1.3 [Newbie Friendly] GROUNDSLAMMER BUILD

Current gear


So, After tweaking some gear , I can now run 2 auras comfortably, a little more mana and 3 will be doable.

I have followed the original idea, but moved away from Blood magic keystone, and now use a BM gem in my 6L (I undertand this is not doable for most).

Reduced mana gems on everything, the CwDT links, and the Auras in the Alphas Howl, Once I have these 20/20 Im really gonna be able to run 2 auras and remove the BM gem.

Current unbuffed dps in GS (I only Use GS, as it is in a 6L with Concentrated effect, its close to HS DPS) 11k, once auras in groups are up, I have seen 18.5K.

I have played pretty much only this carachter this league and will continue to do so, I really want to see if I can get 25K tool tip DPS on GS.

Hi BaldMan.
Nce gear. Mine is similiar to yours.

Did I get it right?? You want to run 2 auras on mana and drob BM gem??

I don't think you will be able to run GS on mana with 2 auras, even with Alpha's. It is impossible.
Maybe if you add lots of points to increase mana or/and decrease skill mana. In my opinion it is not worth it.


And why do you put reduced Mana on CwDT?? Spells linked to CwDT don't need mana!!! :)

25K dps GS is pretty easy with 6L dps combo and Hatered. But Concentrated Effect without Marohi?? I tried it and didn't like it at all. Area of Effect was damn to small.

Was getting a bit bored with the character so I went all in and bought a low rolled BoR, eternal'd it to medium rolls and respec'd ~11 points to Vaal Pact.

If you got any thoughts I'd be glad to hear them.

Our trees are the same (except for I don't have Blood Magic).

I love Pact o Vall, and never gonna respec it.

As for the BoR, i think it works with shield and one-handed. I would never bought it just to have cheap 6L (I don't count Blind as any usefull, beacause your chance for getting hit is 100% with Unwavering Stance).

IMHO sell BoR and buy Marohi 6L, because it works great with Concentrated Effect.
I have 25k dps GS with Hatered on mana- easy. Don't need Blood Magic...

@skarbziemi
Someone with more experience on it, awesome! Can you link your tree, your items and write basic stats ? (Level/Life/Armor/resistances/GS before and after buffs)

I've respec'd out of Unwavering Stance for quite some time now and I've been very happy with it because you trade ~10% chance to dodge with stun immunity. Stun is extremely rare at least to me that I had 4.5k-5k hp and perfect (or close to it) resistances. Add in the fact that without US you take advantage of Enfeeble which lowers monsters accuracy by quite a bit and BoR's blind which is quite strong and on top of all that you get 1 free Passive point so overall imo totally worth it. Suggest giving it a try (no US i mean, not BoR :P)

I was between buying BoR and a new weapon but I went for the first one. Will be trying to make it work and if I don't like it I will sell it but I intend to keep the Vaal Pact. Since you are saying you can run Hatred without much trouble I'm now thinking about it too. Please link what I asked before to see how you've done it. Is it possible to just simply respec the 3 points of Blood Magic, link Reduced Mana with Hatred and run my GS on mana ? Will it be viable ? Having the bonus damage from Hatred AND 3 additional points to spend without needing other changes would be a huge improvement. I got a 4L available since HS is obsolete now so that's not an issue.

@eladir

My gear is 2 posts above :)

Passive Tree:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAAdwB5wSzD8wS4RQgFE0YkRkuGjgb-iECIVUl3yftKLUpLio4KvYt0jGeMgk1kjboOQ462DrhPfxBP0d-SshN2E3jUEdR5lcNWGNYr1nzYEthIWVNZ1hnm2xGbmluqnJscql07XgNeu97jHy4fNmBb4M4hNmE74jxjHaQVZHOnYCePJ7Nn8uiAKLqpBmmV6ZkpzCnhKloqW6sWayqtC-18rndvoq-p8APwBrEuMbYyZjSIdJN1I_V-Nlh3sHi6uSt7DjvDu9O73zyL_JF8933vv6P

Stats on lvl 87:

Offence:

GS (6L):
no Hatered: 13940(physical)+ 5500 (fire) = 19440 dps
with Hatered 13940+5500+5080 = 24520 dps

Life leech (from physical): 10% (+5% from Warlord's Mark)= 10-15%
Mana leech : 1% (+2% Warlord's Mark).... but 1% is more than enough for my psyhical dps and Marauder Mana pool

Defence:

Base AR: 8368 = 48% reduction
Base AR + Endurance Charges (max 7) = 75% reduction
Base AR + Endurance Charges + 13lvl Molten Shell = 82% reduction

When I had BM skill linked to GS I was using 2 auras: Hatered and Determination.
But It wasn't any improvement (or just slightly, but physical damage is not an issue in endgame IMO, elemental and chaos is), I wasn't dying without Determination (Pact of Vall is keeping me alive anyway), so it went to stash for eternal slumber :)

Base Resistances:

Fire- 77% (123%)
Cold- 73% (73%) with only one endurance charge it reaches 77% (my max)
Lightning- 77% (88%)

Chaos- (-60%) and I must live with it :)

Life: 4400 - I know it is not much ..


I am using 3 Curses (that's why I need Windscream boots and Doedre's Ring).
I use Warlord's Mark + Enfeeble + Vulnerability - all linked to lvl 7 Cast when Damage Taken.
It makes a lot of difference on high lvl maps or fighting Boss like Dominus, whom I can facetank with no life flasks and using Aoe GS (cause my 5L HS is weak and I don't like Knockback :/)

I have no BM, as I mentioned earlier. All goes from mana. It is possible with 4 points added to mana (look at my tree in Duelist part and Templar part).
My Mana pool after Hatered reservation is 404, GS takes 0,93 x 113= 105

The most dangerous nemesis of my Mara are bosses on Torture Chamber and Residence map (lots of elemental dps and schock). But for that ocassion I switch "added fire dmage" to Life leech skill in GS combo.
Boss I have never killed (tried only once) is Spider bitch on Jungle Valley map. She does lots of chaos damage and my chaos resist is -60%. But last I tried was month ago (i had half of my dps and no Pact of Vall).


No Unwavering Stance option??
No US with Pact of Vaal may be a very dangerous mix!
If you get stunlocked with no life regen and no life flask, you may be dead on arrival :)

Hmm must have been really drunk the other night as I was sure my CwDT wasn't working because of not having enough mana....

I tested again and as you say no mana required.

Sweet ambrosia- the key to immortality ;D

@skarbziemi

Off-topic:
1) Dunno if you planned it on your own but your build is pretty awesome and unique with 3 curses and all.

2) I never get stun locked and rarely ever stunned without US, though I got more HP, high Chaos Res and have not done maps above 74 lvl. If you combine all those 3 then maybe US is required yea.

3) Spider bitch on Jungle Valley is the boss I had the most fun in the game. Managing to kill her felt awesome. First test run I did with new build was that run on hard rolls on that map and it was a breeze, that's what got me hyped about Vaal Pact.

On topic of the mana and auras. I did some calculations and by just removing Blood Magic I will be having ~450 mana. Hatred costs 60% and let's suppose I got a good reduced mana gem (19lvl 18%Q costs 1 exalted) it modifies the cost to 63% so in the end 450x0.6x0.63=170mana reserved so 280 mana left available. As I am right now, with 0% mana leech I will be having mana regen=1.75% of my mana (450)=8 mana regen per second. My GS costs 96 per 0.69sec so after roughly 3 seconds I will be out of mana and unable to cast GS anymore. So as I currently am is a definitely no go.

Let's hypothesize I use the 3 free passive points from blood magic to get the mana points you've taken (7% reduced mana cost, 8% increased mana, 16% increased mana, 40% increased mana regen) and I somehow manage to get 1% mana leech. Then I will be having ~552 Mana from which ~208 will be reserved by Hatred and hence 344 available. My mana regen will be base 1.75x1.4=2.45% + 12.5% (base mana leech rate)=14.95% of max mana per sec=83/s. My GS cost will be reduced by 7% meaning 96x0.93=89 per 0.69 or 129/s. So 344 mana with GS mana cost 129/s and mana regen 83/sec which roughly translates in 8 seconds of spamming before running OOM at which point I will have to cast it as a slower rate. I guess that sounds viable.

What I need now is somehow to find that 1% mana leech and after that I'll be ready to test it out.

First of all, about Reduced mana skill gem:

"Its quality bonus however, has no effect on auras"

so mana reduction of aura reservation is 29% (reduced mana lvl 20). It means that Hatered minimum reservation is 0,71*0,6= 42% .

I solved my problem with mana and mana leech with one item:

plus it has intelli/dex I needed and some life on it.

You will need to serch for at least one item with + ~50mana to help increase mana pool.

So I have 404 mana after reservation. My GS takes 105...
Let's do some Math :D

Wth mana regen 17 per sec, and max leech caped at 20% of mana =81 man per second , my max mana income is
17+81=98/sec

So as you can see I can run out of mana as well...
But ussualy there is now one alive to vitness :)

When fighting bosses I just hit it with HS from time to time to regen mana (my 5L HS only takes 33 mana).

About 3 curses:

It started with idea of two and I liked it.
3rd curse in cost of loosing one slot for ring is still profitable.
Unless I get Ming's Heart, but don't have those 30 EX yet..