[RETIRED] MUSCLEMANCER 2 | Souleater Winter Orb JUGG | Insane Clearspeed | Immune to Phys Damage

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Musclemancer 2
I've made an updated version of this build! A few things have been changed to better optimize clearspeed, damage and survivability. The other items are still below, and most of the tips & tricks are applicable across both versions!

Gear Changes:

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The biggest change to the build is how mana is degenerated. Instead of using Death's Oath, the build now uses Omeyocan + Shavronne's Revelation to permanently keep the mana at zero. The shaped maces with "enemies explode" really helps smooth the clearspeed experience as well. Since we can wear a different chest piece, an Eternity Shroud greatly increased our damage.

Skill Changes:

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Herald of Ash has replaced Herald of Ice, and the build has removed the previously required chance to freeze stuff. Storm Burst is now the primary single target skill as it scales fantastically with duration, cast speed, and life gain on hit all while being able to be used at a long distance. Vaal Righteous Fire has been added for a 16 second long more spell damage multiplier on-demand.

In the weapon swap Vaal Lightning Strike + Withering Touch + Culling provides wither stacks for bosses to buff all the extra chaos damage gained from shaped weapons and the Eternity Shroud.

New Pastebin:

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https://pastebin.com/FK2HFXQU

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Fundamental Mechanics

How Souleater Works:

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By using increases to buff duration (Self-cursing with Temporal Chains and Solstice Vigil) this build is able to have a long-lasting flask, perfect for Soulthirst's Souleater during flask effect.

This means you press the mana flask ONCE after you get a kill, then let it last until it runs out. For the entire duration of the flask you stack up Souleater.

For each enemy killed, Souleater gives 5% attack & cast Speed, making Winter Orb absolutely rain projectiles. The increase to attack speed allows this build to leap slam through maps insanely quick while our ORB autokills everything.

Keeping our Mana Empty:

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In order to keep the good times rollin' we have to keep our mana from capping out, ending our mana flask. This build achieves this by using Mind over Matter to damage our mana, and Death's Oath to provide the damage.

By using Eldritch Battery this build can pay for skills with energy shield while still having no actual mana. Since Death's Oath does chaos damage it penetrates the energy shield.

Keeping your Energy Shield up while spamming is difficult though, so this build uses a Watcher's Eye with Energy Shield gained on hit while affected by Discipline. This lets the build fully utilize insane cast & attack speed, dumping out wave of convictions and leap slams all over the place.

Why JUGG?:

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Other than being the manliest ascendancy in the game, JUGG provides the ability to ignore penalties to action speed which is crucial in order to ignore Temporal Chain's slowing effect. You also get some solid defenses, life regen, and endurance charge generation.

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Skill Tree, Gems & Gear
Pastebin:

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https://pastebin.com/zTYJHuXi
Import this link into Path of Building and you're good to go. Just copy everything and you'll be SLAMMIN' in no time.

Bandits,Pantheon & Ascendancies

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Kill ALL the bandits
Pantheon doesn't matter too much, but I take Solaris and Garukhan. (DON'T take the pantheons that reduce chaos dmg over time.)
Ascend in this order: Unstoppable -> Unbreakable -> Unflinching -> Unyielding

Gems:

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Gloves

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Blade Vortex - Curse on Hit - Temporal Chains - Physical to Lightning
This setup allows us to self-curse Temporal Chains as well as get some extra damage and life gain on hit. Since our buffs last so long BV requires little upkeep.

Chest

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Winter Orb - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Hypothermia - Concentrated Effect - Cold to Fire - Infused Channeling
Our main damage skill. It's a bit of a pain in the ass to get these colors on a Death's Oath, but you can make it easier with vorici-stepping.

Helmet

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Storm Burst - Physical to Lightning - Controlled Destruction - Concentrated Effect
Our single-target skill. Get right on top of the boss and spam the shit out of it. This can be exchanged for a different spammable skill if you don't like Wave of Conviction's skill behavior.

Boots

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Herald of Ash - Vitality - Discipline - Vaal Portal
All the auras a growing JUGG needs. Vaal Portal lets you generate some dudes on-command to keep your Souleater PUMPED UP.

Weapon 1

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Immortal Call - Orb of Storms - Storm Brand
This scepter has "Trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill", so all the skills socketed are auto-cast on a 4 second cool-down. Immortal Call makes us permanently immune to physical damage, while Orb of Storms and Storm Brand scale extremely well with cast speed, providing MORE DAMAGE.

Weapon 2

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Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Enduring Cry
Leap Slam lets us fly through maps quickly, while Enduring Cry provides a nice life regen boost and endurance charges on-demand.

Gear:

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You need the helm enchant and Solstice Vigil to make sure your buff duration is capped out. The chest, gloves, and belt are essential to generating and maintaining Souleater.

The multimodded scepters cost about 4ex each to make, but they provide a significant damage increase for the build. In order to make these just alt-regal a shaped scepter until you get T1 Elemental as Extra Chaos, annul everything else on it, then multimod.

It's not listed above but you NEED a Watcher's Eye with Energy Shield gained on hit while affected by Discipline. This lets you generate ES constantly to pay for spells. If you can afford it, getting damage leeched as life while affected by Vitality is very nice.

If you run multiple mana flasks with the same duration, you can get the benefit of all of their suffix buffs at once. I run three and a quicksilver. The Quicksilver is there for if I get a Inspired Learning buff that generates mana. The HP flask is just an 'Oh Shit' button. If you only want to bother with running one mana flask, make sure it has Immunity to Bleeding on it.

Note: DO NOT quality the mana flasks. It will cause them to regenerate more mana, potentially breaking the build.
Note: The 3% of life generated per second during flask effect craft is a giant pain in the ass to get. Cost me about 200c in Cinderswallow Urn indentifications. If you want to get it crafted on a flask just contact me in-game and I'll do it for free.

For Jewels, you will probably need to get some with resists to fill in the gaps. If you don't need resists I'd go for life & flat damage abyss jewels.

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Tips & Tricks
How to Play this Monstrosity:

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First, get a kill and self-curse Temporal Chains with Blade Vortex. Then, use your mana flask(s) to begin stacking souleater. At this point you can run around and clear.

Note: There is a bug with the flasks and Soulthirst. Even if you refresh your flasks, your 'timer' for losing souleater will continue. Resetting you flasks will drop your souleater, but you will still lose your stacks when the old flasks duration would end. Because of this, its pointless to try and restart your flasks. Just let them run out naturally.

Keep your Infused Channeling from Winter Orb up, and your Blade Vortex at 10 stacks. Then all you have to do is SLAM through the map at lightning speeds, sometimes using your single target skill on rare beasts and tougher enemies.

Use Vaal Portal to refresh your Death's Oath debuff or begin stacking Souleater. I like refreshing my mana flask and using Vaal Portal while im waiting for Memory loot to drop. Using Vaal Portal in boss rooms is great too to keep everything going.

How to add 'Headhunter' to the build:

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Thanks to the huge increase in buff duration, this build can make great use of the unique jewel Inspired Learning. You get one mod from each rare monster you kill, which can help your damage, clearspeed and survivability depending on what you get.

This is a nice bonus that ramps up the build if you are out of things to spend money on. HOWEVER there are some mods that will screw up your mana regen and not let you use the mana flask. I keep a quicksilver with increased duration for when you get one of those buffs.

Is it really necessary? No. Does it mess up the build and drop your mana flask sometimes? Yes.

Is it a lot of fun to run around with 30+ monster buffs in a map? Yes.

Generating RAMPAGE:

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Ahhh, Sinvicta. How I love you so. By swapping to Sinvicta's, killing something, then swapping back to your normal setup, you generate rampage for free.

All the increases to buff duration work on Rampage too, allowing you to reach 1000 stacks easily. I keep another Leap Slam setup with Blood Magic in here too, in case I run out of ES SLAMMIN' around.

Video explaining the mechanic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITWkTNE_50

Leveling Tips:

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I leveled this build using Quill Rain + Rain of Arrows/Lesser Poison to generate virulence for Herald of Agony. Herald of Agony will carry you through act 7 pretty handily, but it starts to fall off. Since you don't really get much damage on the tree I don't recommend leveling as melee or Winter Orb.

Crafting the Scepters:

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Step 1: Purchase an Ilvl 85 Shaped Scepter. You need iLvl 85 in order to roll T1 Elemental as Extra Chaos
Step 2: Alteration + Augment until you get T1 Elemental as Extra Chaos. If you get the mod by itself that's better than having another mod, so don't augment another mod.
Step 3: Regal the Scepter
Step 4: Anullment Orb the Scepter and pray. If you have one other mod its a 50/50. Anullments are pretty pricey this league (~34c currently) so this is the expensive part, depending on your luck. If you've got two other mods, and they both suck, you'll have to hit the Anull twice.

If you remove the Elemental as Extra Chaos roll, scour and go back to Step 2.
Step 5: Multimod craft all the mods. If you need assistance with this step, I have access to all the crafts listed on the scepters, and I'd be happy to craft them for free, with your materials of course.

Material Cost for Scepters:
Arcane Surge Scepter: 2 Exalt, 5 chaos, 8 Vaal, 1 Divine
Trigger a Socketed Skill Scepter: 2 Exalt, 4 Chaos, 8 Vaal, 1 Divine

Budget Options:

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You absolutely need Death's Oath, Soulthirst, and Shackles of the Wretched for this build. Those are all very cheap. The first expensive piece you should pick up is the Watcher's eye with Energy Shield gained on hit while affected by Discipline, and with that the build will be functional.

Solstice Vigil makes your flask last a LOT longer, and should be the first expensive thing you purchase. Until you can afford to make the multimod scepters, you can just use any decent rare ones with one of them having the 'Trigger a socketed spell' craft.

Alternative to Death's Oath

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By using the unique boots Omeyocan to degenerate your mana, and the ring Shavronne's Revelation, you can make it so you don't need the degeneration from Death's Oath to keep your mana empty.

This would let you use Inpulsa's or The Eternity Shroud, or whatever other chest-piece your heart desires. Pretty damn good! You might have to pick up some max mana nodes to get your Omeyocan degeneration high enough.

Pros to Death's Oath: Only one required unique item (Chest) as compared to two (boots, ring) in order to achieve degeneration
Gives a lot of attributes which helps gearing significantly
Solid chunk of life and a little bit of resists

Pros to Omeyocans + Shavronnes Revelation: You get to use a different unique chest, which for the most part means more damage
The playstyle feels a little smoother since you don't have to worry about your Death's Oath debuff falling off. That debuff lasts 12 seconds in the build though, so keeping it up really is not a challenge already.

Really its up to personal preference.

Curse Effectiveness Breakpoints:

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Alongside Solstice vigil, this build needs 45% increased effect of Temporal Chains in order to reach the buff expiry cap. This build gets 20% curse effetiveness on the tree, and another 10% from Curse on Hit with 20 quality.

The helmet enchant fills out the remaining 15%. You could socket a Conqueror's Potency and mess with the skill tree to get more curse effectiveness instead of wearing the helmet enchant.

For those wanting to see the math:
30%(Helmet) + 15%(COH/Tree) -40%(Reduction taken from curse on players)=+5 TC curse effectiveness

40% slower expiry * 1.050 (5 curse effect total) = 42% slower expiry

+33% from Shaper's Presence from Solstice Vigil

=75% slower expiry of Effects

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jormaerik wrote:

Wouldn't Omeyocan boots work instead of Death's Oath? (You could use shaped chest/The Eternity Shroud instead.)

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Oscrix wrote:

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jormaerik wrote:

Wouldn't Omeyocan boots work instead of Death's Oath? (You could use shaped chest/The Eternity Shroud instead.)

Omeyocan ins't enough to degenerate the mana flask & your natural regen without getting more maximum mana. You could potentially do that, but I think you'd need to have ~4000+ mana for it to work