[3.28] Dominating Blow of Inspiring Guardian | Build Guide & Detailed PoB

Leveling: I leveled as Holy Strike for league start, alongside a 4l dominating blow, however if you're rerolling into this build you can immediately run dominating blow of inspiring once you hit level 28. Each loadout shows recommended leveling uniques for every slot, there isn't a particularly good unique shield so just run one with res + life (+ block ideally). We rush Resolute Technique in order to ignore accuracy (use precision until then), then rush Tribal Fury to get melee splash (allowing us to drop melee splash as a support). Once you get Tribal Fury, you can drop the Righteous Fury wheel (which we only take for the +1 strike notable, which you can get on the Tribal Fury wheel). Holy Strike can only use maces/staff/sceptre, so we use a 2h mace until dom blow of inspiring. At that point you can use any weapon, but at level 50 we use Frostbreath for the double damage (basically a budget paradoxica). I recommend Geofri's -> Chober Chaber between level 28-50. Could also use a brightbeak for speed, especially if twinking w/ tabula, but get a source of mana leech/mana on hit (jewel, jewellery, anoint clever thief). Before you run Precise Technique and drop Resolute Technique, make sure you keep your accuracy higher than your life to maintain the 40% more damage bonus. Run precision, get accuracy wheels (Glory of Command, Galvanic Hammer). Also make sure to get the Mace Mastery "all damage can chill" when running frostbreath to ensure enemies are always chilled for double damage. You can clear 3 watchstones with the Frostbreath setup, however Maven is very tough for melee builds without a lot of damage, so I recommend farming for the crit swap (paradoxica) before attempting her. Crit chance paradoxica is currently ~5 divines, so save up for that (don't buy any other paradoxica besides crit or attack speed). Main items to buy: Paradoxica - crit chance or attack speed, crit chance is much cheaper and similar dps. 3-12divs (depends on mods it rolls with, can try having an active search to snipe one for cheap) Elegant Hubris - look for minion damage + frenzy on hit (to drop blood rage when using armour/es bases, as otherwise you will have 0 es due to blood rage degen). Also ideally want to have chance to avoid shock to make use of stormshroud for ailment immunity (prospiro coin 37000 is ideal) Use Pob to search for good jewels. ~1div+ Tecrod's Gaze - very cheap, make sure you also have 3-4 murderous eye jewels with flat damage added to swords/attacks, % attack speed on crit, accuracy. (4c). Cluster Jewel with Fuel the Fight, Martial Prowess + 1 other notable (precise retaliation is very good and cheap). Make sure it's 8 passives as well. This allows you to drop the mana leech point, which saves a lot of passive points. (~70c) Spectres: Early: 2x Carnage Chieftain Late: Perfect Guardian Turtle + Perfect Forest Tiger Animate Guardian: Early: Dying breath, leer cast, legacy of fury, rare gloves w/ life + res (chaos + ele), doppelganger guise (or belly of the beast if expensive day 1/2) Late: Kingmaker, Garb of the Ephemeral, Crown of the Tyrant, legacy of fury (40%+ roll), Algor Mortis (or res/life gloves). Crafting: Jewel: Start with a 12 passive attack cluster with ilvl of 84, whichever is cheapest, can be sword and shield, mace, axe and sword, basically whatever, it just needs to be able to roll this passive: increased attack speed. Using harvest, we reforge attack speed until we hit T1 increased attack speed suffix, then you make it 4 mods and hit it with a fracturing orb. If you fracture attack speed you win, if you don't you buy another jewel and try again. Obviously 1/4 odds to hit so not bad, and fracturing orbs are reasonably cheap this league, so it shouldn't be too pricy, and the mod is also relatively common to hit with harvest. Once you get that, you use refracting fog on the jewel -- this rolls its type randomly, and we're looking for minion damage. This is worse odds at about 1/16, I got lucky hitting it on my 3rd try, thankfully refracting fog arent too bad either at around 150c atm, but yeah this part could hurt the bank. Once you hit though, the final step is not too terrible, as it's just harvest reforge speed again until you hit T1 minion attack speed + 35% inc effect, which can take some time but I also hit it pretty quickly. Ideally you also hit +life or +es, but obviously not essential. Helm: This one probably cost me the most to craft, though when I crafted it I was willing to burn currency doing stupid shit like hitting it with foulborn exalts, which ended up being useless. Start with an ilvl 84+ divine crown with a T1 accuracy fracture (either buy one or craft yourself depending on prices). Use harvest reforge minion until you hit +2 minion and either a T2+ life roll or high es/armour roll (this can quickly get expensive as each attempt requires 3 of the new harvest mat, which are 20c+ each). If your suffixes are filled, use eldritch annul to remove them (make sure eater is dominant to annul suffixes, you can use this trick for all crafts, searing dominant for prefixes). then do prefixes cannot be changed and harvest reforge drop to guarantee rarity, and finish by crafting rarity on slain rare (or a res if needed). I had an open prefix and ended up hitting both rarity prefix and %inc accuracy suffix, which was quite lucky, but obviously not necessary for a good helm. Boots: These are super cheap, and can def craft better ones (i.e. using delerium essence for cannot be poisoned). Buy ilvl 85+ paladin boots with fractured chaos res (T2+), and hit it with shrieking zeal essence until you hit T1 life (and ideally T3+ increased es/armour as well). Prefix cannot be changed + harvest reforge drop for more rarity, or if you need res you can harvest reforge light/fire/cold etc. Gloves: Buy ilvl 85+ paladin gloves with fractured T1 accuracy rating, use defeaning essence of zeal until you get T2+ chaos res, then suffix cannot be changed + harvest reforge life until T2+ life. If you have two open prefix, craft mana (to block it) and exalt slam (hopefully hit flat ele damage or es/armour/hybrid life), then craft increased minion damage. Once you've got some more currency to burn, you'll also want to elevate +1 strikes to +2 strikes. To do that, you need to use an exceptional eldritch ichor on the gloves, then spam grand embers until you hit +1 strikes, then use orb of conflict -- If strikes goes up a tier (hold alt to check, if its exceptional youre good), then hit the gloves with another exceptional eldritch and orb of conflict again. If it goes to +2 strikes, you're good and can roll your eldritch for whatever (accuracy is probably best). If you miss and strikes goes back down, you need to use another orb of conflict to bring it back up. Main thing to remember is to always keep eldritch at exceptional for best odds of elevating searing to +2 strikes. Body: Get an ilvl 86 sacred chainmail with T1 hybrid flat, and use dense fossils until you hit both T2+ %increased es/armour and es/armour + block recovery -- avoid any life rolls, as the 15% life mastery wont work otherwise. Once you've got that, harvest reforge physical for T2+ physical damage reduction, block int + str with bench (craft hybrid int/str), and exalt it, hopefully you hit chaos res or some kinda decent res. Benchcraft whatever res you need. Use a tailoring orb before linking it as it breaks links, look for 8% inc defense modifiers. Can 6 socket it cheaply with jeweller's omen, and 6 link it with black morrigan + craicic sand spitter. Rings: Buy ilvl 81+ fractured minion damage rings (best roll you can get, make sure they are T0 as that is the delve mod), implicit should be whatever res youre lacking the most. Use shrieking essence of scorn until T2+ life and open suffix (if not open, then annul and hopefully hit the useless suffix -- if it is useless, if you hit something good like attack speed which I did on one ring I just kept it), then craft crit chance + crit multi on shatter, then exalt twice and hopefully hit some good mods. There's probably a better ring to craft than this, but good enough for me. Finish with unstable catalysts (or dextral catalysts).