[3.0] Berserker BLS Shaper Farmer on a Budget - Millions of BALLS, DPS and INFO Inside! - VP, RT, US
3.0 Changes
Patch notes are now out. Looks like it'll be near-impossible to get this weapon on a temp league. This will still be an excellent boss killer build on standard. The Brutus' Lead Sprinkler weapon is getting modified in 3.0. Instead of granting 2-4 global fire damage per 10 strength, it will grant 4-7 local fire damage per 10 strength. This is the same type of change HoWA is getting. This means you'll get about 9% less damage in 3.0 if you dual-wield. It also means that it's feasible to single-wield it. With single-wield, you'll lose the dual wield bonuses and the extra 46% fire damage, but you'll be able to use a shield. Some good shield choices are:
Otherwise, not much has changed. The Dying Sun nerf is actually a buff for us. In most situations, extra AoE slightly hurts our single-target, and the reduced AoE mod on 3.0 flasks will help us. The biggest question is whether BLS will be obtainable during the Harbinger League. There are several challenges related to ghosts, so that's a good sign that we'll be able to buy the Torment mod from Zana again.
Introduction
This build is an RT + Berserker variant of BLS with Molten Strike. It has higher DPS than any of the other builds I've seen, including EO ones. It also has a good life pool (7-9k). I've been using it to farm Shaper, Vaal Temple, T16 maps, Uber Atziri, etc. My typical Shaper run is deathless. This is in contrast to the build I ran last league; it had double the peak DPS with scourge + blade flurry, but I'd usually die about once per Shaper run with 7k ES. This build it good for mapping, but it's not Vaal Spark: I can stay in XP range of an aggressive aurabot- and headhunter-buffed vaal fireballer in shaped pool, strand, and shore as long as I don't pick up stuff on the ground. Where this build really shines is with bosses.
Videos
I can record some more videos if people want, but these should be enough to convey what the build can do. These videos are all with mid-90 toons before I fully geared up.
Pros
+ Cheap to start (if you can get a BLS) + Inexpensive for endgame boss farming (spent 10-20ex total on my current gear in LSC) + Very high DPS + High life pool + 100% damage leeched as life + Can do all map mods except elemental reflect and no-leech + Almost ethical: life, not pathfinder, no vinktar, no poison, no double dipping
Cons
- Not great for lab farming: VP + life + berserker 10% dmg taken - Lower clearspeed than Vaal Spark, KB, VPS, etc. - Melee + essence volatiles = rip - Chimera's rippy with damage, speed, or shocked ground mods - Not quite ethical: benefits from Dying Sun, uses Vaal Pact, best with a 6L
Path of Building URLs
Path of Building is a great tool for designing and optimizing builds. Here's my build's PoB code (original level 95 PoB code, final level 100 DPS-focused PoB code). I leveled from 96 or so to 100 as spectral throw. Here's my level 99 ST setup. ST has much lower DPS but it's safer if you're farming very high packsize zones with double beyond for XP.
Skill Tree
Berserker level 96 See the Path of Building section for a few other trees and gearsets. Ascendancy Points: Pain Reaver (life+mana leech), Cloaked in Savagery (100% life leech + damage + speed), Crave the Slaughter (speed), Aspect of Carnage (moar damage, take this last) Bandits: point, Kraityn (attack speed), point SKILL TREE EXPLANATION
Jewels
Here are the jewels I was using at around level 96:
Other good rare jewels I used to use:
Screenshots
SKILL DPS Note: I've been upgrading gear a little bit, so these numbers are a little lower than my current setup. imgur.com album
unbuffed in hideout (no auras, no golems, no flasks) (melee hit only, not balls)
fully buffed (melee hit only, not balls)
'Actual' DPS the way some others calculate it
If I use the same methodology as the master marauder build list uses on one BLS build, this build has
Note that this methodology is flawed:
Estimating true DPS
I've gone a bit overboard with frame-by-frame analysis of some experiments plus deriving results from the fundamentals. Under the following conditions, my true DPS is 772501.5*7.33=5.66m versus white mobs and 547140.6*7.33=4.01m versus Shaper.
I've made a spreadsheet showing multipliers to apply to the Path of Building magma balls under various test conditions. For a Math of Exile explanation of the numbers, see this IPython Notebook (warning: lots of math and code). You can tooltip-warrior this a bit more by adding a silver flask and/or Vaal Haste. Wrath gives more DPS than Haste, but I prefer the extra speed. DEFENSE
merciless, no flasks
My cold resistance is slightly undercapped without flasks (by 2), but I almost always have Wise Oak up. It was worth losing some res to get a lot more DPS.
Gear
GEAR EXPLANATION You want to get t2+ life and t2+ strength in every rare slot. Second priority is capping resistances and getting any missing stats. Third is adding DPS (WED, added fire, accuracy if EO, etc.).
per-slot gear details
Weapon Brutus Lead Sprinkler is the only choice here. Dual-wield since the added fire damage is global. That said, I've accidentally killed a lot of things with dual brightbeaks, e.g. the shaper bullet hell mini boss. This sometimes happens when I use my weapon swap for added mobility and forget to swap back. Weapon swap In my weapon swap, I use Brightbeak and a 3 green Prismatic Eclipse for extra mobility. Gryphon is a reasonable alternative. Brightbeak + prismatic + leap slam + blood magic + faster attacks = insane mobility if you can avoid getting stuck on barriers. Watch the shaper video if you want to see. Helm You'll want a +3 molten strike projectile enchant. They cost 10-30c on Hubris and 5-10ex on a Devoto's Devotion. On a rare, you want as much strength and life as you can afford. Try to get resistances too. If you want to go EO, this is a good place to get t1 or t2 accuracy as well.
40% increased damage is the second best choice if you can't afford +3 projectiles. Without Dying Sun, +3 projectiles gives 10/7-1=43% more DPS against single target. With Dying Sun, that amount is reduced to 12/9-1=33% more ignoring its spreading effect, but it's still a "more" effect. All of these are much better than a 40% increased damage mod. Don't get increased molten strike area. Although it's a buff for clearspeed, it's a nerf to single-target damage since fewer projectiles will hit the boss' hitbox. Chest Use a rare astral plate. Divination cards make 6l astrals pretty cheap. The 12% all res implicit helps a lot. Get as much strength, life, and resistances as you can afford. As an alternative, you can use Belly of the Beast. At least when I was shopping, it was more expensive than a rare. Belly will give you more total life (or free up some nodes on the tree), but you'll have less damage and you may be stuck with lower resistances. Gloves Look for strength, life, resistances, and attack speed. If you can get elemental weakness on hit gloves, that would be insane. You can use Meginord's gloves while leveling if you're low on strength but can cap your res elsewhere. Boots Use Alberon's Warpath. These are BiS and cheap, even for an 18% strength roll. Don't even think about using anything else. Penetration is the best enchant. If needed, just run merc lab for 8% if you don't want to deal with farming uber lab for 10%. There are a few other useful enchants like light dmg if you haven't killed recently. That one is useful for bosses but remember it is only 50% effective due to AoF from our amulet. If you really insist on going EO, crit chance will help get EO running on bosses (but you're better off going RT and having penetration). Amulet Xoph's Blood is perfect for this build. Every mod is useful. If you can't afford it, use Xoph's Heart, Astramentis, or a rare with a lot of strength and life. If you're really rich and somehow have a GG pair of gloves with elemental weakeness on hit, you may want to get a +1 curse Xoph's Blood. Rings Use rares that will let you cap your resistances, have a lot of strength, and have a lot of life. If you can afford it, attack speed, WED, %fire damage, +fire damage, etc. will boost your DPS a lot. If you can cap your resistances, a high roll Le Heup is really nice. It may save you a point or two on the tree for int and/or dex. Belt Get a rare heavy belt with strength, life, and resistances. If you can afford it, get WED as well. Each point of WED is worth more than the same amount of strength if you have t2+ strength on the rest of your gear. If you're rich and love having fun, Headhunter is good for this build. You'll have a lot of extra dex but lose out on strength. Also, headhunter is only good for general mapping. It's useless for unique bosses. It's very very good for full sextant, high packsize, breach+beyond+??? maps. Flasks The most important flask is Wise Oak. As long as your cold and lightning resistances aren't higher than your fire resistance, it gives us 20% fire penetration. If you can manage to make all your elemental resistances the same, you'll also get a 10% damage reduction to all elements (including reflect damage). It also makes it less important to cap all resistances if you're poor. It's definitely not required, but Dying Sun is nice and gives 15% more damage. See the links in the "Estimating true DPS" section for details on why you don't get the full 20% boost. Doedre's Elixir isn't required but it's great for getting frenzy charges and proccing the Berserker's savage hit bonuses, as long as you don't have much chaos resistance. It's helpful Other flasks that are useful include basalt, life, quicksilver, silver, etc. You'll want at least one anti-freeze and one anti-bleed flask.
Level 100 Standard Gear
Here's the final gear I'm using on Standard as a level 100 build. All of the gear was obtained in the Legacy League (2.6). The main things I could still upgrade are the rings and some of the jewels.
Links and Gems
Main DPS Setup Your first five links should be the following. We're an elemental build, so physical damage boosts don't help us. Ignites don't stack (without emberwake) and we're pure fire damage (due to AoF on our amulet), so there's no downside to Elemental Focus. For mapping, I use increased AoE as my 6th link: For bosses, use concentrated effect: Note that the tooltip is for the melee hit, so concentrated effect's bonus won't show up there. The vast majority of our damage comes from the projectiles and conc's bonus is massive for them. Also, it pulls the projectiles closer so they get larger bonuses from Point Blank and more of them will overlap with a boss' hitbox. See the "Estimating true DPS" spoiler for more details. CWDT Setup 1 If you don't like dying to porcupines, you need CwDT + IC, like just about every other build. We don't get endurance charges, so levels and quality don't matter. CWDT Setup 2 Since we're melee, ranged attackers can sometimes be dangerous. Having a few high level spells triggered by CwDT works very well with the 100% berserker leech we have when we get hit hard. This does a lot to keep our health topped off in hectic fights. Unless you like self-casting your golem, make CwDT do the work for you. Some people like to trigger vortex and/or curses with CwDT. I prefer skills that leech (setup 1) and using orb of storms for cursing. Mobility Setup We don't have a shield or pointy weapon, so leap slam is our only option. With all the attack speed we stack on this build, it's actually faster than most people with shield charge. This is a great way to get your Fortify buff. Without blood magic, you'll run out of mana after a few leaps, and you'll also tend to be OoM when you start attacking a pack. If you really want to be mobile, use brightbeak and a 3-green prismatic eclipse in your weapon swap. Aura Setup If you have a level 3+ enlighten, use Otherwise, swap in Herald of Ash or Flammability + Blasphemy. Level 18 Haste gives the max attack speed bonus. You only get an extra 1% extra movement speed by going to level 20. Wrath gives more DPS than Haste, but you lose some QoL and safety from the loss of attack speed. Also, Wrath requires 155 intelligence. If you love tooltip warrioring and happen to be using a Hubris, consider Wrath instead of Haste. Other Rallying Cry gives a large DPS boost if you can remember to use it. Ancestral Protector gives a large APS increase. We don't care if it does any damage itself. Unavailable Add one or two vaal skills if you have space. I've played around with Vaal Haste and Vaal Lightning trap (note: doesn't work on bosses that can't be shocked like Shaper).
Leveling
You can use Molten Strike right from the start once you hit A1N, but I suggest leveling with Spectral Throw until you have stacked some attack speed and defenses. If you want to blow some currency, level with Abberath's Hooves. Sunder is another great option, especially with Cauteriser.
Acknowledgements, Inspiration, and Related Threads
Updates
2.6 BLS Berserker budget shaper farmer build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1882710 Last edited by MoldyDwarf#0844 on Sep 14, 2017, 9:22:39 PM Last bumped on Mar 1, 2018, 7:55:17 PM
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This build looks amazing :D If only Lead Sprinklers had 3d art :P
IGN SuperGaco
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Bumped since the guide is actually done now.
2.6 BLS Berserker budget shaper farmer build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1882710
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holy moly wall of knowledge here O_O
A day w/o dealing with stupid ppl is like....Never mind. Ill tell u if it ever happens
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What is a good order to tackle the keystones i.e. where should I go when I am leveling?
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" For keystones, I'd do roughly this:
Take Elementalist early if you need the resistances. If you're still having res problems, you could route through Sentinel instead of Master of Arena. Take +30 dex and/or +30 int nodes if needed, but try to get your stats from levels and gear if you can. Take attack speed when you're near it. I underappreciated it while leveling and it makes a huge QoL and DPS difference. 2.6 BLS Berserker budget shaper farmer build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1882710
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this deserve more love. Its pretty cheap for what it can do.
Playing this in hardcore,currently 60. What would you advice me ? is there anything i could do to make it safer for normal lvling? I was thinking of using Lifeleech gem? The dps is insane already. |
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" You should take Pain Reaver in normal lab. This will solve your short term leech problems. Take Cloaked in Savagery from cruel lab and you'll never have to worry about leech again. If you're not ready for normal lab, I'd try Warlord's Mark on Blasphemy, Vitality Void (south of duelest, approach from the point blank side to minimize your respec points, or life leech gem if you have no other options. For hardcore, prioritize life over DPS early on. There's a lot available near the marauder start. Do make sure you have enough damage though to actually be able to handle the content. If you can afford Abberath's Hooves (were too expensive for me) or Seven League Steps (I borrowed these from a friend for 2 days while leveling), they make leveling a lot easier. If you need resistances before you can gear up fully, Sentinel is only 2 points away, as are the scion resistance nodes. You can respec out of them after you get better gear. Be sure to get close to Vaal Pact so it's not too expensive to take it once your damage gets high enough for reflect to be a problem. Avoid breaches and beyond until you have Cloaked in Savagery and Vaal Pact. You need a ton of leech to survive them. 2.6 BLS Berserker budget shaper farmer build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1882710
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sounds good, just run labs (took leech obviously) . Still missing cruel ..lol,i alwais do them random order.
Now all im missing is a +3 proj molten strike helmet. But all i see are non roll circlet and im just waiting for a bargain on these . and a 6l astral plate,but yeah just wants to grind some lvls first :) Im curious about atziri or breachlord. Did you run some of thoese with this specific thing? I already got 2 descent character (90) in LHC so was kinda hoping this one would be a fun /different boss killer thing. I mean it seems pretty solid on paper. |
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" You can use pretty much any rare base, but at least on softcore the most common are hubris. The only real downside of hubris is the 154 int requirement, so you'll have to waste 1-2 passive points on the +30 int nodes. " I did 100 atziri and 100 breachlord runs for the endgame grind challenge (as well as 40 guardians, still need to do a billion lab runs). I haven't tried chayula since it's so expensive, but the other 3 lords were fine. I did rip 3 times doing breachlord runs because I was running them in a group, rushing, trying to show off, and didn't notice reflect rares. Whenever I ran solo, I had no trouble seeing the ele reflect rares and just hopping past them. For atziri, my only softcore rips were to being dumb and forgetting I couldn't facetank stuff like the enraged dual striker, flameblast (especially if I reflected flammability back on myself), etc. Again, only rips were when rushing and showing off in split rotations. For guardians, phoenix is the easiest. Use AoE instead of conc effect to keep the adds under control. Alternatively, do like Mathil and use Vaal Lightning Trap and kill the boss in less than 1 second. Hydra is fine as long as you don't roll mods that are too rippy. Same thing with minotaur (but avoid getting hit by his burrow). Chimera's pretty rippy. Something that helps a lot is to have dual brightbeak in weapon swap with leap slam, faster attacks, and blood magic. This will make it easier to find him in the smoke clouds before you die. I suggest skipping chimera completely on HC. I made this character as a semi-budget shaper farmer. I've been doing shaper farming for 3 leagues now and this is almost as good as blade vortex pathfinder back when master surgeon still worked and I had 10k es, 100+ex in gear, etc. I suggest studying the fight and practicing on standard before attempting it on HC. 2.6 BLS Berserker budget shaper farmer build guide: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1882710
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