[3.2] Spectral Shield Throw - Gladiator - Pure Phys

INTRODUCTION

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Thanks for checking out my guide! I've played a ton of Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, and was super stoked to see the Spectral Shield Throw gem added in Bestiary! I heard early on that the damage was really low, but it seemed fine for me leveling so I wanted to see if I could make it work!

Edit: Thank you all for the amazing support you've given me! I've had multiple people message me with other build suggestions and tips! I've updated the build with new armor choices, new skill gems, and most importantly a new path of building. Check that out if you'd like a detailed breakdown of my skills, items, and passives.
https://pastebin.com/gSWFAcxv

Current Currency Cost: ~100c
Keep in mind that things like my gripped gloves and steel ring are optional, and not mandatory! See the gear section for cheaper alternatives for starting!

Last Edit for a while - I'm blown away by how many people have commented and viewed this guide, so thank you all for that! I'm actually about to head to the Galapagos to work on a nature conservation for a month, so I won't be replying or editing at all. I haven't tested this build out endgame at all, but it was a really fun low-mid tier mapper, and I transitioned into playing a poets pen VD build for higher maps. I wouldn't go phys anymore in the league, the Ele. version is very strong, but I think that early in the league this is a great starter and currency farmer. Anyway, thank you guys again so much, it's been awesome seeing so many people helping each other out in the comments!

Abbreviations I'll be using:
SST = Spectral Shield Throw


OVERVIEW

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Pros:

+ Good Clearspeed
+ Easy/Cheap to Gear
+ Reliable Bossing
+ Super Tanky via Blocking

Cons:

- Damage is not INSANE
- Not a lot of Guides or Info


SKILL TREE

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Ascendancy:

Gladiator

Passive Tree

Edit: Swapped a couple nodes for the Point Blank Passive Node on the tree.
Edit Edit; After a bunch of testing and suggestions from everyone (ty guys so much!) I've updated my tree and my path of building link. We're up to 160kdps on a 5 (pseudo 6) link so thanks a ton guys!



Ascendancy Points:
1). Blood In the Eyes
2). Gratuitous Violence
3). Painforged
4). Violent Retaliation

Bandits:
Kill All for +2 Passives



SKILL TREE EXPLANATION

Passive Tree

Duelist is a great starting spot for this build. We have access to plenty of life to the left or us, as well as the large cluster of life near scion. We have access to 4 Jewel nodes, which is a fair number but not insane. Grab any bleed nodes once you've swapped into Brutality, probably around level 45-50. This sets you up well for the 2nd set of Lab points into Gratuitous Violence nicely. I also grabbed Berserking near the life cluster until I had decent attack speed from other sources.


JEWELS
Poacher's Aim: I use this because not only do you get it early on for free, but the Projectile's Pierce an additional time is very valuable for clear speed.


Rare Jewels: Look for Global Physical, Projectile Damage, Attack Speed, Attack Speed While Holding a Shield, Physical Damage While Holding a Shield, Bleed Damage/Durration, all in that order.
For Defense try for %Life and Resistances.



SKILL DPS

Buffed DPS


Hideout DPS



DEFENSE

Flasked Defense



GEAR


GEAR EXPLANATION

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LINKS AND GEMS


Main DPS Setup



SST is a Physical Projectile Attack, and can scale with gems that apply to projectiles and attacks, but not melee attacks. That's important to know, and why we don't use melee physical damage and instead use Iron Grip.

While Leveling, it's definitely worth replacing Iron Grip with Faster Attacks. Once you get enough strength on gear and in your passive tree (for me around level 45) you'll want to recolor your sockets and swap into Iron Grip.

If you can sustain full life most of the time, damage on full life is a great gem to swap for Iron Grip (take that passive on the tree if you do).

Faster Projectiles and Fork are both great for clear speed, but take up a gem slot that might be used for more damage, so it's up to you!

Also remember that at lvl 70 we get a free link to lvl 15 pierce with Lioneye's Vision. It's not only a 15% more damage modifier but gives us another source of Pierce which helps our shattered shield projectiles clear much more reliably. It's not worth subbing in pierce as a gem before that however.

CWDT Setup



-Pretty Standard CWDT.
-I use Stone Golem for a little more health regen.

Mobility Setup



Shield Charge is an amazing movement skill, and is perfect to proc our fortify which gives us a big toughness buff! We're charging in anyway to benefit from our curse aura, so it's pretty much a free buff. Procs Onslaught in packs surprisingly well.

Aura Setup


Drop when you get Brutality:


Once you transition into Brutality, you'll want to drop Herald of Ash and just have Vulnerability supported. Not sure what to put in the free slot, if you can find a way to get double curse you could use Warlords or Poacher's Mark for some more leech/charge generation.


Ancestral Protector



LEVELING

Leveling early on is pretty easy, I just used Molten Strike with Ancestral Call until I got SST. Using Hatred and The Princess early on is a huge damage increase. Once you can not run out of mana a lot, add in Herald of Ash for even better AoE and Single Target damage. Any Iron Rings are also great for damage. The clearing speed of SST was super nice and smooth.

You don't have to use Molten Strike, any beginning duelist strategy will work fine with the early skill tree.

While Leveling I didn't use Brutality Support and that let me abuse Hatred and Herald of Ash for the %Phys damage added as additional %Ele damage.


GAMEPLAY VIDEOS

I've got videos on the way today, in the meantime feel free to check out my twitch at twitch.tv/psdoug315



THE END
Thanks for Reading! Any tips/edits feel free to comment and let me know! I know it's not a complete build by any means, but it's feeling good so far!

Here's my Path of Building with my Goal Passives and current gear if anyone wants it!
Edit: New Pastebin for PoB with updated Passives - https://pastebin.com/gSWFAcxv

Edit: I like the idea of getting rid of blasphemy and using Vulnerability in the CWDT to proc it. My concern is that I kill most packs before they hit me and I'd lose that damage. I'll test it out and let you guys know! I'd love to move into blood magic but might wait for impresense amulet :)

Cool Thread
Couple of Questions:

Why not pick up the Iron Grip and Point Blank Keystones? Seems like they would be naturals for this. The Iron Grip would free up a slot in your main attack. Point Blank would be a nice boost on damage especially for the splinters that would hit things right out of the gate.

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GigaClon escreveu:

Cool Thread
Couple of Questions:

Why not pick up the Iron Grip and Point Blank Keystones? Seems like they would be naturals for this. The Iron Grip would free up a slot in your main attack. Point Blank would be a nice boost on damage especially for the splinters that would hit things right out of the gate.

Great question! I thought the same thing about Iron Grip on the passive tree, so I took it and swapped my skills around, first subbing in chance to bleed and then attack speed. Neither one of them did as much dps and it's because the Iron Grip Gem has a ~30% damage buff on it, and the node doesn't.

A problem I ran into was actually the number of support gems that effected the skill. When you go pure physical, but the skill is not a melee attack, you run out of support gems that add value very quickly.

And for point blank, that's a great pointer there! I had only messed with the gem but not the actual passive! and for 3 passives it's a great pickup, I'll add that right away :)

I'd love to see a video of this in action.

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Keisuke102 escreveu:

I'd love to see a video of this in action.

Hey! Thanks for the request, I threw together a quick stream and uploaded it, gotta upload it somewhere other than YouTube to embed it, but here's the link for it in the meantime!

https://youtu.be/HGUp8qoMJVk

How we craft high armour tower shield?

I bought an ilvl 79 elder base collosal tower shield. (White).

Very interesting!
Although I think that I will go for Iron grip skill anyway and use faster projectile support.

Hi there!
I've been playing SST gladiator since league started. I guess we both based on the same idea found somewhere in the internet. At the moment I'm 85lvl and after a lot of experiments with gems and passives I'm amazed how much I like that gameplay. I'd like to share it with u. So, few ideas from me:

Weapon.


Armor.

Gloves.


Boots.


The rest of ideas are almost like mine ;) So that's about the gear.

Gems.


I think that's all I wanted to share... I have almost the same tooltip damage like u. U can check my tree on my profile. There is some differences but as I said - I'm still testing and learning. I'm not sure about Point Blank (maybe for late game bosses) but Iron Grip and Resolute Technique are must have for me.

Keep up the good work with guide and thank you for few nice ideas. That skill is not so bad like most of people think.

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eonwe12 escreveu:

I think that's all I wanted to share... I have almost the same tooltip damage like u. U can check my tree on my profile. There is some differences but as I said - I'm still testing and learning. I'm not sure about Point Blank (maybe for late game bosses) but Iron Grip and Resolute Technique are must have for me.

Keep up the good work with guide and thank you for few nice ideas. That skill is not so bad like most of people think.

Thanks so much for all of the great info! Damage on full life support is a great idea, I'll see what that dps looks like if I swap it for the Iron Grip Gem!

I played around with Fork, and I didn't like that half the time 1 shield bounced off into nowhere, but that's probably just personal preference xD

I'll definitely give prismatic a go, I'm sure the attack speed is nice, and I've definitely got room in my rares for the resists still.

Gripped Gloves with good rolls are probably BiS, but yesterday I experimented with Haemophilia and LOVE them. I'll be updating the guide for them today, the increased damage is nice but not crazy, but the additional bleed explosion% has made a noticeable difference for my clearspeed.

And thanks for the advice about faster projectiles, I'll probably sub that in when I get my 6 link, especially if I'm dropping Iron Grip Gem for full life... probably take some more leech nodes for full life too so we stay topped off.

Anyway thanks again for the amazing comment :) <3

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I played around with Fork, and I didn't like that half the time 1 shield bounced off into nowhere, but that's probably just personal preference xD

U're right. But thanks to projectile's speed there is a very nice chance that this 'lost' shield will hit next group of mobs. In closed areas it's deadly. Not to mention possibility to shotgun bosses. Chain is much more accurate but need to be swaped for boss fights.
Anyway, I totally forgot that pierce doesn't work with fork. Theoretically. Just tested fork+pierce and it looks that there is no shards from the initial hit but only after fork. So very bad setup for open areas and bosses.

Edit: I was wrong. 1st hit is w/o shards becouse of fork.