This was intended to be my last build of the league but I got back into elden ring and hearthstone before doing as much as I wanted with it. It's honestly not mechanically innovative, but still imo worth posting as an application of some soon-to-be-nonexistent tech I hadn't seen anywhere else on here and came out a lot more well rounded than most similar builds I've seen. I'm also including some crafting tips for a couple pretty nice generic rares I wound up making. I don't have any videos for this one as my normal recording utility (AMD adrenalin lol) is being stubborn about uploading anything right now, but I've killed all ubers with it without danger of failing, though I DO have to dodge mechanics even when I phase them quickly.

Without further ado, phys to cold + fire to chaos shield crush zerk:

https://pobb.in/YU3l75m-kGBk - Current setup, not terribly expensive except for the ring and almost 20d of jewels. Disregard the boot corrupt, I have it so I'm using it but it does very little for the build in practice.

72M dps with everything up; 70k ele/chaos max hit, 250k ehp (defenses are with guard enabled and berserk disabled, seems to be most common config so easiest to compare numbers against other builds). Passable but meh recovery, which is aided greatly by sanct relics giving me lethe shade.

Pros: Really well rounded true melee build, can almost instaphase uber bosses without a mageblood and has above average defenses. Not relic dependent, very unique heavy for those who hate crafting. Freezes ubers without issue, crushes sanctum with constant freezing, and really should never die mapping unless you juice altars and exped to hell and back regularly like I do.

Major issues: Won't exist in 3 weeks. DPS takes setup so it maps lower than listed, need to at least cast despair off target every 10s to maintain wither. It's also still shield crush without aoe scaling, so clear is weaker and oriath's end is only a partial solution. Not ailment immune except freeze, recovery could be better too vs really heavy dots.

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Notes:

-The core interaction is abusing original sin + heatshiver + expedition's end + balance of terror: wither on hit. Combined, it turns 100 phys damage into 100 cold + 130 fire, which then becomes chaos and gets multiplied by a further 1.9x by wither. All in all, that makes it a 337% more multiplier over cold damage before getting into resist shred vs assassin's mark and wither scaling. Literally any build can do this as shown by subtractem's reap, but using it on a zerk with unbreakable leads to a build that can actually stand its ground too.

-Enlighten 4 and one more level lets you anoint something else over charisma, which should be a relatively large improvement

-If you haven't played zerk, war bringer might look wasted due to not using the exert. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have a "click for max rage" button (via weapon swap redblade banner).

-Fortify support is better than inspiration support despite pathing right near steadfast, those 5 points open up corruption or the pair of crit wheels. A 21/20 fortify support is very close to inspiration's damage output actually, and mana isn't so tight that we need insp to function. I had legit never considered this on any builds where I could take steadfast until u/pyrvuate suggested it to me, but it's a very solid option and the level 21 is a pretty nice boost.

-ES regen belt suffix is incredibly clutch, I have very little invested into ES and no way at all of recovering it besides divine shield. Still, exped end and emperor's vigilance give 800 ES and it'd be a shame not to utilize it.

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As a bonus, here's a mageblood setup that I was working towards before I ran out of gas: https://pobb.in/g7Dvm1TAtKG3 - even lower life and regen, but tankier with 111M damage and tons of armor. Also finally gets ailment immune, so pantheon can swap to solaris for pseudo crit immunity. Damage goes to 145M if you add +2 EE and woke multistrike.

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Crafting:

For belt, get 20% life qual on a white stygian vise i86+. Harvest reforge life til you have tier 1 and at least 1-2 other desirable mods. I wanted T1 life, T1 resist (any, chaos would have been ideal though), and was happy to see life regen. Set it up such that suffixes are full and a prefix is open, then hunter slam. T1 % life is around 1/6. If you fail, sell it for a profit or break even, crafting cost is under 1d per attempt at this. The unveiled suffix is about 50% to hit and the only thing I really cared about was not losing resistance, so call it something like 8-10d to get that if you need it, and 1-2 more to divine to 12%. 1-2d without unveiled suffix, 10ish with unless you get brutally unlucky.

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Gloves are a bit tougher, I would honestly buy whatever suffixes you need. The dex and chaos res I have are interchangeable with the belt and ring for any accuracy or resist those have on them, so I recommend starting with whatever you need to craft (probably belt if you want ES regen mod) and buying the ring completed and the gloves with good suffixes. Once you have suffixes you're happy with, prefixes for me came down to lock suff + veiled chaos til done, which really isn't expensive. You can eldritch annul off bad prefixes before unveiling, then craft one of the other conversion mods to block. I'd have taken any life at least T3 with it and any 3rd prefix. For implicits, hit cold conversion on grand ichor, then use an exceptional ember and conflict. If rank 2 cold conv, conflict again. If rank 4, exceptional ember and conflict again. Only if you fall to rank 1 do you go back to ichor spam. You do have to divine them at least CLOSE to max conversion, I got very lucky to hit perfect cold conv and chaos res together.

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Overall, this is definitely the best shield crush setup I've personally played, I do enjoy the skill so getting to push it a bit was fun. It's not really worth the cost with the ring at its current price, but when I put this together for something like 100-120d it felt pretty solid relative to that investment. Probably my 2nd favorite build of the league overall after inq doomblaster, though that might be cheating since steelmage made my 20d investment worth 2+ mirrors with his PF video.