[2.6] All The Buffs Cleave Champion

The concept of this build is to use all the buffs! Right now the meta is using the best buffs in the game (flasks) with the best defensive mechanic (ES / Vaal pact). I wanted to try something a little different and come up with a build that uses as much offensive and defensive capabilities that doesn’t rely on flasks as heavily.

The original idea was to dual wield Ichimonji swords and stack as many buffs that benefit from the sword’s unique modifier. After putting everything into Path of Building, the numbers ended up looking pretty good. What caused me to switch to a rare sword and shield are two things. One, thrusting swords have the longest range. Second, I can trigger unholy might with the Broken Faith unique shield. The DPS isn’t as high as it would be if I were to dual wield, but survivability is more important once you hit a certain DPS threshold.

Why Champion? To try out the new cleave jewel and make it synergize with the Champions ascendancies. With Worthy Foe and Intimidate active on a monster, the monster takes 30% more damage. Plus, you take 6% reduced damage from Worthy Foe. Combined with enhanced fortify (26%) you get a total of 32% reduced damage. Monsters do 10% less damage with Taunt. If you include Arctic Armor, that’s another 13% less for physical and fire damage.

If my math is right, 1000 physical damage will be reduced to 532. Almost half and that's not taking into account Armour value.

Granted many of these buffs are conditional but you have your buffs up for most of the time. The time that fortify is down, can be dicey. You'll notice in the Minotaur video I lose fortify right before I die.

Pros

-- All the buffs!... Ok not quite, but a good chunk of them: Double Onslaught (because of Deidbellow), Rally Cry, Punishment, Hatred, Herald of Ash, Warchief totem buff, Stone Golem's Regen Buff, Blood Rage, Frenzy Charges, Unholy Might, Fortify, Arctic Armor, Molten Shell (depending on setup), Phase Acrobatics.

-- Very Tanky.

-- Active gameplay. It’s pretty fun diving into packs of monsters and watching them Splode.

-- Good damage. This is subject to your preference but if I can reach 100k in Path of Building then I feel it is sufficient. Path of building shows I can get to over 200k with ideal gear.

-- Ethical? No crazy double dipping or instant leeching mechanics used here. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not, I’ll leave that up to you.

-- Party support. The Champion taunts things. This allows you and your party to take less damage and the monster to take more damage.

-- Could work well in the 3.0 meta. Double dipping and instant leech is going away and life values on gear is getting a boost.

-- Some monster debuffs. Worthy Foe, Taunt, Intimidate, swap punishment with enfeeble for more survivability.


Cons

-- Not a clear speed build. I was able to do the Xoph Breachstone but it would be a struggle with Ul-Netol and probably impossible with Chayula unless I upgraded my gear. Part of what slows you down is having to stop and pop the totem and use rally cry every 4 seconds to get the extra buff from Deidbellow.

-- Degen is a problem. As a life based build you regen, but high level degen attacks from rogue exiles or renegade warbands will kill you fast. Chaos resist will help and I’m sorely lacking it.

-- Can be stunned. Not often but can make the difference in an intense battle. Getting a high stun recovery on rare gear will help. 80% avoid stun enchant on boots would also help tremendously. You can see it in the overgrown ruin video below.

-- Fortify not always up. Because of the new cleave jewel, it’s close to always up. I rely heavily on fortify mitigating damage. The instant it goes down, one-shots are a bigger reality.

-- Some map mods are troublesome such as no regen and physical reflect.

This video is taking on the Hydra. The map is unidentified corrupt. Was able to take him out deathless: Hydra Kill

Here’s a video of taking out the Minotaur. No fancy map mods: Minotaur Kill

Here is me taking out Uber Izaro. Pretty easy: Uber Izaro

Here’s a bonus video of me failing against the renegade warchiefs in the Overgrown Ruin: Damn stun lock!

Using ideal gear.

Normal --> Oak for life
Nightmare --> Krait for attack speed
Merciless --> Krait for Frenzy charge