1.3 [Newbie Friendly] GROUNDSLAMMER BUILD

@warfaire

The most common aura people use is hatred for its huge DPS boost, followed by Grace for those that have taken IR, and Determination, for those that have a lot of base armor anyway. I've never been able to run two auras because of the mana demands of my GS but for those with slower GS and higher regen it's possible.

Starting from Scion is great because you can easily address mana issues early on but taking a look at your tree I see you make a pretty long winded route towards Amplify, where loads of STR or DEX nodes are taken. I would try to minimize some of these "useless" travel nodes but rather travel down towards the duelist area (from Sentinel) and link to the rest of the standard build in the marauder area via Unwavering Stance. Early on life is much more important than dmg so following the Scion life circle is also recommended. Most people head towards Amplify in the late game and not at the start.

@MeshM

Your life seems good and you've followed the build pretty much. If you are concerned about your armor head towards Steel Skin and rejig the start of your tree to take Armor Mastery to add to your base. But in all honestly you need high base armor to really benefit from this and that would come from better gear. As soon as you can afford it also try and cap out on your res, and remove the single elemental res nodes youve taken, to then put in life, then dmg. As you are still using life on hit greater attack speed will benefit you. When I was leveling I would try and find the fastest mace I could afford to maximise on life on hit for survivability

I just hit level 74 (4 passive skill points unassigned) and I ran some maps with my build and it is pretty easy with my current variation (the variation and experiment I mentioned a few pages back) of the origina NAS idea.

current stats (numbers rounded):
hp - 4,5 k
life regen - 260 / sec
armor - 1300
GS - 5,8 k (GS+LL+Fire+Malee+Mltistrike)
HS - 7,8 k (HS+LL+Fire+Malee)
LS + Malee + LGoH - for mobility only.
res are capped at 75%.
chaos res -30%.

No auras. One curse - warlords'. I don't use the curse most of the time but sometimes in maps it really comes in handy and makes a differece.

I skipped all armor skills and went for life and life regen instead and it perfectly suits my playstyle. TBH, I feel immortal most of the time.

I am happy with the build as it is. I know there are some ways to improve it but I don't really feel I need it. Besides now I am saving up for a better weapon and don't want to change anything with current gear - pretty average, with life and res.

If I am able to buy Mahori I will assign the points left to Acceleration and Leather & Stell to offset the Mahori's 10% AS and movement penalties.

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kurOsawa79 написал:

@warfaire

The most common aura people use is hatred for its huge DPS boost, followed by Grace for those that have taken IR, and Determination, for those that have a lot of base armor anyway. I've never been able to run two auras because of the mana demands of my GS but for those with slower GS and higher regen it's possible.

Starting from Scion is great because you can easily address mana issues early on but taking a look at your tree I see you make a pretty long winded route towards Amplify, where loads of STR or DEX nodes are taken. I would try to minimize some of these "useless" travel nodes but rather travel down towards the duelist area (from Sentinel) and link to the rest of the standard build in the marauder area via Unwavering Stance. Early on life is much more important than dmg so following the Scion life circle is also recommended. Most people head towards Amplify in the late game and not at the start.

hmmm? I wasn't really planning to go for amplify, were you looking at my tree?

@warfaire
Yeah I just checked your tree again. You see Enforcer node you took? It just under Amplify. You only really go in that direction towards the end (75 onwards)...and im referring to the 6 attribute travel nodes you took to get to that area

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kurOsawa79 написал:

@warfaire
Yeah I just checked your tree again. You see Enforcer node you took? It just under Amplify. You only really go in that direction towards the end (75 onwards)...and im referring to the 6 attribute travel nodes you took to get to that area

ok I see what you are referencing now. so what are your thoughts on blood magic, I was initially going to start a spectral build so I chose scion then saw this guide so just worked from there, I liked the idea of 80% mana regen early right near starting area. I was going to work my left towards the endurance charge and faith and steel - probably was going to skip athleticism.

from this point I started going south in the scion tree towards the attack speed and in that area but later on I can see your point. do you think I'm hurting myself too much with those str nodes?

I read some other guys post about skipping BM and going for auras and producing more dps, basically sounded like BM wasn't worth it so I was rolling with that. I've never used it before.

Just a thought here, but wouldn't it make more sense to switch over to Lightning Strike at some point because it's actually significantly stronger DPS wise than Ground Slam. I'm aware this is meant to be noob friendly but LS is still available via quest rewards and wouldn't require too much change in the gem links.

Wouldn't require much adjusting to the skill tree, just drop a lot of the resistances that can easily be covered by self found resistance gear and making sure you find enough Dex nodes to get up to 110 Dex so you can level LS to level 20.

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kurOsawa79 написал:

@warfaire

The most common aura people use is hatred for its huge DPS boost, followed by Grace for those that have taken IR, and Determination, for those that have a lot of base armor anyway. I've never been able to run two auras because of the mana demands of my GS but for those with slower GS and higher regen it's possible.

Don't forget Vitality. Hatred is your best bet for dps, and since Vitality only has a 40% mana reserve, it's possible for a lot of people to link Hatred and Vitality to a high level Reduced Mana gem and run skills off of mana as long as you have mana leech on gear and probably the Mana Flows passive. It gets a lot more complicated if you want to use Concentrated Effect with its 160% mana multiplier, but the damage increase is huge!

i really have NO idea what's going on there but my LS damage simply didn't go up when i switched to the new maul...stayed exactly as it was with the old one. at least that's what the tooltip says.

reading about auras here - which do make the most sense for this build? my tree is exactly as the one on page 1 of this thread.

/edit: im thinking hatred + haste look quite cool...not quite sure though about the high dext for haste.

cheers

How to get Dex. and Int. to "Carcass Jack"?

btw.
I have got 66 lv. Solo (Merciless, end of Act 3) and my stats aren't any good.
Gameplay become a bit hard right now. Without Decoy Totem I can do sh#t.

Default Attack - 815,
Heavy Strike DPS - 3650 (HS 16, MPD 16, AFD 16, FA 6 ),
Ground Slam DPS - 1516 (GS 16, MPD 16, AFD 16, LL 16),

Armor - 1949,
Life - 2980,
Life Regen - 108,
Resistances - 77% (Chaos -60%),


I'm doing something wrong?

@warfaire

BM is totally worth it earlier on for most starting out as a marauder because mana passive and gear are not optimal to go after. but as you started with scion and have the +mana and regent nodes from the get go I'd recommend not getting BM unless you're struggling with your attacks due to out of mana situations.

strength nodes are not going to hurt you but early on you should go for what's close. I can't see the skill tree at the moment but I bet steel skin is as close if not closer than faith, plus you would be working through an area that has a lot of life nodes (scion circle, the life cluster under steel skin etc.). life is your best friend early on. guess the key thing is keep your tree compact early on too. travel towards amplify later on on go via baptism of light route for added dps.

@tempada
didn't realise many used vitality. but then again I use vaals pact and can't do 2 auras so didn't give it much consideration. would love to run haste or clarity but both absolute no gos for me lol

@faithfool
there are dex and int nodes scattered around the tree...would recommend only taking the +30 ones for efficiency. otherwise you need it from gear. carnage heart gives a huge boost to all attributesand gives you a ton of leech. Get that when you can afford.

your dps is low for end merciless and you use added fire and ll in your GS. brings down your overall phys dmg output. would suggest multistrike in for fire and when you can get rid of LL with a carnage to also add faster attack.