[3.27] Tiger King - Dominating Blow of Inspiring - Farrul Bloodline Guardian
 All Content Viable. PoB: https://pobb.in/bqZsoKfYIxQC Current character link: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Gerrador-4355/characters?characterName=Tíogairrí (alternatively while still up: https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/keepers/character/Gerrador-4355/Tíogairrí) Rippy 10 mod T17 Boss Showcase Disclaimers:
Spoiler
This is NOT a Mageblood/Headhunter build, but I have easily invested 100+ divines to get it to this point. That said, each slot has gradual upgrades you can make over time without needing expensive initial items to turn the build "on".
Theoretical PoB DPS when accounting for AG/Spectre buffs is upwards of 50mil; however, realistic DPS expectations against bosses should be closer to 20-40mil. I have seen in-game tooltip numbers break 13mil DPS. This was my starter build for Keepers and I comfortably cleared all Ubers (Exarch being the most annoying with minions interacting poorly with his Ball phase), leveled to 100 solo, and farmed out 40/40 challenges with it. Spectres and AG survive in most juiced T17s and Uber boss fights. This is NOT a minion build in the traditional sense, it's a Strike build with 30-40 minions under one Trenchcoat. Why do we run so many minions if they aren't our main damage? The new Farrul Bloodline's Primal Roar notable encourages us to run as many minions as possible. We get up to 80% increased attack speed with a 40 minion cap. However, this normally wouldn't be enough to justify a Zoo playstyle for an attack build. What pushes the Zoo setup over the edge this league is our newly introduced Bonemeld amulet from Uber Dread: Now for each summoned minion we are granted more value; in-total gaining 2% attack speed and 4% global defences for each minion. Bonemeld also grants our minions some survivability via 50% of our resistances to help keep our Spectres and AG alive. (PoB and poeninja currently do not properly calculate global defences from Bonemeld so you need to manually add it) How do we get 30-40 minions??
Or a total of 29 minions we can keep up with near 100% uptime. A new gem added this league can help us get another 1-8 minions with somewhat regular uptime: I think there's still a bit more work GGG could put into improving Living Lightning as a minion gem (namely increasing or removing their attack limit), but for our purposes Tempest Shield will summon 1-2 of them each time we block for some easy additional triggered minions. Optional: CWDT linked to Golem(s), Skeletons, or SRS for additional automated minions. (I found Golem costs got a little too high for lvl 21 CWDT, but Lightning or Stone Golem have nice buffs) Why Dominating Blow of Inspiring? Dominating Blow of Inspiring lets us convert our minion stats to attack damage at a disgusting rate. A 20% quality gem has 300% of minion damage applying to the attack. You could scale this to 375% at 50% quality using an Ashes of the Stars, but I think the opportunity cost from losing Bonemeld for defences is far too large to justify. Each large minion cluster jewel can result in 390% increased damage and 40% increased attack speed with Spiritual Command. Alongside this we have other sources of minion damage including Brutal Restraint getting 20% per notable (60% inc dmg each), Bone Rings get 37-42% at T1 (111-126% inc dmg), glove essence prefix, and our Primal Roar ascendancy grants 80% if we've warcried recently for another 240% inc damage steroid. Helmets also have % minion damage as an Essence prefix but aren't worth going for over +2 minion gems w/ defence mods to fill them out. We get a considerable amount of flat damage scaling via Guardian's Unwavering Crusade granting Anger, Hatred, and Wrath at the equivalent of level 27 gems. Due to Hatred granting a large portion of phys as extra cold we want a high pDPS weapon for freezing, and crafted "Hits can't be Evaded" to ignore accuracy requirements. Anarchic Spiritblade is perfect for this purpose to gain full physical conversion and grant us phys reflect immunity. For lower budget a high eDPS weapon with either crafted or Vagan's unveiled "Hits can't be Evaded" would be ideal. Since we are going tri-elemental for damage scaling we need sources of ele shred and/or penetration. My preferred method is Forbidden Flame + Flesh jewels to steal Inevitable Judgement from Inquisitor. (these jewels were a total of ~20d at the time I bought them during week 2 Keepers) Before this we can use a combination of Ele Weakness, Scorch, and Trinity. However, as a short-range single-target Strike skill we need ways to improve clear and QoL. I would recommend at least +2 strike targets via Ancestral Call, Glove implicit, Strike Mastery, and/or Tulgraft to feel comfortable. Additionally, a source of melee splash like Tribal Fury or Melee Splash is also important to improve clear; I prefer Tribal Fury since it's not too far away on pathing and grants us +0.2-0.5m of strike distance that we scale with Sione's Ambition for longer-range Strikes. How tanky are we? Short answer: Very. Longer answer: Only against hits, but we have a decent pool for responding to DoTs before they kill us. DoT mitigation is a sore spot that could use improvement. We are an Aegis Aurora build with 78/80 block, 10k+ ES, and 80k+ AR in maps:  In order to get a large amount of AR we are leveraging Prospero's Protection + Energised Armour tech: Energised Armour on Arcane Guarding grants us 20% inc AR + 280% inc AR from our equipped Aegis Aurora, doubled by Prospero's Protection. Unequipping Prospero and Energising cuts my AR in half. How about support minions? 4 Spectre limit from lvl 21 gem, +2 minion gems on Bonemeld, and +2 minion gems on helmet. Spectre options depending on budget:
I prefer Blasphemer, Judgemental Spirit, Forest Warrior (-> Spectral Leader after getting Kingmaker), and Carnage Chieftain (-> Forest Tiger when you can afford dropping 20d on a spectre). Perfect Guardian Turtle can be strong but is very slow and can leave our presence too easily for my liking, given how much AR we lose for Aegis recovery; I would recommend using Determ yourself. Animate Guardian Helmet:
Body Armour:
Gloves:
Boots:
Weapon:
GRAFTS For the 3.27 Keepers league we have access to incredibly powerful attack Grafts, especially for this build: Jolting Eshgraft requires a +4 gem suffix to reach its lvl 34 breakpoint for 2% -> 3% more top-end damage, and can roll +4% crit multi per stack (10 stacks) giving a total ramped statline of: " Additionally, % increased minion damage as a prefix is normally overlooked on these grafts for other attack builds, but for this build 50%+ minion damage grants us 150%+ attack damage. Since we get a large amount of Maximum damage we can take it further with Volatility to fully capitalize on Storming Eshgraft's Lucky Damage while on Radiant Ground in addition to a large chunk of flat lightning scaling. Progression I would NOT recommend leveling with Minion-based Dom Blow, use any other Templar starter like SRS/Absolution Guardian, Totem Hiero, or KB. (Or strong leveling builds available later into league like Foulborn Doedre's Scorn or The Sundered Will)
Spoiler
Earlier transitions can start life-based with AR gear before acquiring Aegis; Prospero's Protection doesn't work well at this stage since we would lose our Body Armour's defences. A high life + AR shield like Lioneye's Remorse can work well here, if you can find a cheap % life gain on block shield or Surrender these would be even better.
After acquiring Bonemeld you will want to get more ES on gear to benefit from its global defences - this can still be hybrid life/ES but you will want a pure ES chest before swapping to Prospero's Protection. At this stage you can use a Foulborn Surrender for flat ES on block before getting enough AR for Aegis if you'd prefer. Before taking CI you need much more chaos res on gear to mitigate Bonemeld's -reses. (it's all reses, not just elemental) For offenses, before taking Farrul bloodline we don't need crits to proc Spectral Tigers so you can start as RT with any good DPS 1H melee weapon. Later on any high ele DPS 1Her can craft Hits can't be Evaded as a prefix for 3 exalts, ideally with good attack speed and crit. (high pDPS Anarchic Spiritblade is ideal at top-end but makes it more awkward to get mana leech since we don't deal any phys, a cheaper wep has more options for phys leeched as mana) Take these nodes before Farrul Bloodline, gives us good block uptime and Harmony of Purpose was buffed for 2x passive overlapping Shrine buffs:  Prioritize getting a helmet with +2 global or +2 local minion gem lvls via corruption, since we need to get Raise Spectre to lvl 25 for a 4th maximum spectre and to improve Spectre/Animated Guardian survivability. You only need +2 gem levels for this, Bonemeld provides the other +2, but you will need to work towards a lvl 21 Raise Spectre even if it doesn't have quality. The helmet does not need to be fractured to start out. We still need a considerable amount of minion damage to scale our Dom Blow damage, so even before getting ideal i84 35% effect clusters you should still be looking for worse clusters, even settling for i80 10-11pt 25% effect T2-3 res, attribute, and/or minion attack speed suffixes. Even a bad one is still 12% minion dmg -> 36% attack dmg + secondary stats per point. Additional Tech Keepers league introduced Foulborn uniques and it is incredibly easy to turn on Foulborn Inspired Learning by putting 1-2 of them in a Cluster jewel to ignore their radius check. (this seems bugged at times for some sockets, e.g. Resolute Technique socket ILs seem to check a large radius from the socket the cluster was socketed in and turning it off when spec'ing Battle Trance; however Eldritch Battery socket doesn't seem to check and remains active even with Influence spec'd) Second Sight - we take Brutal Restraint denoted to Nasima for 25% more critical strike chance since we already ignore accuracy with our "Hits can't be evaded" weapon craft. Watcher's Eye - Ele Relics grant Anger, Hatred, AND Wrath and Perfect Judgemental Spirit grants Discipline; together this greatly opens up our options for Watcher's Eye modifiers. Jewels with multiple mods among: Anger crit multi, Hatred base crit, Wrath ES leech, Determ block chance/flat AR, and Discipline spell block/ES regen can all be quite powerful and cheap for otherwise undesirable combinations of 2-3 mods. HOPE YOU HAVE FUN! Let me know if you find any new tech that seems spicy for the build. I'm writing this up after a fun league of min-maxing, although I still plan to double-corrupt Aegises going for spell block/X and fix attack block better on tree with block tattoos in order to drop Aggressive Bastion for Disemboweling crit wheel. A 3rd notable on our Megalomaniac for block would also go a long way. Last edited by Gerrador#4355 on Nov 19, 2025, 3:37:53 PM Last bumped on Nov 20, 2025, 7:43:12 AM
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Nice in-depth guide! Is there a specific build setting for leveling or a generic one until maps is the most recommended?
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For leveling I would not recommend starting Dom Blow in Acts. For leaguestart I tried being stubborn and committing to Dom Blow from the get-go, going life-based until I could transition to Aegis blockcap and a good 1H wep; but sticking to minion-based Dom Blow it fell off a bit too much into red maps for my liking.
If you're dead-set on starting out as a Guardian summoner I would recommend an SRS or Absolution leveling build and swap once you get Dom Blow of Inspiring, Aegis, a decent weapon, and enough excess resistances to offset Bonemeld. Any generically good Templar starter will work though; Storm Burst totems, KB, Flameblast totems, etc. |
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Hello, can you post some steps of leveling/proggressing per few levels/budgeds?
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I've added a "Progression" section with some tips for transitioning earlier to a bare-bones life-based version of this build in maps before swapping to ES and CI.
Talked a little bit more about RT and early weapon selection, but much of the gear for this build depends on other gear/synergies so each stage of progression takes swapping out multiple pieces of gear as you progress through life -> life/ES -> CI. |
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What's your opinion on using Rigwald's Hunt for the body armour? You lose the ES and reservation from a rare crafted chest, but you gain:
- 20% chance for minions to deal double damage due to the Fortify provided by your AG (assuming you use Kingmaker) - Up to 12% minion attack speed - 15% minion max life conversion to your own health pool Giving up the ES from a crafted chest seems a little extreme, but everything else you gain from Rigwald's Hunt is juicy. Last edited by Gwonam#5505 on Nov 19, 2025, 7:13:29 PM
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Rigwald's Hunt would be for a completely different style of build, we don't benefit from "Minions deal double damage" type modifiers, only increases and reductions.
This version of Dom Blow deals less than 2% of our total damage from the minions themselves, uses global defence scaling for an ES pool that requires a high ES chest, barely scales minion life (only 74% on tree), and wouldn't benefit from the AR on Rigwalds at all due to Prospero's Protection. |
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Hey, thanks for the guide! Looks super interesting.
Which mods can this build not do? Thanks! |
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