[3.17] Infernal cry shield crush zerker | SSF focused detailed written guide | all rounder

The build is fairly flexible in where it gets its key stats in that we use almost all rares, and a lot of prefixes and suffixes can appear on multiple slots. The key stats to obtain in approximate order of importance are:
- max ele resists
- enough +stats to get around 80-90 intelligence and dexterity (this sounds laughably low but we barely get any dex/int from our tree)
- if we're not solving mana costs with support gems or a flask, then -mana cost mods and 1 source of mana leech
- if we don't have it from skills, then freeze/chill immunity
- 50/50 block, with at the least 10% attack block coming from gear to take pressure off the passive tree
- as much life as practicable, but 4.5k at the minimum
- attack speed, with at least around 25% coming from equipment
- mana reservation efficiency - need at least about 10%
- as much armour, chaos resist, spell suppression, movement speed, ailment avoidance, cooldown reduction, physical damage reduction and physical damage taken as elemental as practicable

End state

We want the highest armour or armour + evasion shield possible, as our shield crush damage scales directly off that total. This means a rare with the colossal tower shield or the cardinal round shield base, preferably Shaper influenced (to open possibility of 5% life recovered when blocking and mana reservation efficiency for socketed gems suffixes). Second preference is Warlord (%life recovery only) or Hunter (huge warcry cooldown rate). Ideally we want iLvl 86 or higher, to unlock the tier 1 %increased armour mod.

Since a couple of leagues ago, all armour including shields roll their inherent defensive stats in a range. So a colossal tower shield can have between 522 - 601 base armour. Don't bother crafting on anything lower than ~570. In SSF you won't be getting enough sacred orbs to reroll that base level, so start with a high one.

A theoretically perfect non-corrupted shield looks something like this:

590+ base armour
30% quality from perfect fossil
Shaper influenced
Prefixes: t1 flat armour, t1 % armour, t1 hybrid armour + life
Suffixes: shields have an awesome range of really good suffixes - you should be happy with any 3 of the following, in approx order of desirability: +2% all max resists, socketed gems have 30% increased mana efficiency, recover 5% life on block, warcries have 45% increased cooldown rate, +15% block chance, 34% spell suprression [only available on evasion or hybrid evasion shields], 8% additional physical damage reduction, take 60% reduced damage from critical strikes, 35% chance to avoid elemental ailments

This should get you a ~2.6k armour, +20 health implicit ridiculously good shield.

It's a SSF guide so I won't go into the theoretical double corruption outcomes.

Colossal tower shield or cardinal round shield?

Colossal shields have a useful implicit (up to +20 life), cardinal round shields don't. We also prefer to stack armour rather than split it up between armour and evasion. And colossal shields have significantly higher base defensive stats. So in most cases we prefer the colossal tower shield.

Cardinal round shields have the advantage of being easier to find a good base for (the base armour range is much smaller - 209 to 240 armor and evasion as opposed to 522 to 601 armour), and easier to craft (t1 + flat armour/evasion gives a whopping max of +300 armour and +300 evasion, compared to only +400 armour for tier 1 flat armour on the colossal tower shield). It also comes with 2% more base block and ability to roll spell supression as a suffix. Theoretically the tower shield's implicit advantage goes away if you are in the super endgame and double corrupting your shield.

Overall it's pretty close, with colossal shields in front slightly. But you can be happy with either. If you drop a iLvl 86+ cardinal round shield with good base stats, definitely keep it.

Upgrading and progressing to end state

While levelling, any high armour or armour+evasion shield is fine. Especially in archnemesis league, a lucky unique drop can carry you for a long time in the Acts.

Until you're ready to make your gg endgame shield, iLvl 72+ (ie anything from yellow maps and up) is good enough to do some light crafting on, as that's high enough for tier 1 flat armour and tier 3 % armour. Recommend you keep 2-3 bases in your stash and do the 'use one while upgrading the other one' dance.

Crafting a useable shield in early maps is pretty straightforward - just prioritise Harvest and the blue defence mods craft. It should only take a few rolls to get a ~1500 armour or armour + evasion shield to get you going. If you keep using harvest defence crafts on your second base, you'll eventually hit something like 1.8k armor with 2 useful suffixes by the time you're deep in red maps, and that kind of shield will be good enough to build around and beat midgame bosses like Shaper and Sirus until you're ready to try to craft your late game shield. And it'll be good enough that you should look to upgrade the other bits of your gear first before trying the shield.

To get your lategame shield base (which has to be iLvl 86+ to roll the highest tier affixes), easiest way is to spec into the +3 levels for items dropped in the abyssal depths atlas passive and run a lot of abyss maps (using the map device or scarabs) at T15-16. Should only take 3-4 abyssal depths to find a few bases with reasonably high base armour.

If you were also lucky enough to get a hunter or warlord orb, you could consider slamming it with the orb to open up additional powerful suffixes. You should also be prioritising the harvest craft to randomise the influence on armour items - you could use that to get the Shaper influence on your base.

Then it's just a matter of using harvest defence crafts, essences (loathing, dread) and where appropriate, the harvest 'reroll with a high chance of getting the same modifiers' and 'reroll keeping prefixes/suffixes' type crafts and hoping to strike gold.

End state

The weapon slot does not directly influence your shield crush damage, so we use it as a 'stat stick', using it to get stats that in other builds we'd be getting from armour or jewelry.

Realistically, the best SSF weapon is the Advancing Fortress or its replica version, which gives 15% block, up to 50 life, socketed gems (ie shield charge) supported by fortify and some misc semi useful stats. It's fairly common, and you will drop enough that you can even corrupt some and hope for a more useful implicit.

Before corrupting, look for the Harvest enchant to have quality increase area of effect, to replace its default damage effect. You can also Hillock improve it to 28% quality.

Filterblde doesn't show advancing fortress any more at about 'very strict', so you'll need to make an exception.

In trade league, some potentially better options include The Dark Seer and Al Dhih.

Upgrading and progressing to end state

End state

In theory the best base is an experimental heist base Sinistral Gloves, which increases off hand attack damage by 45% at the inconsequential cost of reduced main hand attack damage. Don't count on finding it in SSF though - I haven't after two leagues.

Ultimately the gloves base doesn't matter that much. It's hard to get the currency to justify crafting gloves in SSF, so I recommend just going with whatever base lady luck drops in your lap. If you get a nice influenced pair on a good base, craft on that. If Rog makes a nice pair for you, stick some eldritch embers on it until you get something nice.

Good bases include spiked gloves for the melee damage implicit (but note it'll be overwritten if you eldritch craft it), titan gauntlets as the highest armour base, and dragonscale gauntlets as the highest armour+evasion base.

If you're going with an influenced pair, then:
- Warlord is ideal, with +1 frenzy charge and % increased melee damage prefixes and block and culling strike suffixes
- Hunter is pretty good too as it opens up % chance to impale on hit and chance to intimidate on hit as prefixes and mana per enemy hit as suffix
- Elder is passable with % chance of getting a frenzy charge on kill as prefix and attack speed, % block and melee damage as suffixes, but at this point query whether the dilution of the affix pool is worthwhile.

The stats you're after (in approx order of priority) are:
prefixes: life, influenced mods named above, (if required) mana leech, flat physical damage
suffixes: attack speed, any influenced mods named above, spell suppression, chaos resist, other resists, dex or int (if required)

Ideally we'd like to also corrupt the gloves to get a useful curse on hit (vulnerability, chains or enfeeble).

3 examples of endgame non-corrupted gloves look something like this:

Spiked gloves
Warlord Influenced
Prefixes: life, +1 frenzy charges, melee damage %
Suffixes: attack speed, culling strike, chaos resist

Dragonscale gloves
Searing exarch implicit: attack speed, or intimidate on hit, or % damage per frenzy charge
Eater of Worlds implicit: chance to impale on hit, or % damage per 100 strength, or spell suppression, or exerted attacks do % increased damage, or overwhelm % physical damage reduction
Prefixes: life, hybrid life/armour, life or mana leech, flat phys
Suffixes: attack speed, resists, dex/int

Hands of the High Templar
Curse enemies on hit, with 1-2 of vulnerability, enfeeble and chains
+ attack speed
+ level of socketed AoE gems (stick some auras in here)
+ 1 max frenzy charge
+ % life

Upgrading and progressing to end state

End state
Ideally a headhunter or mageblood, but this is SSF so let's assume that's not possible.

In which case the realistic endgame belt is a Stygian Vise with (in order of priority):

Prefix: life, flasks have % increased effect (pretty rare, don't count on getting this), energy shield
Suffix: faster cooldowns (benchcrafted), chaos resist, any other resist, high life regen or one of the flask suffixes
Harvest enchant: recover 2% life when you kill an enemy while raged. There are a few other vaguely useful enchants too.

If you managed to get a 'randomise influence' craft in harvest, and a useless awakener orb (ie Veritania or Baran) then use them here and hopefully hit one of:
Elder: grant level 22 enduring cry and/or rallying cry prefix; % life prefix; % global phys damage prefix; attack speed or % melee damage during flask effect suffix
Shaper: grant level 22 intimidating cry prefix (we are gem slot starved), % cooldown recovery suffix, movement speed during flask effect suffix
Hunter: % life prefix

The other influences also have some vaguely useful affixes but query whether worth diluting affix pool for them.

Upgrading and progressing to end state


The socketed abyssal jewel

Like the belt slot it's not hard to get a decent pair here but will take a while to get an awesome pair.

The ideal mods are (in approx order of importance):
Searing exarch implicit: % increased action speed, or movement speed, or % increased onslaught effect
Eater of worlds implicit: cooldown reduction, or (if required) elemental ailment avoidance, or infernal cry has increased AoE, or intimidating cry cooldown reduction
Prefix: move speed (iLvl 86 for tier 1), life, armour/life hybrid
Suffix: spell suppression, resists
Enchant: several useful ones here, take the one that suits you the best

I wouldn't recommend an influenced pair here, but if you have your heart set on it, then an iLvl 86 two-toned armour/evasion base is ideal, with Crusader or Shaper influence for cooldown reduction suffix. The eldritch influence implicits are just straight up better though imo.

Upgrading and progressing to end state

While in the campaign and early maps, just use any decent pair of boots with move speed.

In yellow and red maps, find a pair of two-toned boots and harvest craft with speed, life or resists until you get something useable. Shouldn't be too hard as the boots affix pool is smallish and most mods are useable.

When ready to try a lategame pair, the +3 levels abyssal depths node is your friend again, to get an iLvl 86+ pair of armour/evasion boots (for t1 move speed), with the best being two-toned and dragonscale. Then hit it with harvest crafts and essences until you get lucky.

Then hit it with eldritch currency until happy.

There are a few options on the helmet, and it's a bit of a matter of preference.

One approach is to use the helmet slot to squeeze more auras in. Alpha's Howl or Devouring Diadem will likely allow you to run an additional aura/stance, but at the cost of not having any life on it.

The other approach is to get a lot of the normal health/resists type stats on the helm. Crown of the Inward Eye from Sirus is a nice semi-easy to acquire helm with both good life and damage.

An ideal rare helm looks something like:
Searing Exarch implicit: % increased area of effect or % vulnerability, enfeeble or chains curse effect (as relevant)
Eater of worlds implicit: mana reservation % or % of physical damage taken as [elemental] instead
Prefix: life, life/armour hybrid, % armour and evasion
Suffix: mana resevation (from essence), spell suppression, resists

Another influenced option is Warlord with prefixes: life, % physical damage taken as fire, warcry skills have % increased area of effect and suffix nearby enemies take 9% increased fire damage, or Elder which has nearby enemies take 9% increased physical damage.

Enchantment

For the enchant, given it's SSF we're happy to have anything that buffs any one of our skills. If you're in trade and you have the luxury of choice, then some great ones are:
- berserk has 30% increased buff effect / berserk has 40% reduced rage loss
- 15% increased shield crush attack speed
- blood and sand has 40% increased buff effect
- increased mana reservation efficiency for [aura]

Experiment with what works for you, and be flexible based on what drops for you.

Upgrading and progressing to end state

End state

One endgame ring almost has to be a generic life and resists ring with -mana cost, so something like:

Base: two stone or unset or vermillion or steel or amethyst
Quality: 20% prismatic catalyst
Prefix: Life, -total cost of non-channelling skills, flat physical or life or mana leech or if influenced, several nice but not essential prefixes available
Suffix: 3x resistances

The other ring is a lot more flexible
- if you get lucky with synthesis bosses, you might end up with a nice offensive Herald of Purity offensive ring
- if you're not running +1 curse, you would want a warlord ring that has vulnerability on hit and as many other nice mods as possible.
- otherwise something similar to ring 1 is fine, it'll give a lot of flexibility to your other slots


Upgrading and progressing to end state

End state

Amulets are pretty hard to craft in SSF due to the massive modifier pool.

In theory the best possible amulet is something like:
Base: onyx or the +dex/int one or the % life regen per second one
Prefixes: +1 physical skills (which is 0.09% weight), +1 all skills (which is 0.02% weight with no tags), life
Suffixes: you've already hit +2 skills in SSF, don't get too picky about suffixes

The reason +2 is important is you can combine it with +1 on the body armor and a level 21 shield crush to get level 24 shield crush, the breakpoint at which the damage scaling jumps from 5-7 damage per 15 armour or evasion on the shield, to 6-8 damage (ie something like a 15% damage increase). At level 24 the damage radius for shield crush also goes up by about 14%.

If you don't manage to identify the jackpot amulet, then a good amulet looks something like:

Prefixes: life, (if required) life/mana leech, something vaguely useful from the influenced mod pool like move speed from hunter or area of effect from elder/warlord
Suffixes: resists, useful suffixes from influenced mods like level 22 determination from shaper, attack speed from elder, pride or determination mana efficiency from warlord, % chance to crush on hit (essence of horror), stats

Pretty hard to get a 'very good' amulet in SSF let along awesome one, so good luck.

Enchants

Some good budget-ish enchants include:
- sanctuary - teal/teal/amber - 4% spell and attack block, 12% resist all when using shield
- purity of flesh - silver/black/clear - 10% life, 8% energy shield, 8% chaos resist
- crystal skin - silver/black/sepia - 1% all max resists, 20% elemental ailment avoidance
- freedom of movement - violet/sepia/clear - 10% movement speed and evasion while phasing, 20 dex
- intuition - violet/violet/amber - 5% life, 5% suppression, 15% evasion
- instinct - sepia/sepia/azure - 10% suppression; recover 50 energy shield when you suppress

Your endgame enchant is a hole filler, so pick what you want. Whispers of doom if you want an extra curse, sovereignty for an extra bit of mana reservation to maybe fit one more aura in, Inveterate for pushing closer to 100 suppression, or any of the ones listed above.

Upgrading and progressing to end state

[To be written]

End state

We have a pretty standard flask setup grounded in magic defensive flasks, mixed in with any power uniques that we find.

On all magical flasks (and we'd want at least 2-3 of them), we want the 'gain # charges when hit' prefix. We're a melee build, we get hit a lot, this keeps our charges up. We then want to use instilling orbs on them to get 'use when charges full' or 'use when neighbouring flask is used' or other triggers that ensure they are almost always on.

On suffixes, we ideally want one each of 'increased % armour during flask effect', 'reduced curse effect on you during flask effect', and 'increased movement speed during flask effect'. Remember, these suffix effects don't stack, so no point in having two of the same.

Then depending on which ailments you're wanting protection against, you may also want some suffixes devoted to making you immune to things like poison or shock.

As for flask types, you want:
1. A basalt flask for sure for the +20% armour, and
2. I recommend a quartz flask for the phasing and spell suppression.
3. Before you have your clusters up, silver flask for onslaught is my recommended third - replace with one of the ones below if you have another source of onslaught;
4. Sulphur flask for the consecrated ground and a bit of damage for the fourth; and
5. The final slot is flex, depending on your style:
a) enduring mana flask if you don't mind pressing another button to manage your mana;
b) quicksilver for movement;
c) sapphire flask for dealing with cold damage, which is a bit overrepresented in endgame bosses
d) amethyst flask if you haven't capped your chaos resist yet

If you get lucky and pick up the good unique flasks, then Lion's Roar, Bottled Faith and Taste of Hate in particular are very good and can replace the non unique versions above.

Upgrading and progressing to end state