[3.8] Dominating Blow Staff Guardian [HC][SSF][League Start]

Yes! Sort of. I'm not a professional streamer. I'm not even a hobbyist streamer. The main reason that I even set up streaming software was so that I could easily share with one or two friends what I was doing, I didn't intend to build a community.

I don't generally talk on stream. I don't have a camera. It's basically just a window into my current gameplay session, with the added benefit of me interacting in chat about what I'm doing. In this case, it'll let you see how my build is performing, because I'll be playing it nonstop for a while.

Link to my shitty stream

+ Very Tanky
+ HC Viable
+ Built for SSF
+ Good league starter
+ Decent clear and boss killing all in one package
+ Not too many buttons

- Can't do Physical Reflect maps.
- Not the fastest build out there.

Bash things with staff, summon dudes that bash things with staffs, repeat.

https://pastebin.com/xy9jxsvE

Dominating blow is a slow attacking skill that summons minions when things die with the debuff applied to them. The debuff is short, so it'll only really summon things from things you just attacked. Things you summon keep their affixes and such, so you can benefit from auras from rare enemies. Old minions are instantly replaced by new ones, so if you summon a new rare sentinel, the old one is overwritten and its aura lost. This functions as a mini-headhunter, but is far weaker.

Note that support gems affect both you and your minions. Gems like Minion Damage will increase the damage your minions do, but not the damage you do. As such, we pick gems that benefit both sides of the equation.

Herald of Purity gives you increased physical damage for Dominating Blow, and summons minions in a very similar manner to Dominating Blow. This produces an army of sentinels that murders everything in their path.
War Banner reserves a small amount of mana while giving your minions increased accuracy while nearby enemies take increased physical damage.

Flesh Offering gives your minions increased attack speed and movement speed.

Intimidate from Guardian increases the damage enemies take.

Maim from Flesh and Stone increases physical damage taken.

This guide is written for HCSSF. What this means is that the goal is to have no deaths whatsoever. As such, rather than aim for "good enough" defenses, we kind of go a bit crazy.

The more Life you have, the less you die. Shocking, I know.

Armour is a strong way to mitigate physical damage taken. It's kind of like resistance but for physical damage. Since we're using mostly red gems, it works great for us. It is less effective against big hits, but we're covering that in another way. We're expecting 15-20k armour with decent end game gear.

Molten Shell allows us to press a button to take far less damage from hits, the max amount scaled by our armour. This allows us on demand mitigation of big hits.

Block is a strong way to mitigate damage from hits. Thanks to Guardian and using staffs, we sit nicely at 36% block and 10% spell block. If we cast a spell every 4 seconds, we get up to 20% spell block. If we attack once every 4 seconds, we're at 46% block. For 2 seconds every 5 seconds, we get +50% block, which brings us up to cap. Since it's got about 40% uptime, on average that means we're sitting at roughly 66% block.

Fortify gives us a great boost to survivability. We're sacrificing a bit of damage for it, but it's worth it. If we get a staff that grants us this as a seventh link, no damage is lost!

Regeneration: While not massive, Holy Relic grants us regen. Guardian then grants us even more, and a periodic massive boost.

Curse and Elemental Ailment Removal: Every 5 seconds, all curses and elemental ailments are removed.

Reduced Curse Effect: From Guardian and Sanctum of Thought, we get 45% reduced curse effect. Curses are half as effective, and are automatically removed every 5 seconds.

Reduced Extra Damage taken from Critical Strikes gives us 20% less extra damage taken. It's great.

Increased max resistances: We get +2 max fire resistance and +1 cold and lightning resistance. THat's 8%/4% less damage taken of those elements.

Blind makes enemies have a 50% chance to miss you. We're getting it from the Holy Relic, as well as from Flesh and Stone while in sand stance if we can fit it in.

Meat Shield Zombies taunt for you, they block projectiles, and give you permanent onslaught. What's not to love?

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Main Attack

These are all one link, but are listed in order of importance.

4L: Dominating Blow - Melee Splash - Faster Attacks - Melee Physical Damage

5L: Fortify/Endurance Charge on Melee Stun

6L: Ruthless

7L: Culling Strike

If you have an elder staff with either Endurance Charge on Melee Stun or Fortify, that will adjust these links. Endurance Charge on Melee Stun is not needed if you have a Warlord's Mark ring.

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Herald of Purity

4L: Herald of Purity - Melee Physical Damage - Deathmark - Minion Damage

5L: Brutality

6L: Ruthless

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Holy Relic and Golem

3L: Summon Holy Relic - Increased AoE - Blind

1L: Summon Carríon Golem

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Leap Slam and Zombies

4L: Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Raise Zombie - Meat Shield

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Various Miscellaneous

2L: Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration

1L: War Banner

1L: Flesh Offering

Optional Flesh and Stone

Flesh and Stone is a nice addition to the build, but something you'll struggle to fit in with mana reservation if you also have a 6L Herald of Purity. In Sand Stance, this will give you blind to nearby enemies and less damage taken from range, which is strong. In blood stance you'll get free maim.

Linking Maim to Flesh and Stone makes the maim from blood stance even stronger. It also increases the mana reservation. If you are in sand stance, this does nothing.

Flesh and Stone - (Optionally) Maim

You want to prioritize the herald and war banner as your reservations. Experiment with flesh and stone to see if you can fit it in without your mana dropping so low you can't reliably attack.

Desecrate can be used to get easier access to corpses for Flesh Offering and Zombies. Can be slotted into our weapon swap.

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Passive Tree

Radiant Crusade - Unwavering Crusade(damage) or Bastion of Hope(tankiness) - Time of Need

Lab1 - Normal Lab - The first choice will always be Radiant crusade. Lots more damage.

Lab2 - Cruel Lab - Unwavering Crusade gets you increased damage for your allies, increased attack speed, increased AoE for their now native crusade slam, and intimidate which makes enemies take more damage. Bastion of Hope gives you a ton of block chance, helping with survivability. I usually go for Unwavering Crusade.

Lab3 - Merciless Lab - Whichever you didn't pick in Cruel Lab.

Lab4 - Endless Lab - Time of Need gets us reduced curse effectiveness, some more regen, and curse/ailment removal. We'll likely want some ailment removal on flasks, but this does help limit the need for it. Curse removal won't be needed at all, since we get 45% total reduced effectiveness of curses, and they will never last more than 5 seconds.

What we didn't get and why:
Radiant Faith is a strong node, but it relies on stacking large amounts of mana to achieve the ridiculous energy shield levels it's famous for. In SSF, we can't reliably achieve that. For similar reasons we are not reserving life, due to the risky nature of it without large amounts of ES. Unwavering Faith is not a particularly interesting node for a solo Guardian, as minions do not benefit much from it.

Harmony of Purpose is very powerful, but ultimately not worth losing the defenses of either of the nodes we'd replace for it. We don't hit often enough to reliably proc the 10% chance.

Guardian promotes a hybrid playstyle between melee and summoner. While the changes in 3.8 diminished that a bit, the new stuff is quite good still! Permanent onslaught, free resists, and more damage done. Bastion of Hope provides us with great block, while Time of Need nets us curse resistance and ailment removal. While the ascendancy is no longer required for dominating blow + herald of purity, it's still quite good for it.

Major: Soul of Lunaris. All effects are lovely for survivability.

Minor: Soul of Shakari or Ralakesh.

Shakari reduces our chaos damage taken and makes us immune to poison after capturing a soul. Chaos damage is a concern, as we're using energy shield on top of our health rather than getting Chaos Inoculation for chaos immunity.

Ralakesh reduces physical damage taken over time, which armour does not help with. This is wonderful for the labyrinth, as it makes most traps do less damage. Combined with our regen, it allows us to almost ignore the traps and just run straight through.

As this build is made with a pure SSF playstyle in mind, none of the gear in this section is mandatory. The only unique we're aiming for is a nice thing to have for bossfights, but is by no means mandatory for the build to work.

NOTE: The gear that is linked in each section is not strictly optimal. Treat them as a guideline, with the text acting as the optimal goal. The gear is going to improve as I get better gear.

Assume that every slot wants Life. Armour is a lower priority.






















While leveling, the base type of items is less important. Use what gives you the best modifiers and sockets.

Base type: Armour, except the Bone Helmet. Armour/Energy Shield is an acceptable secondary option if you get a really good drop. Avoid non-armour bases.

Stat priorities: Always prioritize defenses. Potential damage pales in comparison. Aim to overcap your resists by 34% to be safe from elemental weakness curses. This means you want each resist to be at 109% or more.

-Life
-Resists to cap
-Armour
-Resists to overcap
-Minion Stats (damage/attack speed)
-Personal Stats (damage/attack speed)

Start with Smite + Zombies + Holy Relic. Use Frostblink as early movement before Leap Slam. War Banner is available early on. Get Herald of Purity at level 16, Dominating Blow at level 28.