Blood Steel Champ - Still Fine More Tanky?

LEVELING DOC ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Note: This is the lowlife guide, if you are not interested in playing lowlife using petrified blood, I'd recommend following the normal leveing guide --> https://youtu.be/3xdSBrDFij4 Get Splitting Steel at level 2 when you enter the town. Shattering Steel is level 12 at merviel, use this all the way to endgame maps while you're gearing up! Lancing Steel is 28 at Gravicius, level this up in your weapon swap, do not use this until you have dying sun flask and it's mostly for bossing, pretty bad clear. Feel free to use two-handed swords or axes to level but eventually you'll want to be swords. At endgame swords just blow axes away. Click on the dropdown "CLICK FOR LEVELING" on the bottom left of the Tree page for leveling trees. To upgrade weapons either look for high damage uniques or vendor a magic/rare rustic sash + blacksmith's whetstone + weapon base. I recommend leveling using two-handed swords because it's easier to find one good weapon than two. Starting Links: Splitting steel - Chance to Bleed - Onslaught <Green-Green-Red> Maim is an okay alternative to Onslaught, note that early on the bleed from chance to bleed can do a lot of damage when you switch to shattering steel. You can also link Maim to ancestral protector totem for more boss damage. Note: Warchief totem buffs melee, we are not melee, use protector totem. ~~~~A1~~~~ ~~~~After Breaking Some Eggs~~~~ Dash - Use this for move skill until you get leap slam Ancestral Protector - eventually add Maim when you have links Warbanner - placing your banner can give you a burst of quick attacks and damage, REALLY good for bosses while leveling. Steelskin - Guard skill protects your life a bit. You can use this when you expect a big hit, not mandatory for leveling but really good on left click in maps. ~~~~After Brutus~~~~ Leap Slam - Decent movement skill that gets better as you get attack speed Lifetap Support - link to your Leap Slam. Having a no mana cost movement skill is nuts! I almost felt like I didn't need mana flasks at all but still kept one til maps. Use Vitality aura, this will help with life costs of leap slam. Make sure you upgrade your life flasks to at least Large by now Precision - level this in weapon swap for now, you'll be able to start using it once you are able to use Arrogance. ~~~Entering Merveil's Cave~~~~ Shattering steel at 12. Use shattering as the main skill from here on out. Shattering does 200% more damage at point blank so don't try to run and kite enemies, get in there and destroy them! ~~~~A2~~~~ Faster Attacks Support link to leap slam (Leap Slam - Lifetap - Faster Attacks) Blood Rage - keep this buff up for more attack speed for travel, also grants frenzy charges on kill which is more attack speed. Herald of Purity - decent buff that provides some minions to tank enemies and more phys damage Vicious Projectiles Support - Good for main links Main links: Shattering Steel - Chance to Bleed - Vicious Projectiles (you can keep onslaught in if you're really blasting damage and want more speed) <Green-Red-Green> Kill All Bandits ~~~~A3~~~~ Sniper's Mark - This Curse Marks one enemy and that enemy takes A LOT more damage. Use it on bosses to knock them down fast. Impale Support - comes from the quest A Fixture of Fate which is a side quest in the library. Put this in your main links. Petrified Blood - Enables lowlife gameplay, reserves 35% of your mana and you'll only be able to get above 50% life with a life flask. Don't worry you'll turn 40% of incoming hit damage into a DoT which leech/vitality will negate. Arrogance Support - Link this with Vitality, Precision, and War Banner to reserve your life instead of mana. -->Since Vitality / Precision reserve flat mana, or in this case flat life, they will actually reserve less % life than most auras will! This lets you level these auras as high as you can! Bloodthirst Support - Gives more damage and flat damage whil on lowlife. This is AWESOME for leveling as flat damage is extra nice when leveling because your weapon might not be that great. Main Links: Shattering Steel - Impale - Vicious Projectiles - Bloodthirst <Green-Green-Green-Red> Dread Banner - level this up in weapon swap for later, War Banner is still solid Lancing Steel - level this in weapon swap Pride - level this in weapon swap, you could switch out Herald for this if your mana is feeling solid or when you feel like you really need more damage. The steel skills have innate impale so it should be easy to hit nearly 100% impale chance between ascendancy, support gem, banner, and passives. Check if you can afford a Lord of Steel jewel with Call of Steel use speed and socket it. This helps a lot with making the build feel smooth. Trade Search -> https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ultimatum/3LQe2JPU5 ~~~~A4~~~~ Brutality Support - Great damage support, slap it in main links once you get a 5L. Note that it will prevent you from doing non-phys damage so elemental damage on your weapon will be worthless. Go run your first lab for Master of Metal ascendancy. ~~~~A7~~~~ If you don't have a diamond flask make sure you get one from the quest: The Silver Locket -> https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silver_Locket If you can afford a Terminus Est go get one! It's super crazy damage. Value damage + crit over links/sockets. ~~~~A10~~~~ Right before you go do Kitava run your Cruel and Merc Labs for Unstoppable Hero and Fortitude. I generally don't run Cruel Lab until I can run Merc Lab as well since we aren't naturally getting fortify from our non-melee attack. Also you really want a Terminus Est by now, high phys % and crit % is good. ~~~~Maps~~~~ By the time you make it to maps you'll likely be using a 5L setup Shattering Steel - Bloodthirst - Vicious Projectiles - Brutality - Crit Chance is the best setup. (GMP would be the 6th link if you're 6L although mana might hurt at times) <Green - Red - Green - Red - Blue> If you chose to get an astral plate 6L it can be hard to get 3 green 2 red 1 blue but I've had good results using the 2 Green bench craft ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||---FAQ---|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| Recommended Upgrade Order: Lord of Steel (Use Speed) -> Terminus Est -> 6L chest -> Ryslatha's Coil / The Nomad(much cheaper but no life) -> Paradoxica + Dreadbeak/Saviour -> Awakened gems -> Bottled faith -> +2 impale watchers eye Getting rares with SOLID T2+ life rolls and res is HIGHLY recommended) Dying sun has drastically reduced duration and is probably not worth it anymore T-T Lookout for a Lord of Steel (Call Use Speed) with "Corrupted Blood Cannot Be Inflicted On You" you'll want corrupted blood immunity. https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Ultimatum/68oQyejiG Paradoxica Mods: Phys damage || atk speed/qual ~~ crit multi > crit/qual > atk speed > accuracy/qual > others When switch between steel skills: Watch this -> https://clips.twitch.tv/BrainyFastRavenKlappa-0cD3eS_7v1_rXwST What's up with the CWDT? Offering is for protection vs porcupines (destroys projectiles from them) and the Storm Brand PCoC is for Power Charges Eventually you can get a Power Charge on Crit chest and replace the PCoC with enlighten linked to mana auras to squeeze in Herald of Purity too (with a bit of -reservation) Why do you have Berserk / How are you getting rage? -> Watch: https://youtu.be/ZZc_rAxfAJk I swap between Splitting Steel - Chain to Lancing Steel - GMP for clearing/bossing. You can still use shattering late game for beefy maps. Best Helm Enchant: 1+ projectile with Lancing ~~~Ascendancy order~~~ First to Strike, Last to Fall Master of Metal Unstoppable Hero Fortitude (Do Merc and Uber lab together cause Unstoppable doesn't really help much til Merc Lab) (if you're feeling squishy swap out master of metal to the last ascend) Having always fortify is nice because otherwise we have to rely on leapslam or some other move skill to get it Bandits: Kill All Pantheon: Arakaali / Shakari (Ryslatha for bosses) If you need more help swing by my channel at twitch.tv/donthecrown