Hi all,

Here is my Guardian league starter for 3.29 if you want to play Static Strike while on the top side of the tree. While off-meta, this build uses some nice tech to provide comparable damage scaling to more popular starters such as Zerker or Slayer, along with 72%/73% block without additional investment.

We complement Static Strike with Frozen Legion as a single-target spammer to generate and proc Hallowing Flames stacks and make full use of the Marshal of Divinity ascendancy without using minions. Using both an attack (Static Strike) and a spell (Frozen Legion) also allows us to maintain Block and Spell Block from Bastion of Hope organically, eliminating some of the clunkiness of the Guardian ascendancy. Moreover, since we are using a two-handed warstaff, we auto-exert Intimidating Cry to take advantage of Static Strike snapshotting, providing double damage for the duration of the buff.

Early on, damage is carried by the Guardian elemental relic (Anger and Wrath), and later by a crafted physical weapon and a large amount of Damage as Extra (Herald of Ash, Marshal of Divinity, Hallowing Flames, Hatred), leading to a very smooth progression curve. Since we don't need any uniques before the min-maxing stage, this is also a very SSF-friendly starter that can carry you to four stones and scale well beyond that as a mapper (and/or seabed explorer).

The main drawback of this archetype is the difficulty of accessing life, mana, and ES recovery early in the progression, since the Templar starting position doesn't provide much support for leech. That's why, in the notes of my PoB, I included a variety of potential solutions to fit any gear, budget, or stage of progression (thanks to everyone's suggestions in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1uvp0g8/league_start_static_strike_frozen_legion_guardian/).

PoB:

https://pobb.in/y_kNuWwY1oK_

https://maxroll.gg/poe/pob/3zl0nm0x

Video of a Day 1 SSF character in T16 to give you an idea of what you can expect in a league start scenario:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIbr89XmDuQ

Hope this can inspire some ideas for your starters.

See you underwater exiles.