[3.15] Soulthirst Nebuloch Jugg

https://youtu.be/6qR4N0Om0qQ
T15 Desert Springs. I start out on a 5-link explode chest. The problem with the explode chest is that enemies often die without hitting me, so I don't get Nebuloch degen and my health fills up. At 4:15 I die to freeze because the chest piece doesn't have ailment avoidance and you get to see some non- explode-chest gameplay.
I'm going to respec into berserker to see how Rite of Ruin feels for degen. Update: much better.
https://youtu.be/B_NNGdgKLgE

I played shield charge in ritual, starting from Scarfuncle's gladiator build, but I went fire conversion so I could try the interaction with Trinity Support and Tempest Shield (it works as long as tempest shield itself is self cast; it's quite strong but it's very inconvenient, and bosses don't always proc it when you need them to). The best stat stick for that build was Razor of the Seventh Sun (or a shaper mace, but I got distracted before I got that far), but Nebuloch was a contender too. So this league I rolled jugg to try it out. The base build feels about as good as I expected but having always-on soul eater takes it to another level.

My current setup (I haven't been counting budget, but I would estimate maybe 5ex) has about 420k PoB dps before soul eater, which means that bosses without adds can be kind of tedious, but it's fine for where I'm at right now (early red maps, working on AL3). Shield skills can obviously get a lot more damage than this build does, but I'm focusing on flask duration instead for smoother farming.

I've chosen a belt with the minimum penalty to flask duration. You can browse successful corruptions by searching for 'not: [implicit] increased stun and block recovery' https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Expedition/YZryG7UY.
If you like you can fertilize your rings (you'll need 17 catalysts per ring) to increase the amount of life regenerated to 0.5% per charge.

Physical degens are the worst damage type for us, and using any flask removes our soul eater stacks, so being immune to bleeds is convenient. The tree paths near ailment avoidance nodes too, so if you can get 30% avoidance on gear you can be immune to everything but poison (and we get a lot of chaos res from our ascendancy and Nebuloch).

These got me through white maps. I found progression pretty smooth using this as my league start - 40% all res from endurance charges is quite nice. I used freeze immunity from the ascendancy until I could afford a chest piece with 30% ailment avoidance, and anointed arcane swiftness until I pathed over to thick skin. I don't know if I overvalue ailment avoidance, feel free to ignore this part if you don't care about that. I highly recommend being level 67 before starting maps so you can equip a colossal tower shield.

I use VolatilePulse / PoB-Item-Tester to identify what dps mods are best for my character whenever I go shopping. The next items I'm looking for will be 'nearby enemies have -# fire resistance' helmet and +2 gems corrupted body armor (shield skills have a breakpoint at lvl 23 where the damage per armor goes from 4-6 to 5-7).

Main links:

Lifetap on the main skill give us a lot more reservation space to work with than blood magic/mortal conviction would. Endurance charge on Melee Stun is a nice 40% more damage with no downside for us, starting at gem level 1.

Arrogance auras:

Just making use of the empty space left by petrified blood. Leaving a bit of space between the halfway mark and your reservation helps for making it to the next pack when your flask is still up and Nebuloch's 'recently' ends.

Mana auras:

Our other skills aren't very expensive. 95% reservation leaves enough mana pretty much. You can replace skitterbots with war banner if you want to be safe.

Hextouch debuff:

Flammability on hit only rolls on rings, so we're applying it with a skill. Linking a totem here instead of reckoning might be more reliable for single target. I believe fortify on hit corruption is a local mod though, so if you have that on your weapon make sure to keep a counterattack socketed somewhere.

Wave of Conviction:

The exposure is the same at all levels, so keep this level 1 to save mana. You can keep a frost bomb gem swap in case of regenerating enemies. Blood rage is arguably better than culling strike, and definitely recommended if you don't have another source of leech. I used blood rage until my average hit was big enough to leech 10% of my life from just the 0.4% leech from my flask (about 100k).

Utility:

I have enduring cry bound to left click, so I keep another copy in Sinvicta's Mettle, so it doesn't get removed when I weapon swap. This is also why I keep my auras in my helmet and gloves.

Soul Eater is removed whenever a flask effect begins or ends, so you don't really want to use any other flasks. Panicked divine life flasks should always be instant, allowing you to start eating souls immediately after using them. Note that the above flask is also this build's only source of leech - as mentioned elsewhere, use Blood Rage if you need more.

You could also run some dps flasks for bosses without adds; I'm not sure what the best options are, sorry. Suggestions are welcome :)

Tree:
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/3.15.1/AAAABQEBdwHcBS0GxguNDjwS4RQgFHEVIBU2Fm8YkRm0GjgdFCAGJKonLyftLYMt0i5TMfszbDbpOEA6Uj3dPfxB8kQNR35KfVBHVbVWSFb6WGNZ81oyXaRfP2EhYlBko2VNZlRmnmdnZ6BvO3GFcg9yqXTtdqx313fjeWh5sX1zggeE2YTvh3aPRpBVkc6Ub5r-m1iezZ8nnz6hzKLqpwipbqyqrQmtO6-Nu-28n702vqfAAcAawQTEWMT2xtjI8M9-0iHTb9Vl2AvYJNl82rnawd3V42rjn-RR6hjuDu8O73ryQfON9IP2SPaj9zL46_rS-vEA?accountName=sBuddy&realm=pc&characterName=expsc

PoB:
https://pastebin.com/7G2t916r

I haven't got this far yet, but I'm planning on removing Divine Fury and Judgement for a 6-node flask duration medium cluster with 35% increased effect of small passives and Distilled Perfection notable.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried any of the below, try at your own risk.

I use shield charge as my main skill because I like how it feels, but I expect shield crush or throw would work fine too. Or you could replace the shield with a Frostbreath (Skitterbots chill) and try Boneshatter.

You could probably get more dps as a chieftain instead of a juggernaut - go RT, drop ailment immunity and the flask nodes on tree and full invest into clusters.

Or a berserker might be able to balance the flask recovery with just Rite of Ruin degen - at 5000 life with no flask effect, you'd need 50 rage to counter the flask life recovery.

Also, while it's not really a variant of this build, I think it might be possible to use a similar technique to get soul eater on a low-life caster build by sacrificing life (either with Dark Pact or Demon Stitcher gloves).