PoB: https://pobb.in/jkIL8hco4Cqk (check out the notes section for gear progression)

I tested a Ground Slam of Earthshaking Slayer built around Tainted Pact + The Impaler during Pohx’s private league. Could clear voidstones / farm T16 red altars on 100c, even in an uncertain economy.

It builds off of Maxroll’s Sunder Leveling Guide and starts filling out extra points after the campaign (saving respec for swap to crit). I incorporated Tainted Pact after The Golden Rule prices settled down around 30/115 atlas points, and Kaom's + fixing resistances came shortly after (67/115).

The PoB is a snapshot of my character at that time. I'm thinking about making a video about it since it felt extremely solid, but I wanted to get some feedback / ideas beforehand.

Build Mechanics

- Reflect poisons on ourselves with Tainted Pact for 100K+ health regen per second. If you want a deep dive on how Tainted Pact works, check out my video here. Poison chance from tree + Icefang Orbit gives 70%, wish it was 100% since slams = slower APS.

- Allocating Bloodsoaked Blade gives insane uptime on tinctures. Drains life instead of mana, who cares with this much regen

- Invest cheaply into max hit (Kaom's Heart) and don't worry about avoidance / EHP. No need to block/evade when you're healed in the next server tick

- 10s Slayer Overleech still feels great even when 2s poisons fall off

- The Impaler keystone applies 6 impales at once in an AoE, but you can't add any more in the next 5 seconds. Great for slow slam gameplay

- Cheat out strong impale stacks with Intimidating Cry + Fist of War + %inc effect of impales on non-impaled enemies (which applies to all 6) on the tree. DPS in PoB doesn't really reflect this well, and I think 2.4M is heavily underestimating

- Explode impales with Great Old One’s Testicles, which greatly improves clear and can sometimes help nuke a rare in the middle of a pack. You can apply and explode 6 impales in a single hit

- The tree probably needs some optimization. I kinda just grabbed “efficient” clusters after the Maxroll guide. Could probably redo some of the choices made in campaign, but Regrets are expensive, and we’re saving for a crit swap later (see notes on progression). Just remember that you need to get the poison nodes on the right side of the tree before you swap to Tainted Pact

Pros

- Full package starts around 100c. Progression felt insanely smooth with each upgrade feeling meaningful. Check the PoB notes section for a shopping list

- Insane 100K+ life regen when poisons are up, which makes 2H actually feel tanky. Only really die to one-shots when poisons are up. Tainted Pact healing unaffected by regen / recovery rate map modifiers

- Solid mid-game bulk with just under 6K life, fortify, 3 endurance charges from Doedre’s Elixir, reduced dmg taken while leeching

- Relatively zoomy for a slammer, lots of attack speed through Slayer / tincture / tree choices

- Excellent clear with lots of slam AoE (pulverize, 50% Slayer AoE, Seismic cry)

- Explodes with gloves + The Impaler. These don’t scale with AoE and work off of our damage instead of monster health, but they’re potent early

- DPS probably closer to 4M if you set up the Konami code right

- Elemental Ailment / Bleed / reflect / Stun immune, which is really nice this early. CB jewel too expensive at this point. You won't feel CB while a poison is up anyways

Cons

- A little button intensive. Manual intimidating cry, Vulnerability until we can afford on hit, tincture if poisons fall off, flasks until we can afford automation

- Tight on gem sockets due to Kaom’s Heart

- Cannot run “Monsters Cannot Be Leeched From”, struggles with Poison avoidance mod and turning regen off entirely (searing exarch runes, deatomization storms, maven beams)

- Infrequently can die to mobs with “Life Cannot Be Leeched From”. 10s Slayer leech uptime + worm flask helps a lot between packs, but still want to call it out

- Weak to big phys / chaos hits (chaos res too expensive lol), but those are relatively infrequent during mapping

- Much stronger with poisons than without. Worm flask helps a lot for invuln phases. Can sometimes miss the 70% poison roll when you need it

I’ll most likely incorporate a crit swap for the video. I can’t wait to give this another whirl in 3.28. Appreciate your feedback!