[3.6] Tectonic Slam Berserker - Facebreaker Build!

Introduction
My Tectonic Slam Berserker is back in Synthesis 3.6, and now comes with Facebreakers! There are some new items and mods that inspired me to try and remake this character, and the results were excellent! I've done tons of T16 maps with tough mods and sextants and cleared Uber Elder deathless. The character is fairly fast, fun, surprisingly tanky, and just unique and interesting.

For this video guide I've tried to teach myself some video editing. This is a VERY crude start, but I thought I could begin by making a guide that is simply more convenient for the user trying to view it. Essentially, you no longer have to view a series of videos in a playlist, but I've compiled the various subtopics into one video with timestamped links in the description. In the future I will make more advanced edits as I become more proficient with the software.

Here is the video guide, which starts by showing a run through a T16 Chimera map.


Is this build for you?
This build has great AOE clear, respectable single target damage, and is fairly mobile. It does require the player to be actively engaged in buff management to maximize clear, damage, and tankiness. The video guide linked above shows you the build in action so you can see if the playstyle is one you might enjoy.




Gear
This section of my video guide goes through my gear choices and discusses other gearing options.




Skill Rollout
For a bit more detailed discussion of the gem setup, check out this section of my video guide.




Leveling
This section of my video guide describes passive tree routing during the leveling process.




Passive Skill Tree/PoB
For a more detailed look at my choices on the passive tree, check out this section of my video guide.







Please, if you have any further questions or comments let me know; I would love some feedback. I hope this guide format makes it easy to get the information you want without having to go through a bunch of information that doesn't interest you. You can also find me streaming at https://www.twitch.tv/cowpimp to maybe see the build in action and ask me questions live. Cheers!


Check out my other guides here:
List of forum guides

Looks cool! I really like Facebreaker builds and Tectonic Slam looks fun. Would Chieftain also be a good choice? I can see why Berserker here, but you wouldn't need Xoph's with Chieftain and you use a totem anyway.

Might give this a go as Chieftain :)

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Araceli26 wrote:

Looks cool! I really like Facebreaker builds and Tectonic Slam looks fun. Would Chieftain also be a good choice? I can see why Berserker here, but you wouldn't need Xoph's with Chieftain and you use a totem anyway.

Might give this a go as Chieftain :)

I think Chieftan would work very well! There are some advantages and disadvantages of going Chieftan.


Pros:
-Doesn't require Xoph's blood. Thus, could use a nice rare Elder amulet instead.
-No increased damage taken, and tankier in general. You would have an insane amount of health regeneration and other defensive bonuses.
-Your totem could actually do some serious damage since you aren't going Avatar of Fire and convert a bunch of damage to fire in the first place. In my setup the totem is mainly for utility: applying the combustion debuff and the bonus to melee damage.

Cons:
-A lot less damage. Obviously Berserker's main strength is that they do a ton of damage.
-Less movement speed, which reduces mobility of your running and shield charge both.
-Low attack speed. One of the reasons I'm a fan of Berserker is the attack speed boost they get; it's huge. Facebreaker's have a terrible base attack speed, so the build may feel clunky without investing a lot more into attack speed.
-Worse endurance charge sustain against bosses. This probably doesn't matter too much since that chest implicit can mostly sustain them, but going Berserker allows you to use multistrike with pretty good endurance charge uptime, and the warcries are nuts for endurance charge sustain in general.


Anyway, Chieftan seems like a fantastic option, so come back and let us know how it turns out!

I've made a couple of updates. Turned the Vaal Warchief totem to a more pure utility role, and then attached a level 1 CWDT + Wave of Conviction (Also linked with combustion) for more consistent igniting of enemies, and an additional 25% reduction to fire resistance.

Also, multistrike is a solid alternative to ruthless after all in these links. Endurance charge sustain is still great. It's a little different feel to the playstyle, and either seems completely viable.

It is possible to make a variant of the bringer of rain + face break??

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Deadly-Toten_ wrote:

It is possible to make a variant of the bringer of rain + face break??

I would say it is possible, but without the new chest implicit you will have to mamage your warcries differently against tough bosses. You will also do significantly less damage, but thats a solid budget option.

Started this build out of boringness and it totally breaks faces so far. Leveling is so much fun. I barely have to stop at all, just shield charge through the packs. Took infernal blow until I could use tectonic - so much fun with the extra gore :D

I opted for the two extra points instead of Oak to get the juicy ele damage / pen nodes in the left wheel and the hp/melee node @ marauder start.

I wonder if there's a better shield we could use. It's pretty solid with high armor, hp, taunt, wc cd and leech. If only we could use two shields :D
Also thinking about not going AoF and get full conversion from other sources and adding some extra as chaos ...

Where do I get the chest implicit? Workbench or synthesized?

/edit: btw, why not abyssus? PoB says it's like 20% more dmg.

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m02ph3u5 wrote:

Started this build out of boringness and it totally breaks faces so far. Leveling is so much fun. I barely have to stop at all, just shield charge through the packs. Took infernal blow until I could use tectonic - so much fun with the extra gore :D

I opted for the two extra points instead of Oak to get the juicy ele damage / pen nodes in the left wheel and the hp/melee node @ marauder start.

I wonder if there's a better shield we could use. It's pretty solid with high armor, hp, taunt, wc cd and leech. If only we could use two shields :D
Also thinking about not going AoF and get full conversion from other sources and adding some extra as chaos ...

Where do I get the chest implicit? Workbench or synthesized?

/edit: btw, why not abyssus? PoB says it's like 20% more dmg.

Hey glad you're enjoying it!

You could definitely use some rare shield instead. There are shields that give focus mods, elemental damage, the craftable fire damage as extra chaos damage, nice defensive bonuses, etc. As well, Mutewind Penant would give permanent Onslaught uptime and some extra AOE and regen on your Enduring Cry. I just like having the instant heal the Berserker gets on a lower cooldown.

The chest I crafted myself. It's kind of expensive and a pain in the ass. It's not 100% necessary. Loreweave is a really solid alternative if you don't have the funds to try and craft that. You will need to use your warcries for endurance charge generation a bit more rather than for healing when fighting tough bosses, but it should still be totally fine.

Abyssus is only about 10% more damage. If you notice I manually adjusted enemy fire resistance down by -9. That's because POB doesn't properly add the damage from the Delve helmet mod that reduces nearby enemy fire resistance. So when you switch to Abyssus, you need to make that adjustment. Even if it was 20% more damage, I would never wear Abyssus unless I was doing a perma Immortal Call build. I don't like reducing my tankiness that much. You could certainly wear an Abyssus if you want, but it's not my style. Also, that gap would be closed even further with a +3 minion helm, which I know is tough to get.