[PoE 3.25] SSF Lightning Strike Gladiator Day 2 Update! Top 5 Glad SSF, Blood Magic is Good

LEVELING GUIDE (see Tree/Skills sections for leveling gems/trees): 1-12 - Spectral Throw (RGG) - Spectral Throw is the highest damage effectiveness skill at this level. - Any 2h melee weapon should be OK, but an axe is usually preferred due to having higher PDPS and easier time transitioning into Sunder. 12-68 - Sunder (RRGG is best, otherwise RRRG, or RRRR) - Sunder got buffed in 3.25, and remains the premium melee leveling skill. - The main idea is 2h Axe Physical Damage Sunder with Precise Technique and Hatchet Master. - For bandits, I would recommend Alira. The res for 1 point in 3.25 will help a lot. You can always change it to Kraityn later if you want (or whatever one you want). - I recommend using Sunder all the way to maps as it's very powerful and easy to build, and Lightning Strike is fairly weak early. - For Sunder supports, Close Combat is mandatory, the last 2 supports you can use whatever you think feels good. I listed a few in the POB. - Note that the leveling tree in this POB is not optimized for Sunder specifically, but so that you can level well with Sunder but also be able to respec into Lightning Strike after acts without needing too many refund points. - IMPORTANT!!!! But at Lv. 12, you MUST buy a Lightning Strike gem and level it in your offhand. If you don't do this, you'll have a useless Lv. 1 Lightning Strike when you get to maps!!! - You should also level Anger (and/or Wrath) in your off hand as well, which you can buy as a quest reward in Act 3. - Recommended tree pathing: 1. Get the small Life and Mana Leech node 2. Rush Hatchet Master for onslaught, and take the mastery 2 rage on hit with Axes for a HUGE power spike 3. Get Precise Technique 4. Get Weathered Hunter and the +500 accuracy mastery, which helps a lot with early resistances and accuracy for PT 5. Get Thick Skin and Golem's Blood for life 6. Take the rest of the nodes on the left side of the tree in order. It's very covenient that the rage nodes are useful for both Sunder AND LS. 7. After you finish the left side of the tree, just pick up life/attack speed nodes on the right side of the tree until you are ready to respec at around 68. - Order of labs: 33 lab: Weapon Master 55 lab: War of Attrition 68 lab: Determined Survivor WHEN YOU RESPEC TO LIGHTNING STRIKE: Use gold to cheaply respec War of Attrition to More Than Skill (the lucky block makes a very big difference in survivability early on) 75 lab: Gratuitous Violence (and then take Cornered Prey around the same time) 68+ Respec to Dual Wielding Crit LS (you can do this whenever you get the necessary items for it. Sunder is good in white maps stilll. The sweet spot for respeccing is somewhere between Lv. 65-72.) - What you need (It's very important you have these gems!!!): - Lightning Strike, Nightblade, Trinity, Multistrike (GGBR) - Eternal Blessing, Anger (or wrath) (RR/RB), and Precision (G) - Assassin's Mark, Mark on Hit (BG) - Total cost of gems: 2T, 3Alt, 2Alch (Multistrike is from Act 4 quest reward, Precision you should already have) - You also need 3 items: - A decent claw (ideally with lighting damage) - A decent dagger (ideally with lightning damage) - A 4-link with GGBR colors for the Lightning Strike link. Ideally str/dex base for ease of coloring - And also get as many refund points as you can get (ideally 15-20 refund points) - Remove all axe/2h nodes, and Precise Technique - Take Multishot and the +1 additional strike mastery - Take Blood Magic - Get some solid crit nodes in (Twin Terrors -> Lethality) - Get 1 or 3 pierce from the tree (Piercing Shots) - Clean up the travel nodes - Then, work towards getting Versatile Combatant and getting max block. (prioritize crit first, then block.) 68+ - Early Endgame Milestones - Here are some early goals you should shoot for, in no particular order: 1. Get unveiled pierce on gloves to save 3 skill points taking pierce on the tree. 2. Get unveiled onslaught/ms on boots 3. Ascend Gratuitous Violence, and take Cornered Prey for massive clear and crit bonuses Late endgame milestones 1. Get additional strike exarch implicit and gloves (can optionally replace mastery additional strikes with monsters cannot block your attacks) 2. Get pierce eater implicit on gloves, then you don't need the explicit pierce mod or pierce nodes on the tree any more 3. Get a few accuracy rolls on gear (Helm/Gloves/Rings), and some good res rolls as well, and then you won't need Weathered Hunter any more 4. Get a Lethal Pride 5. Craft some sick life/multi jewels 6. ??? ITEM CRAFTING GUIDE Weapons - Get Poignard & Imperial Claw bases (you want bases with high attack speed, base crit chance, and low stat requirements) - Spam flat ele damage, attack speed, or crit chance essences (flat ele damage essences are the best) - The weapons MUST have high attack speed and base crit chance (tier 1-3), and 2 or 3 high flat ele damage rolls (tier 1-3) one of which must be lightning - Global crit muliti is a nice-to-have and does boost you damage quite a bit, but it's the lowest priority mod. - Bench crafting "str/int crit chance" is nice because it gives a lot of attributes when dual wielding. - As an advanced step, you could also replace one of the added cold/fire damage rolls with Elemental Penetration on one weapon and Monsters Cannot Evade Your Attacks on the other. This allows you to drop Precision and all accuracy on tree and gear, saving a lot of points, which may be more optimal overall. (mayyyybe. not sure if these mods work locally or globally. but then you'd have to multimod this and give up crit multi as well.) Armor (helm, body, gloves, boots) - In general, look for high armor bases (except body armor which should be str/dex), high armor/life rolls on the prefixes, and elemental/chaos res on the suffixes. Here are some more specific priorities - Helmet: life, accuracy, armor, res - Body: life, armor, PDR, res - Gloves: life, attack speed, accuracy, armor, res - Boots: movement speed (ideally unveiled ms/onslaught, as it's hard to get onslaught on this build), life, 40% reduced chill/shock, armor, res - See Items section for ideal eldritch implicits - Best way to craft these items is either ROG or yolo essence spam. Rings - Use Amethyst Rings for the chaos res - Ideal prefixes are: life, elemental damage with attack skills, flat lightning damage - Ideal suffixes are: chaos res, ele res, accuracy - You can make this item with either harvest reforge chaos, essence spam with the essence that gives flat lightning damage, or ROG. Amulet - Agate amulet for the stats - Look for big crit multi, str, and int on the suffix (and crit chance, and accuracy to a lesser extent.) - Life, elemental damage with attack skills, and flat lightning damage on the prefixes (same as rings) - The best way to make a good amulet is ROG. Any other way is not really efficient, including essence spam, although you could essence spam if you had essences to spare. - Anoint Divine Judgement, seems like the optimal damage anoint Belt - Look for high life, armor, and elemental damage with attacks on the prefix - Res on the suffixes - Easiest way to get a good belt is to craft leather belts using ROG. - In the endgame, you can try to craft a good Stygian Vyse using harvest reforge attack to guarantee a elemental damage with attacks roll. And then use a Murderous Eye Jewel with life and crit multi. (I recommend alt spamming to make this jewel; you can also use harvest, but it's kind of expensive) ATLAS NOTES - You will definitely need to farm: betrayal, expedition, essence, exarch altars, then eater altars (big surprise, right? :P)