[3.11] Shaper = Stunned, Tidebreaker Heavy Strike Stunner Build

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JaguarXXX wrote:

I going to go for every 14% or more damage node I can (will take the 14% damage passive next to Steadfast instead of the one I currently have allocated, will remove the 5% life I have allocated in the life wheel and take the 14% damage passives next to Spinecruncher, and eventually take Wrecking ball; I will also switch the attack speed passive next to Destroyer into the 12% damage passive instead). This means I will have to make do with 6200-6500 hps, which has been fine for T15 and 16 maps, including guardians.

I also think while Devoto's was top tier in 3.8, the 10% reduced global damage is just too big of a hit to be worth it if it turns out we can in fact stun Sirus and Shaper using an alternative. I am going to try Deidbellow instead--more damage and actually more movement and attack speed as well. Yes, we can't leech while on low life, but War Bringer may be enough to make the tradeoff worth it. If survivability becomes an issue, I can add a life flask or switch back to Devoto's.

I will try to get a Lethal Pride jewel soon. The damage roll I got on my Tidebreaker is good, and I don't think getting one with a Fortify corruption is realistic.

I really don't think going for the 14% damage nodes is a good idea overall. It's just way too inefficient. But if you don't find yourself dying then I guess it's alright.

And I don't think going for the 12% damage node instead of the 4% attack speed is a good idea either. They offer very similar DPS and attack speed also gives you more mobility.

Devoto's 10% reduced damage is... I think you might have severely misunderstood how much increased damage we have.

Sources of increased/reduced damage adds up. This means if you have 0% total increased damage, getting a 10% reduced damage means you will be dealing 90% damage instead of 100%. But if you have 200% total increased damage, getting a 10% reduced means you will be dealing 290% damage instead of 300%; and if you have 700% total increased damage you will be dealing 790% damage instead of 800%.

On my Berserker PoB page, I see 703% total increased. This makes all the other increased damage mods quite inefficient. In fact, getting the 10% reduced damage only accounts for a loss of 0.9% total DPS.

This is also the reason I don't recommend taking those 14% damage nodes. They are merely 1.4% or so total DPS. It's just really inefficient.

As for Deidbellow, my only concern with it is that your warcry might not be on cooldown everytime you go down to low life. And if that's the case that sounds like a pretty much guaranteed death to me.

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JaguarXXX wrote:

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BA3YDADDY wrote:

Yeah you are right.

Got a 30% 6L 6R Tide today and with the setup i have now my Heavy strike is 165% reduced stun and cyclone is 88%

I can take out rare boots and add Redblade for 10% more and take out stun Support and add multistrike but not sure yet what i like Best.

Need to test That out first and maby try out bloodlust support with some added bleed chance passives.

But I can stun lock Sirus so its working but I still think it can be better.

Got a offer on a Pride Auls pendling so i can add a free haste.

Lest see how it turns out.

Thx for all the help man.

And again Merry Christmas

What gems did you use to stun-lock Sirus?

HS/BS/MPD/Rut/For/Stun

And My own passive tree.

Playing Zerk

I will try out HS-Brut-MPD-Ruth-Stun-Fort in my single target set up again. The first time I was unable to stun-lock Sirus except at the very start of the fight. But I have made quite a few incremental upgrades since then--I now have vulnerability corrupted gloves, lethal pride, 30% quality corrupted tidebreaker, helmet enchant for HS, 20% quality belt.

I will also hold off on going for the 14% dmg passives and Deidbellow until I test out that gem set up and the new gear I have.

I did pick up a Lethal Pride last night. Blew a couple of exalts trying to get a double REST roll, but couldn't get it. Ended up with just -10% REST and +10% fortify.

Things I still need to get (not in order of importance):

a second 6-link Tidebreaker

awakened brutality, awakened MPD, awakened ancestral call and awakened multistrike

redblade boots with +1 max end. charge

better jewelry

a watcher's eye with intimidate on hit

tenacity annointment

Ryslatha's Coil with a better roll

Corrupted Kaom's with 40%+ increased damage

I'm guessing maybe 15-20% more damage can be squeezed out still?

I am actually really enjoying clearing with heavy strike when linked with multistrike, brutality, ancestral call, awakened melee splash and fortify. The pack "explosion" (not really an explosion like infernal blow, but you get what I mean) is large and very satisfying. awakened melee splash gem is relatively speaking dirt cheap (gives you 15% bigger aoe vs non-awakened version and 3% more area damage). It is also nice that you take full advantage of the very high double damage % we get as a result of war bringer, helmet enchant, threshold jewels and passives on the tree. It makes clearing tougher trash, like the metamorph adds, conqueror enemies and abyss enemies, a breeze. Adding an awakened ancestral call would make heavy strike an excellent clear skill in this context (especially for T15/16 and conqueror influenced maps).

I have to say I'm really enjoying this build now. Thanks to OP for sticking with it. Hopefully we can stun-lock Shaper, but even if not, the build is still solid.

It's a BEAST at clearing tier 15/16 maps, the speed is awesome If you use a 95% rolled Daresso's Chest :-)

It's great fun and awesome build against endgame bosses but not the Best, but still just so much fun to stun lock the sh*t out of shaper and everything els That can be stunned :-p

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BA3YDADDY wrote:

It's a BEAST at clearing tier 15/16 maps, the speed is awesome If you use a 95% rolled Daresso's Chest :-)

It's great fun and awesome build against endgame bosses but not the Best, but still just so much fun to stun lock the sh*t out of shaper and everything els That can be stunned :-p

Have you fought shaper in 3.9? You were able to stun-lock him?

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JaguarXXX wrote:

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BA3YDADDY wrote:

It's a BEAST at clearing tier 15/16 maps, the speed is awesome If you use a 95% rolled Daresso's Chest :-)

It's great fun and awesome build against endgame bosses but not the Best, but still just so much fun to stun lock the sh*t out of shaper and everything els That can be stunned :-p

Have you fought shaper in 3.9? You were able to stun-lock him?

Yes and yes :)

Hey all,

First off, thanks brightwaha for the build guide. I had a LOT of fun with this build.

I just defeated Awakener with this guy, albeit it took me quite a few tries. Will share my experience below.

I actually tried this build as Slayer first, and then switched to Beserker after a while. Definitely way more "safe" feeling with the overleech. However, I found that the Slayer's lack of attack speed hampers his mobility significantly. Since most of the attacks Awakener uses that are deadly ("DIE" beam, clouds, etc.) are going to kill you either way, I found I had a much easier time as Zerker than Slayer in staying alive, since you can quickly jump out of the way and heal quickly with Warcry. The other attacks were tankable with either class once you have enough HP and mitigation (I did it with 7.7k life and just the two fortify clusters).

That being said, stunning was a bit rough with Awakener. Not because of his HP, but because of Rage. with Rage and Endurance Charges up, its easy to stun him but there are so many things that make you drop those buffs that it's hard to consistently be in a place where its easy to stun him. Even if you don't die, the clouds make you stop and wait carefully for a chance to get back into the fight. That means Zerker stops being angry... :(

The fight is definitely doable with this build, but it would be ideal if we had a good way to build up and maintain rage/endurance charges.

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Munch11 wrote:

Hey all,

First off, thanks brightwaha for the build guide. I had a LOT of fun with this build.

I just defeated Awakener with this guy, albeit it took me quite a few tries. Will share my experience below.

I actually tried this build as Slayer first, and then switched to Beserker after a while. Definitely way more "safe" feeling with the overleech. However, I found that the Slayer's lack of attack speed hampers his mobility significantly. Since most of the attacks Awakener uses that are deadly ("DIE" beam, clouds, etc.) are going to kill you either way, I found I had a much easier time as Zerker than Slayer in staying alive, since you can quickly jump out of the way and heal quickly with Warcry. The other attacks were tankable with either class once you have enough HP and mitigation (I did it with 7.7k life and just the two fortify clusters).

That being said, stunning was a bit rough with Awakener. Not because of his HP, but because of Rage. with Rage and Endurance Charges up, its easy to stun him but there are so many things that make you drop those buffs that it's hard to consistently be in a place where its easy to stun him. Even if you don't die, the clouds make you stop and wait carefully for a chance to get back into the fight. That means Zerker stops being angry... :(

The fight is definitely doable with this build, but it would be ideal if we had a good way to build up and maintain rage/endurance charges.

Before 3.9, it used to be the case when Berserker could stun-lock Shaper very trivially without any endurance charge/rage stacks. At that time the generation and maintaining of those are not problems at all and rage serve mostly as a great clear speed boost. Then before the Berserker rework a couple patches ago, rage could be maintained easily by spamming warcries.

So it's quite a new issue and yet I don't think there is any way out of this. But I do think that this is an issue pretty much for the Sirus fight only, and stun-locking Sirus isn't crucial to the fight (boss doesn't hit that hard).

Judging from the overwhelmingly negative feedback of the Sirus boss design on Reddit I suspect this boss is going to face a little rework next patch. If GGG add some adds to the boss arena and make the storms less tedious to play with, we will be able to keep endurance/rage up and the fight would suddenly be quite a lot more friendly to us.

Sounds about right. Outplaying Awakener as a Zerker was not too bad after getting past the clouds. It might be possible to stun him more effectively with awakened support gems.

Rest of the bosses were easily stunlocked including Shaper and Elder. Have not done Uber Elder yet... :)

As a side note this build does a great job stunlocking juicy metamorphs as long as they dont have unwavering.

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BA3YDADDY wrote:

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JaguarXXX wrote:

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BA3YDADDY wrote:

It's a BEAST at clearing tier 15/16 maps, the speed is awesome If you use a 95% rolled Daresso's Chest :-)

It's great fun and awesome build against endgame bosses but not the Best, but still just so much fun to stun lock the sh*t out of shaper and everything els That can be stunned :-p

Have you fought shaper in 3.9? You were able to stun-lock him?

Yes and yes :)

I can't stun the Shaper at 3.9 (metamorph) .... do you need to use something specific to stun?