[3.5] HC/SC Draxcon's 82/82 8,5k HP+ Gladiator. Very tanky, good damage on budget. League starter.

Summary:

-8500-9000 HP
This build is 100% designed for HC. Hovewer, you can play it in SC if you like tanky builds.

-82/82 block chance
-High physical damage reduction
-Not expensive, can be used as HC/SC league starter
-All content viable (don't know about Uber Elder, but probably possible without bigger problems)
-About 300k+ realistic Shaper DPS with just Dreadbeak

Bandits: kill all

Pantheon: Soul of Lunaris + Soul of Shakari. Swap Lunaris for Solaris for bosses dealing massive AoE damage.

Leveling, starting map journey and some useful tips (league starter):

I recommend leveling with Cleave + Fortify/Area jewel from quest until you get like lvl 70. Buy 5L Arm/Arm+Evasion chest and try to hit life/resistances. After that, try to look for decent rings with high resistances. Buy Scaeva if you can't afford Dreadbeak with good roll. Get Rare shield with HP/Arm/Block if you can't afford Lioneye's Remorse. Start your mapping journey. Save money. Buy Belly of the Beast, get Jeweller's Touch prophecy for easy 5L. Then you can work on more resistances, HP, better gear.

Mapping setup: 6L: Reave + Melee Physical + Brutality + Inc Area + Maim + Multistrike
5L: Reave + Melee Physical + Brutality + Inc Area + Mulistrike

Boss setup: 6L: Blade Flurry + M.Phys + Brutality + Conc Effect + Maim + Dmg on Full
5L: Blade Flurry + M.Phys + Brutality + Conc Effect + Maim

Other links:

4L: Ancestral Warchief + Melee Physical Damage + Brutality + Bloodlust
(Our extra single target damage for boss fights)

4L: Shield Charge + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic (Movement skill)

3L: Cast when Damage Taken lvl 1 + Tempest Shield lvl 7 + Blood Rage lvl 20
(We cast blood rage manually, tempest shield will be triggered automatically)

3L: Arctic Armour + Purity of Ice (or Purity of Fire, it's up to you) + Herald of Purity


This build is designed to work on budget. If you have fat wallet, you can get good Steel Rings, Kaom's Roots with +1 frenzy, Amber with +1 frenzy, Higher pDPS Sword, The Surrender/ Rare shield with Life Gained on Block to make your character much stronger.

Thanks for reading. I'll post more guides if you like it.


Skill tree on lvl 95:

Path of building code:

Hey man, cool build. I took a break for Bestiary league but I am looking to come back soon and I love to play gladiators.

I had a couple questions though

1) Can you not use blood rage with aegis shield? I know it degens ES and I understand the synergy here with the armor you are going for so I was just wondering if I missed something as to why you are not taking blood rage.

2) I noticed you took the bleeding path for gladiator which is nice for clearing but for dedicated boss farming is the Violent Retaliation and Outmatch and Outlast path not good? In POB I have almost 100k more DPS and more chance to block doing it this way. You could always use the Haemophilia gloves for clearing I think.

3) Does Crimson dance make that much of a difference in this build? If you path differently and drop the leach nodes/crimson dance you can save enough points to grab the shield dps and block nodes.

I made a different POB with those changes and stopped it at 94 taking the berserking cluster with the three extra points.

I only play HC So I am wondering what your thoughts are and what I am missing here before I go down this road of trying your build.

Thanks for the guide.

I love theorycrafting Aegis Aurora builds. That said I'm concerned that the build might not have enough armour to take full advantage of the shield. Unflasked it's only at about 8k armour, which translates to 160 energy shield on block. Even with 17k armour with Lion's Roar up, the character will recover only about 340 energy shield on block.

With the build's 8k life, a rare shield (or the Surrender) with a 5% of life gained on block mod gives 400 life on block. I would use one of these in the place of Aegis Aurora, or find some way, whether with tree nodes, Grace + Iron Reflexes, or gear with higher armour stats, to get past to 20k unflasked armour, when Aegis becomes more effective than a life gained on block shield.

Huge build update. New PoB and tree added.

Nice build, gna try it. Which ascendancy u take first?

Painforged > Versatile Combatant > Violent Retaliation > Outmatch and Outlast

Interesting build. I am going to play your build in the upcoming flashback event today. Although I will rather change some skill gems as well as the Kaom‘s Roots for Rare Boots with more resistances and skill possibilities.

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I recommend leveling with Cleave + Fortify/Area jewel from quest until you get like lvl 70

Sorry for the noob question, do you mean Overwhelming Odds jewel? If so, where do you think I should put it? Do you think I could put points into Fatal Blade when playing SC tonight? :)

Best place will be below "Constitution" life node. You get Overhelming Odds in Act 5 after killing Avarius from Lani. Fatal Blade is only for crit builds, so this will be completely different build.

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Buy Scaeva if you can't afford Dreadbeak with good roll

is Dreadbeak BiS for this Build or how do i understand i would say a high pdps Sword is better?
Or is there a good reason to take Dreadbeak thanks.