[3.9] Endurance Charge Jugg

The build is the highly overused Molten Strike Juggernaut. The reason is because of the survivability and the synergy with endurance charges. We are aiming for 9-10 endurance charges in this build (depending on boot corruption or not). This is not only a defensive boon, but also the main source of our damage in relation to duel wielding Nebuloch's. These weapons are the core of the build.



With 10 endurances charges, we get between 100-160 flat Global physical damage (applied to both weapons) as well as 80% physical as extra fire damage on top of the duel wielding damage and attack speed bonuses. That makes them go from an approximately 250 dps weapon to endgame, instantly. The defenses that they give per endurance charge is also stupid. It is like having 3 copies of the Unrelenting Juggernaut ascendancy and gives so much armour that you can basically hit the physical mitigation cap of 90% in a Tabula Rasa. It is so good that you can afford to use all your flasks (except a life flask) for dps, not additional defenses.

We scale the damage based on the projectiles from molten strike and use the Point Blank node with Concentrated Effect and Iron Grip passives with Strength scaling for additional damage. We get Avatar of Fire and cover enemies in Ash with a Xoph's Blood, and we get Elemental Overload from our Molten Strike crits. We use a level 1 Cast when Damage Taken setup with Wave of Conviction to keep the negative 25% fire resistance debuff as well as Flammability with Curse on Hit on trash and bosses as well as keep Blood Rage up at all times for attack speed and frenzy charges with Ancestral Protector for additional More attack speed on bosses. This also helps us move faster with Leap Slam since we are using Kaom's Roots instead of the Unstoppable ascendancy. Between Wave of Conviction, Flammability, and Combustion we reduce the enemies fire resist by 88% for maximum damage.

Keep in Mind that the mitigation is likely worse now with the Fortify rework in 3.9

For physical mitigation, we have capped 90% at all times with charges up which is further reduced with the 5% from the Unbreakable Juggernaut ascendancy and another 24% from Fortify with our main link. This gives us 93% physical mitigation meaning we only take 7% of physical damage. Meaning that Blood Rage's physical degen is nothing but a tickle.

For elemental mitigation, we use Purity of Fire, Ice, and Lightning with an enlighten gem for additional resists/max resists. This can be further improved with level 21 gems if you have a +2 to level of socketed aura gems helmet.The threshold to get an extra 1% max res for a purity gem is at level 23. This gives us 82% fire max res, 81% ice and lightning max res. This is also reduced by 5% from Unbreakable and 24% by Fortify, but it is even further reduced by Reduced Elemental Damage Taken from Unrelenting and the 2 Nebuloch's. With 10 endurance charges, this gives us 28% additional reduced elemental damage, giving us a total of 57% reduced elemental damage applied after resists. This gives us 92% effective fire resistance (94% with a Dying Sun Flask up!) and 92% effective ice and lightning resistances (can be up to 94% with your lowest resist with a Wise Oak Flask Up). This can be even further reduced if you use Vaal Impurities of fire/ice/lightning. With these skills up the effective resists are 97%/97%/97% if you also have your flasks up. With all these resists, it makes the degen from 2 Nebuloch's of 400 damage per second per endurance charge very minimal.

For chaos resists, with 10 endurance charges we get at least positive 60% chaos resist from Unrelenting and Nebuloch's (even with 0 chaos resist on gear). Since we are fully life based, this should be fine for essentially all content.

So we take very little damage from all sources of damage. "So what?" you may be asking. Damage is still damage, and you still need a ton of recovery for hard content. Well, don't worry. We have that too.



With 2 Kaom's Way rings and certain nodes on the skill tree, we have 14% life regen per second just from endurance charges. We also have tons of regen from the Unbreakable ascendancy and more from the tree totaling about 20% life regen per second not including Unbreakable. But, given the degen of Blood Rage and the 2 Nebuloch's (even though it is greatly reduced) you would be rightly concerned if that and flasks were all we had. Therefore, we also use leech.



The Offering to the Serpent Gloves basically makes us a Slayer as well. We actually have more base life leech than regen giving us a total of about 40-45%-ish of our total life pool recovery per second (35-40% when the degen is factored in) without Unbreakable or a life flask. And the gloves are very nice because they allow us to continue to leech even when we are moving between attacks, and it also means that damage bonuses to leeching continue between as well.

You may also notice the life gain on hit with the rings as well which can be further enhanced with jewels, or if you are really rich, a watchers eye with life gain on hit with Vitality, but you would have to change out the necklace for one that gives no mana reservation to one of your purity auras in order to fit in Vitality.

So in short, you can afk in lab traps, do very good damage, and face tank virtually anything with your defenses, life regen, life on hit, and life leech.

Most important is weapons. You want to buy the ones with the highest physical dps you can followed then by physical as extra fire damage. If you find that you are still not tanky enough for whatever your doing, You can replace the offhand with a Saffell's Frame shield. This will give you more max resistances, but you will lose 10% reduced elemental damage. This is a gain of about 1-2% effective max resistances, BUT you will lose more than half of your damage!! Keep that in mind. Also, it may be harder to find this weapon after the atlas changes.

If you can't afford them yet, go with the highest phyiscal dps 1 handed maces that you can. Extra damage as fire, attack speed, and crit would be good bonuses.

Also, the reason our charges look like Elder tentacles is because of a hidden stat on the Nebuloch's.



For the rings life gain on hit> max life> strength. Keep in mind that the rings are upgraded from from Kaom's Sign rings with the prophecy of The King's Path. The stats stay the same and just gain the regen. Meaning you can buy the base rings for cheap and upgrade them yourself.

An alternative would be Thief's Torment ring(s). It takes up both ring slots, but gives you crazy amounts of life and mana on hit as well as resists. I, personally, do not think that on this particular build that it is worth losing 2 endurance charges, but most other Jugg builds probably would be better with it.



Update: It appears that the Unique Gloves may be either extremely rare or impossible to acquire in the current league. I recommend going for good rares with Life/Resist/Attack Speed/Elemental Damage with Attacks or a 2 socket pair of Tombfist's.

For the gloves, increased damage while leeching> attack and cast speed> armor/es. This can be a little more costly than some of the other pieces. If you cannot find one, use a rare with good life and resists and maybe attack speed.




We use Kaom's Roots for boots. Corruption for +1 max endurance charge> Max Life. The trade off is we get tons of life and save from having to get the Unstoppable ascendancy because it has immunity to stun and freeze as well as negates all attack speed debuffs such as temporal chains (but the snare still applies), but we lose 4 gem sockets, all chance to evade, and all boot movement speed. However, we attack so fast that can get around with leap slam just fine. Or if it really bothers you, get a quicksilver flask.

If you are willing to lose a lot of defense, you can take Unstoppable over Unrelenting and go with extremely well rolled rare boots with Life>resists>movement speed. This will give more DPS by allowing more gem links such as Ancestral Protector, but we will lose alot of our max life.




For the amulet, by far the highest dps and highest life option is a Xoph's Blood, but it can be expensive. In case you were wondering, the covered in ash effect give enemies 20% more fire damage taken (multiplier) and 20% reduced movement speed. It also saves you a skill point on Avatar of Fire. As mentioned above, you can replace the amulet for an Aul's Uprising Amulet with Purity of X reserves no mana cost. This lets you fit in Vitality as an aura which by itself is not that great, but when paired with a Watchers Eye that has life gain on hit with Vitality active, turns this build into the tankiest thing possible with instant full life recovery. I prefer the extra damage, as we are already super tough anyways.

If you need a budget option, you can get a rare with life> fire damage/elemental damage with attacks/attack speed> resists or a Carnage Heart for damage while leeching and more max leech.

For the Oil Annointment, go Disciple of the Unyielding for Damage, or Herbalism for life/flask recovery.




For the helm Resists>> life> + levels to socketed Aura Gems. This may seem counter intuitive, but we are dying for Pre-endurance charge elemental resists at this point. There are only of 2-4 pieces of rare gear in this entire build in order to get resists (depending on body armour). We need this because, while it is unlikely, It is possible to get 1 shot before we get our endurance charges active. This chance goes way, way down if we can at least cap our elemental resists with just our gear and auras.

Also, as I have mentioned above if you have level 21 purity of X gems and a +2 socketed aura gems explicit on your helm, you can get an extra 1% max res for each element. This can be very expensive, especially as bad as we need life and resists on this helm.

For a third, even more expensive option. You can try to go for a very well rolled Socketed Gems are supported by Concentrated Effect and Immolate Helm. This will give you a pseudo 6 link for molten strike. If you do this, you can replace your body armour with a Kaom's Heart which will drastically increase your HP, making you a tanking god. BUT, You would probably have to take off the Kaom's Roots, because you wont have enough gem links to make the build functional with the both of them.




Speaking of body armour, I am currently going with an astral plate with high life rolls and some resists. The armour helps with Molten Shell with damage prevenetion but it is greatly increased due to Ascendancies, the flat armour from the Nebuloch's and the physical mitigation from the endurance charges. Life>>resists>armour.

If you have the currency, you can get an elder astral plate with high life, % life, resists, and maybe base critical modifier, but that would be close to mirror tier so most of us probably can't afford that.

Another option would be a Belly of the Beast. It gives more HP than any non-elder astral plate, comes with all res, and give your life flask more recovery to boot. As I mention above, the highest HP option would be a Kaom's Heart with a pseudo six link molten strike helmet.




For belts, Resists> Life>> Elemental Damage with Attacks or flask/recovery effects. The best option would be a Stygian vise for the extra abyss jewel socket or a very well rolled leather belt. Remember, this is our other rare piece, so get as much resists as possible.




For Jewels, you need one Wildfire. The best would be a corrupted one with immunity to corrupted blood. Otherwise, just get a high fire damage roll and use a bleed flask.

For other jewels, you want them all to have high life rolls. If you are still missing base stats/resists or want more life on hit, get it here. You probably also want 1 abyss jewel with Onslaught on kill. If you are not using Kaom's roots, you can get a blind on hit abyss jewel because blind counts as evasion.

Top DPS stats to look for: Flat physical damage to attacks (base/while duel wielding/with 1 handed weapons/maces), flat fire damage, %increased damage, %increased area damage, %increased projectile damage, %increased fire damage, % increased attack speed, % increased Global Physical Damage (Melee Physical Damage does not affect the projectiles except with strength from the Iron Grip Passive).

The gem links are slightly out of date.

Awakened gems will likely be better if you can find them as a substitute for any of the support gems below.

Body: Molten Strike > Concentrated effect > Multistrike > Elemental Damage with Attacks > Elemental Focus > Rage/Endurance Charge on Melee Stun(single target) and Ancestral Call (clearing).

We are purely scaling damage to the orbs, not the melee hit. This is further scaled by the Iron Grip, Point Blank, and Avatar of Fire nodes in the skill tree. Multistrike is very good even with the comparative less attack speed, and the damage does not show up accurately in Path of Building dps for the orbs because it doesn't realize the production of the orbs is tied to every "melee strike". When using the Point Blank ascendancy, Concentrated effect is ALWAYS a dps increase. Normally the balls go from a distance between 5-20 from the player in a circle. Concentrated effect does not shrink the size of the actual orb explosion, just the distance of the radius they can travel. This means that it not only increases the overlap of orbs on a target because they are closer together, but it also means that Point Blank will give its full effect to more of the orbs on average. Elemental Damage with Attacks is pretty self-explanatory.

Rage support and Endurance Charge on Melee Stun (especially with 10 endurance charges) are very good. However, it is hard to keep high amounts of Rage up at all times, so I typically use ECoMS for single target. Ancestral Call is no longer good for single target/bosses anymore unless there are lots of adds close to the boss. It is still the single strongest gem for clearing/maps/delve. And you will likely prefer it even on some boss encounters.

In case your interested in your actual dps, here is a link for a molten strike damage calculator. (I am not sure if this is up to date*)
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1903956







Helm/Gloves: Vaal Impurity of Fire (level 21)> Vaal Impurity of Ice (level 21)> Vaal Impurity of Lightning (level 21)> Enlighten (level 3 or 4).

As I mentioned above, the Vaal Impurity of X gives a cooldown with additional elemental damage reduction that stacks with it from other sources. This is especially good for fights like Uber Elder where you are worried about a certain kind of damage (cold). You can also use them as psuedo-flasks to get rid of status effects. HOWEVER, the short buff of Vaal Impurity of Fire, drastically lowers our damage because it negates our negative fire resistances on the enemies and sets it to 0. Only use this as a defensive emergency cooldown for fire damage. The other 2 do not affect our damage.

Once again, you only need level 21 auras if you have a helm or gloves with +2 to level of socketed aura gems to get the magical level 23 gems for 5% max res compared to 4% max res. But, this can be very expensive and is not mandatory.

While Enlighten level 4 is ideal, it is also expensive. But, it would potentially free up 4 skill tree points if you can get one. I would probably keep it, however, because I like having extra mana for molten strike or leap slam if you do not use blood magic.

*For a DPS alternative, you can use Haste/Vaal Haste, Herald of Fire, or Anger. But keep in mind you will be losing 4-5% max resistances and will be MUCH more vulnerable. You would probably also need a generic Purity of Elements for 1 of your auras just to reach resist cap pre-endurance charge. This would increase clear speed for farming if you are having no trouble surviving.



Weapon: Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1) > Vaal Molten Shell (lvl 10) > Blood and Sand (always in blood stance)

We use level 1 CWDT with Molten Shell so it is up as often as possible while we use the Vaal Version for an "Oh Crap!" button. The damage mitigation is the same at all gem levels, but the damage and added flat armour are the only thing we get out of levels. Since we have so much armour (especially if using an armor Flask like Rumi's), and we are not using it for an offensive skill, this is not that big of issue. Our goal is to get to 50,000 armour (with flasks) so we can get the max effect out of Molten Shell/Vaal Molten Shell. You can swap things around to add an Increased Duration support gem if you wish. Immortal Call is useless for this build despite all the endurance charges because it lowers our damage way too much to lose our endurance charges not to mention making us less tanky.

Blood Stance from Blood and Sand is amazing for Molten Strike. The less Area of Effect is actually a bonus due to the Point Blank node and we get a free 15% more area damage for the Molten Strike Projectiles. Virtually no reason to use Sand Stance.



Helm/Gloves: Wave of Conviction > Curse on Hit > Flammability > Combustion

This is our standard Curse on Hit setup. Flammability works well with Combustion to help the WoC ignite more. WoC (which always lowers fire due to Avatar of Fire on the necklace), Flammability, and Combustion all lower fire resistance by a total of 88% before calculating the skill tree reductions. You do have to manually cast it in this setup, but if you play the other fire skills mentioned above, you can put Fortify in the main link and move things around so you have WoC in the CWDT setup and then use Storm Brand/Orb of storms for your Curse on Hit/Combustion combo. Theoretically, you might be able to find a Corrupted Nebuloch that gives Fortify on hit to save a gem link.



Weapon: Leap Slam > Fortify > Blood Rage (lvl 16-18 probably based on your Dexterity)

Leap Slam is nice because it can go over ledges too. Another option would be Blood Magic for its mobility/utility which you can do if you are willing to lose projectile damage on Molten Strike to put the Forify there instead. Faster Attacks is also a good alternative for getting around faster. Note that Leap Slam and Fortify are the only part of this that needs to be linked.

For alternatives, consider Ancestral Protector for the attack speed (if you somehow have another way to acquire frenzy charge other than blood rage) or consider using Enduring Cry to start getting endurance charges on boss fights that don't start with adds. Vaal Haste (without regular Haste) is also a great dps cooldown option but probably not worth it if you are using Vaal Impurities and Vaal Molten Shell.

Dying Sun is by far our best Flask due to increased projectiles, mainly. You actually want to go with the lowest Area of Effect roll on it due to Point Blank. Wise Oak is great offensively and defensively. Just make sure fire is your highest resist, but if possible, try to get ice and lightning to be the same when overcapped. This will give 2% effective resist to both of them instead of just 1. Cinderswallow is great since it is a great source of life, mana, and damage since we have a 70%-ish chance to ignite between crits, Flammability, and Combustion. And, since it is a veiled item, you can get either 15% of Damage Taken from Hits during Flask Effect Leeched as Life or 3% life regen. Both of which are good. Since we needed an Onslaught flask anyway for the movement speed and attack speed it works out well. Rumi's is always an option if if it is difficult to acquire one.

If you have trouble getting Elemental Overload to Proc, try using a diamond flask.

I recommend a Blood of the Karui for your life flask for emergencies. For the last flask, it should probably be a Sulphur flask with bleed cleanse/resist or Quicksilver with the same depending on your preference.

Early:

https://poeplanner.com/ABMAAGcAExEAADDG2FhjPfyMz_ZIXz8UIO8OwQR5aKluWK826EZphmBhUu9OXhNAoCFgdPEY2xR1pMJ34wHchNlHfr02ZU2-p1uvTiqPYCPTmmo6UjJ-dcvqYsAaeA218jWS2L1vO8ABBsYAAAAAAA==

Mid:

https://poeplanner.com/ABMAANEAExEAAGXG2FhjPfyMz_ZIXz8UIO8OwQR5aKluWK826EZphmBhUu9OXhNAoCFgdPEY2xR1pMJ34wHchNlHfr02ZU2-p1uvTiqPYCPTmmo6UjJ-wBp4DbXyNZLYvW87eu8FLQ48FHH467vtkc7qGPcycqmsqlnzcg9mnvrSHRSvjY9GpwjYJFZIktAS4dl8ggd2rM9-Fy9k51XWgKSfPi3SGjiQVXXL6mIWb-NqcYV5sa07wYuBQTXvOu1gQWNwIq84U3bnwAEGxn1zrQnLHtI4AAAAAAA=

Late (with Avatar of Fire from Xoph's Blood):

https://poeplanner.com/ABMAAQ0AExEAAIPG2FhjPfyMz_ZIXz8UIO8OwQR5aKluWK826EZphmBhUu9OXhNAoCFgdPEY2xR1pMJ34wHchNlHfr02ZU2-p1uvTiqPYCPTmmo6UjJ-wBp4DbXyNZLYvW87eu8FLQHnG_ol36QZDjwUcfjru-2RzuoY9zJyqayqWfNyD2ae-tIdFI9GpwjYJFZIktAS4dl8ggd2rM9-Fy9k51XWgKQWb-Nqnz4t0ho4kFVxhXmxrTuUb2ZU891oZSKvOFN25ycvOtgw-IKbd-XkVaIARrfTb8VTSHjcMgU8vJ8YkXXL6mIrCDlJwYuBQTXvOu0obF_JbHPDMWBBY3DAAQbGfXOtCcse0jhdpN3VAAAAAAA=

The tree is vary customizable. If you would prefer more attack speed or leech, go for it. If you can afford good quad jewels with high life rolls and 3 dps/life on hit/resistance stats, it would probably be worth taking out some of the damage nodes for 3 node jewel sockets based on what you need.

Alternative Skill Tree for Tectonic Slam/Consecrated Path:

https://poeplanner.com/ABMAAQ0AExEAAIPG2FhjPfyMz_ZIXz8UIO8OwQR5aKluWK826EZphmBhUu9OXhNAoHfjAdyE2Ud-vTZlTb6nTiqPYCPTmmo6UsAaeA218jWS2L1vO3rvBS0B5xv6Jd-kGd6z_81_sv1yDjya_vrd1WUUcfjru-2RzuoY9zJyqayqWfNyD2ae-tIdFI9GpwjYJFZIktAS4dl8ggd2rM9-Fy9k51XWgKQWb-Nqnz4t0ho4kFVxhdq5IAYzbHmxrTuUb2ZUIq84U3bnJy862DD4gpt35eRVogBGt9NvxVNIeNwyBTy8nxiRYEFjcBm0apNM_1Hmd1M7O57FBLPAZjwF73zAAQbGfXOtCV2k3dXzjfSDAAAAAAA=

Go Unflinching first to get the Endurance Charges rolling and to supplement crappy leveling gear.

Next, get Undeniable for massive accuracy, attack speed, and damage bonuses (Can get this one first if you really need it).

Next, get Unbreakable since hopefully by then you will not still be wearing a Tabula Rasa and will have a 5 or 6 link body armour with some armour and life.

Lastly, get Unrelenting to finish out our defenses with endurance charges. Or if you refuse to use Kaom's roots due to the movement speed/lack of gem links, go with Unstoppable.

Soul of Solaris is the best because of the reduced extra damage from crits, reduced elemental damage, and reduced area damage. If you don't have stun immunity of some kind yet, go with Brine King.

For minor, pick based on situation. But, I'm partial to Tukohama and Ralakesh.

Kill All

By far the best helm enchant is +2 projectiles to molten strike, but it is almost impossible to find/afford a helmet like that, especially with the stats that we need on it. So, I recommend running it through lab yourself.

For gloves, it is your choice. All of the damage/non-fire ones will be converted to fire at a rate of 50% due to Avatar of Fire, so physical or fire enchants are probably the best.

For boots, up to your preference. The movement speed and regen/leech ones are pretty good.

Elemental reflect red maps are the worst since we are 100% fire damage, but I've done them (slowly). You can out leech the damage as long as you dont hit Onslaught, Blood Rage, or your dps flasks. The Minor Pantheon Yugul would help with the 25% less reflected damage taken.

Everything else is easy mode. Temp chains doesn't really matter matter since leap slam and can't have attack speed debuffs.

https://pastebin.com/9LtjTdBu

Keep in mind that the projectiles spawn from each melee hit which does not factor into the PoB DPS calculation for the projectile balls when using Multistrike. DPS is much higher than stated per ball because of that.

I also added alternative trees and gem links for Tectonic Slam, Consecrated Path, and Infernal Blow to the PoB. Also, You can use Fortify in the links of those 3 skills without drastically lowering dps like with Multistrike. If you do, you can use either Faster Attacks or Blood Magic with Leap Slam if you want.