[3.10] - Blade Blast Glad - LL tank with 7.5k ES, Aegis Aurora, 120+ k armour, 2M DPS - All content

The idea is to replenish a lot of energy shield on block. We achieve this with Salwart commander notable, Aegis aurora and gladiator's high block. To use all 3 auras, we go low life with Shavrones

Stalwart Commander
* Grace has 30% increased Aura Effect
* Determination has 30% increased Aura Effect
* Discipline has 30% increased Aura Effect

Stawlart Commander x 12 = +360 % effect for these 3 aura:
* Lvl 20 discipline : 217*4.6 = 998 ES
* Lvl 20 grace : 2575*4.6 = 11845 Evasion
* Lvl 20 determination : 51*4.6 = 234 % more armour

With Iron reflexes, grace and determination gives you 11845*3.34 = 39633 armour. And that is before any %armour increase and not factoring armour on gear or other source of aura effect increase.

With min-maxed gear you can go up to 130+ k armour. With Aegis aurora, that's 2600 ES recovered on block.

With Pain forged, Violent retaliation and Versatile combatant, we are nearly all the time at 79% block / spell block.

There are various way to go for damage, but I have choosen Blade Blast for various reasons :
* It is a spell and we are low life, we have 30% more damages with Pain attunement
* It is a physical spell, we block a lot of hits and it can be boosted with violent retaliation (50 blocks in the 10 past second = 400 % increased physical damage)
* It can shotgun on bosses if we have a lot of blades to detonate
* It can be cast automatically with cast on critical
* We don't need a very high % crit because if we don't crit, blades accumulate and detonates after

Blade blast is paired with Bladefall in Poet's Pen :
* Combine well with Blade Blast supported by cast on crit
* Gladiator has better increases in attack speed than in cast speed

We go pure physical :
* High more from brutality
* Vulnerability on hit on Shaper touch is cheap this league
* We can stack -% to total physical damage
* Combine well with Outmatch and Outlast or Blood in the eyes
* Combine well with war banner

We go crit :
* 6 x precise commander on medium cluster jewels = 300% increase crit chance and +90 to crit multi
* Allow to cast blade blast with cast on crit linked to power siphon
* We're on the bottom left of the tree where transcendant flesh shines

The quality is not very good and video capture droped my FPS. Delirium is hard for my computer but I will try to make better ones soon.

Simulacrum, waves 19 and 20 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BP3F0-jrnE&feature=youtu.be

Maze of the minotaur, to evaluate Boss DPS :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWXUobvzzJw

A quick recorded video of a run to kill a conqueror (A lvl7), with a metamorph fight and a good stack of delirium splinters :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF-naYiJHRQ&feature=youtu.be

Pro :
* Very tanky, especially against physical hit (very high armour)
* Lag / Freeze friendly if you re not in degen
* Decent clear speed (I regularly have 15+ delirium splinters per map)
* Can do all content
* Can do all map mods excepts phys reflect

Cons :
* Vulnerable to high elemental spikes or degen (we're not a herald stacking build with 90 @all res)
* Lots of builds clear faster
* Not a starter league, need some currency to gear up
* Small light radius

https://pastebin.com/PDMJ4wKp

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAQCAANdBosJuwomDPcOPBRxFHUY2xm0G5cg4yFgKaUqYzJOOlI9AECgRJ5Gt0nVTP9OKlO7W69eE1_aYVJoWGhlapNyqXTxhmCJ2I9gkAqS95stnMSplayvr3q3Ir54vqe-rcC_wo7Tb9eW5ebqGO9O82_z3fcy-AL4ofjr?accountName=Tartos&characterName=Tartank_Two

Ascendencies (order of acquisition) :
* Pain forged
* Versatile combatant
* Violent retaliation
* Outmatch and Outlast or Blood in the eyes

Anointment :
* Fusillade if you're low on accuracy
* Assassination for the crit
* Foresight if you're low on ES
* Diamond skin, Sanctuary or Faith and Steel if you lack resists
* Charisma for mana reservation reduction
* Soul of steel for max res

Here is my current gear, I will details various gear tiers later


I still have to work on the flasks


You can add a crit Cindershallow Urn and if you have enought currency a Bottled Faith.

Some explanations:
* Martyr's Crown gives us Pain attunement
* Kaom's roots have no movespeed, but they give us freeze and stun immunity, and gives us minimal action speed. Without them, you can be stuck in permanent delirium maps or simulacrum when you have 50-100+ enemies hitting you and 10 stack of debuf. You can replace them with rare boots with tailwind and cannot be frozen for boss fight like Sirus.
* We don't have easy access to %increased energy shield, so we get them on jewelry and stack as much intelligence as we can


Watcher eyes mods:
Get + % block chance while affected by determination. For the second one, you can choose between :
* % increased movement speed while affected by grace
* % energy shield regen while affected by discipline
* energy shield gain for each enemy hit while affected by discipline
* % increase energy shield recovery rate while affected by discipline
* Flask charge when you crit while affected by precision
* + % attack speed while affected by precision
* + % crit multi while affected by precision

In Poet's Pen : Bladefall + concentrated effect + (awakened) spell cascade => Concentrated effect pairs well with Blade Blast for overlapping explosions. Awakened spell cascade is a great damage boost but is very expensive. Do not put quality on bladefall or spell cascade : it increased blades spreading and reduce Blade Blast explosion overlap.

6L in body armour : Power siphon + Blade blast + cast on crit + brutality + increased area of effect (omit for 5L) + Energy shield leech => I use energy shield leech because we have no ES regen

In shield : grace + discipline + enlighten

In helm and gloves :
* A 2L RR with bloodmagic + determination
* A 2L RR with shield charge + fortify
* Flamedash (or wathever moveskill you like), precision, war banner, portal

If you replace Kaom's roots with rare boots with "cannot be frozen", a lvl 20 CWDT setup with vall motenshell + bladevortex or bladefall + tempest shield

You can start mapping with 2 larges cluster jewels, but you will need 3 to perform well in red maps.

3 large cluster jewels with 2 jewels sockets :
* Small passives grants 12% physical damage
* Iron breaker : enemies endurance charges or physical reductions can cut our damage a lot, this notable helps us to go through their defense
* Furious Assault : Attack speed (for Poet's Pen) + generic physical damage
* Master the fundamentals or Battle Hardened. Choose between these 2 if you need resistances or want higher armour

6 medimum cluster jewels :
* Small passives grants 6% increased effect of auras from your skills
* Stalwart commander
* Precise commander
* 1 jewel socket

6 small cluter jewels :
* Small passives grants 6% incresed energy shield
* Stalwart commander
* Added passive have % increased effect (35% is best because small passives gives 8% ES, but they are expensives)
* Additional stats or resists according to your needs - try do grab chaos res here

Major : Soul of Arakaali => reduce shock effects and damage taken over time + ES increased recovery rate
Minor : Soul of Abberath or Soul of Shakiri => to reduce fire or chaos damage over time

Bandits : Help Alira (crit multi + we lack resistances because we use lots of uniques) or kill all bandits for 2 skill points

As a LL ES build with cluster jewels, it may be tricky to lvl it up for less experienced players. Here is my approach, since the guide doesn't discuss this (feel free to add yours btw :))

The goal:
- to reach lvl.60-63, where you can wear your Shav's and large cluster jewels and switch to ES, as comfortably as possible.

Assumptions:
- you have a budget of 4-20c to spare for leveling items and a couple of regrets (not unreasonable as the build can be quite expensive and is not for the start of the league).

Steps:

1. Pick the leveling gem of your choice. I went for Blade Vortex, as it was easily accessible since Act1 and is consistent with the build logic (phys spell).

2. Link it with the support gems of choice. For Blade Vortex, I went with added damage support gems (fire, lightning, cold) and iron will which were readily available and had a low level requirement. I then switched/added to increased aoe and spell echo once they were accessible (act3-4). Link these gems to a 4L-6L armor (ideally a tabula rasa). Damage is more than enough for leveling content, but you have to be close to enemies, which brings a question on survivability that is dealt in Step (4).

3. Choose your leveling uniques. To support a spell choice, I went with Axiom as the weapon, and Hrimsorrow (fated to Hrimburn) as gloves. Adjust accordingly if you go for a phys attack skill instead. Use Atziri's Foible in case you run into mana problems (e.g. due to the 6L provided by Tabula Rasa).


4. Follow the same skill tree development as the guide, leaving open gaps where the jewel slots are (or filling them with jewels you get while leveling). As you progress through the tree, take all major +% life slots to increase survivability. Your skilltree by lvl.60 should look like something like this:



To get a nice flat boost in life, consider wearing Springleaf and its fated version The Oak.

Note: From lvl.30 and on, you can change weapon to the Poet's Pen and equip the gems of the build; however, as the large cluster jewel haven't been placed yet you will have no extra phys damage so your damage will be quite low. I did better DPS at that point with BV.

5. Once you can wear Shav's, respec all life nodes (around 15-20 respec points, most of which you have already gained during leveling). Use the points you reclaimed to populate the first cluster jewel group and then proceed to the second as you start mapping. Follow then the rest of the guide.

* A8 Sirus
* Hydra on 100 % delirium / 90 % quantity map
* Kosis on wave 20 simulacrum
* Uber Elder
* Cortex