3.27 Crushing Fist Slayer - Very large hands, very large slams.

TL;DR: This build is for those who like to throw hands - big hands which do huge damage in huge AoE. Whether it does that particularly well for the budget is a separate question.
https://pobb.in/OsndTNas1Ape


Since GGG removed the old retaliation skills of Vengeance, Riposte, and Reckoning I have been looking for a way to make remake my favorite build of all time, Vengeance Slayer, with its replacement Crushing Fist. In 3.27, Foulborn uniques offered what I consider to be the most effective means of scaling hit-based Crushing Fist.

In particular, this build relies on Foulborn Ylfeban's Trickery, a 2 chaos helmet that grants "Increases and Reductions to Spell Damage also apply to Attack Damage with Retaliation Skills at 200% value". To best utilize this, the build stacks strength with the well-known Iron Fortress strength stacking shell to get upwards of 2500 strength, which translates to 750% increased spell damage and thus 1500% increased retaliation skill damage. It also utilizes the Foulborn version of Iron Fortress to grant "+1% Chance to Block Spell Damage per 50 Strength", in conjunction with Tempest Shield this gives us spell block cap with essentially zero investment into spell block (the unlucky chance to block spell damage on Iron Fortress is then mitigated by the Runegraft of Stability, making it unexciting instead).

The weapon selection is more complicated. Like most strength stackers, this build utilizes Replica Alberon's Warpath to gain 1-80 Chaos Damage to Attacks per 80 Strength. The massive damage range on these boots is generally mitigated by attacking very frequently such as with Rage Vortex of Berserking, or with a strike still that utilizes multistrike and many attacks per second. We do not have the luxury of attacking frequently as both Crushing Fist and Eviscerate have 4-second cooldowns. Initially this problem was solved by utilizing another Foulborn unique, Foulborn The Red Nightmare, which in conjunction with a few tattoos and taking Diamond Skin in Marauder area grants 50% of fire damage converted to chaos. Taking the Lycia bloodline and the Sinner Saint notable grants another 50% of all elemental damage converted to chaos. We can then use Brutus' Lead Sprinkler to gain 4-7 fire (and thus chaos) damage to attacks per 10 strength, greatly improving both the maximum and minimum damage ranges. Unfortunately, despite my initial plans retaliation skills are specifically unexertable (why, I cannot fathom), and so I eventually switched to Paradoxica which gives 100% double damage chance and allows this build to utilize two retaliation skills instead of one. As a consequence, however, the damage can range from slapping the enemy with a wet noodle to dropping a nuke capable of phasing or outright killing an endgame boss instantly.

Note that the Paradoxica version of the build also allows the use of the non-foulborn Red Nightmare, which instead grants chance to block attack damage, allowing us to easily cap both spell and attack block with the investment of a single jewel socket and 3 passive nodes for the As the Mountain cluster.

Despite all this, the build is not actually reliant on blocking in order to deal damage, as is usually the downside with retaliation skills. Keepers of the Flame introduced Uber versions of the Zana Incarnation bosses, one of whom drops the Bitter Instinct unique shield. This shield will automatically permit the use of retaliation skills after 4 seconds. We can then utilize a forbidden jewel set to steal Measured Retaliation from Gladiator (a 20 chaos set, by the way) which gives us a 50% chance to not consume a cooldown charge on retaliation skills and makes them usable for another 2 seconds (which is then nearly doubled by Bitter Instinct itself). Using the prismatic anoint No Forgiveness gives an additional 20% chance to not consume a cooldown charge.
In this version of the build, I use Second Wind support in the main damage link such that even if I were to get unlucky and hit the 30% chance to consume my cooldown, I would have an additional backup fist with which to continue throwing hands. While throwing said hands, my other Fist is coming off cooldown, creating a surprisingly stable stream of meaty punches.

For damage links this build utilizes both Fist of War and Pulverize in order to maximize both area of effect and damage per fist. With Slayer's Impact notable and the Brinkmanship cluster we can reach nearly screenwide AoE on Crushing Fist. Headsman and Bane of Legends then provide some much needed sources of more damage and cull. This build has difficulty sustaining mana, however, and so we use lifetap on both our main link and several supporting skills which is suboptimal for damage but allows us to largely ignore mana as a concept. If there was a simple source of mana leech you could use Close Combat support instead of Lifetap for an additional 20% more damage.

Defensively this build relies heavily upon the capped attack and spell block, as well as Slayer's overleech for recovery, then Stormshroud for elemental ailment immunity. An impossible escape for Avatar of Fire allows for allocation of both Nomadic Teachings for +2% maximum elemental resistances and Crushing Reply which makes retaliation skills fortify on hit. The Molten Xophgraft also grants us a long-lasting molten shell which can greatly improve survivability in a pinch without using any gem sockets, as well as being able to roll 4% increased strength on the explicit. Furthermore, as this build utilizes entirely chaos damage, cannot miss, and does not benefit much from increased attack speed this leaves Determination as the premiere aura to use. In this version the build has 50k armour and 4 endurance charges, providing decent physical mitigation.

Overall, this build performs adequately. I used it to complete 36/40 challenges, sweep all the uber bosses, and is exceptionally fun to map with as a single fist is able to reliably pop a t16 map boss from 100 to 0. A standard strength stacker using Crown of Eyes would certainly be able to out-DPS and out-recover it, especially for the sizable budget of this version. But nothing beats the satisfaction of that one juicy punch that instantly evaporates a boss.

Feel free to provide any comments, suggestions, or criticisms.

Some showcases:
Uber Uber Elder https://youtu.be/zOMc6409-bM
Uber Maven https://youtu.be/a78fiE-twb8
The Feared https://youtu.be/5nvsoWqkvGU
Wave 15 Simulacrum https://youtu.be/md7pdWh-Xg8