[3.11] STEEL EMBRACE Pure physical [Shattering Steel Champion] Budget Friendly

I started the 3.5 league with the new shattering steel and found it to be quite satisfying with late game potential. It was super cheap to put together doing red maps with just a 5link and some Beltimbers.

TL;DR
Path Of Building:
https://pastebin.com/saMhWDz8


Video of Gameplay:






Changes:

Spoiler



Since the 3.6 patch the only change was the fork interaction but it wasn't mentioned in the notes anywhere so it's still unconfirmed

the leach changes shouldn't affect this build too much since it generates many instances of damage per second so it should be unchanged

3.7 Legion BIG buffs. with the new passive tree rework for the champ you can get even higher damage. There are impale nodes on the tree as well to get 100% impale chance. The 20% less attack speed is balanced out by the massive 169 added physical resulting in a net of +23% more damage overall


3.8 There were basically no changes in blight league


3.10 "This is a buff" ggg nerfed point blank by 20% but shattering steel's base damage was tweaked and ended up doing something like 1% more damage so basically no change

3.11 Extreme nerfs DPS from dual wielding 20% less physical attack damage and crit multi across the board.
With no changes to the tree:




Pro's
+ High dps Due to shotgunning (all projectiles hitting the same target)
+ High mobility speed with Leap Slam
+ Good Clear speed
+ High defense with champion + Molten shell
+ Budget friendly
+ Upclose and personal Play style
+ High leech



Con's:
- Struggles With life plateauing at around 5.5-6k at level 90
- Need to be super close (read inside) bosses to do max DPS



Path of Building:

I highly recommend using the community fork path of building. It greatly increases the amount of features

https://pastebin.com/saMhWDz8


The damage shown in path of building is per projectile so multiply it by your projectile count. With my current build I have 10 projectiles so the jewel in the bottom left gives 100% more damage per projectile
Leveling:


Spoiler


In the bottom left click the down arrow to select different trees


Selecting the other trees will guide you to a finished tree

There's no need to take critical strike nodes until later on since consistent damage will feel smoother until you get some gear to complement higher critical strike chance.

I don't recommend using brutality until later on so you can use some elemental damage weapons

having 2 quicksilver flasks will really speed up the leveling jog slog as well as %movement speed boots.

Some good leveling uniques:

You can also use the vendor recipe

Blacksmith stone + rare rustic sash + white weapon
gives a magic weapon with added physical damage


Giantsbane Bronze Gauntlets
Goldrim Leather Cap
Tabula Rasa Simple Robe
Meginord's Girdle Heavy Belt
The Magnate Studded Belt
Ewar's Mirage Antique Rapier




You want to rush point blank because it's basically a 30% more multiplier for free


Ascendancy Champion Order
1) Conqueror
2) Worthy Foe
3) Master of Metal
4) Unstoppable Hero
Spoiler



Bandits:
Help Alira (+15% all res 20% crit multiplier 5 mana/s)


Pantheon:
Major god of your choice since Soul of Arakaali was heavily nerfed
You can still get the 50% increased life recovery (if you capture the boss essence with a divine vessel) by using turning on righteous fire then immediately popping a burn immunity flask so you've stopped taking damage over time recently (past 4 seconds)


Soul of Tukohama





Skills:

Spoiler



Main Attack:
Shattering Steel > Vicious Projectiles > Brutality > Maim > Impale Support > Fork


Mobility Skill:
Leap Slam + Faster Attacks > Fortify

Defense setup
Vaal Molten Shell
Increased Duration


Power Charge Generation
(if not using kaoms roots)
Orb of Storm + Power Charge on Critical + increased Critical strike chance


Mana Reserved Skills:

Flesh and Stone + Maim Support
Pride
Dread Banner



Other Buffs:
Ancestral Protector
Blood Rage
Ice Golem




Map Mods:

Spoiler

Auto Skip:
If you see these reroll or be sad when it's already corrupted
> Reflect Physical
> Cannot Leech

Undesirable:
These mods are doable but they can significantly slow down or make the map more dangerous for this build

> Reduced Physical Damage taken %
> Reduced critical strike damage taken
> Added damage as X element (some bosses might 1shot)
> reduced life recovery rate
> Cannot Taunt




Gear:

Spoiler


These are the stats you want to look for on items
> Life
> Resistances
> Damage to attacks
> Armor / Evasion

Weapon:
> Extra Projectiles
> High physical damage
> High attack speed

For A corrupted Beltimber Blade you would want adds flat physical and or attack speed.
The Nomad corruption ideally would be critical strike multiplier during flask effect but critical strike chance is good too or increased pride effect

Jewels you want:
Life
Critical Multiplier
flat physical damage to attacks
Sword Flat physical damage to attacks
attack speed

I'm using Inertia over by the ranger as a quick and dirty jewel slot (+90 str) since dex has zero value to this build. they typically cost 1c abyss jewels are better but even some exalted orb cost abyss jewels are only minor improvements

If you have the money you can get a Pride +2 impale hit Watchers eye for a big DPS boost




This is late game gear but making sure your res is 75% with 2 beltimbers will carry you far enough. a 5 link belly is like 40 chaos the most expensive of the gear.
If you have the currency picking up a Grelwood Shank will allow you to drop
point blank and iron reflexes (3 passive points total)

The shocked on focus is very nice late game damage buff if you want to farm shaper/elder but not a priority just an extra 15% dps 4 second duration every 12 seconds
if you get a rare chest with 120% fortify effect + attack speed on focus gloves you can face tanks bosses and kill them in that 4 second window


Gloves:

Haemophilia are great options for mapping the bleed explosions make packs just pop


1 jewel tomb fist with murderous for intimidating is better for bosses
but requires a murderous abyss jewel

Rare gloves life/res/attack speed


6L Armors you could use:


The Brass Dome - Bonkers physical damage reduction and no crit damage but no life


Belly of the Beast - can probably reach 7k HP with a good %life roll


Loreweave - Good all around stats for the build and potentially huge elemental damage taken reduction

The Iron Fortress - Gives a pretty big DPS up without sacrificing too much defense.






Flasks:

Spoiler





For Flask mods:

Curse immunity
Freeze immunity
Bleed immunity

you need all 3 because they usually lead to death


For my life flask I typically put bleed immunity + instant recovery on low life since i hard ever use it unless death is imminent

Don't need a freeze immunity because you cannot be slowed below base if using kaoms roots

increased armor/evasion during flask effect (armor is better)


Other flasks you could use (until dying sun):
Quick Silver
Rumi's Concoction
Quartz Flask
Basalt Flask
Amethyst Flask





If you have any questions or comments feel free to let me know! I would be delighted to hear your feedback.


I edited the passive tree to give a bit more life/intelligence
as well as added a level 100 tree and an ideal chest (it's just called new item)
last update: Legion League 6/16/2019
Last edited by PeteTheLich#4991 on Jun 19, 2020, 5:57:02 PM
Last bumped on Sep 25, 2020, 3:19:49 PM
What about the fork interaction?
"
rflynn74 wrote:
What about the fork interaction?


There's not appreciable benefit from using fork support over pierce for clear speed. Using pierce you get a more multiplier as well as the shattering steel 100% more at max range

Fork wont add to single target DPS and map clear speed would be unchanged.
Have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAeEMIPMnuQ
"
rflynn74 wrote:
Have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAeEMIPMnuQ


I had not that's interesting. Fork would definitely be misbehaving if that were the case. I'll run some tests to see how it affects the shotgunning.

After some very rudimentary tests it seems like fork is in fact doing something. It massively lowers my dps yet it goes toe to toe when i did the beach map both bosses died in roughly 4

Ill start doing more runs to gather more data

I did Uber elder and didnt feel like I was super struggling for damage desipte it being a less multiplier.

I've not done the uber fight enough to be very good at it. But using fork felt better. I would say fork is better for single target but pierce is far better for general mapping.


Last edited by PeteTheLich#4991 on Jan 2, 2019, 10:08:06 PM
"
PeteTheLich wrote:
"
rflynn74 wrote:
Have you seen this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAeEMIPMnuQ


I had not that's interesting. Fork would definitely be misbehaving if that were the case. I'll run some tests to see how it affects the shotgunning.

After some very rudimentary tests it seems like fork is in fact doing something. It massively lowers my dps yet it goes toe to toe when i did the beach map both bosses died in roughly 4

Ill start doing more runs to gather more data

I did Uber elder and didnt feel like I was super struggling for damage desipte it being a less multiplier.

I've not done the uber fight enough to be very good at it. But using fork felt better. I would say fork is better for single target but pierce is far better for general mapping.




So basically just a gem swap for harder boss content like Guardians/Shaper/U.Elder? Seems good.
"
Trespeon wrote:

So basically just a gem swap for harder boss content like Guardians/Shaper/U.Elder? Seems good.


You dont have to gem swap fork and pierce work for general mapping. I've been trying out fork and it feels just as good so either one works just fine.

This build can do Shaper and guardians with ease. Uber Elder is possible but it's hard to find the time to stand still and drop a train on them.
I'm using a



at the moment. Feels like the good old Vaal Pact before nerf.

Even at bosses it's under 1 second until full, thanks to the fork interaction. Lots and lots of hits.
"
Llyrain wrote:
I'm using a



at the moment. Feels like the good old Vaal Pact before nerf.

Even at bosses it's under 1 second until full, thanks to the fork interaction. Lots and lots of hits.


Oh yeah that's a huge amount of life. I was looking at watchers eyes with the vitality life on hit. with that ring you'd probably get around 3000 life per second minimum on top of the 2500 leach. Ive found the leach is generally enough (you can see I tanked a full duration Shaper beam in the video section) but getting an elder ring with life on hit would be best in slot.
I just wanted to post my video of Mino

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st0AVNeEG7c&feature=youtu.be


If I take Fork out it just gets worse.

My character is open
Last edited by rflynn74#0347 on Jan 6, 2019, 12:12:02 PM

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