[3.25] Warcries & Banners Dominating Blow

What is this build?
This is a Dominating Blow Champion. The Dominating Blow Champion has always existed as a lesser, but hipster variant to the Guardian and the Necromancer that attempted to make up for having less minion power by leaning in a bit more on player damage and auras. With significant changes in 3.25, warcries & banners have had some sizable changes that give this build some very unique flavour and make it a front-runner alongside other ascendancies, but with some very quirky nuances. Read on if you're intrigued!

Who is this build for?
If you're like me and have played Dom Blow before and love the archetype but have exhausted the usual variants -- de facto, CI, Impale, Crit, Poison, whatever. This is a neat, hot new take on the archetype that is as strong as it is interesting!

Who is this build NOT for?
This is very much a minion + piano build that requires a lot of button presses at the right time. This is not for seniors, walking simulator enjoyers, or people who need to giga zoom.

Pros and Cons
+ Very strong build that scales extremely well with levels and investment
+ No mana to manage
+ Highly well rounded, no obvious gaps
+ Gameplay can become comfy once muscle memory is rolling
- Piano gameplay
- Defenses are conditional
- Dated Animated Guardian and Spectre mechanics
- Bad visual clarity

What's unique about this take on the build?
I hate to say it, but for many of the versions of this build you've seen from popular streamers and content creators; they didn't actual play the build. It's a theorycrafted, half copy-paste PoB where they respec'd an existing lvl95 char, made a "guide" and then moved on to the next thing. As such, they have a lot of little mistakes and oversights, or investments that look good in PoB that don't translate to actual gameplay.

I've actually played the build from 1->100 and invested in the build all the way from ~10d to ~500d and figured it out. Kinda, sorta, mostly. Certainly room for further optimization and brainstorming, but this one is closer to the real deal.

Some notes against some of the common variants I've seen:
- The Tribal Fury wheel is a waste of 5 skill points. And this is a very passive point intensive build! You already get a much stronger version of this by using Ancestral Cry (if not using multistrike!), but even then, it's not hard at all to generate minions with this build. We have over 6APS!
- The Awe and Terror wheel is extremely strong! 20% explode for 10% damage ought not be passed up! This allows you to map comfortably without Melee Splash, giving you another damage link, AND provides a whopping 42% banner AoE which is very nice QoL, as it means you can move your banners less often, and you're less likely to accidentally leave your banner area. It also gives you a reasonable spot for a Timeless Jewel now that you have some passive density.
- Taking all res on your big cluster provides a much safer playing experience. If you're mapping for 5 hours, you will make mistakes on your warcry piano and banner placement. You may even notice in other other people's videos that your health can yoyo pretty aggressively. Having your res capped only by means of conditional buffs can be a huge problem and may result in you getting vapourized if those buffs falls off. If anything is lacking in this build, its certainly not damage!
- A couple other little things, but as always, play around and see what feels good for you!

Videos
T17 Map

Don't care, give PoB
pobb.in/1uBNXijbIHRU -- Sept03/2024, lvl100 Champion -- Mirror-tier investment at 63M DPS. See Gearing section below for some lower investment options.

Is this PoB bait?
Yes and No. Minion PoBs are notoriously flakey and generally assume optimum conditions that aren't realistic. No, the Carnage Chieftain can't really get 3 frenzy charges onto all minions all the time. Maybe your target isn't large enough to have all the minions hitting them simultaneously. On the flip side, some new stuff isn't supported in PoB and some stuff isn't factored in. On average, your damage should be super-duper high. The difference between 40M and 70M DPS isn't really a thing... unless you roll a really unlucky Uber Cortex or something. The custom modifiers and the lvl7 pride are all spectre + animated guardian buffs.

What Changed in 3.25?
- Banners and Banner passives, ascendancy nodes and items have been fully reworked! See https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3531661#bannerrework
- Warcries had some subtle adjustments, but they aren't particularly notable.
- New Spectres via Ritual were introduced! We make heavy use of these. (more on spectres below) https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3531661#ritual

Banner and Warcry Mechanics
The 3.25 patch introduced Valour as a new mechanic specific to banners. They no longer have reservation% nor have bonuses while idle vs bonuses while placed, they ONLY can be placed based on the amount of Valour you have. As such, they've been made quite a bit stronger.

There is a banner mastery where we can gain valour by warcrying. We use this synergy to be constantly spamming warcries to buff ourselves and our minions, both offensively and defensively, to subsequently allow us to do the same with banners.

Our passive tree, Ascendancy choices, and gearing choices all help with providing 100% uptime, maximum power banners and warcries.

Settlers League Specific Thoughts
There is a minion damage runesmith enchant available that can net you about +5% DPS! Nothing too fun or exciting going on here.

We are also using the Admiral's Arrogance unique gloves, which gives us +3 levels to Dom Blow. Quite exciting for a glove slot! This may or may not go core after this league, so hopefully we can continue using it, but not a massive loss if not where we can replace with other options. It's certainly not a make or break item.


Defenses
- 100% spell suppress
- elemental ailment immune
- 80-81% overcapped all res
- consecrated ground from bottled faith
- 40k armour
- insane HP regen (half your life pool per second)
- a sea of minions to take hits and fight for you (hard to quantify this!)

Mandatory Gear

The build revolves around banners and warcries! Perfidy allows us to ensure we can chain maximum power banners (a 105 valour banner is significantly stronger than a 40 valour banner, for example) and the redblade banner ensures our warcries are also maximum strength, all the time, and ensures that we have 100% uptime on them via large cooldown reduction.

Can it be a League Starter?
Absolutely! Dom Blow is a classically good league starter. Dom Blow is so good that you can functionally level however you like. I suggest rushing the minion nodes in the top left, and then filling in the banner and warcry nodes. Taking Worthy Foe 2nd in Ascendancy order will allow you to ignore accuracy problems once they start to hit.

Gearing
-- primary 6L, Vaal Dom Blow, Impale, Brutality, Minion Damage, Multistrike, Melee Phys. If using a 7L via Uul-Netol's neck, add Ruthless. Depending on the state of your gear, Critical Damage Support may provide better damage than Ruthless. For a lower budget option, the corruptions are simply nice to have, and/or you can drop to a 5L. See Mandatory Gearing section for notes on Perfidy.
-- Minion Damage trigger claw to automatic curse and offering. For a lower budget option, the loss of minion attack speed and/or slightly less minion damage or attack speed will dramatically lower the price of this weapon. We're simply looking for a fast claw with the trigger and minion stats.
-- Spectre & Animated Guardian helmet with +2 all minions. Budget Option: simply a +2 helmet with good stats will do, but be cautious about investigating in AG without this. Use Minion Life support instead of Frostblink.

-- gives us a 7L and some res. Budget Option: +3 Dom Blow Replica Dragonfang's.
-- See Mandatory Gear section above! Fortunately it is inexpensive.
-- See Settlers League section above.
-- Pure Minion Power! Budget Option: lesser stats.
-- Gives us a socket for Convocation as we're extremely socket starved, like most minion builds. A good place for us to solve dex/int stat issues. Budget Option: lesser stats.
-- provides huge bonuses via the minion jewels. May need to use this early on to also help solve dex/int stat issues. A medium roll is generally inexpensive and you can scale up accordingly.

Anoints
for +1 Spectre, especially if you don't have the top end gear allow you to obtain 3 spectres without the anoint. The anoint is still the best for a 4th spectre I would say, but other good options include Fearsome Force or Influence.

Flasks


Bandits
Despite the major improvements here in 3.25 -- kill all bandits. Movement speed and resistances are very much covered, and the life bonus is kind of weak. We're passive point starved!

Pantheon
Major: I like Arakaali to help shore up gaps in Champion DoT defenses, but Lunaris is also pretty good. Not clear winner here. Try what you like!
Minor: Similarly, because the char is well rounded, nothing obvious. I like Gruthkul for the added phys mitigation.

AG & Spectres
Spectre choices, in order:
Perfect Guardian Turtle
Perfect Blood Demon
Perfect Dancing Sword
Carnage Chieftain / Arena Master / ???

AG gear:
Kingmaker -- culling strikes and half-fortify
Ephemeral Garb -- nearby enemies cannot crit, action speed cannot be lowered
Helm w/ defense and nearby enemies take increased phys damage %
Southbound w/ Curse on Hit (Enfeeble, Temp Chains)
Windshriek Boots -- +1 curse for the gloves to work

Do ensure that you have reasonable minion life on gear, on the passive tree, as well as a source of minion life regen %, and possibly leech. The 8% max all res minion defense mastery is very strong. The banners and warcries help these minions immensely. I have never had a Spectre die, and my AG died once when I started using the AG too early. Definitely don't spend divines on your AG until you are ready and confident. Usually if your spectres are staying alive, your AG can as well.

Ascendancy Choice
The banner node in Champion provides a huge amount of QoL to this build. Similarly, the set of taunt nodes solves player and minion accuracy for us. Master of Metal doesn't provide much power (although the 1k flat armour for us and minions is nice), but there isn't a great 4th option. As much as anything, the Duelist start area gives us the best access to the the warcry and banner passive wheels.

Like other new meta hip Dom Blow builds; Chieftain is a very interesting option. Chieftain would offer baked in Ancestral Call, Redblade Banner as an Ascendancy node, and access to 90% all res, but I feel like this is simply lesser than the value given by Champion. No doubt it is viable though!

FAQ
Q: What map mods can I not run?
A: Physical Reflect, Less Regen/No Regen in theory is runnable, but I'd advise against it.

Q: Which banner do I prioritize?
A: Always Defiance Banner! Your DPS goes to zero when you are dead! ;)

Q: Sometimes I'm dying on the first pack of a map. What gives?
A: You are likely placing a Defiance Banner that is too weak! Ensure you're getting all your warcries off, and potentially take an extra second or two to build your valour. Press Convocation to pull all your Spectres on top of you.

Q: Do I really need the auto-exert General's Cry?
A: It helps immensely! You have automatic Valour generation on a stick. Experiment with and without to see what you like, but I've found the Valour generation to be invaluable. General's Cry provides no bonuses to you, but it does have the lowest cooldown of all warcries.

Q: I can't see a damn thing. Any way to improve visual clarity?
A: The Dom Blow and Banner MTXes are easier to see and parse, IMO. Pay2win! Use the banner mtx on defiance banner to ensure you know where the boundaries are.

Q: Any good Watcher's Eye for this build?
A: Some folks run Determination jewels in the build, with Determination coming from the Turtle spectre. Personally, I don't think 8% phys reduction alone from a jewel slot is compelling, and the build is not struggling with this. To make the choice worthwhile, you probably need a 2.5-3.5 mod Watcher's Eye, at which point, you're probably well geared everywhere else that again, this choice doesn't feel good. Note that the Ephemeral Garb on AG provides Crit Immunity, so this choice on watcher's eye is unnecessary. Because of the nature of the Pride Aura on the demon spectre, this aura is not workable for a watcher's eye, nor would it matter because these bonuses do not extend to your minions. TLDR: No, you don't want or need a Watcher's Eye.

Q: Can this build be played in other game modes?
A: Certainly! It is definitely HC viable, and if you can track down the reasonably common uniques, it can be SSF viable as well.

Q: How do I manage so many buttons?
A: I bound convocation and frostblink to space and shift+space on the second bar! AG and Spectre don't need to be permanently bound.

Others Considerations
- Infernal Cry could be a great warcry, but Brutality negates it. Today, Brutality is providing way too much damage to ignore, but in the future, better/different support choices might make this a good warcry to sub in!
- Use of Rational Doctrine with Profane Ground could be helpful, if you combine it with red tattoos. (credit: YashaWynette)

This looks pretty good - I admire you dedication to the idea and playing it from 1 to 100.

I might play this in the upcoming refreshed Settlers League.

Thanks!