Hi all! I've been tinkering with the idea of a Vaal Ground Slam build -- as I'm sure many of you have been -- and I put together my take (https://pastebin.com/aRWEF6uR) on a Juggernaut variant to use as my second character this league.

I often run into the issue of league starting on a character that is great at clearing, but trash at bossing. I wanted to put together a boss killer that required minimal investment to compliment my league start (And wasn't mines -- RSI just doesn't sound all that appealing to me) and this is what I landed on. There are three potentially expensive components of the build early -- Astramentis (Always pricey at league start, but can farm The Polymath Divination cards), 5L Pillar of the Caged God (Shouldn't be awful after a couple of days, but might still be a pain point -- The Tower Divination cards can be farmed for a decent chance at acquiring one of these, and 5L doesn't require a ton of fusings) and Attribute catalysts -- This is a strength stacking build. The amulet anointment might be a BIT pricey if you're trying in the first couple of days, but should be very affordable -- No silver or gold oils required.

There are a few things I can't show in PoB at this point, as the new skill gems won't be in until league start. Namely, I'll be taking Petrified Blood (I'm aware of the controversy around its usefulness but as this build is intended for bossing, where damage can be mitigated by knowledge of the fight and sufficiently high DPS I'm not too concerned about it) and Bloodthirst support. As I can't show these in PoB at this point, I wanted to be able to put together a proof of concept showing that I'll be able to hit sufficient damage with minimal investment fairly early in the league to boss with this build. Bonks seemed the obvious route to go, and with the changes to Vaal Ground Slam (600% damage effectiveness and can be Exerted, with 4 charges? YES PLEASE!) I couldn't pass it up. Juggernaut was chosen for tankiness (Talk as much as I want about mitigating damage through knowledge of mechanics, I screw up a fair bit and having some cushion will be very nice) and the Undeniable node giving attack speed and accuracy scaling from strength stacking. Should make it so Resolute Technique isn't required, which opens up crits as an option for future upgrades.

The build lands at 266k Sirus DPS assuming max value Warcries stacked properly (This will require prep before the boss to maximize the initial hit) on a 4L. That's using Ground Slam, at 150% damage effectiveness, so we'll be look at 1.06 million at 600%, making the broad assumption that we can just call it 4x the damage. Brain operates like a potato sometimes and this might not be accurate, please let me know in the comments if that's the case. That's on a 4L, and is more damage than I cleared Sirus 8 with on my Vortex Occultist with 10 ex of investment last league.

Needless to say, assuming that damage is sustainable is absolutely false -- That's the initial bonk in perfect conditions, and it's nowhere near enough damage to one shot or instaphase Sirus (I -THINK- you could use Hydrosphere during phase changes to prep your next bonk, but I haven't played slams before this so if someone more knowledgeable has the answer, let me know please!), at A8 or otherwise. Additionally, sustaining Endurance charges will require tanking small hits where possible and might not BE possible -- This has a very small impact on our total DPS for now, however. However, this is also barebones as it stands now -- Only aura is Pride and will be Petrified Blood for 85% mana reservation without Enlighten or resource reservation reduction on the tree, which I'm assuming to be true for now. My initial tree is at level 70, but I've added a level 80 tree to include the use of Impales which adds a decent chunk of damage (And Vaal Ancestral Warchief can pop the Impales, removing the need to stay in range after the initial bonk) and will most likely be the direction to move the build as it progresses further. This also completely neglects cluster jewels. I've tinkered with some jewels that you can find in the item section, but I'll need to do more digging into physical and Warcry clusters to get an idea of how far it can be pushed. I'm also not expecting this to take on A8 Sirus right out the gate -- Annoying map bosses and Conqueror's are my first goal.

Overall, I think this shows fairly well that Vaal Ground Slam will be a perfectly acceptable, budget bossing build in the early league with the potential to VASTLY outgrow what I have here. I'm not competent enough with physical builds (I primarily have played casters up to this point) to be confident in any of the assertions I've made up to this point -- Please check the comments for any examples of Cunningham's Law at work before tinkering too much with this build yourself. Additionally, if you have any suggestions for the build including how to improve it in a budget state or direction for improvement with more investment, I'd love to hear them. Thanks for taking a look!