My Recommendation for your Gauntlet Build!

> 3.28 Changes < - Specialized the build more for Gauntlet > BLOODLINES < There's only one node we can realistically drop for a Bloodlines ascendancy, and that's Jagged Technique, but it is really easy to justify doing so. You can take "That didn't happen!" from the Delirious Bloodline for this, but this is ONLY worth it if your jewels aren't great anyway and/or if you're planning to do Ubers in Hardcore. > FAQ < > So what Uber Lab is best? < When doing Pinnacle Bosses: War of Attrition is best. During maps it's a nearly completely dead node though. How do we aggravate while we have this tree you ask? We have 10% chance to aggravate from the tree and 10% from vulnerability quality. Since Lacerate hits quite often this should be more than enough. For mapping we go with Jagged Technique, this is since for clearing we want to hit a target once and have it bleed properly. In Settlers league I didn't even bother switching out Jagged Technique for Ubers and it was still completely fine, so if you don't want to swap I recommend just sticking with Jagged Technique. > Lacerate or Earthquake? < Lacerate of Haemorrage is a pretty significant damage upgrade over Earthquake, but clear is a lot more clunky. Especially in the Gauntlet you probably want to farm a Lacerate of Haemorrage and swap to it only for bossing that's worth points, if you just care about getting level 90 you can safely ignore Lacerate. The way we fit Lacerate is by having either a green socket on our body armour and using Swift Affliction on Earthquake, or by having a white socket so we can still use Less Duration on EQ. > Why no Determination? < Determination was nerfed a few patches ago, we already grab a bunch of endurance charges and the best base types will give us a lot of base armour. This combined with the fact that Blood Magic solves all our mana issues and alleviates a bunch of socket pressure(no lifetap required) makes it better to just run Pride and drop all other auras. > Why Kaom's Sign? < Kaom's Sign is suprisingly hard to beat, you need a Vermillion Ring with T1 life and Essence of Delirium DoT Mult to even come close. And even that ring still lowers your max hit you can tank. > Why no Tincture? < Since this build relies pretty heavily on being Blood Magic we'd need to pick up Bloodsoaked Blade to fit a Tincture. This costs extra passive points and means we drain quite some life upon activating the Tincture. You could also opt to drop Blood Magic and fix mana issues, but that makes the build a lot less beginner friendly and more complex to gear. In the end just not running a Tincture makes the build a lot easier to get going, but trying to fit one is not a wrong choice, if you want to go for it feel free. The way to go about this would probably be by dropping Blood Magic and stacking -8 mana cost on both your rings and your amulet. > How do we get ailment immune? < On the non-suppress versions of this build we get ailment immunity. We achieve this with the following stats: - Shield Mastery: 20% - Thick Skin: 20% - Chest Craft: 25% - Deafening Essence of Loathing on boots: 35% (perfectly divined) If you can't immediately get one of these methods, you can add an Eater implicit on boots for 15% to 32% chance to avoid ailments as well. > PLAYSTYLE < We mostly just shield charge and flame dash around and use EQ and monsters will explode. On single target you want to cast Vulnerability and use a Bladestorm for maim. You also want to put down your War Banner(this is instant cast, really not as bad as it might seem). In bosses with their own loadscreen you'll want to use Enduring Cry to keep up Endurance Charges. > LEVELING < Our first goal is getting to level 12, this is probably the most painful part of leveling, we use Spectral Throw for it. From level 12 to normal labs we'll use 2H axes with Sunder, which we'll slowly transition into bleed. Lacerate feels really bad while leveling so is not recommended. See the "Level 13 Example" in the Items section for an example of how you can gear early on. After normal lab we switch to a 1H Axe + Shield setup, this is only needed in the Gauntlet, outside of the Gauntlet you can stick with a 2H until maps. > AXE CRAFTING < Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ueZc1iRS7Y (the video is for 2h axes, but it works the same for Reaver Axes) For getting a near-perfect axe, you can do the following: This method requires you to have a bunch of alterations(probably a couple of thousand!) and ~10 ilvl 83+ Reaver Axe bases: 1. Alteration roll 2 Reaver Axe bases with one of these mods each: T1 flat phys(Flaring), T3+ Hybrid %phys and T2+ % Phys 2. Recombine 2 different mods, this has a 33% chance to succeed. Let's assume you have T1 flat phys and T3 Hybrid 3. Repeat step 2, but get a base with the missing mod. Let's assume T1 flat phys and T2 % phys. You should now have 2 rares axes: one with T1 flat and T3 hybrid being the only prefixes, and one with T2% and T1 flat. - Exact mods can be different, as long as all 3 mods you want exist on both items combined and each item has only 2 prefixes 4. Combine the 2 rare axes and hope you hit all 3 prefixes, if not: the resulting base might be useable for this step again and you might only need to make 1 other rare with 2 prefixes to try again 5. Craft: Prefixes Cannot Be Changed -> Scour -> Multimod attack speed & phys dot mult Early/mid game you spam Essence of Contempt until you hit decent % phys, craft attack speed and you're done.