[2.3] Juggernaut 2H Vigilant Strike Tank - Atziri, Uberlab Viable - Budget

Pros/Cons

Pros:

• Tanky as the Battle of the Bulge
• Not terrible damage
• Pretty damn cheap to gear
• Probably HC viable if you're better at the game than me

Cons:

• Not fantastic clear speed
• Not for tooltip warriors
• Not FotM because it's using Vigilant Strike and I'm fairly sure no one in their right mind would try to do that
• Melee, so a bit crap on Predictive

The Theory

• Vigilant Strike has the highest base damage of all melee skills (I think)
• Vigilant Strike also has a 100% chance to hit, and gives free Fortify for an extended duration
• Vigilant Strike requires a steady stream of Endurance Charges to keep going, and is single target
• Melee Splash Support no longer sucks as bad as it used to
• Juggernaut's Unrelenting provides a vast income of Endurance Charges
• Juggernaut's Unyielding buffs Fortify
• Kaom's Sign has an upgraded version, Kaom's Path, which provides 0.4% Life Regen per Second per Endurance Charge

The Build

The tree at 105 points


Links

• All the Endurance Charges
• A decent chunk of Attack Speed
• Like, 500% 2H Axe Melee Phys damage, all told
• 150% max life, enough to be getting on with
• Rampart for more fortify buffing
• Bandits: Oak, Kill, Oak

The Reality

I'm currently at level 82, with 103 point.

Tree:



Items:



Fully buffed, I've got 58k DPS, 84% phys mitigation, and somewhere between 950 and 1400 life regeneration, depending on the how recently I last Enduring Cry'd. Overcap on all elemental resistances, -6% chaos resistance.

Given how quickly we get End Charges back when they're expended, A high level CWDT IC is pretty damn useful. That said, the build mitigates 60-80% phys anyway, so YMMV.

All in all, I've probably spent around 60c on the gear I'm currently wearing, and maybe 80c on gear in total, which makes it budget in my eyes. That can be gotten doing the unid chaos recipe in Dried Lake for a few hours. It can definitely run on worse gear, and a lot of that was spent in the first few days of the league, so things were inflated in value anyway. The build also has a relatively high gear cap, loving having a 6L Disfavour and a 6L fancy chest.

Also let it be known, I'm terrible at making my own builds and I have a Kaom's Sign fetish, so this can definitely be improved upon.

Levelling

Levelling was fairly easy. 2H Sunder until Cruel Lab was done, using the easy levels to go to Art of the Gladiator via Barbarism, and the Templar Endurance Charge. Getting that far required a little zerging, what with it being a fairly weak start operating self-found in a new league. After that, it's been a breeze. Name-lock, hold right click, occasionally pop EC if CWDT IC pops. Focus damage to begin with, then pick up life when you need it.

Mapping

Mapping is a breeze. Thanks to some early luck, I've managed to get to T10s fairly quickly, and I've had no problem staying in a good exp range the entire time. Thanks to picking up some life later than perhaps is preferable, the first few T6s and T8s were a bit rippy, but T10s are certainly no problem now.

The only mods to be avoided are Blood Magic and No/60% Less Regen, since they reduce the damage/tank of the build far too much. Be careful on -max res, 40% Less Regen, Ele Weakness, and Vulnerability. You'll be used to being able to tank nearly anything, and that makes you a bit overconfident sometimes. Also be wary of the Museum bosses, they do silly damage for some reason.

Uber Lab

With the ability to keep endurance charges up on the fonts, Uberlab is a breeze. Most of Uber Izaro's attacks can be tanked (including his sword+shield bullshit cleave lacerate dealie, but not his slam), though I don't recommend letting him get elemental damage buffs or purposefully trying to facetank him. Don't be a dummy.

Atziri

As of time of writing, I've literally just beaten Atziri for the first time on this character, and it was relatively peaceful. As always, try to kill the Dual Vaals together, and don't let them shock you with their light beams. Trio order I did was Ranged -> Cyclone -> Dual, as chaos damage is a problem still, but it's possible that this is one of the rare situations where the Ranged can be left until last.

Atziri herself was easy. Two deaths to me being stupid and half-awake. Melee Splash is enough to keep the minion phase down, the regen is enough to deal with most of the damage in the split phase. As always, it's a marathon, not a sprint, but it didn't take too long at all.

What I want to do with the build

• Corrupted +1 end charge belt, for maximum endurance
• 6L Disfavour or better (not happening but a man can dream)
• Figure out a way to get more elemental tank, some level 69 guy in Sarn Arena was wrecking me with Glacial Cascade traps and I don't like it.
  

Why didn't you go crit?

I've been asked this a lot. It's a really good idea, due to Vigilant Strike's 100% hit chance, but here's the caveat: I'm fethin' awful at making my own builds and gathering currency early league. In order to go crit, you need to be a lot more sparing with your points on the tree, and you probably want a 5L Hege's Era or so. Given I didn't know about the 5L prophecy or that a guildie would have a Hege's drop in the first week, I decided to make it easy on myself, and focus on the tanky aspects of the build.

Conclusion

Non-crit Vigilant Strike viable, it's possible to not die while using RF and a 2-hander. Would do again.

I am leveling a very similar concept.
Except one thing: crit.
Vigilan Strike's 100% chance to hit as far as I know also applies to critical check, thus making crit extremely good.

Yes. The crit thing is intresting.

Vigilant strike is really nice to facetank Bosses, 8 end charges are Incredible strong and you can leach a lot.

For mapclearing i recommend hegemonys era and vaal groundslam. So you generate Power charges and have a good aoe still for Mobs. But gearing is tiugh if you go 2h crit.

I tested now my old Vigilant-VaalGroundslam-Crit Build in Standard and its fine. Im at lvl 80 and have with 5l Hegemonys Era full charged around 140k dmg. No flasks, no onslaught just 6-7 end charges and 6 power charges. The crit is 75-80%, this is okay i think.

With vaal Groundslam the clearspead is much faster and it is really nice power charge gaining because of the knockback effect. On 6 link i will add increased crit dmg i think.

Try out :)

My base dmg without charges is around 80k.

I've updated the guide upon the completion of Uber Lab and Atziri, and addressed some of the comments regarding crit in the edit. Please take a look if you're interested in my thoughts.

I've been looking to do this, but any one try it since the juggernaut nerf to only 25% chance to gain max end charges? Does it still work, or too gimped?

What do you do when you just have a boss, no souls for vaal ground slam, and enduring cry only gives you one charge...