3.28 POE Mirage BANNER SLAMMER | 300+ MS Uber Bosser

THE GEAR HAS SPECIFIC NOTES INCLUDED IN THE AFFIX LIST WHEN MOUSING OVER THEM IN "ITEMS" The main focus of banners is scaling through valour (MORE aura effect scaling of banners) and generic aura effect so that you end up with at least 25x banner effect and in most cases much higher. Banners provide the following benefits when using valour and some basic aura scaling from the tree Defiance Banner - suppression (well over 100%), flat reduced damage from suppress hits (300-400+ of each damage type), and a movement speed bonus (200%+) Dread Banner - attack block (which we use with Versatile Combatant for 65/65 attack/spell block) and recovery on block (800+ life on block) War Banner - accuracy and more melee physical damage (200%+ increased accuracy and 200%+ more melee physical damage) In addition to the benefits from above you also gain: 125%+ all elemental resistance per banner affecting you 10.5% of maximum life regeneration from champion Endurance and Frenzy Charges from placing max banners 8% increased damage taken by enemies within your banners per banner Banners normally only give benefit to those within the radius however the Bannerman notable gives 3 seconds of lingering benefit (scaled to 3.9 with runegraft of the warp) Between this lingering effect and the massive area of the banners it is trivial to maintain 1 banner or with a bit of effort can juggle 2 or even 3 during mapping without having to slow down This is possible thanks to the new foulborn unique Uul-Netol's Kiss granting 500% increased warcry cooldown recovery which is the primary way to generate valour to maintain these benefits Autoexertion is used to both grant the build benefits from warcry-slam synergies (echoes of creation, overexertion, exerted attacks) as well as build valour using the mastery "gain 5 valour when you warcry, if able" Normally you cannot gain valour while having a banner placed but thanks to Champion having Worthy Cause we get to ignore this restriction and maintain a smooth flow of play While you can gain access to this ability through Forbidden Jewels or the Perfidy unique Champion also boasts a large amount of aura effect which is a focus of the banner build The body armour slot is not to be overlooked as it also provides quite a bit of banner aura effect through the Gravicious (rip) modifier and Eldritch Implicits Gameplay You want to maintain Defiance Banner at all times - Spend the first few maps getting used to placing the banner as the lingering effect is running out. Typically every 5 or so seconds of full movement you will want to place. While you can juggle two banners (or even 3 if you're really stressing it) I would recommend just running around with just defiance 90% of the time Alternate with Dread Banner in dangerous maps (multiple pen, -max, gmp, ect) Use War Banner for Bosses or when stationary (blight, breach, ect) Autoexertion takes care of all the warcry aspects of the build while also providing a constant source of earthshatter popping effects Simply run forward and slam no thought required outside of the rhythm of keeping defiance running Gem Choices Earthshatter even post nerf will be ol' reliable and continues to be my choice going into 3.28 I will test later on with the new gems and maybe go down elemental conversion setups with emnity as discussed later Earthshatter of Prominence is an excellent bossing option but performs very poorly at general map clear unless extremely narrow layouts such as fortress or sewers Sunder of Trarthus can be useful for clearing large open layouts but will suffer some damage loss. I personally do not like this skill but it was a somewhat popular choice for banners last league so feel free to try it out You can go boneshatter of complex trauma but I'm not too familiar with it to be able to speak too much on that. Just an option some used in the past. (Keep in mind some warcries change, need +1 strike, ect) Mapping Modifiers You can run all modifiers except reflect. Elemental reflection can be countered by removing infernal cry (you can die to combust) Be wary of modifiers such as less armour, less defence, steal charges, or less recovery as these can make Echoes of Creation damage much more impactful Wither on Hit will make you take extra from elemental and chaos damage when using Divine Flesh You can cut some points to fit in the Brinkmanship Notable wheel to gain access to two important masteries 5% IAS per nearby enemy will greatly improve your swing speed while mapping Enemies cannot block is a great flex option whenever the modifier appears in t16.5/t17 mapping or expedition content Gear and Resistances You don't need to setup elemental resistances given a single banner will provide but I do recommend filling in as best as you can so that you aren't as vulnerable when one isn't up Divine Flesh helps to cover missing elemental resistances as well as fight against boss/map elemental pen You'll want at least one high strength roll somewhere alongside the high attribute amulet to be able to wear royal plate Fortification Stacking Celestial Brace is a nice defensive option since fortification is always activate and has very few modifiers that bypass it (works in -suppression, -max, ect) It also provides a large amount of attack speed that is desirable. Unstoppable Hero also gives a lot of attack speed but I would personally opt for Oshabi (10% action speed) and/or Adrenaline (25% turbo, 10 pdr, 100% dmg) I don't personally want to go much further than this piece of gear as we don't benefit from double damage from madness boots and frenzy stacking for replica badge + masterful form is quite a heavy investment although strong If you really want to go crazy with it overcapped armour or evasion stacking + Unstoppable Hero is incredibly strong with the banner res but not really at full potential in this setup Cluster Jewels You already have an excess of points for efficient damage as well as charge generation so the only real benefit from clusters come from reservation smalls or 100% onslaught generation from exert medium You can think of each cluster as a replacement for each pair of 3 point jewels. Instead of paying 6 points for 2 jewels you can pay 8 points for 2 jewels and 2 notables with 1 small from the large cluster A couple example clusters are included so you can decide whether you want to use them or not. Personally find the physical with res/armour to be worthwhile over the slightly higher damage impale axe/sword. Elemental Conversion and Emnity's Embrace As long as your damage is base melee physical and converted you can use war banner scaling This allows a number of strong elemental slams to be an option if you prefer them over earthshatter It also allows you to combine Emnity's Embrace with banners that provide a lot of resistances to more easily reach that 200% breakpoint since a lot of slams are fire based I don't think there is much of a reason to go down this route as pure physical scales quite high but it is an option some may consider For most of the gear I have placed notes directly onto the pieces so refer to them Flasks Quartz for phasing even when running past monsters for t17 boss rush or hive fortresses Quicksilver is auto include Bismuth can be good for some insurance if you completely skip resistance on gear and want to rely just on banners Granite, Elemental (ruby, sapphire, topaz), or Gold Flask as a flex 4th choice You can run a tincture with mana recoup but not recommended unless you want to go crit with slayer node Why Resolute Technique? You get a huge boost of accuracy from war banner + precision which allows easy access to Precise Technique Taking Resolute Technique makes it so you don't need any other accuracy to function while war banner isn't placed even in less accuracy/blind situations for mapping qol Endurance Charges or naw? Endurance charges are incredible defensively however there are multiple modifiers (map and monster) that can nullify them so I opt for leaning into other sources of survival such as life or fortification Take the duelist/mara charges if you feel safer with them or run a lot of content where endurance charges aren't at risk such as most bossing Banner Breakpoints Banner Quality gives duration which can be qol during bossing encounters with multiple phases as to not make you place banners as often (do continue to maintain charges with Defiant Stand however) Banner Levels have breakpoints at level 19, level 23, and level 27 for banner effect per valour. This can be achieved through a combination of implicits (aoe, duration, aura tags), empower gem, and/or level 21 corruption Autoexertion prevent us from getting benefit from warcry levels so don't worry about getting high level warcries and just focus on quality If you opt for manual use of Rallying Cry for the damage bonus (with cwdt summons or herald of purity) you will want to level it for warcry speed Offset your warcry cooldowns through quality to stagger the earthshatter pops. This is primarily used for CDR reduction maps. Keep Intimidating Cry (lowest # of exerts) and Infernal Cry (tagged mobs explode) as fast as possible, use any of the others to offset by keeping their quality to 0, 5, 10, 15 roughly Faster Attacks is used with earthshatter since we're playing with Uul-Netol's Kiss and it has an attack modifier of 0.98 You do not need more damage just use the support gem Determination vs Pride vs Flesh and Stone vs Herald of Purity I'm going to recommend people start with Flesh and Stone to both offset the reservation changes and allow you to freely swap between more offense and more defense (I would leave it on sand most the time) Flesh and Stone also reduces the damage you take from Echoes of Creation...because poe I guess I don't recommend using herald of purity even with manual rallying cry as it tends to be inconsistent against bossing encounters where you need them most Later on with more reservation (cluster, anoint belt, jewels, ect) swap over to Pride or Determination + Watcher's Eye I personally run Pride to try to skip some uber boss phases Determination for most other content and to help against echoes of creation damage Determination watcher's eye with physical damage reduction + reduced critical damage taken is probably bis mapping (precision attack speed/attack damage also great but expensive) Pride watcher's eye with +2 impale alongside impale chance or physical damage for bossing You can also just run Haste to go faster (pretty good with sublime but you lose precision requiring several accuracy rolls on gear for PT) Early on I will recommend flesh and stone as a replacement to both of these to have something defensive (sand stance) that can be easily swapped over to blood when bossing Offsets reservation changes for autoexertion until more clever solutions later on (such as annoint belt, jewels, clusters, ect) Impale Great way to scale damage but opens up another map modifier that can impact clear (Avoid Impale) I do recommend using this as a scaling axis but just don't fully commit to it outside of the graft and one wheel to get impale mastery to ignore PDR (this is different than hits ignore PDR) I don't recommend using the impale support gem even if you lose out on a bit of efficiency when not met with avoidance Timeless Jewel Choices Glorious Vanity (Xibaqua) for bossing and being stronger against difficult t17 modifiers. Brutal Restraint is going to be generically be better with aura effect stacking and point efficiency Lethal Pride is going to be ok and mostly just to fit in a few bonuses with strength. Great for fortification stacking. Rakiata can be a stronger alternative to Xibaqua for most bossing Vaal Jewels are typically less ssf friendly for getting strong notables but the keystones are the focus Lethal Pride/Brutal Restraint are used mostly for notables so feel free to replace with other jewel choices if missing good options Lethal Pride Karui Jewel Keystones Rakiata has value against shaper pen as well as synergy with defiance banner Jewel Locations Duelist (Iron Reflexes) Search for : Melee Damage, Physical Damage, Life, Reduced Damage from Crits, Intimidate, and Fortification Glorious Vanity Vaal Jewel Keystones Doryani - Useful with Divine Shield Xibaqua - Useful against Elemental Pen and Chaos Damage, lowers the value of endurance charges and weak to wither increases value of defiance banner flat reduction Ahuana - Useful as Overleech and Everlasting Sacrifice enabler Jewel Locations Point Blank, Elemental Equilibrium, or Eternal Youth Search for : Life, Aura Effect, Max Chaos, Physical Damage, Physical Damage Reduction Brutal Restraint Maraketh Jewel Keystones Balbala - Useful for flask uptime against bosses, most encounters are too short for this to matter Jewel Locations Duelist (Iron Reflexes) Search for : Aura Effect, Alchemist's Genius, Onslaught on Kill Everlasting Sacrifice You can opt for the cobalt jewel synth tech or an abyss jewel cobalt has better access to modifiers and works in no regen situations, requires something to hit abyss jewel functions without having to hit and is ssf friendly but disabled by no regen alternatively you can just use divine shield keystone along with echoes and any source of es (also disabled by no regen) Ancestral Vision vs Stormshroud for Avoidance Comes down to having a consistent source of avoidance at the cost of more affixes with stormshroud or relying on non-foulborn ancestral vision and defiance banner for avoidance Your choice. I prefer stormshroud as it allows you to use foulborn ancestral vision for big armor while always being active Forbidden Jewels First to Strike, Last to Fall for adrenaline (personally like this one best although you could setup adrenaline in other ways) Worthy Cause (you take this to be able to click First to Strike, Last to Fall), you lose a stronger minor node going this route but it is cheaper Bane of Legends (great damage, physical reflect immunity helps you run a loose regex) More than Skill (powerful but way too costly for what we get from it) Headsman ("high" damage but loses a lot of value if you pick up culling anywhere and doesn't help you skip boss abilities in most situations) Brutal Fervour (good defensive option, allows for "while leeching" offensive notables and gear options) Masterful Form (amazing option if you fully commit into fortification/charge stacking otherwise skip) 3.28 stuff Probably looking for impale or lifetap as a mirage support