[3.14] Aspect of Carnage Ground Slam Berserker, Bosser, Fast, League starter

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Ekule731 wrote:

Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions so I can continue to update the guide. Guide is beginner friendly.

Ground Slam is a large AoE skill, with a small close range area that does 50% MORE damage. This means it excels at both clear and single target. The high attack speed and damage of berserker allows for fast clear speed and a really quick leap slam which helps a ton with bossing. The build has pretty good damage, even on a small budget, and can have above average tankyness. This build guide is intended for budgets ranging from 0.5 ex to 100. People with a budget less than 10ex probably shouldn't consider going crit with axes.

- For those concerned by how good my items look:

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* Dont think you cant complete all atlas content without gear comparable to mine. You can use a synvicta's mettle and 5link/tabula to kill sirus, i've done it. I didn't spend dozens of exalts because I needed to, I did it because I wanted to.

Attack Speed: This build scales a lot of attack speed and ignores the slow hitting playstyle often used for slam skills. This is still an exceptionally viable high dps way to play.

RT= Resolute Technique: 100% chance to hit, cannot crit. It can be very hard to cap hit chance without significant sacrifices to damage (or the wallet), which is why RT is a viable option when on a budget.

INCREASED Vs. MORE: INCREASED damage like what's found in the passive tree is additive, meaning the more of it you have the bigger the diminishing returns and less its worth. MORE multipliers are multiplicative, meaning they don't have diminishing returns and actually modify your dps by the number stated.

Two variants of this build: (For the average player I suggest 2h RT)
* RT 2handed Axe: Really cheap, and works pretty well. A little tankier than the crit variant. Can later transition to crit.
* Crit 2handed Axe: The most expensive and highest damage version. For players with a relatively big budget. Invalidate most boss mechanics through sheer damage. Lower budget gear will result in less damage than the RT version.

3.14 CHANGES: MASSIVE BUFFS TO VAAL GROUND SLAM. ASCENDANCY NODE CHANGES MEAN WE LOSE MANA LEECH, WHICH MUST BE ACCOUNTED FOR. BLOOD AND SAND RESERVES MORE MANA, WHICH REQUIRES SOME ADJUSTMENTS TO FIX. GUIDE WILL BE UPDATED BEFORE LEAGUE LAUNCH.




- is a key point, or something to do/obtain
* is something to note, think about.

PROS:

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- Cheap, league starter, new player friendly, scales well with investment. Map on a 4link.
- Fast mapper
- All content, bossing feels responsive. Don't suggest you run Atziri or HoGM.
- Good damage, kill red map conquerors even with 5link (Less than 0.5ex total investment)
- No need to gem swap for single target.
- No piano war cry BS.
- Resistant to oneshots, especially with endurance charges up (not necessary). Tanked shaper slams.
- High life total, 6-7k+, exceptional life leech.
- Endurance charges on stun and frenzy charges/Onslaught on kill.
- Barely notice temporal chains with Kaom's Roots.

CONS:

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- Cant run phys reflect or no leech. 60% less recovery can be tough in t16s depending on other map mods and awakening level, just dont use blood rage and you should be fine.
- Aspect of carnage ascendancy makes us take 10% more damage
- Minor self inflicted DoT
- Being melee for bosses requires a little more player skill, responsive internet, frequent manual dodging.
- Takes a little time for everything to ramp up, you wont be doing full damage if you just zoned in and leaped into combat.
- Not a jug, cant facetank everything. Will have to manually dodge some stuff.

HOW MUCH DPS?:

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- More than the average build.
NOTE THIS IS NOT USING CALL OF STEEL Gif is exactly 1 second long and not sped up. Minotaur with Awaking 8 atlas has 40mil health

- It's definitely in the millions, but beyond that it just depends too much on the gear setup/budget, if you're ramped up, which buffs/flasks you have up etc. Good RT setup has a realistic potential of 15-30 mil dps. Top end crit variant has a potential burst dps of over 40 mil without seismic cry, and with seismic cry, for 5 hits (a little over a second) I have 80+mil dps. Don't expect to have quite this much damage without a rather large investment or something drastic like an abyssus.
- (Shaper and A8 Sirus' last phase are the only health bars that last more than a second against me when fully buffed)
- In Ritual league someone took this build to level 100, and with an abyssus he had 100 million dps without seismic cry, and with it for 5 hits he had 200mil dps.
- Down below is what the tooltip says with 25mil effective non-seismic cry dps. There are a ton of 'hidden' damage increases that don't show up on tooltip.


* For context, this is cyclone with the same gear, but 2 damage jewels instead of Rapid Expansions. Note cyclone doesnt get a 50% more damage bonus to close enemies, nor is it exertable with war cries.

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SIZE OF 50% MORE BONUS DAMAGE ZONE (Orange):

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* Ground Slams visual has been changed, but the size and functionality is identical to that seen below.

PASSIVES & BANDITS:

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KILL ALL BANDITS REGARDLESS OF WHICH TREE YOU USE

[3.14]2H RT TREE [SUGGESTED FOR LEAGUE STARTS, LOW BUDGETS, OR NEW PLAYERS]

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- This is the 3.14 2h Axe Resolute technique tree. Note you CANNOT CRIT. Use the other RT tree if you want to use a cluster jewel for RT. You can unallocate the mana leech and leading passive if you obtain mana leech another way.
poeurl.com/dfAY

- Lab 1: Crave the Slaughter
- Lab 2: Rite of Ruin
- Lab 3: War Bringer
- Lab 4: Aspect of Carnage

* Aspect of Carnage is the highest dps ascendancy node, but it's better to take it later when you have some defensive layers.

* Anoint Harvester of Foes

[3.14] 2H RT CLUSTER JEWEL TREE

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- Cluster jewel's give the main benefits of passives a little better than the tree and 2 extra sockets for rare jewels. Only use this tree if you have a good 2 socket 3 notable 10 passive or less cluster jewel AND mana leech somewhere like on rings or a jewel:
poeurl.com/dfBM

- Lab 1: Crave the Slaughter
- Lab 2: Rite of Ruin
- Lab 3: War Bringer
- Lab 4: Aspect of Carnage

* Anoint Harvester of Foes

2H RT AXE PoB PASTEBIN:

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https://pastebin.com/3qsHNhr0
* Note this is MUCH more budget as far as gear compared to the crit variant.

[3.14] 2H CRIT TREE:

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Only suggested with a good rare 2h axe with high base crit chance. Aim for 95-100%+ hit chance, you'll need accuracy on gear. You'll need to obtain mana leech on some jewelry or jewel slot. KILL ALL BANDITS. DO NOT TAKE RESOLUTE TECHNIQUE.
poeurl.com/dfBz

* Anoint Feller of Foes

[3.14] 2H CRIT CLUSTER JEWEL TREE

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- Cluster jewel's give notables that are a little better than the tree, and 2 extra sockets for rare jewels. Only use this tree if you have a good 2 socket 3 notable 10 passive or less cluster jewel:
poeurl.com/dfBA

* Anoint Feller of Foes

Cluster jewel suggestions are in the jewels section of the guide

2H CRIT AXE PoB PASTEBIN:

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- This gear was my character in harvest league. All of these items are realistic and craftable with the return of harvest crafting. My investment is rather high.
https://pastebin.com/J6Tbqm2c


- This is the pastebin of a player who played this build to level 100 in Ritual league. I made some minor adjustments and modifications to the PoB to be more accurate. He decided to use an abyssus.
https://pastebin.com/y5R57ysr

IMPALE: (Mechanics Explanation)

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LEVELING:

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ACT 1-3:

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- Act 1-3 tree: poeurl.com/dfUs (32 levels and 7 passives from quests)
* You will need to use a mana flask until you are able to get the mana leech from the tree/or a piece of gear.

- Act 1:
* Grab Ground Slam the second you get in town. Link it with Ruthless Support. Level a second one so you'll be able to make one of them 20% quality for later use.
* Iron rings will give a significant amount of damage early on. Equip 2 of them.
* After doing the medicine chest quest you'll get added fire damage support. Add it to ground slam and ruthless support.
* When you kill Brutus grab Leap Slam from town. This 'attack' will be our mobility skill and should not be used to try to kill things.

- Act 2:
* After killing the weaver you should unlock melee physical damage support, and faster attacks support. Support ground slam with Ruthless Support and Melee physical damage support. Buy a faster attacks support for leap slam. You'll have to buy a gem from Yeena.

- Act 3:
* Completing Lost in Love will unlock the pride aura. This will reserve 50% of our mana. if mana regen is a serious issue, you don't have to enable this yet. This will greatly increase our damage against nearby enemies.
* You can optionally go into the library from the garden to do Soisa's quest and buy fortify and impale support. You may wait until act 6 to do this.
* During this act you may find a 4link item. Having a 4link for ground slam is more important than any other stats the armour might have.

ACT 4-6:

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Act 4-6 tree: poeurl.com/dfUv (50 levels and 14 passives from quests, 1 lab done)

- Act 4:
* It is in act 4 when I suggest you do your first Labyrinth. Overleveling the labyrinth will make it significantly easier and will essentially guarantee a clear. The first lab is lvl 33. (Choose Pain Crave The Slaughter)
* Around the end of act 4 you will unlock brutality support and pulverize support. Feel free to use mix and match supports for ground slam while leveling. Brutality support may or may not be a lot more damage for you than other supports based on your weapon.

- Act 5:
* Take Rapid Expansion when given the quest reward for a threshold jewel.
* COMPLETING ACT 5 WILL GIVE -30% TO ALL RESISTANCES AND A 5% XP PENALTY FOR DEATHS.

- Act 6:
* Complete the quest to fully clear the twilight strand to unlock Lilly as a gem vendor for the rest of the story and 'act 11' town. Buy any gems you don't yet have that you'll need.

ACT 7-10:

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Act 7-10 tree: poeurl.com/dfUI (70 levels and 24 passives from quests, 3 labs done) Look at the passive tree section for the final tree.

- Act 7:
* Nothing of note.

- Act 8:
* This is when I suggest you do the second lab. (Choose Crave the Slaughter)

- Act 9:
* You can choose to farm blood aqueducts over and over again for humility cards (9 of which make a tabula rasa) This may take a few hours. Ctrl Click on the waypoint for blood aqueducts (FROM A WAYPOINT) to make a fresh zone to run.

- Act 10:
* You can do the 3rd lab before or after killing kitava. (Choose Warbringer)
* COMPLETING THIS ACT WILL GIVE ANOTHER -30% TO ALL RESISTS AND RAISE THE XP PENALTY FOR DEATHS TO 10%
* After you complete act 10, type /passives in game to see what passive giving quests you missed in the story. Go back and do these quests. Start getting any gem setups and supports you haven't yet done.

GEM LINKS:

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* You can click on the little boxes above each weapon slot in the inventory to bring up the weapon swap slot. Hitting X after equipping a weapon there will let you swap between weapons. Put 2 3 socket weapons or a 6 socket weapon in this slot so you can level 6 additional gems, rolls don't matter. It should be noted that you cannot use the gems in those weapons unless you have swapped to that weapon. We only do this to give those gems xp.

* Vendor a level 20 gem and one gemcutter's prism to get a lvl 1 20% quality gem. This only works if the gem is uncorrupted. Do this with all gems as soon as they hit level 20 (leave one high level ground slam). The damage loss will be very short lived as the gems will level very fast. DO NOT MAKE YOUR ONLY GROUND SLAM LEVEL ONE, YOU WILL REGRET IT. Level at least 2 ground slams so you can 20% quality ONE and use the other without quality for a while.

MAIN SKILL: (6link)

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(5R 1G)

- [Ground Slam] or [Vaal Ground Slam] Ground Slam is a large AoE skill with bonus damage to closer enemies. Vaal ground slam requires the souls of enemies to attack, but can do much more damage per hit than your basic ground slam, and it is much better at stunning if the enemy can be stunned. The Ground slam portion of the vaal ground slam gem is identical to the normal ground slam gem. With ground slam losing its flat damage in 3.11, levels aren't very important for ground slam.
* Quality on this gem gives 0.5% increased AoE.
* NOTE: The gem inherently gives up to 50% more damage to closer enemies so for optimal damage you need to be in their faces. That 50% more damage multiplier doesn't show in tooltip.

- [Melee Physical Damage Support] Up to 50% more damage. Being physical based this gem gives very significant damage. No downsides.
* Quality on this gem gives 0.5% increased melee physical damage.

- [Fortify Support] Gives up to 35% more damage and guaranteed permanent fortify. (Fortify gives 20% less damage taken from hits) All the damage reduction we can get will make the build feel smoother while in enemies and bosses faces. Replace this with a higher damage support if you sustain fortify another way.
* Each quality gives 0.5% increased attack damage.

- [Impale Support] 40% chance to impale and up to 60% impale effect. Most of the damage this gem gives wont show up on the tooltip But I assure you it is a ton of damage.
* Quality on this gem gives impale effect, make 20 quality a priority.
* Make sure if your using this gem that you have the impale nodes allocated in the passive tree.

- [Brutality Support] Grants up to 60% More physical damage, but makes it so we cant do anything but physical damage. The tooltip might go slightly down compared to other gems if you have a lot of physical as extra chaos/elemental damage, but with impale the loss is more than compensated for.
* Quality gives 0.5% increased physical damage.

- [Pulverize Support] Up to 60% Area damage and a significant amount of AoE. The tradeoff is 15% less attack speed. The gem averages out to a little over 35% More damage.
* Quality gives 0.5% increased area damage.
* Divergent quality gives 1% MORE damage and 0.5% LESS attack speed, averaging out to the same dps, but with each hit being harder.

OTHER POSSIBLE SUPPORTS FOR 6LINK:

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[Ruthless Support] Gives every 3rd hit up to 135% more damage, and overall averages out to up to 45% more damage.

[Concentrated Effect] Up to 55% more damage, but it gives a huge penalty to AoE and needs a ton of int, which we wouldn't otherwise have to get.

* DO NOT USE MULTISTRIKE SUPPORT. IT DISABLES THE ABILITY TO EXERT SLAMS WITH WAR CRIES.
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* Fist of war support is simply inferior to Ruthless support against targets that require more than one hit to kill*

RESERVATIONS: (2link +2 other gems)

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(4R)

- [Pride] Gives nearby enemies up to 40% increased physical damage taken (40% more damage) if they are close to us. As effective as another link in our ground slam, but it wont show up on tooltip. Reserves 50% of our mana.
* Quality gives 1% increased AoE, which helps if you need to stand farther away from the enemy due to deadly effects.

- [Flesh and Stone] Blind reduces enemy hit chance by half, but if you're using kaom's roots we cant evade, meaning blinding enemies is functionally useless. Don't use sand stance if you're using Kaom's Roots. Use blood stance for the 16% increased damage taken by maimed enemies.
* Quality doesn't matter.

- [Maim Support] Since Flesh and Stone itself actually maims, the second part of Maim Support actually increases its effect. Brings flesh and stone's total damage to maimed enemies up to 30%.
* Quality doesn't matter since Flesh and Stone itself doesn't do any damage.

- [Blood and Sand] Reserves 10% of our mana and gives us either 15% AoE or 15% more damage. I suggest staying in blood stance. Feel free to try both.
* Quality doesn't matter.

- [Enlighten Support] In order to fit the last aura you may need an enlighten as we would need 75 unreserved mana for a 6link ground slam. A lvl 3 enlighten (92% mana multiplier) is functional.
* Quality on this gem doesn't matter. (as it only makes it gain xp faster and lvl 3 is 'max').
* DONT TRY LEVELING ONE FOR USE, IT WILL TAKE UNREALISTICALLY LONG. JUST BUY ONE.
**IF BUYING A LVL 4 WATCH OUT FOR SCAMMERS TRYING TO SELL A LVL 1, 2, or 3 INSTEAD OF THE LVL 3 OR 4 THEY LISTED**


* FOR THE CRIT VARIANT:

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You can make your auras a 5-6link all linked to enlighten if you have a second 6link. This can allow you to get a few more levels on precision.

- [Precision] This skill grants flat accuracy and increased crit chance based on its level. Be very careful about leveling this gem. Unlike most reservation skills, this skill reserves a flat amount of mana based on its level. The higher level the gem is the more mana it'll reserve. Having enlighten linked to your Pride and Flesh and Stone auras will allow more of your mana to be 'free' for you to level this gem higher. Quality doesn't matter.
* Aim to have around or barely under enough mana to ground slam 3x before running out of mana. Any less mana than that and you'll start running into issues. (25 cost GS means you need about 75 mana)
* Very likely you'll end up leveling precision a little too high at some point. Vendor it with an Orb of scouring to delevel it one level. Vendor it with an orb of regret to revert it back to level one. This only works if its uncorrupted.

MOVEMENT SKILL: (3link or 4link)

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(2R 1G)

- [Leap Slam] Quickly leaps to a location. Scaled by attack speed.
* Neither quality nor level actually matter for this gem.

- [Faster Attacks] Faster attacks increases leap speed.
* Quality gives 0.5% attack speed. A level 11 20quality faster attacks is the same as a level 20 with no quality. Make quality a priority.

- [Blood magic] This allows us to spam leap slam effectively for free without consuming all our mana which may prevent us from using ground/leap slam. It also allows us to get out of danger when out of mana. We can even leech mana with leap slam if we run out while in no regen maps.
* Level and quality both reduce the life cost of supported skills.
* POSSIBLE 4th OPTION:

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* Can use fortify support for leap slam to 'save' a link in the 6link allowing for a higher damage support. I consider it inconvenient to keep fortify up by leaping onto enemies, but its a personal preference thing. If you're using fortify on leap slam then you can use one of the alternative supports for your 6link.

[Culling Strike Support] Quality gives leap slam 0.5% increased attack speed, and it allows you to cull really high health bosses like sirus, where 10% of his life is 7+ million.

CWDT SETUP: (2 link)

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(2R)

- [Cast When Damage Taken Support] will free cast linked skills so long as the supported skill requires the same or lower level that the CWDT does. I have 7k life and so keep CWDT at lvl 14 (casts with just under 2k damage taken). I suggest a lower level for lower life totals, as the higher the gem the less often it will proc. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to the level requirement of both this gem and the supported one. Do not let the supported skill outlevel this or it will no longer free cast. Quality on this gem gives 0.5% increased damage with supported skills which does literally nothing for us

- [Steelskin] I chose steelskin instead of immortal call because I don't want to lose my endurance charges while i'm mapping. only takes one perfectly timed hit to oneshot without endurance charges/Immortal call. Steelskin gives 70% damage reduction until the total damage the skill shields against is consumed. I keep this at lvl 18 to get the most effect from my lvl 14cwdt, and at this lvl it shields against 1711 damage.
* You can manually cast this instead of linking it to CWDT, this is only a viable option if you actually hit it when you are going to take damage. Can level it to 20 or 21 if you manually cast it.

* Molten shell is simply worse than steelskin unless you have 15,000+ armour.

* RIGHT click on the plus sign under the minimap to make the gem-up message go away. At the bottom of your inventory is that message should you choose to level it up again later.

BURST BUFFS: (Up to 4 gems, No links required)

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Unavailable

- [Vaal Ancestral Warchief Totem] The vaal version of the skill gives 32% MORE damage, and the skill inherently can have 2 totems active. Use this button for boss deletion. This skill shares soul gain prevention with vaal haste/vaal ground slam, but nothing prevents you from hitting both at the same time for absurd burst damage. I generally don't suggest you waste time casting the non vaal version of this skill. Levels/Quality don't matter.

- [Blood Rage] This skill gives a chance to gain frenzy charges on kill.(4% attack speed and 4% MORE damage each). The only issue with blood rage is it takes 4% of your life per second which when waiting for boss phases can mean your degenerating life rather than regenerating.
* Can keep the gem at a much lower level so that you need significantly less dexterity across gear.
* THIS GEM REQUIRES 155 DEX AT LVL 20. AT LVL 11 IT REQUIRES ONLY 111 DEX
* +1% ATTACK SPEED EVERY 2 LEVELS, +0.2 SECONDS DURATION PER LEVEL.

- [Seismic Cry] Allows for a very short term very large boost to damage. More impressive for when you have 10+mil dps and can kill t16 map bosses in less than 4 hits. Very good, although you dont need to press it for anything but bosses
-LOW PRIORITY ADDITIONAL DAMAGE BOOSTS, TWO OPTIONS:

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- [Vaal Haste] We only use this gem for the vaal version. Activating this skill will give 31% attack speed and for 4 seconds without the need to reserve anything. Can keep at a much lower level to reduce how much dexterity you need
* A LEVEL 9 REQUIRES ONLY 109 DEX AND GIVES ONLY 4% less ATTACK SPEED

- [Berserk] I do not suggest this gem. Unlike vaal haste this gem has a huge downside. Right after hitting it the damage increase is insane. The issue is it consumes ALL our rage. If we were only using crave the slaughter to enable us to gain rage, this would be much more viable. But since we take Rite of Ruin which triples the effects of our rage, The damage loss when its over is much more significant and long lasting than the damage gain while its active. Use this very sparingly if you choose to use it.

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS:

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- You can drop tombfist or kaom's roots for additional gem slots. As mentioned you can link fortify up to leap slam. You can use two war cries
- You could use both vaal haste.

Could choose to manually cast vulnerability for high health bosses if you don't have it on gloves. Levels aren't too important.

- If you simply cant stand using portal scrolls you can use this. Idk why some people love it so much. You can also link it to cast on death(lvl doesn't matter). This can save a lot of walking.

ITEMS:

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* Prioritize capping resists, and getting high life on armour/jewelry before worrying about damage. High life total is the single best form of mitigation (assuming res capped). 6k life should be easily obtainable. You'll need a lot of dex unless you want to let the blood rage stay a lower level.

JEWELS:

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JEWELS: (The only REQUIRED uniques, use 2)

- [Rapid Expansion] This jewel generates endurance charges, giving us some when we stun enemies (we will naturally stun most enemies because we hit so hard). The increased angle means instead of being a cone, it will expand to be a semi-circle that reaches even behind us. It wont increase the range. This is absolutely essential for our clear speed and defense. The four corruption implicits above are all decent implicits.

- [Watcher's Eye] If you have exalts to spare, you can get a watchers eye with the "Impales last 2 additional hits while affected by pride" mod. This is 20% MORE damage for a single jewel socket in the tree. Additional useful Watcher's Eye mods are "Chance to deal double damage with pride" which is 8-12% MORE damage, and "40-60% increased physical attack damage with Pride.
* Note that the 40-60% increased physical attack damage while affected by pride has WAY less effectiveness because of our just shy of 900% increased damage. Admittedly this is still more damage than a rare.

- [Cluster Jewels] Cluster jewels can be better than the tree depending on their rolls, but if its not rolled better than the tree than dont use one. Cluster jewels mostly grant 2 extra sockets that can be places for extra currency to be spent for more damage.

- [Generic/RT Rare Jewel(s)] A rare with % life, Attributes if needed, and attack speed or some other damage mod are all fine for a jewel. If your not using a cluster jewel with sockets, only use a rare jewel in the absence of a Watcher's Eye.
* Priorities: 5-7% life > Attack speed related mod(s) > Attack damage related mod(s) > Dex/int(as needed) > Resistance(s)(as needed)

- [Critical Rare Jewel(s)] If your crit, crit multi is the highest damage mod a rare jewel can have, so jewels like these would be ideal if currency isn't an issue. If you cant get mana leech on jewelery you may need to get it on a jewel to be able to drop Pain Reaver.
* Priorities: 5-7% life > Mana Leech(if needed, only need one roll across all gear) > Crit Multiplier > Attack speed > Crit chance > Attack damage.

- [Eye Jewel(s)] Only use an eye jewel for abyssal sockets in gear such as found in Tombists or a Stygian Vise. 30+ Life, attributes if needed, and damage mods are all good mods on an eye jewel. Crit multi is only good if you are the crit variant.

HELMET:

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- [Rare Helmet] Aim for high life and resists, and maybe a dex or int roll. If you're going crit this is a place you can get a few hundred flat accuracy rating. If you can get a redeemer mod with physical damage taken as cold, it really helps survival especially when paired with a taste of hate. You can have a close to finished helmet with an open prefix, and slam it with a redeemers exalt for the highest chance to hit something good.
* Priorities: 70-80+ life > Dex (if needed) > 300+ Accuracy (Only if crit and need hit chance) > Resistances (as needed) > 100+ life > Ground slam related enchantment > influence mod > Crafted 10% AoE

- [Starkonja's Head] Life, attack speed, and up to 70 dex potentially solving all dex problems. It just has no resists. It's commonly enchanted so even enchanted it should be relatively cheap. Evasion is only useful if you aren't using kaom's roots. The crit chance is only useful if you aren't Resolute Technique.

- [Crown of the Inward Eye] Gives up to 21% increased life, which is a lot of life for a helmet, and transfiguration of body which gives 30% of your life% as attack damage. It will be somewhere between 45-80% increased attack damage depending on your level and gear. You'll likely sit around 55-65% increased damage.

- Enchant is by no means required (I don't prioritize one) but 40% increased Ground Slam damage, 24% increased Ground Slam Area of effect, or 24% increased Ground slam angle (basically makes it a 3/4 circle around you instead of half of one) are all good.

- Using elder helmets you can get the mod "Nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage" (ilvl 85+ elder helmet) Which adds a bit more damage. I suggest you focus more on getting resists but do what you want.
* Note this mod is a suffix, meaning its competing with resistances and attributes for room on the item.

GLOVES:

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- [Tombfist] These gloves have up to 6% life and an abyssal socket. It is corrupted frequently, So enfeeble (best defensive curse) or temporal chains curse on hit implicits are really cheap. Vulnerability curse on hit gloves are usually a couple exalts but are better for bossing as enfeeble/temp chains effect on bosses is almost nonexistent due to a hidden penalty. Socket it with a murderous eye jewel to intimidate enemies (which despite saying they take increased damage, it actually acts multiplicitively with most of your damage increases.

- [Hands of the High Templar] A tankier more expensive alternative to tombfist that also makes it easier to cap resists. These gloves are what I consider to be Best in Slot (BiS) depending on its corruptions. These gloves have up to 12% life and some resists, and uniquely can have up to 5 corruption implicits while still being able to have quality, sockets, and numeric values of implicits/explicits modified with orbs. There are several useful implicits it can have.
- CORRUPTION IMPLICITS:

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-Curse enemies with level (10-12) vulnerability/enfeeble/temporal chains on hit: DO NOT HAVE MORE THAN ONE CURSE ON HIT IMPLICIT, you can only apply one.
-(4-6)% Increased maximum life: Note you can blessed orb it to 6%.
-+1 level of socketed gems: If you have enlighten and auras socketed, they will reserve less and be more potent.
-+2 level of duration gems: Steelskin will shield against more damage while also not requiring a higher level cast when damage taken.
-+2 to level of socketed AoE gems: Affects auras.
-+2 to level of socketed aura gems:
-(8-10)% attack speed.
-+1 maximum frenzy/endurance charges.
IF CRIT:
-Attacks have +#% to critical strike chance. This is base crit and worth it.

- [Rare] Life and resists, with maybe some attack speed or flat phys damage depending on your budget. Even Spiked gloves with 20% implicit melee damage, some flat phys and some attack speed will not give you as much damage as tombfists will.

BOOTS:

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* If you are not using Kaom's Roots then you can use sand stance for flesh and stone to be exceptionally more evasive. Most bosses use spells which you cant evade so use blood stance for bossing.

- [Kaom's Roots] They give up to 200 life, and immunity to stun, freeze, and slow (even tho it states cannot be slowed below base value, this applies to freezes as 0 speed is below base value). They disable your ability to evade, but you can still dodge. A corruption implicit of %life is rather cheap as people tend to prefer + max charges, but either work well. I have boots with implicit 6% life. While it has no movespeed, that doesnt affect clear speed as the entirety of our movement comes from spamming leap slam which is unaffected by movespeed. VERY HIGHLY SUGGESTED FOR AT THE VERY LEAST THE UBER ELDER ENCOUNTER.

- [Rare Boots] Life, resists and even some evasion if you want to be able to evade. I don't think you need any movement speed, but feel free to get some. Be aware that Kaom's roots give more life than a rare can. You just have to be above 25 rage to be immune to stun, and you have to run a freeze flask.
* Priorities: 70-80+ life > Resistance(s)(as needed) > dex/int(as needed) > Influence mod > Enchantment > 25%+ Movement Speed

- [Atziri's Step] Pretty good if you are choosing to do evasion, as they give life, evasion, and some spell dodge which is good as evasion only allows you to avoid attacks, not spells. I highly suggest you swap these out for kaom's roots when you do uber elder as he does a very crippling slow/freeze.

* The attack speed enchantment is ideal but a pure luxury. Its not too rare since there are only 20 boot enchantments as opposed to the over 500 helmet enchantments. I would personally run some uber labs to enchant rather than buying boots with it. Getting attack dodge or spell dodge enchantments aren't bad either.

BODY ARMOUR:

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**WARNING, SCAMMERS FREQUENTLY SCAM PEOPLE TRYING TO BUY 6-LINK BELLY OF THE BEAST BY SELLING A 4-LINK INSTEAD OF THE ONE THEY HAVE LISTED. LOOK VERY CLOSELY BEFORE ACCEPTING THE TRADE.**

- [Belly of the Beast] High life and some resists. This is the ideal option for a mid range budget. Only needs to be 6linked if your weapon isn't.

- For super budget use a rare 5link (good through shaper) or a tabula rasa/rare 6link.

* [Kaom's Heart] Great if you want to prioritize survivability. A corruption implicit of % life or 1% max res are both really good. This chest has an insane amount of life at a cost (no sockets), we can only use it if we meet some conditions:
* Must have a 6link 2 handed weapon.
* Must have 4 socket boots (Not Kaom's Roots)
* Drop a couple skill gems, as youll lose 2 sockets compared to 6 socket chest and kaom's roots.

* Rare with life and resists. There are a ton of influence mods that can be exceptionally useful, too many to cover here. Astral Plate is the best base, with its implicit 12% all res. Feel free to use this site to see the possible mods.
https://www.craftofexile.com/

BELT:

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* [Rare] High life and resists. Life or global physical damage are viable implicits, with a stygian vise being the best and most expensive (rare) option. (Gotta have a decent jewel in it too). Hunter and elder belts can have up to 10% life.
* Priorities: 70-99+ life > Resistance(s) 80%+ > Life 120+ (leather belt) > Resistance(s) 120%+ > Abyssal Socket (stygian) and/or Hunter/elder % life

AMULET:

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- [Generic/RT Rare] Importance is to res cap and have enough stats to use the items and gems. Damage mods last priority.
* Priorities: Life 70+ > int/dex > Annoint > Resistance(s)(as needed) > Crafted hybrid AoE & Area damage > Physical damage to attacks

- [Crit Rare]If you're crit you can pick up crit chance, crit multi, and accuracy mods here, but it may be more difficult to get the necessary dex/int or resistances.
* Priorities: 70+ Life > Annoint > dex/int(as needed) > Mana leech(if needed, only need one roll accross all gear) > Critical mod(s) > Accuracy(if needed) > Resistance(s)(as needed) > Crafted hybrid AoE & Area damage > physical damage to attacks

- [Carnage heart] This unique amulet gives a ton of int and dex, and some all res, life leech and damage while leeching. Only bad thing about it is it doesn't give much life (only what comes from the 50ish strength) Cheap amulet until you can afford a better rare. Between life leech, mana leech, and slightly undersustaining life regen, we basically are almost always leeching.

ANOINTING:

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- [Harvester of Foes] 20% Axe damage, 10% axe attack speed, 10% impale effect.
* Amber Oil, Amber Oil, Violet Oil.

- [Feller of Foes] 30% Axe damage, 40% Crit multi, 200 accuracy rating.
* Amber Oil, Black Oil, Opalescent Oil.

RINGS

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- [Generic/RT Rare Rings] Capping resistances is most important, followed by life. If you have the luxury of choice, use vermillion or steel ring bases, but resistance implicit rings are plenty fine.
* Priorities: Resistance(s)(as needed) > 50+ life > dex/int > attack speed/physical damage to attacks > Vermillion/Steel ring implicit

- [Crit Rings] If you are crit, you will need additional mods like accuracy and mana leech (only need one mana leech mod across your entire character). This cant be at the cost of undercapping resistances. The rings, amulet, and weapon are why the crit variant can be much more expensive to get up and running.
* Priorities: 50+ Life > dex/int(as needed) > Mana leech(if needed, only need one roll accross all gear) > Accuracy > Resistance(s)(if needed) > -9 mana cost if you want it > attack speed/physical damage to attacks

- Crafting your own rings can be the most cost effective strategy for vermillion and steel ring base types, since they are exceptionally rare as drops. Use ilvl 84 rings and the essences above as needed.

WEAPON: 2 HANDED AXE

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**WARNING: SOME PEOPLE TRY SCAMMING PLAYERS BUYING 6LINKS BY SELLING THEM 4LINKS INSTEAD OF THE ITEM LISTED. LOOK VERY CLOSELY BEFORE ACCEPTING THE TRADE**
* Because we dont care about accuracy or crit chance, we can mostly use pdps (Physical DPS) as a measure of how good our weapon is.

- [Sinvicta's Mettle] A 2handed axe of at least 400 pdps that can be extremely cheap. It also gives rampage which gives minor damage bonuses and other various effects based on your kill streak. You dont need it 6linked if you have a 6link chest, although you will need it 6 socketed. If its your 6link it might be much harder to replace it, especially with a rare. Its a great 'first weapon' for you to start from, but isn't ideal as far as damage goes. Both a rare and Atziri's Disfavour can have a lot more damage, but are also a lot more expensive especially depending on the age of the league and additional mods it might have.

- [Atziri's Disfavour] A unique axe with the potential to go over 600pdps. And is the highest pdps unique axe in the game. The weapon range and bleed chance is completely irrelevant but the +2 support gems actually is a fair amount of damage across 5 supports. A fairly suitable axe that can do a lot of damage. This axe isn't suitable for going crit. Can be rather expensive or cheap depending on the league. Ideally if you have this axe you'll have your 6link in it, although you might have to link it yourself.

- [Rare 'RT' Axe] When you use RT you can effectively use exclusively pdps as a measure of how good the item is. This axe has a pdps of over 900 (50% more than an Atziri's Disfavour), and I crafted it in the first week of the league. While an axe this good isnt realistic for most players, a rare with 700-800 pdps is much more obtainable and still more damage than any unique. Its typically cheaper to craft 2handed axes than buy them, but crafting them usually isn't simple and requires a fair bit of crafting knowledge.

- [Rare 'crit' Axe] While a vaal axe has a higher base pdps than a fleshripper axe, the fleshripper can have a much higher base crit, which can make up for lacking axe nodes that give good crit. If your using a vaal axe, you need it to have crit chance, and you need base crit from other sources like gloves, bottled faith, and chest. If you are going crit, youll have to obtain enough flat accuracy across helmet and jewelery have a 95%+ chance to hit monsters.

CALCULATING PDPS: (Simple)

Spoiler

- To calculate pdps, add the low end of the physical damage range and the high end of the damage range, then divide that number by two. example: (145+277)/2 = 211. That number is the average damage per hit. Just take the damage per hit and multiply by the attacks per second example: (211*1.2) = 253.2. That number is the pdps of the weapon (pdps is entirely calculated off of physical damage, but you can use the elemental damage range to get the edps (elemental dps))

FLASKS: (Pick your favorite 5)

Spoiler

DONT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF FLASKS. USE A DIAMOND FLASK IF YOU ARE CRIT.

- [Life Flask(s)] You can either use a catalysed eternal life flask or a Bubbling divine life flask (Which heals less, but is instant) depending on preference. (I suggest eternal because we have so much life) This flask should have immune to bleeding as its the ailment that kills us the fastest.

- [Unique Life Flask] When you approach upwards of 7k life you should probably use a unique life flask which heals you to full. Forbidden taste can instantly heal you to full but then gives a 4 sec life degen as chaos damage which can get you killed. Blood of the Karui takes time before it actually heals you. Either work and have their trade offs.

- [Lion's Roar] Gives up to 25% more phys multiplier for your ground slam. For bosses immune to knockback this is an incredible damage increase. The issue with this flask is that it gives knockback and you do less damage to farther enemies meaning you can actually lose damage for hitting the flask. This isnt necessarily bad though as some enemies like red beasts can be very deadly in melee range meaning you can keep things at bay, using the flask purely for the defense the range gives. Overall a very useful flask although the build functions perfectly fine without it.

- [Basalt Flask] gives 15% physical damage reduction which is very good as generally you'll die to mostly physical damage. You can put curse or freeze immunity on this flask. Note this flask can be used with Taste of Hate.

- [Taste of Hate] A good defensive flask. It gives 20% cold damage reduction, which is nice considering that both Elder and Shaper do predominantly cold damage for most of their attacks. With 75% cold resist, 20% cold damage reduction, and 20% of physical damage taken as cold, its effectively a 16% physical damage reduction flask. The 15-20% phys as extra cold doesn't matter. Can be somewhat expensive depending on how old the league is.

- [Quartz Flask] gives 10% attack and 10% spell dodge. This averages out to 10% less damage taken but it can take a hit that would have well over one-shot you and make it do no damage. Having dodge from other sources like boots actually makes each % dodge more valuable.

- [Amethyst Flask] gives some chaos resistance. Sirus, Al-Hezmin, and The Constrictor all do significant chaos damage. Poison is chaos damage. You can use this flask for those boss fights, namely if you need to dip into a deatomization storm to get under Sirus so he'll actually come down to fight you.

* ONLY IF YOU ARE CRIT:

Spoiler

- [Diamond Flask] MANDATORY IF YOU CAN CRIT. Makes your critical strike chance lucky, which means if your hit failed to roll a critical stike, it'll roll it one more time. (With a 50% crit chance and diamond flask you effectively have 75% crit chance). Absolutely essential for any crit build that doesn't have a natural 90%+ crit chance.

- [Bottled Faith] A rather expensive flask that can be more 10-20ex. The damage it grants is actually kind of insane, but don't try buying this at the cost of having low quality gear. This flask really excels in a crit build that has already has some investment into it.

* ONLY IF YOU ARE NOT USING KAOM'S ROOTS:

Spoiler

- [Jade Flask] is very useful if you choose to stack a little evasion. You really want the increased evasion suffix mod as that is really the only global evasion increase you would get as increased evasion on armour is local. Use boots with relatively high evasion and a starkonja's head helmet.

PANTHEON:

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- I chose Soul of Lunaris and Soul of Gruthkul for the physical damage reduction.
- Soul of Shakari (if upgraded) with the 50% reduced duration of poisons and maximum of 5 poisons on you can be useful against Al-Hezmin and the constrictor elder guardian. As of 3.11 it no longer grants permanent immunity to poison.
- Pantheon is entirely personal preference and doesn't matter very much.

WHY AM I DYING?

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* If you did or didn't enjoy the build, please comment so I can know what to improve and other players can make a better decision as to play it or not.

* I dont mind answering questions in game, within reason. Copy the text below and write your message:
@SlammyIncarnate

"

Vague_Density wrote:

Hey! Unhappy with my league start, so I'm tempted to try this out. How does it work with any/all content? I'm a bit of a 'one build per league' kind of guy, but I should honestly branch out more.

If I have some chaos (<10) lying about, any recommended twink buys?

"

Vicas wrote:

Very nice guide, and awesome league start for me with this, currently farming t13+ without pride, looks like i can't manage to keep it active, sitting on 33 mana with 3 auras setup it often happens that my char just swing his axe instead of ground slam, wich costed me 2-3 deaths before realizing i couldn't handle pride, any suggestion?
Ty awesome build

"

Ekule731 wrote:

"

Vague_Density wrote:

Hey! Unhappy with my league start, so I'm tempted to try this out. How does it work with any/all content? I'm a bit of a 'one build per league' kind of guy, but I should honestly branch out more.

If I have some chaos (<10) lying about, any recommended twink buys?

As for leveling gear, a tabula would be nice, as would a goldrim. Thief's Torment is also pretty good for leveling with attack builds. A Carnage heart would make it easier to get required attributes.

Being a physical attack build it can be brutal to level if you aren't crafting weapons every 5-10 levels. If you want to make it easier there are a few low level unique axes you can use,
- Wideswing: lvl 18
- Reaper's Pursuit: lvl 33
- The Blood Reaper: lvl 45 (works through act 10)
- Synvicta's Mettle: lvl 62 (works through sirus, although an atziri's disfavor would be better)

"

Ekule731 wrote:

"

Vicas wrote:

Very nice guide, and awesome league start for me with this, currently farming t13+ without pride, looks like i can't manage to keep it active, sitting on 33 mana with 3 auras setup it often happens that my char just swing his axe instead of ground slam, wich costed me 2-3 deaths before realizing i couldn't handle pride, any suggestion?
Ty awesome build

Unfortunately since they made flesh and stone to be a 35% reserve instead of a 25% (which was a stupid change) you can no longer reserve all the auras without an enlighten. Pride is extremely strong, so if you want to drop an aura to be able to attack id suggest you don't use Blood and Sand.