Super late to the party, but I love the game. Wish I’d given it a try sooner.
This is my first character. I usually spin about it in arpgs, so I made a warlord to Gutsmash things after looking at the legendary 2h items. Felt good for a while, but I’ve hit a wall at SR 34. I’ve looked around at other versions of this flavor of build and they’re clearing much higher stuff, so I’m obviously doing something wrong.
Specifically struggling with getting shotgunned by Zantarin. Could be a l2p issue for sure, but the shard level is so low relative to what other people clear I assumed I should still be facerolling - Is that incorrect? I also forget to use consumables - Do they make that big a difference?
My devotions are pretty generic (I think?). Gear is standard stuff except for the rings and the boots. I think maybe Gargabols aren’t ideal, but the right one in particular is propping up my resists. Boots are a weird choice I think, but they have resists I need and the max run speed feels good. I assume the proc is useful, but I don’t really know.
I’ve watched videos, but a lot of them are old and I know there have been a lot of balance changes, specifically to consumables, so I don’t know what’s realistic at this point. I’m assuming it must be more than what I’m doing, though.
Here’s my dude. Any guidance the pros could offer would be awesome:
SR was squished to contain fewer shards, so “lower” shards are now more dangerous.
If you are looking at old videos of SR80-81 runs, that would be the equivalent of SR32-33 now.
SR34-35 would be old SR 85-86
So you are quite high up there, definitely at the point where the challenge outweighs the rewards and your build is put to the test, even if it’s really good.
Zantarin: Don’t eat the shotgun you can’t really expect to survive that. Overcap vitality and acid res (like you have). On high enough shards, his summons can deal a lot of dmg, once he reduces your phys res. In particular the archers.
You can’t leech life from him, so sometimes it’s better to pull a 2nd boss on top of him.
That’s about it.
Some expert on phys EoR might have more input on your build.
I had the same experience when I picked this game up last year. Was hitting mid-30s shattered realm and confused how I would ever be able to survive to 70… only to learn there was no 70 anymore.
As for your build: Looks good, but could be tweaked.
You have too much armour absorption. (set and class boost it.) Something like Titan Plating (to help with reflect) or a Prismatic Diamond (another circuit breaker) in the helm would serve you better.
You do not have enough slow resist. Being slowed is pretty bad for a channeler. More points in Decorated Soldier seems obvious, that is a great skill. You could also put a Mark of the Traveller in your boots or a Topaz in the amulet. You could also swap Owl devotion for Empty Throne and also free up the augment slots in your rings for better ones. (As Throne gives you stun and freeze res too.)
Your OA is rather low for a physical character. You rely on critical hits to proc your physical resistance reduction on the Assassin’s blade, so more would be nice.(Maybe by swapping some items or finding greens with an “of attack” affix somewhere.)
More attack speed would be nice. (Though yours is not all that bad.) You could try working Consecrated Wrappings in the gloves.
I wouldn’t take so many points in Fighting Spirit. I did too on my first character (A gutsmash blade-arc Witchblade, so somewhat similar) until I figured out that the cooldown starts AFTER the effect ends. So the uptime is actually pretty bad.
Rebuke isn’t that important either on a non-retal character. People usually take just 1 point there.
I’d put more points in Haven. More health is always good, and healing increase applies to your life steal, so it’s actually good even if you do not have a shield. (And EoR really needs life steal boosts because the weapon damage is so low.)
For items, I might try a different medal and a different amulet… those items mostly support skills you don’t use. And like you said, there are better rings to be found. Combustion Band or Black Matriarch for RR, for example. You could try a green amulet or medal to fix resistances instead. (Kaisan for +1 all skills maybe? Mark of Harvoul medal?)
All that said, if you made it to shattered realm 34 you are already doing pretty darn well.
Cunning Dump is always the best on Phys / Pierce (haven’t played Bleed much but probably too)
Not changed items, tried to keep stats similar.
the scaling seems so bad though. 7p for 11 more slow res, The other stats are kinda whatever. Anyway, some item with slow res would be nice for sure but it would require a lot of gear changes because currently, without changing other items, boots are needed for overcaps.
I know I’m in minority, but I would keep Fighting Spirit, seems really good to me. In the end, you only need to apply Mark at the beginning of the fight. I bet all players would take it if the benefit was half but permanent. But it could have more than half up-time when moving between packs for example recharges and then immediately proc it at the start. But I’d would need to really test it and I have never I think so take it with a grain of salt.
rebuke is indeed somewhat sus, maybe it even needs to go against the whole armor due to how Physical damage is coded, but I’m not sure of that
besides what Sudoku mentions about not eating his shotgun, which is very key, Zantarin is also lifesteal immune, so your healing can tank, specially if you’re killing his skeletons fast/instantly and take a decent chunk dmg afterwards
Shard squish probably matters a lot tho, since 34 is pretty high with the scaling changes
Banana said we want as much %phys as possible after armour bypass change, so to me on small flat phys attack builds, like eor, it sounded in a way that i always max it for the dmg first, res second
this is way I took Bulwark because I’m not sure about other shit
Ascension absorp might be too small for high shards (?)
Turtle will not proc in time when being 1-shot(gunned)? Dunno
Or even bigger Health buffer, 30k
I was constrained by all the life leech in devo, didn’t want to lose it for them but personally I’d try less at first and rely on some other things. Turtle + Crab is a good combo Maybe Chariot even now on a 2h Phys would be nice for these 3 greens req missing for Kraken after you take full Ulzaad Definitely against Calla
ok but follow your logic and max Fighting Spirit now. I remember you were against it as well
soft-cap FS seems fine to me. If you have that in your Grim Tools I promise to not comment on that
I don’t need no to know that as I played Beginner Phys EoR Single Target in SR was not great I’ll tell you that. Which I was conquering to get SR set for a semi-budget setup that also sucked damage wise. When you have to choose between % damage and +EoR from of Scorching Ends and other shitty items without Warborn, it’s not a good time for channeling Phys like EoR Some % Physical +EoR green items would help a lot.
did a little Zant telegraph display just in case, keep an eye on his right hand wand and sunder pre warning fx
but as mentioned likely not that necessary/key culprit here, but high sr dmg scaling is
also, mebe don’t try to evade through the shotgun like i stupidly do here, just, circle around it or run back to be safe actually sidestepping projectiles
Embarrassingly, I didn’t know that’s how slow worked I was like “well, slow resist seems whatever since I’m not kiting stuff”. I thought attack speed reduction was another debuff entirely.
All of your feedback makes sense, though. I just recently noticed while building a second character how much more valuable + skills can be over raw stats on gear. Kaisan amulet definitely seems worth trying. I can pick up much more oa from jewelry, too.
Rebuke is pretty useless on a character like this. I can’t explain that choice.
But you can combine it with farming Nightbringer and Magi rings pretty easily, and that’s worth doing either way. Then you will naturally end up with a stock of Kaisan amulets, and even the ones that won’t help THIS character may very well help a future one.
I might be biased though, I love the tomb of the heretic as a dungeon for its atmosphere, so I rarely mind running it.I actually have more Kaisan amulets in my stash than Mogara, mostly because if you make lots of characters that use writs you end up encountering Kaisan naturally a lot more often than Mogara.
Mogara’s has a better affix bias pool for warriors, but the skills don’t help much, so I’d personally go for Kaisan.
That’s a good point, I do have some characters who struggle with that who might use that… would definitely be worth keeping it at 3 points at least, the first few points give 3% reflect reduction.
I remember some using these, even in guides on the forum maybe
Better than the one used in the OP, that’s for sure. Very good resistances even.
I might use it, at least in some scenarios. For example imagine trying to deal as much damage to Crate as quickly as possible before running away. Although the chance to proc is kinda low. But on the other hand EoR has many hits/s so I don’t have a clue how easy it is to proc in practice.
- and always during levelling 
to know that as I played Beginner Phys EoR 