[3.1] GLADIATOR 1H+Shield Max Block&Spell Block Tank + a BoR version

Please, if you have any questions, DO NOT SEND ME PRIVATE MESSAGES, but post your question here in the thread!

If you're interested in the Bringer of Rain-version of this build, scroll down to the end of this post.


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Introduction
Hi everyone!

There's been a lot of interest in a previous build by Boxsalesman (the guy who some may know as the guy with all the VODs about map bosses), which unfortunately hasn't been updated from 1.0.6. You can find the original build here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/557394
So, to emphasize, the build was originally Boxsalesman's, who doesn't play anymore. I updated it since patch 1.1. to this day for each patch.

This build is also available as a Marauder:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/868995
What's the difference? Marauder has slightly more life, but slightly less DPS, while Duelist has slightly less life, but slightly more DPS.


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Youtube & Twitch
https://www.youtube.com/user/jeotee


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3.1 Update
Sunder is still god, just not god-tier above everything else :) you can use Molten Strike now, though, which became extremely good with Ancestral Call


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Video Section
2.0 videos:
http://youtu.be/-OloT44-II8 - Apex of Sacrifice deathless run, all bosses

1.3 videos:
http://youtu.be/P2NoRoNsmec - a short introduction into the build with some gameplay

http://youtu.be/TYl8VK32jDE - Apex of Sacrifice deathless run, all bosses

http://youtu.be/lIJtX5u844M - facetanking Abaxoth in a 78 Palace map


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Ascendancy Class Specialisation
We go for Gladiator: http://www.pathofexile.com/ascendancy/classes/Gladiator
Versatile Combatant + Violent Retaliation + Outmatch and Outlast


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Passive tree
The passive tree is the same for all skills. (Just take Amplify for Ice Crash or Earthquake!!!)

This is a very high level passive tree, and only serves as an example of useful things you can take. Do not think you can achieve such a high level easily. However, even at level 70, this tree offers 5k HP with good gear and very nice DPS with a 5L or 6L.


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Skill Gems
Ice Crash
6L: Ice Crash - Melee Physical Damage - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Increased Area of Effect - Faster Attacks - Hypothermia / Added Fire Damage
Static Strike
6L: Static Strike - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Ancestral Call - Increased AoE / Added Fire Damage
Infernal Blow
6L: Infernal Blow - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike - Ancestral Call - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Faster Attacks
Earthquake
6L: Earthquake - Melee Physical Damage - Less Duration - Concentrated Effect - Increased Area of Effect - Added Fire Damage / Brutality (no ele auras then)
Sunder
6L: Sunder - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike - Concentrated Effect - Faster Attacks - Added Fire Damage / Brutality (no ele auras then)
Molten Strike
6L: Molten Strike - Ancestral Call - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Multistrike - Concentrated Effect - Added Fire Damage

Everything else is the same for all skills:
4L: Determination - Hatred - Herald of Ash / Arctic Armour - Tempest Shield
4L: Ancestral Warchief - Melee Physical Damage - Faster Attacks - Brutality
4L: Reckoning - Melee Physical Damage - Endurance Charge on Melee Stun - Ruthless
3L: Blasphemy - Warlord's Mark - Summon Chaos Golem
3L: Shield Charge - Blood Magic - Fortify

Ice Crash/Static Strike/Infernal Blow/Sunder/Earthquake
Ancestral Warchief
Melee Physical Damage x3
Weapon Elemental Damage
Multistrike (for Static Strike and Infernal Blow)
Ancestral Call (for Static Strike and Infernal Blow)
Added Fire Damage
Determination
Herald of Ash
Blood Magic x2
Immortal Call
Vaal Molten Shell
Increased Duration
Reckoning
Full list of required gems by colour:
Endurance Charge on Melee Stun
Warlord's Mark
Shield Charge
Fortify
Brutality
Ruthless

Faster Attacks x2
Hatred

Blashpemy
Increased Area of Effect (x2 for Ice Crash and Static Strike)
Tempest Shield
Summon Chaos Golem


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Buffs & Curses
You cannot run all 4 auras at once, choose the 2 that you most prefer:
- Warlord's Mark (with Blashpemy) + Hatred for DPS
OR
- Warlord's Mark (with Blashpemy) + Determination for survivability.
OR
- Hatred + Herald of Ash if you want to go full DPS mode
OR
- if you run Brutality on your main skill, elemental auras are worhtless, so run blasphemy warlords + determination or determination + arctic armour.

Tempest Shield is not an aura, but a buff so we can always run it.

The best curse is Warlord's Mark IMO cause it gives you an insane boost to survivability and mana sustainability. Other useful curses: Enfeeble, Temporal Chains, Elemental Weakness, Flammability (Infernal Blow), Frostbite (Ice Crash), Conductivity (Static Strike).


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FAQ
Q: How do you achieve max block chance with this build?
Aegis Aurora - 32%
Passive tree - 23%
Ascendancy tree - 6% + 8% if you were damaged by a hit recently
Tempest Shield - 3%
The Anvil - 8%
32 + 23 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 8 = 80%

Q: Why do you take Unwavering Stance in your high level passive tree, but not Iron Reflexes? Doesn't that passive remove all chance to evade?
A: It does, but one of the key aspects of this build is having high damage mitigation, so you don't mind getting hit. You will either block or mitigate it with armour and a huge life pool. Either way, we use only pure armour gear and would have no evasion anyway (not more than only 7%). Meanwhile, getting stun-locked is a real threat while doing map bosses, and Unwavering stance completely eliminates that threat.

Q: Why does the build use Aegis Aurora instead some other unique shield like Prism Guardian or Lioneye's Remorse?
A: Because Aegis aurora replenishes your energy shield each time you block. The amount of ES that will be replenished depends on the amount of your total armour. Since this build has high armour, a very high chance to block attacks and spells, you block often, which results in a lot of ES being replenished often, which, finally, means you will be a lot more tanky against most monsters.

Q: Why use maces and not axes/swords etc?
A: Because maces stun more often, which means we can use a counterattack skill with endurance charge on melee stun to generate endurance charges FOR FREE. Also, doryani's catalyst offers very nice dps with a boost to your elemental damage, as well as elemental damage leeched as life. Of course, if you want to use a Soultaker, you can do that if you have the currency, it's completely viable.

Q: Why don't you use CWDT?
A: Because Immortal Call was nerfed so hard it isn't worth using linked to CWDT. Even with 6 endurance charges, you would get like 1.5 secs of IC. In 95% of casses, it is MUCH better to have 6 endurance charges up instead of the 1-2 seconds of Immortal Call.

Q: Why don't you get more Energy Shield (ES)? Wouldn't that make you tankier?
Having more ES won't make Aegis Aurora replenish more ES per block. ES replenish from Aegis is based on your armour (2% of armour replenished as ES), which is why you want to have as much armour as possible. You can have 2k ES, but 10k armour and would regenerate only 200 ES per block (2% of 10 000), but if you have 500ES and 16k armour, you regenerate 320 ES per block. This build cannot have more ES than it already has without losing armour, which would be pointless, as I hope I explained now, since that would actually make you replenish LESS Energy Shield per block.


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Gear
Basically, there are no specific "must have" items for this build (except one, which costs only 1 chaos), but only base types of items.

- 1h weapon:
Can be anything you choose of the following: axe, mace, sword. What you need to be looking for, as for most builds, is pure physical damage on which ever weapon you choose. However, it might be good to focus on maces, if you hope to get or think of getting a Doryani's Catalyst, which is a great item for numerous reasons: 1) the DPS goes ove 300, which is very nice; 2) it gives you also 100% increased elemental damage, which is crazy good for the fire part of Infernal Blow; 3) it gives you 1% elemental dmg life leech. (A Doryani's Catalyst is not NEEDED, it is only a nice addition to the build if you can get it.)

An example of a good rare 1h weapon is this mace:


- Chest:
A chest with high armour/evasion, life and resists. Late-game, you should try and get a nice Astral Plate for the resists. That's all there is to it. Of course, getting a 5L, and eventually a 6L is preferable.

- Shield:
Again, you want as much armor as possible, life, resists, and preferably additional block chance, just because block is one of the greatest mechanics in-game at the moment, and your build benefits greatly from it. Any rare version of a shield is good for this build, but if you can get a Lioneye's Remorse, or even better, an Aegis Aurora, or the best shield possible The Surrender, you will only get more tanky.
I have to note specifically that Aegis Aurora and The Surrender are GREAT for this build (as for most builds), and if you can get your hands on any of them, you will literally be able to facetank most mobs and a lot of bosses in the game.

- Boots:
Again, armour, life and resists, and move speed, ofc.

- Gloves & Helmet:
Armour, life, resists, mana leech, attack speed, flat physical damage...

- Belt:
Try to get a Rustic Sash belt with additional life, armour, weapon elemental damage and resists.
This is a very nice unique belt for this build:
(not as good after the nerf in Awakening, but still nice)

- Rings:
Resists, life, flat physical damage, especially mana leech/life leech...

- Amulet
This is probably the best choice for this build since patch 2.2.:

In addition to increasing our block chance, this enables us to reach a whooping 78% block chance and 78% spell block chance!


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My Current Gear
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The gear section is for showing gear, if you're interested how to set up your gem links, look at the Skill Gems section. Literally every gem slot is there.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The gear section is for showing gear, if you're interested how to set up your gem links, look at the Skill Gems section. Literally every gem slot is there.


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Levelling Guide
52 points:


77 points:


Great levelling items:



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Bandits
Take either Oak or help Eramir, both are OK choices, it's up to you.


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DOES THIS BUILD WORK WITH A BRINGER OF RAIN?
Since a ton of people have been asking me if this build works with Bringer of Rain, I've decided to add a section only for that. The answer is: yes, it works.

Your gear has to be something like this then:


BoR 4-link:
Ice Crash - Weapon Elemental Damage - Increased Area of Effect - Added Fire Damage / Hypothermia

Static Strike - Multistrike - Weapon Elemental Damage - Increased Area of Effect / Added Fire Damage

Infernal Blow - Melee Splash - Multistrike - Weapon Elemental Damage

It is a lot more harder to get resistances, so you can't use Meginord's belt, you have to use a tri-res one. Your rings have less chance of having flat physical as well, so you lose some DPS and life on your gear. The good thing of using a BoR is that you don't have to buy/craft a 6-link chest and that you get 6% extra block, which is good for this build, and which means you can lose some points from block nodes to put them elsewhere. Unfortunately, since with a BoR, your armour sucks, you more or less have to go for Iron Reflexes, so you don't gain actually any extra nodes from a BoR.


BoR passive tree:



So, overall, using a BoR instead of a chest and normal helmet means:
PROS:
+ Cheaper to gear (since no 6L)
+ DPS remains almost the same

CONS:
- Forced to take Iron Reflexes (IR)
- Less armour even with IR
- Less life
- Harder to cap resists

Updated with a lvl 100 passive tree.

can u add 10-90 path on the tree please or tell me where to go first thank u

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XSkillZoneX a écrit :

can u add 10-90 path on the tree please or tell me where to go first thank u

Well, it's a bit difficult cause it's doable for both marauders and duelists, so i'd need double versions of the tree leveling progress.

But since you're posting here, I'll presume you're starting as duelist, which is a bit better, imo. You should get the life nodes at the duelist area first, then take the mana nodes and the "ignore armor movement penalty". Then there's nothing left but to go up, first the mara HP area, then towards the templar.

This is good for invasion?

Rainbowstride + amulet, what lvl should i have for using that? Doesnt matter?

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Lonsdalemax a écrit :

This is good for invasion?

It is definitely a very tanky melee build. However, knowing how melee in general fairs in Invasion, you should always be careful :)

Jokes aside, I believe this is one of the more safer builds for invasion (block is simply an OP mechanic, and as you may have noticed, the first Invasion Atziri killer used block and Aegis - both a part of this build).

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Lonsdalemax a écrit :

Rainbowstride + amulet, what lvl should i have for using that? Doesnt matter?

You can see the level requirements of certain items on PoE's great wiki: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Path_of_Exile_Wiki

Only Rainbowstride has a level requirement, but you won't need it before that anyway.

Hey , boxsalesman here ! As you probably have noticed I stopped playing for quite a while already , I just checked the forums after a long while and I like that you kept the build alive, I have added links to your new version in my guide right at the start so people can't miss it.

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magier556 a écrit :

Hey , boxsalesman here ! As you probably have noticed I stopped playing for quite a while already , I just checked the forums after a long while and I like that you kept the build alive, I have added links to your new version in my guide right at the start so people can't miss it.

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it!

Hope to see you back again sometime, loved your bosses VODs :)

Incresed block recovery is not worth it?