Shield Crush Starter Theory Version 2 - Impale, Attack Speed, and Ancestral Totems - Post Patch Notes Pass

-------------------------------------------------------- FOREWORD AND NOTES: This build has been adjusted for the great nerfening of builds from the 3.15 patch notes. The bad news is that this build lost a lot of damage, but the good news is that we get multistrike with Shield Charge and it should make this skill good enough. I am currently assuming that Shield Crush will have the same bonus damages apply as Shield Charge, in which it got changed to 4 to 6 from 3 to 4. It is also possible that Shield Crush will have the same bonus damages as Spectral Shield Throw, in which that got changed to 6 to 8 from 3 to 4. This build is intended for easy to get gear that doesn't require a lot of resources or investment. Of the listed gear on the build currently, the only pieces that I would say are 'hard' to get are the 2 node Adrenaline/Fettle Cluster Jewels, along with a 6L Belly. This build is also made as an option for SSF. To my knowledge the listed Uniques are either relatively common Unique drops or farmable via Div Cards (Lioneye's Remorse). Estimates for No Cluster + Tabula: Sub 1ex Estimates for 1 Large 2 Small Cluster + Tabula: Sub 3ex (2 node Fettle costs 1 ex once things settle generally) This build is NOT endgame (A9+) optimized just yet. I aimed for at least 1m Sirus DPS and a good mapping focus. Damage calculations are assuming that you are fighting a boss and NOT mapping. This build assumes a double hit, shotgun type damage. On a single hit (assuming max impale stacks) we lose 50% of the Total DPS -------------------------------------------------------- CURRENT NEEDED MAINTENANCE WITH THIS BUILD: Blight and Legion: Although the damage is nice, we do not have that great area clearing. This makes Blight and Legion a bit difficult to deal with. The current idea is to use Lacerman's technique to get aoe, which is through Haemophilia and bleeding. This requires point investments into chance to bleed, as having a 'chance to bleed' axe does not appear to work on PoB. This will need testing once 3.15 hits. Damage Scaling: We should be able to get close to 2m dps on pretty crap gear once we see multistrike take effect, which seems pretty good given how hard everything got nerfed. Time will tell. I currently do not know enough to know how the build can be pushed apart from the listed ideas below. A bleed version of shield crush might be better than this build. Using Herald of Purity rings and swapping to Purity from Pride gives a great damage boost, and the Impale effect watcher's eye also gives a giant damage boost. Using the double damage with attacks cheap version also helps with damage as well. Another way to scale damage (mostly for bossing) is with a Frenzy Charge on Hit chest. Tombfist to apply both intimidate and maim, freeing up gem slots and increasing damage. -------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION: One of the things that I've wanted to do for a very long time in Path of Exile is simple - I want to beat the shit out of Sirus and Shaper with my shield. Now I can! and you can, too. Even with the great nerfening of all of the skill and skill support gems, Shield Crush still looks like a solid league start, and should be scalable into an 'all content' endgame. This is a skill that you can use from level 1, and push through the acts and into at least A4-A7 Sirus with. Currently I do not have a high investment build of this skill, but there are bound to be different users who find one to use. As time passes I will work to incorporate this into this guide. -------------------------------------------------------- PROS AND CONS: + Easy, Effective League Start to get off the ground (only need a high armor shield) + Very Tanky with lots of ways to keep your defense up (Armor, Endurance Charges, Vaal Molten Shield, etc) + SSF Friendly. No Uniques Required + Fast mapping with Leap Slam tied with Challenger Charges. + Lots of Wiggle Room for both offense and defense with the amount of rares used + Flask Wiggle room - Not a one button build (Totems, Blood Rage, Tempest Shield, Leap Slam, Shield Crush buttons) - Weak to DoT damage (natural weakness of block builds) - Untested because new skill (still looks promising, though) - Slow to Average Bossing (needs optimization here) - No Physical Reflect Maps -------------------------------------------------------- YOUR WEAPON IS YOUR SHIELD: The weird part about this build is that your Shield is your weapon. Your actual weapon slot does not matter too much unless it is giving global bonuses (intimidate on hit, global attack speed, leech, etc). Do not focus on getting a high damage weapon for the Shield Crush skill. It's bait. It's much better to use your weapon as a stat stick (resistances, on hit effects, leech, etc) instead. -------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO PAD SHIELD CRUSH DAMAGE: There are general ways to get more damage on Shield Crush as a skill: The first one is ARMOUR ON SHIELD. This HAS to be flat armor and % increased Armour, and 'increased defences on equipped shield' on something such as the passive tree does not work with increasing Shield Crush damage. The second one is PHYSICAL, MELEE, OR AREA DAMAGE. This can be flat physical damage added to attacks, flat increased physical damage, increased melee damage, increased damage while holding a shield, and so on. -------------------------------------------------------- HOW THIS BUILD WORKS: This build is inspired by Lacerman, where you hit a decent amount a whole lot of times. This naturally works well with impale, so we go for impale instead of bleed. We scale this build similarly to Lacerman, in which we prioritize attack speed and physical damage. Since we are a shield and not a weapon, a lot of our spare points can go to cluster jewels or defensive nodes. When mapping: Tempest Shield + Blood Rage on map start. Sand stance for charges in maps. Swap to blood stance for tough monsters/boss. Plant Totems in this order: Protector > Warchief. This will spawn 1 protector and 2 warchiefs for the benefits. Multiple Totem support lets you have 3 totems total. Vulnerability: - Can be self cast, tied to CWDT, or a Vuln on Hit ring. Your preference, but Vuln on Hit ring frees up a gem slot. Shield Crush calculations (provided by u/ov_oo) are put on the Lioneye's Remorse Shield and the crafted shield stated as so. The math for the two hit shotgun is assumed for every hit. Assumed math of Shield Crush: Shield Charge has 38% Less Attack Speed 10% less attack speed (simulate Melee Phys nerf) 1 to 2 added physical damage per 15 armour or evasion rating on shield (simulate Shield Crush bonuses. This might be higher depending on the 20/20 gem information) 8% less physical damage (simulate impale nerf) 100% more Attack Damage -------------------------------------------------------- MECHANICS WE USE IN THIS BUILD: Resolute Technique: We don't crit, so guaranteed hits all the time smooth out the build. Block: Our main source of defense. We block the hit, we take no damage. We also get some cool bonuses to damage and such when we do block. We can also use life gain on block to get health back when we do block. We get up to 79% block AND spell block. Very durable. Remember, we are still HIT even if we BLOCK the hit. We do not have to take damage from the hit to consider being hit. Armor: We can take some pretty heavy hits assuming everything is up. Throw on the Resistance Ring and check effective HP to see for yourself. Impale: We swing our Shield really fast. Using Impale is best because we can trigger Impale stacks easily and effectively due to our speed. Ancestral Protector + Ancestral Warchief: We use ancestral totems to buff our attack speed and flat damage, and also anoint 'Panopticon' for better effects of our Totem buffs. Leech: We use leech as our life sustain and mana sustain. We get our leech through Jewels, the passive tree, or weapons. We will have enough mana sustain to continue attacking with this equation below: (MANA COST x ATTACK RATE) < MANA LEECH ON HIT RATE As long as the above equation is true, then we can infinitely attack something without having to worry about mana. -------------------------------------------------------- PROS AND CONS: + Easy, Effective League Start Choice(Only need a high armor Shield) + Very Tanky with lots of ways to keep your defense up (Armor, Endurance Charges, Vaal Molten Shield, Fortify, etc) + SSF Friendly. No Uniques Required + Fast mapping with Leap Slam and Movement Flask + No Rumi's Concoction - Lots of Buttons to press (Totems, Vigilant Strike, Curse (when no ring), etc) - Levelling with a different skill might be better (probably splitting steel skills because of impale) - Untested because new skill (still looks promising, though) - Average Bossing - No Physical Reflect Maps - No Elemental Ailment Immunity (for now, waiting on Patch Notes) -------------------------------------------------------- GEM LINKS: Key: (20/X) = Level/Quality. If you see X on quality, it can be whatever quality. 6L - Shield Crush R G R R R R Explanation: Main skill, duh. Shield Crush (21/X - don't know if Quality is worth or not yet) Brutality (20/20) - Raw damage. No chaos or elemental damage though (Atziri's Promise is bait. DONT USE IT) Impale (20/20) - Impale Support Multistrike (20/20) - Faster attacks, also makes mana leeching easier Melee Physical Damage (20/20) - Basic damage addition Ruthless (20/20) - Nice pairing with Multistrike 4L 1 - Ancestral Protector + Vaal Ancestral Warchief R R R R Explanation: The attack speed buff along with the flat damage buff is beneficial to us, and using Multiple Totems Support lets us use both totems at once. Should only really need this for tough rares/bosses Vaal Ancestral Warchief (20/X) - Quality doesn't really matter here. We want the buff Ancestral Protector (20/X) - See above Multiple Totems Support (20/X) - For Multiple Totems to use both Protector and Warchief Maim Support (20/X) - Maiming enemies for more damage for all of our build 4L 2 - Auras. Two Options Explanation: Two options for offense or defense. The former is more raw damage. The latter gives better defense. More Damage + Warcry(assuming full Pride effect) R R R R Pride (20/X) - It's better numbers compared to Flesh and Stone + Maim. We can maim in other ways. Blood and Sand (6/0) - Area damage + Challenger Charges Dread Banner (20/X) - Guarantees Impale Enduring Cry (20/X) - More Defense/Regen More Defense + No Warcry(Flesh and Stone) R R R R Flesh and Stone (6/X) - Maim on Blood Stance, Blind on Defense. We have high block and this just adds even more defense. Maim Support (20/0) - For Flesh and Stone for better maiming. Blood and Sand - Area damge + Challenger Charges Dread Banner - Guarantees Impale Honorable Mentions: Herald of Purity (20/0) - Not as good Damage, but should work well for levelling. We can use this instead of Pride for scaling damage (investment) due to Circle of Guilt rings. 4L 3 - Leap Slam + Vigilant Strike Explanation: Movement Skill Leap Slam (20/X) - Typical Movement Skill Faster Attacks (20/X) - Always put this with Leap Slam. Lifetap (1/X) - We keep this at level 1 for a free 20% increased Life from Flasks because of Lifetap. Nifty. Due to the heavy nerfs of skill gems in the 3.15 patch notes, I elected to drop Fortify from the 6L so we could get better damage with Multistrike. Since we still need Fortify somewhere, and Vigilant Strike has a better duration, I chose Vigilant Strike here over Fortify Support. Either works, but I'd rather the duration from Vigilant Strike personally. 3L 1 - Shield - CWDT + Vulnerability Explanation: Defenses with Molten Shell. Vulnerability as curse. CWDT (7/X) - Take 1000+ damage, it activates. Tinker with the level as you see fit. Vaal Molten Shell (13/X) - We are an armor build, this is the best defence for us. Vall skill can be used on demand. Vulnerability (10/20 or 20/20) - Quality gives us slightly more chance to bleed. Your decision on if it's CWDT or not. Your choice on if Vulnerability is tied to CWDT or not. 3L 2 - Weapon - FILL Explanation: Still figuring out what to put here. Blood Rage (X/X) - Level this as high as you can, as we're a bit dex starved. The attack speed works with Shield Charge, so I assume it works with Shield Crush. Tempest Shield (X/X) - Extra 3% block chance that should persist through maps. OPEN SPACE (I just put Portal here) Note: Since we are using Prismatic Eclipse as our main weapon, you want the sockets to be 1 Blue, 2 Green. 2 Green for attack speed, 1 Blue for Mana leech. -------------------------------------------------------- GEARING BREAKDOWN: WEAPON: Priority - Prismatic Eclipse with G G B sockets Budget - Stat Stick Weapon (Leech > Resistances. Craftable Mana Leech here) Explanation: Prismatic Eclipse gives us global attack speed per green socket, and mana leech on hit per blue socket. Since we only care about our Shield, this is one of the best, cheapest options for us to help pad Shield Crush. -- SHIELD: Priority - Crafted Shield Budget - Lioneye's Remorse Explanation: A crafted shield will be very easy to do as long because of Essences. Using Essence of Dread, we can force up to +400-440 FLAT armor on our shield. This is big because this is actually higher than the T1 flat armor roll on a shield. For a baseline we will want a good life roll and the ability to craft % increased armor on our shield to hit 2000 armour. The best shield for us to use for damage is an Item Level 73 or higher Colossal Tower Shield. A shaper influenced Colossal Tower Shield is best in slot for Life Gain on Block, but not required early on. The bar for Life Gain on Block is only Level 68. We go for 73 or higher for the T1 life roll and the T3 % increased Armor roll. An easy way to get a 1900-2100 armor shield is by following the steps below. 1. Find/Purchase an ilvl 73+ Colossal Tower Shield 2. Scour (optional). Armorer's Scrap to 20% 3. Use a Deafening Essence of Dread on it. Ensure one prefix slot is open and % increased armor isn't taken. 3a. If you want a high life roll or other mods that aren't the armor mod, then keep using Deafening Essences of Dread. 4. Craft tier 3 increased Armour (56-74%) on it. You can find this in maps. Tier 2 increased Armour is from Kitava fight. Assuming no other modifiers, you will have a BARE MINIMUM 1800 armor shield for use with Shield Crush. This already outclasses Lioneye's Remorse in a purely damage standpoint. Other options to consider for shield crafting: Dense Fossils (no life) Defense Harvest crafts NOTE: Essences of Dread will probably be expensive early on because of the 3.15 changes. Things might get pricey. -- HELMET: Priority - Defenses Helmet Explanation: Life and Resistance Stick helmet. Armor base is what you want. -- BODY ARMOR: Priority - 6L Armor Item (preferrably Astral Plate) OR Belly of the Beast Budget - Tabula Rasa Explanation: Using a 6L rare will let us craft whatever we want onto it, and can also allow us to put influences on our chest that could give nice QoL. A tabula rasa will be enough for a while, as we only really need a 6 link for early on. Using a chestpiece for extra life and defence makes it easier to hit resistance cap, though. Belly of the Beast option: Belly gives a lot of life, good Armour/Evasion, and good resistances. It's normally 4-5ex around league start and drops to 2-3ex after a week or so. If you just want more life to stack on, this is your best option. Good Body Armor Influence Modifiers: Redeemer: Nearby Enemies are Blinded (Prefix, ilvl75), % chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit (Suffix, ilvl80) Hunter: % increased maximum life (Prefix, ilvl85) Warlord: +1 to Level of Socketed Active Skill Gems (Prefix, ilvl80), Socketed Attacks have -15 to Total Mana Cost (Suffix, ilvl85) -- GLOVES: Priority - Rare Spiked Gloves with Life, Attack Speed, and Added Physical Budget - Rare Gloves with Life and Resists Explanation: Shield Crush is a melee skill, so we get extra Melee damage with the spiked gloves. Added damage is just a bonus, attack speed is better than flat damage. Crafting 'increased damage with non-vaal skills during soul gain prevention' should increase our damage after using molten shell or throwing down Warchiefs, but it's not adding it in for some reason. -- BOOTS: Priority - Rare Armor boots with Life, Resists, and 30% Movement Speed Budger - Rare Armor boots with an open suffix to craft Movement Speed Explanation: Boots with 30% movement speed feels the best, but if you're on a tight budget then search an open prefix and the life/resists you need, then craft on the movement speed for 20-24% (found in Oriath after killing Kitava). -- AMULET: Priority - Carnage Heart Budget - Turqoise Amulet Honorable Mentions - Deafening Essence of Zeal Turqoise Amulet Explanation: Carnage Heart is cheap, efficient, and gives us everything we need for a super low price. If you can't get a Carnage Heart, run a Turqoise Amulet with Life and Resists. Use Deafening Essences of Zeal on the Amulets for more Attack speed. ANOINT: Panopticon Explanation: Panopticon makes our buff effects on our totems better, which means we both swing faster and we also do better flat damage. It's best in slot. If you have life problems, anoint Discipline and Training. If you have resistance problems, anoint Diamond Skin or Cloth and Chain. You can also throw out 2 passive points to allocate to the nodes. The recipe for these two anoints are very cheap, though. -- RINGS: Priority - Life and Resist Rare Rings (Vermillion or Two-Stone or Prismatic), with Vulnerability on Hit if you can find it Budget - Two-Stone Rings with Life Mana Problems - Praxis Explanation: Like most other rares, these are for defences. Vulnerability on hit is nice for QoL, but we don't really need it in mapping early on. We cant to craft 'Non-channeling skills have -X to total mana cost' in order to keep our leech up while attacking. This makes it so we don't have to run something such as Soul Taker in order to keep attacking. -- BELT: Priority - Stygian Vise with Life and Resists, Hunter Influence for more Life if you want Budget - Standard belt with Life and Resists Honorable Mentions: Soul Tether (bosses) Explanation: Stygian Vise is best in slot for life and resistances. Soul Tether is great for bosses because we will always be leeching due to Immortal Ambition, which enables cluster nodes (if you're using a cluster). -- ABYSS JEWEL: Priority - Life and Onslaught on Kill. Increased Attack speed or increased physical damage for more damage Budget - Life and Onslaught on Kill Explanation: More Life, More Defences, makes life easier for us. Abyss Jewels are a great option to help band-aid things such as attributes and resistances. Onslaught is nice, but is not required. Do not go for Unholy Might on kill. We run brutality so it won't do anything. -- FLASKS: Divine Life Flask of Staunching (Corrupted Blood + Bleeding) TOP PRIORITY Lion's Roar Basalt Flask of Warding Quartz Flask of Heat Blood of the Karui Honorable Mentions: Forbidden Taste (ONLY if max Chaos Resistance), Quartz Flask Explanations: Staunching Life Flask to deal with Corrupted Blood + Bleeding. We are weak to DoT effects. This is a must by maps. Lion's Roar for Damage + Armor for Molten Shell Basalt Flask for extra defenses and Curse Removal Quartz Flask for Phasing + Freeze Removal Blood of the Karui for Panic Flask if you take a big hit. Forbidden Taste is nice if you have high Chaos Resistance, but that's it. DO NOT use it if you don't have maxed Chaos Resistance. Remember that you can use the Menagerie (Bestiary) to craft flask suffixes like Staunching, Heat, and Warding. Don't burn all your alts on flasks if you don't have to. 'Where is the Quicksilver Flask?' Since we are running challenger charges and stacking attack speed, we don't need a quicksilver flask except for levelling. -- JEWELS: Priority: Viridian Jewels with %life and 1 or 2 of the mods listed below: Increased Attack Speed Increased Attack Speed while holding a Shield increased Melee damage increased attack damage while holding a shield Honorable Mentions: % of attack damage leeched as mana (You do not need this if you have a blue socket Prismatic Eclipse or if you are using a weapon with mana leech) Corruptions to keep in mind: Corrupted Blood Immunity Explanation: Jewels get more pricey the more you look for in them, so start with %life and one of the listed modifiers listed above then work up from there. Jewels are also a great spot to band-aid things such as resistances or attributes. Do not look for % of attack damage leeched as mana + %life, they're very expensive. Choose leech + an offensive node instead. Watcher's Eye: % chance to deal double damage while using Pride - Cheap damage boost since we attack so much Impales you inflict last 2 additional hits while using pride - VERY Expensive, but a really good damage boost. This is a super endgame item. -- CLUSTER JEWELS: LARGE: Priority: 8 Passive Feed the Fury and Fuel the Fight Jewel (increased attack damage or increased attack damage while holding a shield) Martial Prowess as the 3rd slot if you want to invest. Explanation: Feed the Fury and Fuel the Fight give us attack speed, leech, and bonus damage while leeching. It's everything we want. As long as we are leeching, which we should be due to mana leech or Immortal Ambition, the bonuses apply. SMALL: Priority: 2 Passive Adrenaline or Fettle Jewel Explanation: Good life nodes. Fettle Jewels are pricey, and Adrenaline Jewels should be cheaper. Fettle gives us more life. Adrenaline gives us more damage. -------------------------------------------------------- ENCHANTS: Helmet: 'Ancestral Protector gives X% increased attack speed while active' OR 'Blood Rage gives X% increased attack speed' Explanation: Since attack speed is our best steroid for damage and we don't know the Shield Crush bonuses, you want attack speed on Acestral Protector or Blood Rage. If you want higher raw damage, go Ancestral Protector. If you want consistent damage, go Blood Rage. Ancestral Protector attack speed is TECHNICALLY better. Boots: 'X% increased attack and cast speed if you have killed recently' OR 'X% chance to avoid stun if you have killed recently' Explanation: Attack speed is our best steroid, so this is straight forward. Stun avoidance is nice for mapping if you're having problems with that. Gloves: This doesn't matter. Do what you like. The damage increase is so minimal that it doesn't matter too much. -------------------------------------------------------- ASCENDANCY: Skill Order: Arena Challenger > Painforged > Versatile Combatant > Violent Retaliation OR Blood in the Eyes Arena Challenger - Challenger Charges for movespeed and attack speed. Best for going through acts. Painforged - On the way to Versatile Combatant, which is where all our defense is at. Versatile Combatant - Most of our defence. Just in time for maps where defence really matters. Violent Retaliation - This is probably better for mapping because of the damage boost and the block boost. Blood in the Eyes - Better Maim and Blind on enemies (mostly rares/bosses) when mowing them down with Shield Crush. Violent Retaliation is PROBABLY better, but I want to test Blood in the Eyes and see. Blood in the Eyes looks better for Bossing, but this doesn't really seem to be a bossing build. -------------------------------------------------------- RECOMMENDED LEVELLING UNIQUES: To be written, likely after patch notes. NOTE: I'm not expecting anything out of the ordinary here, but I want to wait and see what Patch Notes will say before writing anything down. Assume the usual Goldrim, Wanderlust, etc. -------------------------------------------------------- PANTHEON AND BANDITS: MAJOR: Soul of Arakaali - Block builds are weak against DOT effects. This is the best major keystone to help us mitigate that. Honorable Mentions: Brine King - Might be better with Flask changes. We have to see on patch notes. Soul of Solaris - Big Bossing (Maven, Sirus, etc) MINOR: Soul of Shakari - More DOT and Chaos Damage mitigation BANDITS: Kill All - We need the passive points. No other options are good for us. -------------------------------------------------------- WEAPON SLOT DURING LEVELLING: For our weapon, we will mostly be using this slot to give us benefits such as leech, resistances, flat attributes, and more. Increased Physical damage and flat physical damage on the weapon DOES NOT affect Shield Crush. Increased attack speed on the weapon DOES NOT affect Shield Crush. GLOBAL increased attack speed does. X happening on hit DOES affect Shield Crush, as Shield Crush is considered a hit. I would generally aim for Mana Leech on the weapon to save us points on the passive tree, along with other things such as resists or other on hit effects. We get access to Prismatic Eclipse at level 53, which is likely the best we can use for our weapon for the time being. This might be pricey on league start depending on the popularity of this build. -------------------------------------------------------- SHIELDS DURING LEVELLING: BASE TYPE SHIELDS: These shields can be used while levelling and purchased from Vendors. Vendor crafting either Flat amor or % increased armor will help with the armor values. Act 1 - Rawhide Tower Shield (ilvl 11, 53 armor) Act 2 - Cedar Tower Shield (ilvl 17, 108 armor) Act 3, 4, and 5 - Reinforced Tower shield (ilvl 30, 287 armor) Act 6 - Bronze Tower Shield (ilvl 47, 367 armor) Act 7 and 8 - Girded Tower Shield (ilvl 51, 481 armor) Act 9+ - Colossal Tower Shield (ilvl 67, 632 armor) Explanation: This is pretty straight forward. The bigger the Armour number listed on the shield, the more damage you'll do. Pump it up as high as you can. -------------------------------------------------------- LEVELLING TREE DETAILS: Resolute Technique is our first big rush, as getting 100% hit chance will significantly smooth out early levelling. Fill for Life and Damage as needed after getting RT. If your damage feels crappy, then invest in Aggressive Bastion and Swift Skewering. Our big priority after getting Resolute Technique is to get Impale. It costs 4 points to get life and mana leech through the passive tree. I'd recommend getting this around level 40 or 50 depending on how the build feels at that point. These 4 nodes will be respecced once we get Mana Leech elsewhere. -------------------------------------------------------- LEVELLING GEMS: NOTE: Vitality is a great aura to use while levelling along with Clarity. Since Vitality is a red gem, I included it in the levelling notes. Remember: Throw 2 crap 3 socket weapons in your weapon swap so you can level more skill gems while trying to deal with sockets. Priority of skill gems in 4 links are listed as below: Main Skill > Movement/Vigilant Strike > Totems Aura (Except for Flesh and Stone + Maim) and Other do not matter. Just need the sockets. X - Y - Z indicate linked skills X , Y , X indicate non-linked skills Required Level 10 (3 links): Main (R R R): Shield Crush - Maim - Added Fire Damage (Melee Splash might be better than Maim) Totems (R R): Ancestral Protector - Maim Auras (R R R): Blood and Sand, War Banner, Vitality Movement (R R): Leap Slam - Lifetap (level 1) Other (R R): Enduring Cry, Molten Shell, Vigilant Strike Required Level 18 (4 links): Main (R R R R): Shield Crush - Melee Physical Damage - Maim - Added Fire Damage OR Damage on Full Life Totems (R R G): Ancestral Protector - Maim - Culling Strike Auras (R R R R): Blood and Sand, Herald of Purity, Vitality, War Banner, Flesh and Stone (not active) (45% reservation + vitality) Movement (R G R R): Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Lifetap (level 1) - Vigilant Strike Other (R B G R): Enduring Cry, Tempest Shield, Blood Rage, Molten Shell Required Level 31 (4 links, listing up to 6 links): Main (R G R R R R): Shield Crush - Impale - Pulverise - Fortify - Melee Physical Damage - Added Fire Damage Totems (R R R G): Ancestral Protector - Ancestral Warchief - Maim - Culling Strike (Optional) Auras (R R R R): Blood and Sand, Pride, Vitality, Dread Banner, Flesh and Stone (not active), Herald of Purity (not active) (70% reservation + vitality) Movement (R G R R): Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Lifetap (level 1) - Vigilant Strike Other (R B G R R): Enduring Cry, Tempest Shield (not active), Blood Rage, Molten Shell, Vulnerability, Increased Duration Required Level 38 (4 links, listing up to 6 Links): Main (R R G R R R): Shield Crush - Brutality - Impale - - Pulverise - Melee Physical Damage Totems (R R R R): Ancestral Protector - Ancestral Warchief - Multiple Totems Support - Maim Auras (R R R R): Blood and Sand, Dread Banner, Pride, Vitality OR Enduring Cry, Flesh and Stone (not active), Herald of Purity (not active) (70% reservation + vitality) Movement (R G R R): Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Lifetap (level 1) CWDT (R R R): CWDT - (Vaal) Molten Shell (, OR -) Vulnerability Other (B G Any): Tempest Shield (not active), Blood Rage, Open Slot -------------------------------------------------------- UNIQUES TO CONSIDER (MOSTLY WHILE LEVELLING): My Highlights: Helmet: Goldrim - Self Explanatory. Lots of Resistances Amulets: Karui Ward - Strength and Dex at Level 5, and 10% movement speed. Makes early acts smooth. Daresso's Salute - Good damage and resistances early on. Get this if Carnage Hearts cost too much. Carnage Heart - Gives us everything we could want at a cheap price. This is the budget option for amulets. Rings: Blackheart - A bit of extra damage at level 1. Praxis - Helps with mana cost management if that's an issue for you. Le Heup of All - Increased Resistances, Attributes, and Damage. Probably best for ring slot for levelling process. Thief's Torment - Takes two ring slots, but fixes all mana problems. Also gives good resistances. Body Armor: Tabula Rasa - Self Explanatory. Gloves: Lochtonial Caress - Charge generation from level 1. Nice QoL. Slitherpinch - A bit of attack speed and fixes our leech and dexterity problems. Belts: Wurm's Molt - Like the other options, it gives us a lot of leech and some attributes early on. The Magnate - Lots of resistances and increased damage. We easily get 200 strength by wearing this to get the benefits. Belt of the Deciever - Similar to Magnate, but we get Intimidate as well, which gives us a great damage boost. Boots: Wanderlust - 20% movespeed and no freezing at level 1. Excellent levelling item. Seven League Step - 50% movement speed. Best levelling item for boots. Wake of Destruction - Added Lightning Damage on hit. Useful until Brutality at level 38. Weapons: Screaming Eagle / The Gryphon - Bonus movement speed during levelling. The Princess - Extra damage as cold. Useful until Brutality. Aurumvorax - Giant Resistance stat stick at the cost of item rarity. Might be a bit risky for league starting, but good for levelling a second character. Lavianga's Wisdom - Good Health and Mana stat stick, along with increased area of effect and area damage. Relentless Fury - Culling Strike, Onslaught, and reliable life leech early on. Prismatic Eclipse - We use this in the build for late game currently. Global attack speed and mana leech is hard to pass up. Shields: Lycosidae - 200+ armor at level 11 for shield crush? SIgn me up. Titucius' Span - Bonus life and 500+ armor for shield crush at level 30. Awesome damage option. Lioneye's Remorse - Tons of life and up to 1700 armor. This will probably be pricey at league start, but will fizzle down over time. Magna Eclipsis - Elemental Damage shield instead of a big life bonus, and 5% less block chance. Good defensive option, but Lioneye's is probably better. --------------------------------------------------------