u/JekoJeko9

PoB: https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/JekoJeko-6623/runesofaldur/character/JekoSTRIKEMAXXING

Turns out Gemling's alt quality on Perfect Strike makes it pretty easy to hit the one tap perfect timing window even with a big meaty 2 hander. Twisted Empyrean makes the skill blue and converts all the fire damage we would deal to cold, so we can do big freezes.

Rather than lean fully into mana stacking we just get a good chunk of extra mana so that we can make use of a good chunk of damage taken from mana before life to buff our hit pool.

I was surprised to find very few Gemlings running Svalinn, with 11% extra max block from magma barrier alt quality you get 84% effective block and you can also use Cast on Block as an engine for automatically spawning frost walls with 280000 life that you can blow up with Vruun's Aftermath to gain 140% extra cold damage via Verglas. Turns out you can have a second Frost Wall on selfcast as well for when you want to guarantee the Verglas buff vs bosses and the like.

With the block and hit pool we have there's no need to stack any increases to armour. The only times I've died while levelling this build have been to getting knocked down because the game thought I was still sprinting despite my character having come to a half and executed a full skill animation.

In addition to granting even more quality, Loreweave can come with a mod that gives us 1300 guard when we use our Uhtred's Chalice flask. The max res gained from this chest also can't be lowered by anything so we can run -max res maps with careless abandon and also use the Rune of the Prism in our Darkness Enthroned to get a big chunk of %all res with no downside.

For our recovery, Opportunity makes us gain about 1550 life per second (~700 from the flask itself, *1.6 from campaign bonus + herbalism I, *1.4 from 40% inc recovery rate notable) as long as we are executing perfect timing with our Perfect Strike. We need this to be on at all times so that we don't lose life to berserk degen so we are fully chill and curse immune. For temp bubble rares just stay out of the bubble, you don't have to be in it to hit them.

We make armour break apply to cold damage with a Storm's Rebuke megalomaniac for 52% increased damage taken with sundered debuff, and we run Pounce with Brutus's brain to apply Predator's Mark for another 78% increased damage taken. These debuffs can be quickly setup in the time it takes for a boss's damage reduction to fall off.

Most expensive part of the build is Rakiata's Flow but the build is fully playable without it, there's just no other way to solve for enemy cold res so effectively. I ran ele weakness curse until I could afford it.

Clear gets much better once you can get Herald of Ice armour explosion chaining going with Uul-Netol support, I couldn't get it working in t16s otherwise. But that's another very expensive upgrade.

Chaos res can be improved by spending more money on basic gearing (I miss Smith of Kitava so much).

I mention how Virtuous Barrier is terrible at 30:45 because it has no cooldown on mote loss and they're also lost on block so unless you're playing a giga evasion build in most cases you just lose all your motes while doing any mapping content where you would want them. It's up for bosses I guess but 0.5 pinnacles have weenie hut junior HP so that really doesn't matter much.

1. Daughter of Oshabi empty sockets + shrines + evasion stacking

30% ms, 80% all res and 40% max life from first lab.

Once you can start fighting Saresh, it's not too hard to get Impenetrable belt. This usually grants 100% inc armour/evasion/ES, with Oshabi ascendancy it will grant 190% (40% shrine effect from small nodes, 50% from lesser shrine node). Combine with node that gives damage from evasion and you're golden.

2. Behemoth with tattoo on rampage node

Rampage node good early on, good auras are drop only so not missing out disabling them. When you get some auras later on you can use one of the new ascendancy tattoos to replace the node and remove the downside.

If you can farm trialmaster for vaal temptation support and mitigate the degen from it, could be a strong perma vaal skill spam angle later on.

3. Scavenger map blaster

Blunderbore + Mettle + Death Rush for life + aoe, rampage and adrenaline

Pair with a Massive shrine belt later on for a big boost to life and AoE

4. Paladin slammer

Relatively boring but reliable. Infinite power warcries, big determination aura, perma consecrated ground.

Can juice the effect of consecrated ground a lot on the left side of tree now, 75% inc effect if you take Shining Justice as well as Devotion.

5. Servant of Arakaali poison minions

lv 15 envy from first lab is pretty cracked, should be able to get something like poison anime weapon of ranged arms online pretty comfortably.

PConc of bouncing with raise spiders node was also a popular angle in the last benchleague phrecia event.

Share any other good starter angles you've spotted in the comments!

Most shield wall builds aren't using Nebuloch and the ones that are aren't using it with Amor Mandragora and Bearcry technology.

You can make endurance charges on demand with Ferocious Roar + Enraged Warcry (being in bear form generates endurance charges from rage spent) and consume them to guarantee critical hits with Shield Wall via Nebuloch, letting you scale your crit damage bonus to the moon.

This build plays best on Smith of Kitava due to its ability to solve defences at a much lower opportunity cost than Titan, giving you more room to scale speed and damage along with other nice bonuses.

Moba: https://mobalytics.gg/poe-2/profile/bold-gun-os7n1k/builds/0798b591-9014-4bf3-8c37-36ca37fb153b

PoB: https://pobb.in/7OeRAPWuxc5Z

With two tier 1 supports, from as early as level 4, we can get EQ's miserable 4 second delay down to 1.4s, which makes it perfectly viable as a 1 button clearing and bossing skill. The skill has no '+total to attack time' so using a faster 1 handed mace and taking skill speed on the tree is actually rewarding. As long as you keep hitting different spots of ground on rotation the time between ground patches detonating becomes the same as your attack time with the skill.

On another practice run I'm up to act 3 killing everything with just EQ and the occasional boneshatter with a 1 hander. As long as you keep your weapon upgraded (current league mechanic always helps a lot with this) it's smooth sailing. What's more, the 1 handed nodes on the passive tree even have increased attack speed, not reduced! Taking a handful of reduced skill effect duration on the tree also lowers the delay from 1.4s to 1s.

Don't dual wield though, it lowers your speed and your damage for some reason.