cursed with Vulnerability but not quite enough when subjected to Half-Regen (only degenerate a few HP/s now). With Blood Rage off I regenerate 100% of my maximum life every 15.82 seconds.

UNWAVERING STANCE – Cannot Evade enemy Attacks, Cannot be Stunned:
This keystone deserves its own subsection. Quite simply, being immune to stuns is one of the most powerful survivability mechanics in the entire game. Getting desynchronised from stuns will always always fuck your shit one day. Shit just happens and being stunned whilst it’s happening can only make it so much worse. When you need it most (big hits and dangerous fights) Unwavering Stance allows you to stand your ground, back yourself and fight tactically. The alternative is running (like a bitch), or recognising you are stun-locked and out-of-sync and logging off (like a bitch). To reiterate, when you need it most stun-immunity will enable you to win with skill, rather than lose with desync.

Unwavering Stance also prevents the block animation from playing due to hits that would have stunned.

It should be noted that I did not allocate Unwavering Stance until my late 80’s, levelling with CWDT + Firestorm + Blind (or later on Tempest Shield + Blind) was simply too strong. Even with such high HP certain bosses could still stun me.

Fortunately the Unwavering Stance Keystone is a perfect fit for the theme of this character and build. Despite not wanting any Keystone Passives allocated I couldn’t be happier.

With Elemental Adaptation so close it would be really nice to take it, but I cannot decide what would be worth dropping in order to reach it. I can drop one +30 Intelligence node but still need to find one more point somehow.

With recent buffs to Marauder area, starting as a Marauder is possibly more efficient depending on itemization. I plan to do some variant skill tree's later on.
Also, I anticipate Duelist's getting a buff soon, so they may be a viable/optimal choice for this build in the future.

Variants Coming Soon

Normal: Oak, for Life.

Cruel: Oak, for physical damage.

Merciless: Skill, or Alira for Power Charge if you can generate them reliably or always play with a Conduit.

Strengths:
Incredibly survivable. High eHP
Solo’s really well. Handles all map mods
Scales really well in groups, getting massive benefits from party DPS auras
Easy to gear defensively. You can wear just about anything that will give you the right socket colours
Generates flask charges quickly and easily
STUN IMMUNITY

Weaknesses:
Melee (as much as GGG might hate to admit it, this is undeniably 100% a weakness)
Low DPS output compared to most builds. It outperforms most Soul Taker-Aegis Aurora Characters that I know of, them being one of the most comparable builds I can think of.
Harder to gear offensively (see Dagger below)
Starved of Intelligence. Needs a tier-1 Intelligence roll on at least one piece of gear in order to use certain gems at level 20+
Since you still want to leech as much HP as possible between missed blocks, anything that inhibits leech rate or regeneration can prove to be troublesome. Half-Regen is the most annoying currently since I can’t quite sustain Blood Rage yet, and I need a Blood Magic gem for Reave
In no-regen I turn off Vitality and use a Life-Leech gem in Reave. No mana problems
Blind! Getting blinded is devastating; your accuracy will be rubbish

[Chest]
Reave + Multistrike + Melee Physical Damage + Additional Accuracy + Increased Critical Damage + Added Fire/Blood Magic
- Primary DPS skill for AOE and Single-Target. Blood Magic is used in parties for ease of use and to prevent running out of mana due to latency/desync.


[Gloves]
Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks + Power Charge on Critical + Blood Magic
- Primary mobility skill. Useful for generating power charges on the move and leeching mana if needed.

[Dagger]
Flicker Strike + Blood Magic
- Secondary mobility skill. Useful for quickly snapping to next pack/overcoming stairs/walls/fences. Additionally, it forces synchronisation to an extent so utility is high.

Blood Rage + Blood Magic
- Primary Source of Life Leech. Huge boost to eHP. Frenzy charges are a nice bonus.

[Helmet]
Enfeeble + Critical Weakness + Enduring Cry + Blood Magic
- Utility Spells. Enduring Cry helps improve damage reduction and fuel Immortal Call.

[Shield]
Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Cast When Damage Taken
- Utility buff. Completely trivialises reflected damage, undying evangelists, and Atziri Trio.

[Boots]
Purity of Fire + Purity of Lightning + Vitality + Reduced Mana
- The hardest bosses in the game deal Fire and/or Lightning Damage. Vitality makes running Blood Rage easier.

Atziri-Specific:

Flask #3 changes between Ruby/Sapphire based on map mods. In exceptional circumstances I will drop the Quicksilver in favour of having all three elemental flasks.

Atziri-Specific:

As you can probably see from my gear I have both Life and Strength together in almost every slot. Getting high Strength on gear not only provides flat Life bonuses but also increases my melee damage output. On just about any given item Strength + Life + Two Resists far surpasses Life + Three Resists, since most people seem to fap over their Tri-Res items you can grab some amazing deals on gg gear. Sol Thread Leather Belt cost 8 Chaos. LOL.

Amulet and Shield: (only slots with unique items currently)
- Block, Spell-block, HP, Resists

Per build goals I originally wanted to use zero unique items. After playing this build extensively I have concluded that Stone of Lazhwar is the best possible amulet for survivability and is irreplaceable. A crafted Vaal Buckler can compete with Crest of Perandus but the cost/benefit payoff is on the low-end. The ideal Vaal Buckler would have 38% Block Chance, 99 HP, 30% Chaos Res, and either 50 Dexterity (Accuracy) or +16% to All Elemental Resistances (Or a Lightning Resist roll to replace Crest of Perandus). The two remaining prefixes are inconsequential due to a Pure-Evasion Shield and my Unwavering Stance Keystone. Typing this up has made me realise that crafting a passable Vaal Buckler might not actually be too difficult (Regal of Destiny). Getting 30% Chaos Resistance outweighs the 1% chance to block attacks I would lose (1% overcapped currently). However, if I am able to corrupt 4% Chance to Block Spells implict onto an 80HP Crest of Perandus a rare shield cannot compete.

Depending on personal preference Rathpith Globe is also potentially irreplaceable.

In addition to my dim view of Aegis Aurora, the idea of stacking block and armour did not appeal to me, and does little-to-nothing to protect me from me massive hits. Palace Dominus Touch-of-God can be tanked (after getting past block).

Weapon:
- Damage, Crit, Attack Speed

Loath Bane Ambusher is the highest DPS dagger in all of Path of Exile currently. It provides excellent mobility, great critical strike chance, and makes reflect more manageable vs a dagger like Dragon Hunger Platinum Kris. The high attack speed helps build Reave stacks quickly to maximise area-of-effect. I chose Critical Strikes over Resolute Technique because Critical Strikes scale easier at end-game, also being able to recharge flasks over the duration of an engagement is not to be scoffed at.

Synergy in groups is not to be discounted either. Critical Weakness is a very strong curse for groups, often the optimal curse. In groups I will shock, freeze, and ignite most mobs.

Helmet:
- HP, Resists, Mana

Really difficult to improve on current helmet whilst I can sustain 6L Reave on mana, the most significant improvement would be getting tier-1 HP vs current top roll tier-2 HP, and tier-1 Chaos Resistance vs current bottom roll tier-2 Chaos Resistance. The flat max mana really helps to sustain my attacks. An Increased Item Rarity roll would be preferable to the existing % Increased Armour and Energy Shield.

Don’t ask me why but I simply hate BoR. Fortunately it isn’t very competitive in this build because we want overcapped resistances and Unwavering Stance, smell ya later!

Chest:
- HP, Strength, Resists

Tier-1 Life and Strength above all else. Astral Base for the extra resistances, we want to make sure we don’t need any resists on rings. With no fire resistance on rings I am still overcapped by 1%, it’s possible that I may decide to scour my chest and roll higher tier resistances. I have an imprint of my chest without the 47% Armour roll (Eternal’d for Challenge League) so it can still roll two tier-1 armour affixes. I may do this eventually but the cost/benefit payoff is pretty low. I do need to Divine the Life rolls higher eventually though.

A Belly of the Beast is also a pretty solid option (provides more life than my chest depending on the roll) but I want to avoid unique items as much as possible.

Gloves:
- HP, Strength, Resists

Same deal as chest. Tier-1 Life and Strength are the first priority, then whatever resistances you need. Hybrid bases are the easiest to roll colours on. The two best prefixes after Life? Probably some combination of rarity/physical/lightning damage.

Boots:
- HP, Strength, Resists, Movespeed

Top-tier Life and Strength (see the pattern?). Get the resistances you need and as high movespeed as possible. Increased Item Rarity is quite a nice option for the final prefix (unless you really really want armour rolls to maximise all possible damage reduction)

Belt:
- HP, Strength, Resists, Weapon Elemental Damage

Leather Base. Tier-1 Life and Strength. Two Resistances you need. The two remaining prefixes are Weapon Elemental Damage and Armour (or Flask Life Recovery Rate, ew)

The belt is actually a really strong slot providing more maximum life than my chest, and some impressive DPS from the Strength and Weapon Elemental Damage affixes. My current belt can still roll tier-1 Weapon Elemental Damage but I am in the process of crafting the perfect belt for this build so why do it twice? (Unleashing is also really hard to land, even on last open affix)

Rings:
- HP, Strength, Intelligence, Mana Leech, Accuracy, Damage, Chaos Resistance

The area I have allowed myself the most flexibility in itemization is jewellery, thus there are many viable alternatives. One of the core themes in my itemization is attempting to balance offence and defence (strength, critical strikes, life, block) so the ideal rings come as a pair. One Diamond base (offence-centric ring), one Coral base (defence-centric ring).

Diamond Ring has: HP, Lightning Damage, Weapon Elemental Damage, Strength, Accuracy, Attack Speed/All Attributes

Coral Ring has: HP, 2% Mana Leech, WED/Lightning Damage, 50 Intelligence (Gems), Accuracy, Chaos Resistance

Getting Lightning damage on gear allows you to shock monsters without relying on the Wrath Aura. Weapon Elemental Damage will scale party DPS like crazy.

Getting sufficient accuracy on gear may allow me to substitute the Additional Accuracy gem in my Reave for Power Charge on Critical. Alternatively I could substitute Additional Accuracy for Faster Attacks and Added Fire for Blood Magic and gain an additional prefix on the defence ring and never need to gem-swap for half-regen maps. I don’t think I would gain enough attack speed to justify the loss of Added Fire though.

If I decide that the Additional Accuracy gem is going to stay forever and ever those two Accuracy suffixes might be better utilised as Attack Speed/All Attributes/Strength rolls. It’s difficult to determine this, or at least I’ve been too lazy to thus far (also a function of not being prepared to craft these bad-boys which is what I’ll be required to do).
Currently there are no Diamond Rings on the market which surpass mine, same story for my Amethyst Ring/Coral Ring.