[3.15] Spectral Shield Throw Bleed Gladiator - tanky & fast mapping - good scaling - all content

Just found myself a tri-resist + 80 life + 1860 defense shield! Going to give this a try now :D

Any estimates on what the actual dps is? I know it's not the 82k that shows on PoB. PoB has a horrible time with bleeds still lol

I'm having trouble deciding on my 5th support gem after Brutality, Vicious Proj, Deadly Ailments, Swift Afflication, and Pierce from Lioneye's.

Looking at your suggestions of Chance to Bleed vs Unbound, isn't Unbound strictly better since the added flat damage from Chance to Bleed only works with weapons. Am I correct in thinking that does nothing since we are attacking with a Shield and not a weapon? In that case isn't Unbound a higher multiplier with the added benefit of increased duration?

Also how does maim compare? The multiplier doesn't affect bleed damage but would increase hits and damage taken by enemy.

Thanks.

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ForceTen wrote:

I'm having trouble deciding on my 5th support gem after Brutality, Vicious Proj, Deadly Ailments, Swift Afflication, and Pierce from Lioneye's.

Looking at your suggestions of Chance to Bleed vs Unbound, isn't Unbound strictly better since the added flat damage from Chance to Bleed only works with weapons. Am I correct in thinking that does nothing since we are attacking with a Shield and not a weapon? In that case isn't Unbound a higher multiplier with the added benefit of increased duration?

Also how does maim compare? The multiplier doesn't affect bleed damage but would increase hits and damage taken by enemy.

Thanks.

Unbound Ailments is better for me. I used a slightly different tree path so I would have 100% chance to cause bleeding, but I doubt the 5% difference is worth using chance to bleed. Ailments was 10% better on PoB for me, but that doesn't always mean it's right :P

Unbound Ailments is better by a small margin for me. If you dont stand in range of Vulnerability/Blasphemy you only have 95% bleed otherwise against cursed you have 100% anyway.

I mainly added the Chance to Bleed gem as i recommended a Astral Plate and 5 Green on that one is not that easy. I hit 4 greens and then a white on a red socket. But i wanted to have a bit more easy start.

For Lionseye now as the recommended chest i would switch to Maim as a Main Link i guess.

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ForceTen wrote:

I'm having trouble deciding on my 5th support gem after Brutality, Vicious Proj, Deadly Ailments, Swift Afflication, and Pierce from Lioneye's.

Looking at your suggestions of Chance to Bleed vs Unbound, isn't Unbound strictly better since the added flat damage from Chance to Bleed only works with weapons. Am I correct in thinking that does nothing since we are attacking with a Shield and not a weapon? In that case isn't Unbound a higher multiplier with the added benefit of increased duration?

Also how does maim compare? The multiplier doesn't affect bleed damage but would increase hits and damage taken by enemy.

Thanks.

Sounds like a great start. Bleed dps is a bit weird for sure. But i think for mapping everything should explode fast and i think with 8 stacks bleed even that number will be fine :D

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CefkaPalazzo wrote:

Just found myself a tri-resist + 80 life + 1860 defense shield! Going to give this a try now :D

Any estimates on what the actual dps is? I know it's not the 82k that shows on PoB. PoB has a horrible time with bleeds still lol

I also tested the deadeye a bit. it has a lot of damage. similar playstyle.
did not like the conversion that much. bleed explosions and max block looked better to me.
also the deadeye was reliant on a watcher's eye for full conversion which should be harder to get in 3.9. not sure about the market as im playing ssf.

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Goatdemon wrote:

Loving the guide/build so far. How do you think this compares to a ranger/cold variant? Also have additional thoughts with this build tackling on 3.9 content with some of the changes?

Great build it's fun to play.

EDIT: solved

Great build indeed !

I am having a really good time so far. It is extremely tanky and fun to play (I am currently progressing through yellow maps).
Really looking forward late game to see how it performs !

How are you guys doing on t16 maps? Interested in trying the build, but concerned that it might not have the DPS to handle metamorph, even with top tier gear.

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Jolii wrote:

How are you guys doing on t16 maps? Interested in trying the build, but concerned that it might not have the DPS to handle metamorph, even with top tier gear.

I'm on a 5 links and a 2200 armor shield, no fenumus yet. i can handle all maps mobs and most of the metamorph. At the momento the conquerors are a bit long to take down but i'm at 19 watchstone, 6 links and the gloves should improve single target

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Meru84 wrote:

I'm on a 5 links and a 2200 armor shield, no fenumus yet. i can handle all maps mobs and most of the metamorph. At the momento the conquerors are a bit long to take down but i'm at 19 watchstone, 6 links and the gloves should improve single target

Glad to hear it. This version is a lot more interesting to me than the cold conversion version.

Hey OP, thanks for the build and guide. I tried doing something random with artillery totems to begin the league and gave up pat level 40ish.. then I found this and thought it looked interesting. I'm level 92 and figured I'd briefly share my thoughts.

This build absolutely cruised through leveling, with minimal gear investment. Didn't really change much until act 10 when I realized I was still using mostly stuff from acts 1 and 2. Once you get the threshold jewel to make SST chain its super smooth.

Endgame gearing was VERY cheap and effective. I used all rares; basically for resist and some physical damage here and there. The only uniques I had equipped were Advancing Fortress and Lioneye's Remorse, which are also incredibly cheap. I leveled through white and yellow maps on a 4-link. There were some issues with single target but with all the block (especially from the uber ascendancy) I could easily tank all bosses and metamorphs and let Crimson Dance do it's thing.

Breaking into red maps I definitely noticed a drop off, and got myself a cheap, corrupted 6-link chest for about 30 chaos. This was also when I tried my hand at crafting a shield and got really lucky to get a 2.2k armour rare. This is where I deviated from your guide a bit.

1. I ended up also going for 100% impale as well, seeing as how the build was pure physical and passed right by the nodes. For 7 passives it seemed too good to not take. My links were as follows:

* SST - Brutality - Maim - Deadly Ailments - Impale - Viscious Projectiles *

I swapped out War Banner for Dread Banner (20%).. Impale Support (40%).. and the remaining 40% from the tree. With just a level 20 Impale, its 86% increased effect of impale.

2. I took, as you saw, some different supports. Even though we get maim from our ascendancy, the support gem itself gives a lot More physical damage, which increases the hit for impale and for bleed.

3. I used a rare (yellow) chest. I ended up getting my life leech from blood rage, as you did, and had some mana leech on a jewel in my passive tree. That was enough to sustain me so long as I was hitting something every now and then.


With ALL of those changes, I was able to cruise through T16 maps with crazy modifiers. The mob-clear is really, really good. The single target was a bit underwhelming, but not too bad. Again, full block/spell block was essential in letting me basically facetank anything that wasn't a chaos degen.

Yesterday I decided to fully invest my earnings into some top-quality gear.. 15-20 exalts spent (until that I hadn't even used 1). Dual curses, bleed effectiveness, adding in some evasion.. it feels incredible. But for that much investment, you could probably make a new build that is just better for the T15 and T16 maps. This was just a fun playstyle I wanted to enhance.

Overall, having a blast. There are definitely improvements I could make yet, like my helmet, boots, and jewels even now. Still blown away by how effective this build was with virtually zero investment. Until T16's basically I was on a 30 chaos budget. Before red maps, less than 10 chaos. Thanks for the guide OP. I'll leave my current PoB right here: https://pastebin.com/74m0U5jQ if anyone wants to see the differences.