[3.7][HC/SC]Kira's Broke Tectonic Slam Juggernaut|6.9k+ life and 1M+ DPS with 30c|Shaper & Elder

Updated PoB, decided to go a bit more defensive. Will have to try the new supports out to see which ones I like best.

https://pastebin.com/7PCzwNcn

Patch notes are out, seems like Tectonic Slam didn't get the Cyclone treatment where the gem gets more damage as it levels. Circle of Guilt and Bottled Faith being gone means that this build loses a lot of its late game damage. However, with accuracy being reworked, we no longer have to take Resolute Technique to have 100% hit chance, which means we can use a Loreweave + Elemental Overload and shift the resists to rings instead. Abyss jewels losing flat damage will hurt a bit. Overall, though, the DPS and play style remains largely unchanged. Will update the tree and PoB when the fully updated PoB comes out.

RIP Immortal Call and thus Soul of Arakaali. Will make all melee builds feel squishier.

Circle of Guilt will become unavailable in Legion due to Synthesis not going core, this guts our DPS by almost 50%. With the accuracy changes, we might be able to take Elemental Overload without too much of a down side. Will update when I see more news.

Guardian of the Hydra:

Are you tired of your character not doing any damage? Are you too poor to afford a Shavronne's Wrapping for your Low Life/ES build to work? Do you die on every map with your Chaos Inoculated build because ES gear costs way too much? Well, you are in the right place, screw the meta!

With this build, you will do over 1 mil DPS, have over 6.9k eHP (with no clunky ES/MoM mechanics) as good old life, and the character will pay for itself as you build it, unlike the multitude of builds that require exalts to just get off the ground.

With some additional investments (see ideal gear section), you can get to over 7 million PoB DPS while retaining your tankiness. So this is not only one of the most budget tectonic slam builds, but also one of the highest damage ones. Adding an Abyssus will give you an extra 1.7 million or so DPS on top of that, but you also die much faster so it isn't a trade-off that I like.

Overall, I think this is one of, if not, the best rendition of a Tectonic Slam build since you spike in power at level 16 and just keep getting stronger and stronger as you level and get more currency for your gear. Eventually, you'll do about as much damage as a Molten Strike build for single target. Given the Juggernaut ascendancy and a 7k or slightly higher life pool, you will survive a hit from just about everything and be able to recover quickly from leech and regeneration. This combination of dishing out damage while tanking hits isn't very commonly seen among other builds.

Yellow Constrictor
Yellow Purifier
Yellow Elder

After 2x Circle of Guilt:
Yellow Purifier

T11 Bog

T16 Phoenix
T16 Chimera (mapping setup, forgot to swap gems)
T16 Minotaur
Full Deathless Shaper

Pros:
+ Tons of damage, doesn't need levels or extra funding to scale up, you always one shot mobs and feel like Saitama
+ Extremely cheap
+ Scales very well with more investment
+ Good clear speed with tectonic slam
+ Good amount of life and sustain in maps (about 50%/s without flasks)
+ Great lab running
+ Apparently HC viable

Cons:
- Gearing with flat damage can become awkward
- Not the tankiest build out there, see molten strike juggernaut (I personally like 100%+/s of life recovery)

Here is your primary weapon:




Yep, that's right, you won't be using one. Instead, you are going to use your fists to punch everything to death in Wraeclast with these:



Look for a high damage roll. You can easily get a pair of 750%+ for 1 alc.

Facebreakers get their damage from flat physical damage that you will get from other gear, jewels, or buffs.

Tectonic slam is pretty self explanatory, it's a big AoE attack that offers physical to fire damage conversion. It also has a 35% chance of consuming an endurance charge to produce a Charged Slam (a huge AoE attack with 60% more damage).

How to stack flat physical damage? Primary sources include:
- Abyss jewels (including gear with abyssal sockets)
- Amulet
- Rings

Other options:
- Unique helmet
- Unique shield
- Unique boots
- Unique belt

Defensively, you stay alive by having life regen and life leech. Having endurance charges along with flasks gives you additional damage mitigation.

Note: Be sure to spec Resolute Technique as soon as you can when leveling.

1. Unstoppable - Stun and freeze immunity, cannot be slowed

2. Unflinching - Get those endurance charges for charged slams

3. Undeniable/Unbreakable - Pick one of your choice, unspec resolute technique when you get undeniable

Note: I will depict flat damage using the average damage of: (min + max) / 2 that poe.trade uses instead of the min ~ max range on items

Weapon:
None
Cost: 0

Gloves:



This build won't work without them. Get as close to 800% as possible, but don't go crazy and spend exalts, that would defeat the purpose of this build.

Cost: 1alc

Helmet:



The Lightpoacher is my favourite for mapping. It gives you an abyss jewel socket to get some life and flat damage. On top of that, the 5% life recovered on skill activation is instant and adds up to be about 15% of maximum life per second (attack rate is about 3 per second). We use only abyss jewels so we have at least 5 maximum charges. Look for 5% of maximum life recovered and 20% chance to gain a Spirit Charge on kill.



Deidbell is a good offensive option, but I don't like how when you are dying... you just die harder with the can't leech life when low on life mod.



Starkonja's Head is a good choice for bossing since it has life and attack speed. Dexterity is also welcome because we don't pick up many nodes in the tree. If you have trouble putting it on, get a high dexterity gear temporarily that puts you over 138, put on the Starkonja, then remove the temporary gear. As long as you have over 138 including the dexterity from the Starkonja, it will stay on.

I don't recommend Abyssus at all (especially for running labs), but you can use one for a huge DPS boost if you are comfortable with the increased damage taken.

Cost: 1c

Chest:



Any 6L rare chest with life and some resists, these are about 15c early in the league or corrupt. You want 4R + 2B ideally, but having 1 green socket or 1 extra red/blue socket is still serviceable.

Cost: 15c

Belt:



Darkness Enthroned is a very good belt for this build because it gives us tons of damage for very little cost as long as you have abyss jewels to put in the sockets. If you put in 2 jewels with 6 damage and 34 life each, you'll essentially have 3 of them due to the 50% increased jewel effect mod. That is, it will become 18 flat damage and 102 life.

Another good option is:



Meginord's Girdle gives a lot of good stats we are looking for. 10% increased life, up to 20% cold resistance, 10 flat damage, up to 35 flat life from the strength, and up to 14% increased melee physical damage also from the strength. Look for high strength + cold resist rolls.

Cost: 1alc

Shield:



The Great Old One's Ward gives us flat damage and attack speed. Can also use a rare shield with increased physical damage and attack speed if you'd like a more defensive option. Look for 16 damage and 10% attack speed if the cost is reasonable.

Cost: 1alc

Boots:



Cheap boots with fire resist, life, 25% movement speed, and up to 7.5 flat damage. Unaffected by burning ground is a nice bonus for when you roll that map mod.

Cost: 1alc

Total cost (so far): 16c + 4alc

From here, things can get a little pricier depending on the stats you are looking for, but you have about 12c left to play with if we go by the 30c in the title.

Amulet:


This is your primary flat damage piece of accessory. Try to get at least 19 flat damage here with life, resists, and increased damage. % physical damage gained as extra fire can be good when combined with flat damage, but is not worth the cost most of the time.

Rings:


We want at least 12 flat damage from each ring, elemental damage with attacks or increased fire damage is welcomed too. You will need to get a lot of your resists on these, too, and life, so they can get a bit costly. I got the left one for 1c and the right one for 5c.

Jewels:


Flat damage and life is what you are looking for on jewels. These make up a lot of the flat damage we get in the build so try to get them as early as possible (level 48 for T1 attack roll). Attack speed is optional but will make the jewel very costly. You can get these with 4 ~ 5 flat damage and 30 ~ 35 life for about 1alc to 1c each. The build has 4 jewel sockets in the tree and another 0 to 3 on gear depending on what you use, so these will take up the rest of the budget.

Wise Oak for elemental penetration, which unarmed builds severely lack in. Make sure you keep your uncapped fire resistance the highest of all your elemental resists when gearing or else this flask won't work. Aim for 15% elemental damage penetration, but if you can't afford it, lower is fine too.



Really cheap flask for up to 25% more damage and a ton of armour. Just make sure the target is against something or you might push them out of your attack range.



Consecrated ground for more life regen and 40% increased damage.



Use a Bottled Faith if you can afford it and have nothing else to throw currency at.



Cinderswallow Urn gives us much needed life and mana sustain while mapping. Look for a 3% life regenerated per second during flask effect crafted mod, and 3% life recovered on kill.

WIP, updating as I discover more stuff.

We have 50% mana unreserved so you can run any Aspect you like. I personally like Aspect of the Spider.

The order I would upgrade gear in is:
1. Decide on whether you would like to use a Loreweave or not. I personally like a rare 6L chest better. Either way, focus on getting a good rare chest piece first, since the price of a 6L Loreweave is much higher.

2. Circle of Guilt rings, they don't have to be double Herald of Purity rolls, but double Herald of Purity damage rolls do give us a lot of damage.

3. You'll need to replace your shield, boots, and Stygian Vise for resists now most likely, so focus on them. Fortify boots free up a gem slot, so I recommend picking that up first if they are cheap.

4. Curse on hit Facebreaker to free up a gem slot

5. Here is when you hit the point of diminishing returns. Xoph's Blood and Bottled Faith both give you only slight improvements in damage and quality of life (<10% more damage each, Xoph's Blood gives you 2 passive points back). Pick your poison, or just don't bother.

Gloves:


Elemental Weakness or Enfeeble on hit depending on your play style. Swap your curse on CWDT with a Wave of Conviction for -25% enemy fire resist.

Chest:


6L Loreweave for extra flat damage, increased elemental damage with attacks, max resist. If you are short on resists, a 6L rare is your best friend.

Amulet:


Xoph's Blood gives us life, fire penetration, and covers our enemies in ash making them take 20% increased fire damage.

Belt:
I really think Darkness Enthroned is BiS for this build, but you can use a good rare Stygian Vise if you are lacking resists, or a belt with life recovery rate to have more regen and leech.

Shield:


A rare shield with some offensive stats such as attack speed and attack/physical damage, life, and resists will be better than the Old One's Ward as it'll allow you to transition to using Circle of Guilts without nuking your resists.

Boots:


We are very short on gem slots due to not having a weapon and using a Lightpoacher (4 less than most builds), thus, having Fortify in the boots help. Compared to the Redblade Tramplers, you can get more movement speed, life, and resists here. With the Betrayal craft "Non-Vaal skills deal (30 ~ 60)% increased damage" suffix, you can actually outdo the Redblade Tramplers while bossing when you drop down your Vaal Ancestral Warchief.

Enchant to look for is ideally attack and cast speed if you've killed recently, elemental penetration if you haven't killed recently is the runner up.

Ring:


Double Herald of Purity Circle of Guilt. This almost doubles the flat damage we get from Herald of Purity (up to 31 flat damage) and it gives us up to 60% increased physical damage, which adds tons of damage.

(Thanks horstbube for finding this!)

Jewel:
We don't use an aura so... a Watcher's Eye wouldn't do anything. Dropping Herald of Ash for Vitality and using a life leech + recovery rate Watcher's Eye will make the build tankier, though.

6L (Mapping):
Tectonic Slam - Melee Physical Damage - Added Fire Damage - Elemental Damage With Attacks - Elemental Focus - Increased Area of Effect

6L (Bossing):
Tectonic Slam - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike - Elemental Damage With Attacks - Elemental Focus - Concentrated Effect

If you have an unchangeable green link, you can use a Faster Attacks, which doesn't give optimal DPS but is still more than enough.

We swap out Added Fire Damage for Multistrike so we keep more leech instances up against a single target. Concentrated Effect boosts our damage by over 50% so it's useful for bossing.

4L:
Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 14) - Immortal Call - Lightning Golem - Flammability/Enfeeble

Good balance of damage taken to proc Immortal Call and the max (9%) attack speed from lightning golem.

If you have a curse on your Facebreaker, use Blood Rage here instead of a curse.

4L:
Shield Charge - Fortify - Faster Attacks - Blood Magic

This lets us get the Fortify buff easily so we take 20% less damage. Blood magic is here so that we can spam Shield Charge to travel and not worry about running out of mana. Our life regeneration is much higher than the cost of the skill.

If you have Fortify in your boots, drop Fortify and replace with an independent gem of your choice. I personally like Flame Dash here.

The Rest:
Blood Rage

Extra attack speed for more DPS. Also synergizes with the upgraded soul of Arakaali to get 50% increased recovery rate of life after immortal call procs.

Flame Dash

To get over terrain that you can't with shield charge, or through packs of mobs.

Herald of Purity

Extra damage and decoys for monsters to target.

Herald of Ash

More extra damage and exploding enemies on kill helps clear speed a bit.

Vaal Ancestral Warchief - Culling Strike

Extra damage buff + 2 totems to help output some damage while acting as decoys. There culling strike makes bossing a bit easier because they die at 10% life.

Alternatively:
Vaal Ancestral Warchief - Combustion

Combustion penetrates 19% of the target's fire resistance, which gives us more DPS against pesky mobs with high fire resist. This is the version I run.

Cast when Damage Taken (level 1) - Wave of Conviction

This applies Fire Exposure to our enemies when they hit us, which decreases their fire resistance by 25%. If you have another free link, you can try using Vortex for dropping chilled ground when hit or Storm Brand if you would like to use Elemental Overload.

Bandits: Kill all

Pantheon:
Major: Arakaali

The life recovery rate makes you heal a lot faster after taking large amounts of damage.

Minor: Shakari

Poison immunity prevents you from dying to poison DoT.

3.7 Preliminary PoB: https://pastebin.com/7PCzwNcn

This is my preferred setup, I use my character mainly as a mapping character so I like being able to 1 shot things with Resolute Technique and be a bit slower in bossing.

PoB with my current gear at level 92: https://pastebin.com/2VbX17Qw

This setup may be feel better if you are bossing:

Level 94 PoB bossing setup (7.5 mil PoB DPS): https://pastebin.com/6hufUsSy

(Key here is to take Elemental Overload and use Storm Brand on CWDT to proc it, and use a Starkonja's to have the extra gem slot and drop Flame Dash. Would not recommend for mapping, but if you are going to fight Shaper or something, it might be good.)

Level 90 tree: Link

For gloves, none of them are amazing. I think "Of Light" or "Of Reflection" is as good as it gets, and they are both very mediocre with this build. That's what I recommend corrupted curse on hit Facebreaker instead.

For boots, the best one is increased attack/cast speed if you have killed recently for mapping. The alternative is damage penetrates elemental resistances if you haven't killed recently for bossing.

For helmet, we want Tectonic Slam has 20% chance to create a charged slam.



I personally like Lightpoacher as the base while mapping, but a Starkonja's Head, a rare helmet, Devoto's Devotion, or anything you prefer are all solid choices, too.

PoB calculates tectonic slam DPS to be higher than it is in practice. The community also overhypes the 20% chance for a charged slam for DPS. If you look at the calculations page, having endurance charges provides the skill with a 1.6x multiplier. In reality, the base skill has the following multiplier (assuming endurance charges are up):

Average % = (0.65 * 100%) + (0.35 * 160%) = 121%

With the uber lab enchant:

Average % = (0.2 * 160) + 0.8 * ((0.65 * 100%) + (0.35 * 160%)) = (0.2 * 160%) + 0.8 * (121%) = 128.8%

It's a mere increase of 6.45% more DPS. 40% increased tectonic slam damage will perform similarly in practice, maybe slightly worse. Getting 7 to 9 more flat damage will also make up for that gap for most people.

It is, however, a nice quality of life upgrade to have almost a 50% chance to proc a charged slam.

As for how you should interpret PoB's DPS numbers:
If you don't have a charged slam enchant:
Real DPS = PoB DPS / 1.6 * 1.21

Otherwise:
Real DPS = PoB DPS / 1.6 * 1.288

Hardcore PoB (level 90): https://pastebin.com/VuqY3gsF

Since my goal was to hit level 90 and stop, and the fact that SHC items aren't as good as SSC ones, this version is tankier but does quite a bit less damage. It is still enough damage to comfortably map with, just not as satisfying as one shotting all mobs with the SSC version.

Several damage nodes were exchanged for 3 more Endurance Charges, which helps us stay close to 90% physical damage mitigation. With my flasks running, Poorjoy's didn't even hurt at all to run and I was able to grind through level 88 and 89 in 1 sitting spamming Poorjoy's maps. Most builds probably would've ripped there.

Overall feel of the build is similar to the SSC one, except that it's tankier (more so than I'd expect) and takes very little damage from most things.

1. Can you clear "x" with this build:

In theory, the build has the stats to do everything but elemental reflect and maybe no leech content. As a player, I'm mechanically unskilled so I'm skill capped there.

So far, I've done the following deathless:
- Normal/Cruel/Merciless/Eternal Labs
- All the maps in my collection
- Depth 150 in Delve
- Yellow Elder + Guardians
- Red Purifier
- Red Constrictor
- Red Eradicator
- Minotaur
- Chimera
- Phoenix
- Shaper

I've done the following within a couple of deaths:
- Red Elder + Red Eradicator
- Hydra

2. Why do you not take Elemental Overload?

Unarmed has 0% base crit and thus cannot proc elemental overload without added crit chance from elsewhere. You could use a spell to proc it, but then you can't use Resolute Technique and will take up an additional gem slot so it's something you'll have to decide for your own play style.

3. Is this build HC viable?

I don't play HC, but I've died 3 times so far getting to 90. Once in act 2 to a Synthesis memory fragment. Once in act 7 because I had my left hand holding a snack instead of being on the keyboard, so I couldn't dash out of a pile of exploding corpses + degeneration. The last time was in a map to a breach lord that spawned and murdered me out of nowhere. I'm not a very careful player so I think someone should be able to make it work.



Actually, my friend and I decided to take up the challenge of making this build work in HC with a few modifications. So far, he got to tier 2 maps while I'm still finishing up the story, but everything is going well so far! Hoping to get level 90 and all the HC achievements.

Update: got to level 85 and still going strong. Uber Lab was a breeze at level 84 when I found my last trial. Just the level 90 achievement left to go!

Update 2: hit level 90 on May 1, 2019! Back to SSC I go~



4. Hitting a rare mob feels like a wet noodle fight!

This is one aspect of the build that has bothered me as well. I think the following things help a lot (in order of amount of penetration and convenience):

i. Make sure you have Wave of Conviction activating on a level 1 CWDT, this applies a -25% fire resistance debuff to enemies hit.

ii. Make sure your Wise Oak is activating (the number in brackets for fire resist should be the highest)

iii. Use a Combustion either on your totem or on your tectonic slam, this will give more fire penetration

iv. Use a Xoph's Blood if you can afford it, the fire penetration and covered in ash debuff makes it very strong


5. I feel too squishy

This build isn't extremely tanky, after all, we gave up the weapon + glove slot for defenses and are trying to get physical damage on everything possible. That being said, play style wise, you can try to use tectonic slam earlier so the mobs don't get in range to hit you. The Lightpoacher helmet also helps a lot with instant life recovery while mapping, which this build lacks otherwise.

During boss fights, know the boss mechanics well and dodge the big hits. Also remember to use Multistrike to keep leech instances up. For traps, go carefully and don't run through them recklessly. This build has about as much life recovery per second as a RF build (around 35%/s while bossing and 50%/s while mapping), which while is on the squishy side in my personal opinion, most builds don't have this much recovery potential.

6. I am experiencing mana problems

This build does not allow you to fully sustain mana without flasks in its mapping setup if you hold down Tectonic Slam against a single target. The bossing setup with Multistrike does not have this problem. You are supposed to one or two shot a pack of mobs and let your mana leech refill your mana as you dash to the next pack. I understand that this may not always be possible while you are still gearing up, so the solutions include: a mana flask, a Cinderswallow, or the Betrayal craft that regenerates up to 6% of damage taken as mana over 4 seconds.

2019-04-13
Killed Shaper!
Added new videos and gifs.
Updated gear and skill gems sections.
Added cost of my current gear.
Added Lab Enchant section.

2019-04-10
Added note about bossing gems vs mapping gems. Updated flasks section to include Bottled Faith and Cinderswallow Urn.

2019-04-02
Updated ideal gear section with corrupted Facebreaker and Wave of Conviction.

2019-03-26
Updated skill gems and FAQ to include Combustion.