[2.5 Video Guide] Beginner's Earthquake, Tanky/High DPS Build Guide! [HC/SC Viable]

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Vallerian wrote:

Hi there! :)

I'm playing this build as a marauder.

If someone could look at my skilltree and my equip and tell me what/where I could improve upon would be amazing...I'm really not great with builds and gear...and the obvious improvements like 6-Ls are currently out of reach due to me not having that much currency.

Sorry if I just provide the profile link and not the gear in detail...it's close to 5am right now! :/


The character is Varronn.
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Vallerian/characters

I have about 8k armor unbuffed with 5.4k life and capped resists.
I can have a total of 8 endurance and 3 frenzy charges (could specc into a 4th).
I self-cast the golem and have a cwdt setup with Warlords Mark for endurance charge generation besides self-cast Enduring Cry. :)

Currently my dps is about as follows:
Earthquake ~ 21k buffed
Warchief ~ 45k buffed

Trash packs mostly die in one hit and dropping a totem is really not neccesary most of the time because everything goes down fast.

But at bosses I seem to have issues.
Most of the time I drop the totem...it eats one hit and is dead...without getting out a single hit...gimping my dps to the 21k from earthquake.
Earthquake -> move -> EQ -> move -> EQ etc. takes _forever_ to down bosses...and flask charges tend to become an issue.
I'm currently stuck at lvl88 because of the above reasons...bosses kill me often due to fights taking longer...

Normal Atziri or Uber Lab are out of question right now...tried Atziri two times and I got wrecked hard...

I feel like I'm stuck and/or doing something horribly wrong.

So if anybody has some feedback, it would be much appreciated!!! :)

Gotta get rid of Abyssus. That 46% increased physical damage taken is brutal...especially against hard hitting bosses. And with Resolute Technique, you can't crit, so that crit multiplier bonus is out the window anyway.

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Gotta get rid of Abyssus. That 46% increased physical damage taken is brutal...especially against hard hitting bosses. And with Resolute Technique, you can't crit, so that crit multiplier bonus is out the window anyway.

Thank you for your answer! :)

I thought about changing Abyssus to something else a while ago aswell.
But a) it gives a huge dps boost (2-3k on EQ and 4-5k on the totem) and b) I can usually handle the hits themselves...it rarely happens that I get oneshotted.

I can see that taking less damage could result in less flask uses, giving me more time to kill a boss...but loosing 10% dps would mean that it would also take longer to kill bosses again...I will certainly try it once I find a suitable replacement for Abyssus.

I keep browsing through other guides for marauders and most of them feature insane clear speed combined with insane amounts of dps...that I can't seem to reach...

I know that many things for this build aren't included in the tooltip dps (aftershock, herald of ash) and I'm certainly no tooltip warrior...I could not care less about dps numbers IF bigger stuff would die fast(er)...but bosses take forever compared to other builds/videos I watched...the main reason for that being that the totem seems to RIP extremely fast against any boss attacks (magic/phys), negating a huge portion of the totem damage.

SyZ for example who posted here, has 80k dps with EQ...thats 4 times the damage I'm doing...

I even qualied most of the gems I use now and I'm currently releveling them (dmg is about the same now as it was before qualying them)...


And it's really an issue if you are "stuck" with a build because you lack the currency to change it...hence me hoping for good tips! :)

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Vallerian wrote:

SyZ for example who posted here, has 80k dps with EQ...thats 4 times the damage I'm doing...

He's also got a 6L axe worth 20 Exalt.

Keep running the maps you can comfortably and save up your currency for some gear upgrades.

As I start looking deeper into passives and gem choices now that I picked up a 6L Disfavour, I'm sort of lost.

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/jayjamins/characters

First, I think swapping WED support out for something else would be more useful since I'm not really doing that much elemental damage anymore. Maybe Added Fire damage, but what about Poison support?

Can I remove the leech passives on the right side of the Duelist tree? Tons of points I could potentially move to Slaughter or even Splitting Strikes. I think Vitality Void is better when you have more elemental damage, but I've since dropped a lot of it.

Didn't realize I can only have one curse active, so I can switch out Enfeeble. Was thinking maybe Chaos/Stone golem for some more survivability vs bosses? Would maybe Arctic Armor with CWDT be a better choice?

Was also thinking of swapping over to Kaoms now that my EQ is a lot stronger, but this 21/20 AW totem is pretty powerful, so not sure.

Any ideas?

My biggest problem is elemental reflect maps, I am doing unided maps now and reflect is quite common.
Can someone post a reply to me about:
''How do you deal with elemental reflect maps?''

Physical reflect is easy replacing EQ with ice crash and less duration with something like dmg on full life/endurance charge on stun, as ice crash has 50% ice dmg and our phys to lightning gem converts all phys dmg, we get full elemental build.

For now the best solution has been dropping hatred and HoA, taking off gems - phys to lightning, added fire dmg and elemental weapon dmg. But this as you may already know drops dps by 2/3.

I am yet to test some things out myself, but as dps on one hit is so high, I will always one shot myself on reflect (well almost always, maybe not on one monster):
''Do you think maybe life leech gem could somehow mitigate some of the reflect to put auras or some gems back on?''

edit: had misplaced reflect types :D
edit 2: ancestral totems can deal with trash mobs, but its hard to deal with bosses in the same manner.

edit 3: I did some math with number 10k phys and 5k ele dmg, with 2%/4% life leech and got, 200/100 dmg after 75% resists, still getting reflect for each monster, with earthquake taking my 6k life, this would spell insta shot on 30+ monster pack (If I am not mistaken) I think the ring with 30% less reflect (sibyls lament) could negate this dmg. I will try to test this out when possible.

edit 4: still haven't fully tested all scenarios, but ground slam + multistrike + conc effect + added fire + physycal dmg + weapon elemntal, having equipped the sybils lament is possible to run elemental reflect maps with hatred on and blasphemy + warlords setup, but still sometimes reflect spikes up, but at least not like from EQ aftershock, which oneshots yourself.

Hey guys, I'm back from a long break and could use some help in making my build better. I just came into an exalt and was wondering what I should do to make me stronger? Playing in essence. Thank you.

what cwdt lvls should be for lover tier maps ? dont know these things

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ShimmyStix wrote:

Hey guys, I'm back from a long break and could use some help in making my build better. I just came into an exalt and was wondering what I should do to make me stronger? Playing in essence. Thank you.

5L Marohi
5L Lightning Coil

Also, on the cheap, you can get close to another 300 armour on your belt and % increased armour on your amulet.

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LoaDdo wrote:

what cwdt lvls should be for lover tier maps ? dont know these things

Stick with the same as recommended in the OP. I don't really see any point in going any lower.

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Vallerian wrote:

Hi there! :)

I'm playing this build as a marauder.

If someone could look at my skilltree and my equip and tell me what/where I could improve upon would be amazing...I'm really not great with builds and gear...and the obvious improvements like 6-Ls are currently out of reach due to me not having that much currency.

Sorry if I just provide the profile link and not the gear in detail...it's close to 5am right now! :/


The character is Varronn.
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Vallerian/characters

I have about 8k armor unbuffed with 5.4k life and capped resists.
I can have a total of 8 endurance and 3 frenzy charges (could specc into a 4th).
I self-cast the golem and have a cwdt setup with Warlords Mark for endurance charge generation besides self-cast Enduring Cry. :)

Currently my dps is about as follows:
Earthquake ~ 21k buffed
Warchief ~ 45k buffed

Trash packs mostly die in one hit and dropping a totem is really not neccesary most of the time because everything goes down fast.

But at bosses I seem to have issues.
Most of the time I drop the totem...it eats one hit and is dead...without getting out a single hit...gimping my dps to the 21k from earthquake.
Earthquake -> move -> EQ -> move -> EQ etc. takes _forever_ to down bosses...and flask charges tend to become an issue.
I'm currently stuck at lvl88 because of the above reasons...bosses kill me often due to fights taking longer...

Normal Atziri or Uber Lab are out of question right now...tried Atziri two times and I got wrecked hard...

I feel like I'm stuck and/or doing something horribly wrong.

So if anybody has some feedback, it would be much appreciated!!! :)

If you have around 2-3 exalts you could buy a 6 linked rare mace with ~500 dps (I myself had 6 linked Marohi, but even so I switched it to a rare mace, moving/attacking/clearing faster now), and that would give you a nice dmg boost, letting you get rid of that Abyssus (god I can't stand that helmet :D, because my friend used it, and whenever we would play together he would rip all the time in maps, or get one shot in merciless labirint ...).

And if your resists allow you could get a Essence Worm ring and slot your hatred aura in there, and getting blasphemy+punishment additionally.

Basically that is what I did recently to make this build more enjoyable for myself, lvl 87 and only now started getting red maps (I have abysmal map drops, and Zana is only one mission away from lvl6, but she never showed up for me until like tier 6 maps).

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gvidzix wrote:

If you have around 2-3 exalts you could buy a 6 linked rare mace with ~500 dps (I myself had 6 linked Marohi, but even so I switched it to a rare mace, moving/attacking/clearing faster now), and that would give you a nice dmg boost, letting you get rid of that Abyssus (god I can't stand that helmet :D, because my friend used it, and whenever we would play together he would rip all the time in maps, or get one shot in merciless labirint ...).

And if your resists allow you could get a Essence Worm ring and slot your hatred aura in there, and getting blasphemy+punishment additionally.

Basically that is what I did recently to make this build more enjoyable for myself, lvl 87 and only now started getting red maps (I have abysmal map drops, and Zana is only one mission away from lvl6, but she never showed up for me until like tier 6 maps).

I see you don't run Increased AOE on your mace, though. That's got to hamper your clear speed. And Faster Attacks runs fairly counter to Earthquake, as you're probably only getting an aftershock every third attack. The beauty of a 6L Marohi is that it's basically a 7L. I have a hard time believing that you would have slower clear speed with a properly gemmed 6L Marohi than your current mace.