[2.2] (Updated) Dkodr's HS/GS Stun Guide

About Build:This build have very good defenses and survivability, is great for party play by providing immobilization of mobs and bosses, not super expensive and hard to get gear( Marohi Erqi costs 1c and a 500 pdps mace costs 4-5 ex) and it is not a build that is complicated to play with loads of auras, skills and other mechanics to manage for being successful. I would say that being able to permastun monsters is one of the strongest abilities in the whole game if used effectivly, it renders them completely harmless while draining their life slowly into oblivion. I did a lvl 80 Wasteland map in a 6 man party, permastunned the boss so the whole party could effectivly focus their damage on it and overcome the crazy life regen The Brittle Emperor has, resulting in killing him after a while.

Stun in parties: Stun Mechanics does not take into consideration the amount of players in a party, This means it is as easy to stun mobs playing solo as it is playing in a 6-man party.

Stun Immune: Some bosses and rare monsters are immune to stun. Be aware of this and take the necessary precautions. For example Na'em Bending Stone, a Beyond boss, is stun immune (Unwavering mod) and is extremely dangerous to face tank.

Gem Setups: The synergy with endurance charge on melee stun and cwdt-im.call automates the immunity against big physical hits, we always have alot of endurance charges up because of stunning all the time. Warlords Mark adds another layer of defense in the heat of battle as it procs together with Immortal Call, cursing all mobs thus gaining more endurance charges, leech and chance to stun. Casting Flame Golem is also automated in this process, giving more damage and distraction for enemies, it can also easily be replaced with Increased Duration for longer Immortal Call uptime, Decoy Totem against dangerous bosses that needs sneaky tactics to be defeated, or Enduring Cry in Cannot Be Stunned map mods. I more or less have my golem up and running all the time with this setup. Heavy strike is for bosses and rares. Having life leech gem and blood magic gem available for different map mods is also a must, if you want to run all map mods you need to know how to adapt with the gem setups.

Optional GS Setup: By using the Increased Area of Effect skillgem in the GS setup we gain a huge defensive advantage while sacrificing some damage (added fire damage gem) This is an option that gets viable once we reach a certain DPS threshold where we still can stun consistently while using IAOE. I would guess around 50-60K GS dps, just test it and c for yourself.

Master Craft: Vagan can craft up to 12% reduced enemy stun threshold on maces, We need a open prefix and costs 1c.

About the Enlighten gem: With current stats I have 178 mana unreserved without Enlighten.
A lvl 3 Enlighten gives me 221 mana unreserved, a lvl 4 gives 248.

RT: This is not a crit build and it can never be a crit build - We use resolute tecnique - always hit, never crit.

Gear: High armor (or Ligthning Coil) - life - strength - physical damage - resists - attack speed. Two Stone Rings and Turquoise Amulet to cap resists and dex and int requirements. Belt is Rustic Sash with life, resists and reduced enemy stun threshold ->(top is 14-15%) Mana on jewlery is also a good thing when we are gonna sustain attacks without the use of Blood Magic gem.

Leech: About 0,4% mana leech seems to be enough. Get it on gloves or rings or jewels/jewlery.
Life leech we get from passive tree and Blood Rage gem. (and swap in life leech gem for no regen maps)

Bandit quests: Oak - Kill All - Oak(or Kraityn if u want a Frenzy charge)

Unwavering Stance: We do not specc into Unwavering Stance because getting stunned isn't a problem with high life, lots of armor, and the Stun Mastery node that gives 50% stun recovery. It also gives the benefit of being able to run Grace instead of Hatred, good in Elemental reflect maps and for general survivability. With Grace up I have 31% chance to evade on top of the 80% damage reduction from armor and endurance charges. If you don't have any evasion from gear and feel getting stunned is a problem, feel free to specc into the node. If we stun first, we cannot be stunned.

Jewels: When picking jewels we prioritize %incr.max life 5-7% and 3 of following mods on them: %incr.phys.dmg w maces 14-16%, %incr.att.speed w.maces 6-8%, %incr.phys.dmg 14-16%, %incr.melee dmg 10-12%, %att.speed 3-5%, %incr.phys.dmg w.2-handed melee wpns 12-14%, %incr. Area Dmg 10-12%. If we need resists or leech we prioritize that before damage mods.

Some numbers: When I leech I am able to sustain GS without Blood Magic gem. My GS uses atm 23 mana, I have 221 unreserved mana (of 714) and a mana regen of 17,8 pr second. My mana leech is 0,37% from gloves. With 3 frenzy charges I have 8,26 attacks pr. second with GS (multistrike gem). If I run a map with no regen I need to swap added fire dmg with blood magic gem.

Stun threshold reduction with GS is atm 105%, it's enough to permastun all white, blue and rare monsters. The endurance charge on melee stun gem also gives 20% reduced enemy stun threshold at lvl 21 and incr. stun duration with quality. Take in mind that the total damage output is taken into the stun calculation that monsters have, higher damage pr. hit also gives a higher chance to stun.
For bosses I use Heavy Strike with stun gem, it upps my stun threshold reduction to 135% and I have not encountered any boss that isn't permastunned with that number yet. I can also add end.ch.on melee stun in my Heavy strike setup and get 155% stun threshold reduction.

Marauder lvl 97 Juggernaut
553 Strength, 160 Dex, 119 Int.
Life: 7100
Mana: 714
Armour: 25500
Est. Phys. Dmg. Reduction: 68%, (90% with 6 endurance charges)
Evasion: 763, 10% chance to evade, 31% w. Grace
Life regen: 460 pr.sec. (560 pr. sec w. 6 endurance charges)
Mana regen pr. sec: 19
2,6% life leech (3,80% with Blood Rage activated)
0,3% mana leech (from gloves)
3 Frenzy charges
5 endurance charges
103% fire res, 113%¤ cold res, 114% lightning resist (+24% more with 6 endurance charges up)
Ground Slam damage: 197 000 DPS with 3 frenzy charges, Fire Golem and flasks active
Ancestral Warchief: 215 000 DPS...
Ground Slam Stun Threshold Reduction: 105%
Ground Slam Mana Cost: 31
Note that Warlords Mark and Vulnerability Curse also affects stun chance.

"To calculate whether a stun occurs :
stun_chance = 200 * damage / defender_effective_max_life
When calculating Stun with Stun Threshold Reduction of over 75%, the Stun Threshold Reduction is treated as being:
75 + ( Stun Threshold Reduction - 75) * 25 / ( Stun Threshold Reduction -50 )
So basically to just illustrate some numbers with the current tree:
You can get Stun threshold from these places
Tree 33%
Groundslam 25%
Belt 15%
Gems, Stun gem 49 at 20, endurance charge on melee stun 20 quality = 20%, Total = 69% ( Edit level 20 gem for ECoMS = 19%)
Weapon (hardest to get) 15%.
This is 157 stun thresh, but more likely you are working with 137 or 122. I say this because the weapon required to do this build is of a very strong nature, high dps + stun thresh suffix = super rare. I've seen a few but they have never been for sale. Using the gem endur on melee stun obviously gimps your damage as you're using a non damaging gem in your link.
Assuming an enemy has 100,000 life, and you hit for 3000 damage, to be clear this an individual hit, not your DPS, with 137% (stun threshold) your chance of stunning is 83.52%, with 157% its 102% and with 122 its 69%.
We know from data mining that Normal Vaal on Atziri has 400,000? health I think I saw from the Taiwan Garena DB, so most major bosses probably have 200,000-500,000 health as Maze Vaal takes longer to kill than Atziri Vaals for my incinerator.
4 x the health = 4 times the damage even with 157 stun threshhold (aka like 11,500 damage per hit to permanently stun guarenteed.)
You can probably cheese some of this by attacking ultrafast with a low chance to stun + lots of stun duration but it is not something I would rely on. The best thing to do is to set up an excel using the formula and input numbers as you get them, easily letting you test out various gear sets." Quote from Mors in a reddit thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2rleq3/did_stun_get_nerfed_a_while_back/

My comments: It seems that with perfect gear, lvl 21 gems, dual curse with warlords mark and vulnerability,Redblade Tramplers unique boots and it is theoretically possible to reach 178% reduced stun threshold reduction with 20% additional chance to be stunned

No Life or Mana Regen Maps - Don't Use Blood Rage as it drains your life. Use life leech/life gain on hit gem.

Elemental Reflect Maps - Swap Hatred with Grace, Haste or Purity of Ice. Swap Added Fire Damage/Weapon Elemental Damage gems with Life Leech/Fortify.

Monsters Cannot Be Stunned Maps You can swap out Faster Attacks with Cyclone, or Heavy Strike with another melee skill, like Ice Crash f.ex. Find out what works best, cyclone is pretty safe. Also remove Stun gem and Endurance Charge on Melee Stun gem. Use Fortify, or damage gem as Melee Damage on Full Life instead. You will fast feel how more dangerous it becomes when it is not possible to stun, you will get hit alot more and mobs will get within striking distance alot faster. Considerably more defensive play is strongly adviced. Also use self cast Enduring Cry to gein charges, can replace Fire Golem.

Monsters Reflect Physical Damage I recommend to avoid this mod as we mainly deal physical damage. But if we are gonna do it I recommend running Grace, Arctic Armor and Fortify together. Use Life Leech gem instead of Melee Physical, test it slowly first to determine survivability. Also insert Increased Duration in your CWDT-Imm.Call setup, this makes you immune to physical damage longer.

Blood Magic Maps Here we have to disable all auras and heralds. The dps will be lower.

Reduced Mana/Life Leech 40-60% Maps Here we will not be able to sustain GS without using the Blood Magic gem, replace it with Added Fire Damage.

Monsters Are Immune to Curses maps Replace Warlords Mark with Increased Duration Gem.

Cannot Leech Life/Mana from Monsters maps Use Blood Magic / Life Gain on Hit gems.



For a full list of map modifiers got to: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Map#Modifiers

I did a test of the tooltip damage output with different maces using my gear with 6-linked Groundslam, Hatred, Herald of Ash, and 3 frenzy charges:

Kongor's Unique Mace 454pDps: 47400 DPS, 51300 DPS with Onslaught activated (wich it didn't do very often)


Marohi Erqi Unique Mace 406pDps: 42000 DPS ( Incr. AOE lvl 15 from Mace is a very good addition)


Collossus Mallet Rare Mace 513pDps: 54400 DPS


Terror Maul Rare Mace 710pDps: 73000 DPS

Atziri Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g26vWsYqDeA
Shipyard lvl 79 Map Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mr1nEl7zPqM
Palace lvl 81 stunning Dominus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dUKJAZI4Ok
Village Ruin double boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCWNInKi_s

PoE Wiki Stun Mechanics:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Stun

Dyz's School of Stun:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1089587

Niffler´s Perma Stun Build:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1337122/

Evantis's Permastun Build and Stun Compedium (old, 1.2):
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/493891

Willy Wonka's Stun Setup (old, 1.2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTYw49AA2BI

PoeDB.tw - List of All item mods and other resources:
http://poedb.tw/us/mod.php

poe.trade - Find items for sale ingame
http://poe.trade/

The Guide to Loot Filters:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1260664

Armor, Fortify, Endurance Charge Calculator:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/36ltth/wrote_a_little_app_to_calculate_damage_reduction/

Leech in 2.0 Explained:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3f5bcn/anyone_else_thinks_new_leech_mechanics_are/ctlgpyy

The Path of Exile 2.0 Launch Compendium
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3chl0u/path_of_exile_20_launch_compendium/

Can I stun Bosses?
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/2dvraf/can_i_stun_endgame_bosses_with_a_setup_like_this/