[3.15] Strength Stacking Slammer. Blast through the game from start to finish.

Do you have any insights into where you get the best bang for your buck for the rare item slots? It seems it is possible to stack a lot of life and % strength on a elder belt. Or would you say jewellery is more important?

What is your stance on chaos res, should we try to get some or does the petrified blood + overleech take care of chaos dmg?

I've seen some setups that has a steel skill equipped in order to get call of steel, is that something we could utilize?

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Wuptidoo wrote:

Do you have any insights into where you get the best bang for your buck for the rare item slots? It seems it is possible to stack a lot of life and % strength on a elder belt. Or would you say jewellery is more important?

What is your stance on chaos res, should we try to get some or does the petrified blood + overleech take care of chaos dmg?

I've seen some setups that has a steel skill equipped in order to get call of steel, is that something we could utilize?

All items are equally important. I'd say the belt would be the most expensive to craft, I managed to snipe one for 80c so I'd suggest keeping a live search for it to find one suitable for your budget.

Amulet is self crafted from shaper ilvl68+ and a warlord ilvl75+ amulet. Alt spam for %attributes on shaper and %strength on warlord then awakener orb it.
You need the third suffix to be empty, otherwise you need to beastcraft suffix to prefix and hope you dont brick one of the influenced mods. We can clean prefixes either through metacraft or harvest.

Chest is super easy to make. Just search for the temple mod with life+%life, strength and some resist. Make sure it has atleast 1 empty prefix so we can craft veiled mod 8% life.

Other than that the rest of the items I've currently got equipped can be bought for 1-10c quite easily.

For chaos res, I had a feeling when I started the character that it was gonna be an issue but the leech is taking care of that no problem.

Finally with Call of Steel, yes I've seen people doing that but I think it's unecessary. We really dont need more damage and it just adds another button to press, making the build harder to play for no reason. There are many more skills I'd rather put in first such as Blood Rage, Phase Run and Ancestral Protector.

You mention this build can work for all Marauder and Duelist ascendancies except Chieftain since this is a pure phys impale build, but Chieftain would still work by taking the Valako, Tasalio, Arohongui, and Tawhoa nodes.

Valako can allow for some extra damage if you've got Immortal Call on CWDT, and the build uses enough warcries that e charges are easy to come by.

Tasalio gives more room for suffixes since we need fewer resists (thus potentially more strength) and the combo of damage shift physical to fire coupled with fire damage increasing total life recovery means any enemy phys or fire hits only serve to make us tankier. Such a setup might consider Anomalous Petrified Blood to take reduced initial damage at the cost of extra damage over time, but if we've got all that extra regen or leech then that could very well be totally countered.

Arohongui causes enemies to both deal less damage and take increased physical damage while near our totems, so putting down an AW helps out in multiple ways.

Tawhoa triggers https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Tawhoa%27s_Chosen which causes a Mirage Chieftain to use a slam skill we just used once every 2 seconds. I'm not quite sure how it interacts with Earthshatter's warcry explosions or Seismic and Intimidating Cry, but even if there's no interaction at all that's still some excellent free damage since the MC deals 50% more damage with the slam.

It's for sure more damage than Juggernaut, and might also be tankier in some ways.

The only way Juggernaut can get actual damage on a Pillar build is Undeniable and probably go crit, perhaps with Abyssus.

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Jackalope_Gaming wrote:

You mention this build can work for all Marauder and Duelist ascendancies except Chieftain since this is a pure phys impale build, but Chieftain would still work by taking the Valako, Tasalio, Arohongui, and Tawhoa nodes.

Valako can allow for some extra damage if you've got Immortal Call on CWDT, and the build uses enough warcries that e charges are easy to come by.

Tasalio gives more room for suffixes since we need fewer resists (thus potentially more strength) and the combo of damage shift physical to fire coupled with fire damage increasing total life recovery means any enemy phys or fire hits only serve to make us tankier. Such a setup might consider Anomalous Petrified Blood to take reduced initial damage at the cost of extra damage over time, but if we've got all that extra regen or leech then that could very well be totally countered.

Arohongui causes enemies to both deal less damage and take increased physical damage while near our totems, so putting down an AW helps out in multiple ways.

Tawhoa triggers https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Tawhoa%27s_Chosen which causes a Mirage Chieftain to use a slam skill we just used once every 2 seconds. I'm not quite sure how it interacts with Earthshatter's warcry explosions or Seismic and Intimidating Cry, but even if there's no interaction at all that's still some excellent free damage since the MC deals 50% more damage with the slam.

It's for sure more damage than Juggernaut, and might also be tankier in some ways.

The only way Juggernaut can get actual damage on a Pillar build is Undeniable and probably go crit, perhaps with Abyssus.

Truth be told Berserker has a pretty big leap over any other ascendancy. If I couldnt play Berserker I would play Champion or Slayer. Chieftain is perfectly viable, it just doesnt make much sense to me to play it with pure physical.

With my current gear I'd sacrifice about 30% damage from the get go.

Tawhoa is one of those ascendancys that sounds good on paper but plays out quite badly in reality. To start off with the main downside that you cant exert the Tawoa slam. Aka it will deal damage as if you had a 0 warcry attack. Secondly with the 2 second cooldown it becomes crucial to hit this off cooldown all the time. I dont like it for this reason, aswell as Fist of War.

The EHP is very similar, Chieftain is tankier with Arohongui and the fact that you will actually care about endurance charges. The life recovery is identical however as Tasalio and Defy Pain gives the same amount of extra leech. Without Vaal Pact however Chieftain wins here aswell.

It is however when you consider that Berserker has very high uptime on Berserk that he starts to scale quite absurdly. The 19% less damage taken from this is huge.

Lastly yes Chieftain would probably have an easier time getting res capped and in turn more strength when you dont have access to specific gear, but 100% is essentially 2 suffix rolls wich would still leave room for strength on every piece of gear.

Ideally I would want to make a Chieftain or Scion setup going for fire instead because of the 10% strength. Berserker is just way to good to pass up for this specific build however.

Do you have any recent videos of mapping and bossing with the end game gear and stuff?

Hi OP,

Just wanted to give my 2 cents on the build, I just levelled it to maps and since the levelling guide in here is not that extensive I wanted to share my experience. acts 1 - 8 was pretty much a breeze. Although I think it could have been even easier with a slight change in gem links.

I don't like levelling up new characters and therefore want it to be as fast and smooth as possible, with that in mind I would recommend making room for Onslaught in your early slam setup. Also I would not recommend adding Pulverise during levelling as it really feels very slow with our already slow attacks. I would probably go Ground Slam/Earthshatter, Fortify, Fist of War, Onslaught/Close Combat/Brutality. I think the Fist of War should be mandatory for levelling as it really helps while sprinting through the acts as your cooldown for the ancestral slam will be up when you reach a new pack, and then you trigger Onslaught with just one hit and then on to the next pack.

Furthermore I made the mistake of wanting to try out the Petrified Blood + Bloodthirst setup when I hit Act 9. That was a big mistake, I wanted to see how powerful the bloodthirst support was, and I was very underwhelmed (this is definitely my own mistake as I shouldn't have switched before stacking enough max life, but I just wanted to try it). I can also say that I wouldn't recommend going Petrified Blood until after you have done merciless lab. At least I had a tough time with the traps that do DOT on such a low life base.

I am very much looking forward to seeing this build take off in maps when I boost my Strength and Life, but at least for me, it would be super helpful with a description of when and how you transition into Pillar and Petrified Blood. Like a recommendation of a Strength and Life threshhold that would be good to hit before the transition.

Also it would be helpful for newbies like me to get a short description of the skill cycle you should do for bossing (Totem, Intimidating Cry, Seismic Cry, Slam, Enduring?).

Final question, regarding Berserk, I can't figure out whether this is worth popping for bosses or not, is the DMG buff worth potentially losing the War Bringer buff og "50% more dmg from Exerted Attacks if your Wacries have sacrificed Rage recently"?

It would be great if you could comment on my levelling feedback and provide some tips for making it smoother.

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Wuptidoo wrote:

Spoiler

Hi OP,

Just wanted to give my 2 cents on the build, I just levelled it to maps and since the levelling guide in here is not that extensive I wanted to share my experience. acts 1 - 8 was pretty much a breeze. Although I think it could have been even easier with a slight change in gem links.

I don't like levelling up new characters and therefore want it to be as fast and smooth as possible, with that in mind I would recommend making room for Onslaught in your early slam setup. Also I would not recommend adding Pulverise during levelling as it really feels very slow with our already slow attacks. I would probably go Ground Slam/Earthshatter, Fortify, Fist of War, Onslaught/Close Combat/Brutality. I think the Fist of War should be mandatory for levelling as it really helps while sprinting through the acts as your cooldown for the ancestral slam will be up when you reach a new pack, and then you trigger Onslaught with just one hit and then on to the next pack.

Furthermore I made the mistake of wanting to try out the Petrified Blood + Bloodthirst setup when I hit Act 9. That was a big mistake, I wanted to see how powerful the bloodthirst support was, and I was very underwhelmed (this is definitely my own mistake as I shouldn't have switched before stacking enough max life, but I just wanted to try it). I can also say that I wouldn't recommend going Petrified Blood until after you have done merciless lab. At least I had a tough time with the traps that do DOT on such a low life base.

I am very much looking forward to seeing this build take off in maps when I boost my Strength and Life, but at least for me, it would be super helpful with a description of when and how you transition into Pillar and Petrified Blood. Like a recommendation of a Strength and Life threshhold that would be good to hit before the transition.

Also it would be helpful for newbies like me to get a short description of the skill cycle you should do for bossing (Totem, Intimidating Cry, Seismic Cry, Slam, Enduring?).

Final question, regarding Berserk, I can't figure out whether this is worth popping for bosses or not, is the DMG buff worth potentially losing the War Bringer buff og "50% more dmg from Exerted Attacks if your Wacries have sacrificed Rage recently"?

It would be great if you could comment on my levelling feedback and provide some tips for making it smoother.

Hey, thanks for the feedback.

Those levelling tips certainly sounds like a good idea. I don't like Onslaught personally but I won't deny that it's factually better.

Fist of War having high uptime during the campaign however is a very good catch that I didn't immediately think of and I will probably add it as a placeholder instead of Pulverise like you said until we get enough attack speed.

The low life setup needs decent ish gear so ye definitely don't do it before hitting maps. I levelled with it from the get-go but it was horrendous.

In the pros/cons I did say that we have to change the setup while doing lab but I guess I could explain it better. Traps deal life percentage damage and because of Petrified Blood we are effectively taking "50% more damage" from them making it quite brutal. I've done a few Gift of the Godess with no issues but I had to break the build to make it work, simply swapping Bloodthirst for another strong support and turn off Petrified Blood.

Using Berserk optimally is quite tricky in this build because of War Bringer. It is advised to use it as often as possible and you can get around 10sec uptime while maintaining War Bringer with only 2 warcries. It is easier if you use Enduring Cry aswell as a third warcry. If you had to choose between sacrificing rage or maintaining Berserk, I would always aim to maintain Berserk first.

Is the blood and sand helmet enchantment best for this build? Wouldn't something like 40% increased earthshatter damage or 40% more damge of attacks exerted by seismic cry be better?

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TenderBarbarian wrote:

Is the blood and sand helmet enchantment best for this build? Wouldn't something like 40% increased earthshatter damage or 40% more damge of attacks exerted by seismic cry be better?

Because of Pillar of the Caged God we already have an insane amount of increased damage so all of those enchants lose a lot of value.

Blood and Sand effect gives us 6% more damage so it's very strong.

Berserk buff effect being our highest DPS enchant but a bit inconsistent.

With petri blood, dread banner and blod and sand combined with lvl 4 enlighten i have around 52% unreserved life (build PoB also shows 52% unreserved life). Shouldn't it be below 50% for low life to work?