[3.7] Getting Physical - UPDATED Shattering Steel Guide

We now have 100% Chance to Impale, up from 80% before the introduction of Legion League
Fork Interaction appears NOT to work (I have no GGG confirmation)
New Auras give us a TON more damage, and make up for the lack of the Fork Interaction.
In my opinion, still worth playing Shattering Steel.

If you have the "Tempered Flesh" Jewel(or the upgraded "Transcendent Flesh"), Drop Shadow Area (lvl 90, 190% Life)
If you do not own "Transcedent Flesh" Jewel, use Shadow Area + Iron Grip Area (lvl 90, 192% Life)

The Tempered Flesh Unique Jewel is 5 chaos in Softcore Legion League (June 10, 4 days into the League). I consider this jewel very realistic for every player to have.

3.7 Legion Links:
Shattering Steel
Greater Multiple Projectiles
Vicious Projectiles
Brutality
Impale Support
Increased Critical Strikes (6th Link)

4-Link Aura:
Pride (50% reservation)
Flesh and Stone linked with Maim (29% reservation) *
Enlighten

Additional 1-Link Aura:
Dread Banner

*Explanation: Flesh and Stone + Maim, Maim supports the Aura. This grants you "Nearby enemies take 30% increased physical damage," and costs you 29% mana reservation.

I propose dropping some of the Life Nodes at the Marauder start, and pathing instead toward (1) Iron Grip, (2) the Bloodless Life Cluster, and (3) "Blade of Cunning" sword cluster.

There are other new interesting nodes on the skill tree, but I believe they are too far from where we want the rest of our tree to be. This proposed tree drops the 3-point Jewel Socket above Phase Acrobatics.

Having a GOOD reason to path down to Iron Grip is incredible for this build: the new sword cluster is very strong, and the nearby life cluster is icing on the cake.

3.7 Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/BkFEMrap

Note: there are 2 SKILL TREES, with an without Tempered Flesh Unique Jewel. Use the dropdown on the bottom-left of your POB Window to toggle between the two skill trees.

Web URL for viewing the new Skill Tree, using the Tempered Flesh Jewel:
https://poeplanner.com/ABEAAPUAETQBAHebLV85ivDEgrCrvqfpRnXL6mJgQWNwEdVXl0Mx2sF07QUteu8uU9NvTP9OKluvFHWkwg2Nh3ZKffzF7g6jiiP2TZKNfTB8UUeNv9QjMHHdqEt4OkLnVCT9_9431O0_1FJ0oAaiF9wGIMv1MbDcvecPZU29Nkd-hNkB3HfjqW7AGm87eA218jWS2L3-CvJFOuGmV_6PTeN5aMEEXz8UIO8OUEdYrzboAecb-iXfpBmGYDpSvJ8YkfxLFE2I7foY7nrh7zJ-DjwUcdl8ggf46_PdaGUbqsEH135jF7kd8kEbRoum8Cbeh6rNa9Sh2TQ-AAAAAAA=

Web URL for viewing the new Skill Tree, without using the Tempered Flesh Jewel:
https://poeplanner.com/ABEAAPcAETQBAHibLV85ivDEgrCrvqfpRnXL6mJgQWNwEdVXl0Mx2sF07QUteu8uU9NvTP9OKluvFHWkwg2Nh3ZKffzF7g6jiiP2TZKNfTB8UUeNv9QjMHHdqEt4OkLnVCT9_9431O0_1FJ0oAaiF9wGIMv1MbDcvecPZU29Nkd-hNkB3HfjqW7AGm87eA218jWS2L3-CvJFOuGmV_6PTeNYrzboAecb-iXfpBmGYDpSvJ8YkfxLFE2I7foY7nrh7zJ-uR0FtcLstMVirGyMnao2PW1sFr8mlWHiVUuMNonTcFK1SNRChG91_RtGi6bwJt6Hqs1r1KHZND4AAAAAAA==

Help Alira for the Critical Strike Multiplier and Resistances.

When you are past level 95 or so, consider swapping to the Two Passive Points instead if you can find a very good jewel.

We skip the Fortify Nodes, because Fortify is relatively easy to keep up with Leap Slam. If you want a more careful balance of offenses and defenses, use the other Helmet Enchantment for Shattering Steel: "Shattering Steel grants Fortify on Hitting an Enemy at Close Range"

For your first lab, choose the "Master of Metal" ascendancy in the Champion tree.

Champion grants us the following:
- Intimidate
- Taunt
- 100% Accuracy
- Reduced Damage Taken
- Life Regeneration
- 20% Chance to Impale
- +2 Maximum Impale Stacks
- Flat Physical Damage
- Adrenaline

Or, "Why is your Life Flask so insane?"

Shout out to /u/qikink on Reddit for allowing me to share his Impale Calculation Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/awxl14/impale_and_you_math/

For a video format, Don the Crown has a nice YouTube video highlighting the strength of Impale:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vew8a9WTqlk

So here's the deal:

Our Impales last normally last a total of 5 hits, and reflect 10% of our physical damage hit to the enemy. In that way, Impale basically reads like this: "Gain #% of physical damage as extra physical damage", where # is equal to 10% damage * # of hits the impale lasts. Quick math, 50% more damage. Impale is reflected damage that the monster deals to itself -- however, for our purposes (not scaling bleed, using brutality), this is a sufficient description. Just note that Impale will never make your initial hit any bigger for bleed purposes, and will not contribute to any conversion to elemental damage.

Thanks to the Champion Ascendancy, our Impales last a total of 7 hits. Because we have 100% chance to hit and 100% chance to impale, our simplified calculation is not too complex.

Because Impale is such an enormous multiplier for our damage, we want to make our physical damage hit as big as possible. Because of this, and because of the nerf to Stat Sticks in 3.5 Betrayal League, we will use Brutality Support to amplify our physical damage.

We gain Impale Effect from the following sources:
Shattering Steel gem (20% Impale Effect)
Dread Banner gem (19% Impale Effect)
Impale Support gem (59% Impale Effect)
Champion Ascendancy (8% Impale Effect)

10% damage * Impale Effect(1+106%=2.06) = 20.6% damage reflected per hit, which lasts 7 hits
20.6 * 7 = 144.2

This build has an 100% chance to Impale, and 100% chance to hit:
144.2% * 1.00 * 1.00 = 144.2% more physical damage

Champion gives a flat 4 to 8 physical damage per impale on an enemy. With seven stacks, we gain 28 to 56 added physical damage to attacks.

In the POB Pastebin above, look at the "Seething Divine Life Flask of Heat". I have included the impale calculation there.

This build's DPS is not fully calculated by POB. In addition to the "Seething Divine Life Flask of Heat" for the Impale Calculation, we need to calculate our additional projectiles from things like GMP and Dying Sun.

When we are POINT BLANK on a boss, we deal our maximum damage. Not only Point Blank, but ON TOP of the enemy. We want all of the Shatter Steel Projectiles to hit (10 Projectiles).

# of Projectiles:
Shattering Steel - 3
Greater Multiple Projectiles - 4
Helm Enchant - 1
Dying Sun - 2

For a total of 10 Projectiles

Our Shaper DPS is POB_Projectile_DPS * #_Projectiles (10).
376,600 * 10 = 3.76 Million DPS (all flasks, no adrenaline, impale fully stacked)

DPS Numbers include the following:
- Ancestral Protector
- Blood Rage
- Taunt
- Maim
- Intimidate
- Point Blank
- Flasks
- Impale fully stacked
- Auras: Pride & Flesh and Stone (linked to Maim Support)

Main Skill:

Shattering Steel
Greater Multiple Projectiles
Impale Support
Brutality
Vicious Projectiles
Increased Critical Strikes - 6th link

4-Link Aura:
Pride
* Flesh and Stone + Maim
Enlighten

Additional 1-Link Aura:
Dread Banner

Leap Slam
Fortify
Faster Attacks
Blood Magic

Cast When Damage Taken
Immortal Call
Increased Duration

Blood Rage
Culling Strike
Ancestral Protector

** WEAPON SWAP:
Blasphemy
Any Curse
Blood Magic

Ancestral Protector grants "20% More Attack Speed", while Ancestral Warchief Totem grants "18% More Melee Damage." Because Shattering Steel is not Melee, Shattering Steel does NOT benefit from Ancestral Warchief Totem.

There is an empty 4 Link, if you want to use rare boots. I am using Kaom's Roots, because I value the stun mitigation. You might use a Vaal Double Strike Setup here, another CWDT setup, a Orb of Storms/Power Charge on Crit setup, or equip an item with Abyss Sockets.

Pride grants us, "Nearby enemies take up to 39% More Physical Damage". This is the first instance of this wording in Path of Exile. It is similar to "enemies take INCREASED damage." However, instead of being additive with itself, this is a multiplicative multiplier. For instance, if you have two sources of "take increased damage," those are additive with themselves, and then act as More Multiplier to your overall damage.

Pride, on the other hand says that "enemies take MORE physical damage." If you had two sources of such damage, these would be multiplicative with each other, instead of additive. Overall, this means that the effectiveness of the Pride Aura is not reduced by things like Intimidate.

* Explanation: Flesh and Stone + Maim, Maim supports the Aura. This grants you "Nearby enemies take 30% increased physical damage," and costs you 29% mana reservation.

** The WEAPON SWAP above is used to activate Adrenaline on demand, for a quick 20 second boost of 100% Increased Damage, 10% Attack/Cast/Movement Speed, and 10% Additional Physical Damage Reduction.

With the introduction of 3.7 Legion League, we now have the Pride Aura for the build.

Pride Modifiers on Watcher's Eye Jewels:
- (8–12)% chance to deal Double Damage while using Pride
- Your Hits Intimidate Enemies for 4 seconds while you are using Pride
- (40–60)% increased Attack Physical Damage while using Pride
- 25% chance to Impale Enemies on Hit with Attacks while using Pride
- Impales you inflict last 2 additional Hits while using Pride

The strongest option here is "Impales you inflict last 2 additional Hits". This modifier is ABSOLUTELY absurd, and is the #1 mod to chase for an impale-based build such as Shattering Steel.

Pride Watcher's Eye + Flasks, no Adrenaline, impale fully stacked:
4.76 Million DPS

No Watcher's Eye + Flasks, no Adrenaline, impale fully stacked:
3.93 Million DPS

Rough math, this is around 23% more damage overall.

Note for POB Pastebin:
If you use a Pride Watcher's Eye with the modifier for "Impales you inflict last 2 additional Hits", you need to calculate this in your POB Pastebin. In the POB that I have provided in this guide, my Eternal Life Flask has two modifiers:
- 144% More Physical Damage
- Adds 42 to 84 Physical Damage to Attacks

With the Pride Watcher's Eye, you need to update this:
- 185% More Physical Damage
- Adds 54 to 108 Physical Damage to Attacks

For our DPS Flasks, we are limited by Brutality (phys only) and Shattering Steel (not melee). This means that the following flasks do not benefit us offensively:
- Atziri's Promise
- Taste of Hate
- Lion's Roar
- Sin's Rebirth
- Vessel of Vinktar

Offensively, we use these flasks:
- Dying Sun
- Diamond Flask
- Silver Flask

Defensively, we use these flasks:
- Taste of Hate
- Divine Life Flask

We have 3 magic flasks and 2 unique flasks. For the suffixes on the magic flasks, we want to cover the following:
- "of Heat"
- "of Warding"

This is my current flask setup:
- Seething Divine Life Flask of Heat
- Taste of Hate
- Chemist's Diamond Flask of Warding
- Dying Sun
- Chemist's Silver Flask of Staunching

If you can find a jewel with the corrupted implicit "Corrupted Blood Cannot Be Inflicted on You," feel free to replace the "of Staunching" suffix with the suffix of your choice.

Here is a poe.trade link for all the things you might look for in a jewel:

http://poe.trade/search/himoanoboberik

Note: "Melee" does not benefit the build.

You might also look for the following:
-Physical Attack Damage leeched as Mana
-Intelligence
-Resistances
-Global Critical Strike Chance (not valuable on jewels, for the most part)
-Critical Strike Chance with Swords
-Critical Strike Chance while Dual Wielding

Feel free to play with the poe.trade link above to find reasonably priced jewels.

Here is a poe.trade link for all the things you might look for in an abyss jewel:

http://poe.trade/search/onowarawokotam

Note: "Melee" does not benefit the build.

Note: "Chance to blind on hit" is not useful if you are using Kaom's Roots

You might also look for the following:
-Intelligence
-Resistances
-Global Critical Strike Chance (not valuable on jewels, for the most part)
-Critical Strike Chance if you've killed recently
-Critical Strike Chance if you haven't dealt a critical strike recently

Feel free to play with the poe.trade link above to find reasonably priced jewels.

My gear is all self-crafted, with the exception of the amulet.

The "Hits Can't Be Evaded" sword needs to be recrafted, and has 400 PDPS.
The other other sword is t2 Hybrid + t3 IPD, and is 480 PDPS.
The Body Armor should ideally have "Supported by Level 1 Maim," but I haven't been able to craft it yet.

I recommend using the Lab Enchant, "Shattering Steel fires an Additional Projectile." Fortify is fairly easy to keep up via Leap Slam, and the additional projectile represents a large increase to our damage output.

I wrote a guide. Check it out.
https://www.poelab.com/crafting-an-item/

Weapon

Method: Alt/Aug/Regal on a i83 Jewelled Foil (not Shaper, not Elder)

Ideally, you want to hit t1 Hybrid IPD ("Dictator's"), but it is extremely rare. The rationale is that the new crafting options allow you to multimod up to 129% Increased Physical Damage ("IPD"), and up to 17 to 30 Physical Damage, but you CANNOT craft the 129% IPD alongside a hybrid mod. Therefore, the best way to aim for a high PDPS crafted Jewelled Foil is by starting with a Hybrid IPD mod.

If you can annul a Rare Item down to 1 or 2 high tier Physical DPS mods (Flat Phys, Hybrid IPD, IPD, etc.), then you should be able to create a very good multimodded weapon. Reference the "My Gear" section above for two examples.

Avoid crafting on a Shaper/Elder base. This eliminates some possible affixes from the pool, so you should hit relevant rolls more often while spamming Alterations.

Rings

Method 1: Essence of Contempt on a i84 Steel Ring
Method 2: Alt/Aug/Regal on a i84 Steel Ring

We want to prioritize two things on our rings: Tier 1 Physical Damage to Attacks and Tier 1 Maximum Life.
Rings are a nice place to craft "Aspect of the Spider" as a Suffix via beastcrafting in the Menagerie.

Other good mods:
- Intelligence
- Strength
- Resistances

If you are ambitious, you can craft on an Elder ring for "Projectile Attack Damage" and "Global Critical Strike Multiplier." However, Elder Steel rings tend to be very expensive. You could consider crafting on an alternative base, like an i84 Elder Two-Stone Ring, for example.

Body Armor

Method: Fossil Crafting an i86 Elder Astral Plate, or i86 Elder Assassin's Garb (makes socket coloring easier)

Reference this site:
https://poedb.tw/us/mod.php?cn=Body+Armour&an=str_armour

Fossils:
- Pristine Fossil - (More Life Modifiers, no Armor/Energy Shield/Evasion modifiers)
- Serrated Fossil - (More Attack Modifiers, fewer Caster Modifiers)

Use a two-socket resonator with the above two fossils, and craft your own body armor. I aimed for the following mods:

- Prefix: # to Maximum Life
- Prefix: # to Maximum Life / #% Increased Maximum Life (Delve Modifier)
- Prefix: #% Increased Maximum Life (Elder Modifier, or via Crafting Bench)
- Suffix: Attacks have +#% to Critical Strike Chance (Elder Modifier)
- Suffix: Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 1 Maim (Delve Modifier)

The body armor that I ended with has the suffix, "Recover #% of Maximum Life on Kill." I was not aiming for this suffix, but upon using it, I really enjoy it.

Belt

Method: Fossil Crafting an i84 Stygian Vise

Reference this site and click on the corresponding base at the top menu:
https://poedb.tw/us/mod.php

Fossils:
- Pristine Fossil - (More Life Modifiers, no Armor/Energy Shield/Evasion modifiers)
- Jagged Fossil - (More Physical Modifiers, no Chaos Modifiers)

Use a two-socket resonator with the above two fossils, and craft your own belt.

Because we can't make use of the normal modifier, "#% Increased Elemental Damage with Attack Skills," we need to use a Jagged Fossil to craft our own DPS belt. Aim for the following:

- # to Maximum Life
- #% increased Global Physical Damage
- Resistances

Helmet

Method: Fossil Crafting any i84 Helmet

Reference this site and click on the corresponding base at the top menu:
https://poedb.tw/us/mod.php

Fossils:
- Pristine Fossil - (More Life Modifiers, no Armor/Energy Shield/Evasion modifiers)
- Jagged Fossil - (More Physical Modifiers, no Chaos Modifiers)

Use a two-socket resonator with the above two fossils, and craft your own helmet.

The Jagged Fossil allows us to create a helmet with the modifier, "Nearby Enemies take 9% Increased Physical Damage." This mod, along with as much life as possible, is our target helmet. Aim for the following modifiers:

- Prefix: # to Maximum Life
- Prefix: # to Maximum Life / #% Increased Maximum Life (Delve Modifier)
- Suffix: Nearby enemies take 9% increased Physical Damage

If you have a helmet with an empty Prefix, you can craft one of the two following modifiers on your Crafting Bench:

- Prefix: # to Maximum Life / #% Increased Armor
- Prefix: #% Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage (My Recommendation)

Gloves

My recommendation is to use Haemophilia, corrupted with "Curse enemies with Level # Vulnerability on Hit." Another option is Tombfist Unique Gloves with 2 Abyssal Sockets.

If you want to craft your own gloves, I recommend Gripped Gloves (Projectile Damage Implicit). Elder Gloves give you the possibility of more Attack Speed Modifiers. Alternatively, you could craft gloves with an Essence of Insanity, which adds the modifier, "Socketed Gems have 16% more Attack and Cast Speed," for a very quick Leap Slam speed.

If you are considering fossil crafting, reference this site, then click on the corresponding base at the top menu:
https://poedb.tw/us/mod.php

Boots

My recommendation is to use Kaom's Roots for the stun mitigation. My current pair has the Lab Enchant for "16% Increased Attack and Cast Speed if You've Killed Recently." I would personally prefer to have the "2% Life Regenerated per second if you've been hit recently" instead.

Alternative Unique Boots could be Bubonic Trail with 2 abyssal sockets.

Note that because we use Leap Slam very often, we do NOT need to prioritize movement speed on boots. If you want to craft your own boots, I would recommend Fossil Crafting with only a Pristine Fossil. If you're feeling ambitious, you can craft a pair of boots with Pristine Fossil + Hollow Fossil, and try to get a pair of boots with very high life + an Abyssal Socket.

Amulet

Method: Alt/Aug/Regal on a i85 Agate Amulet or Lapis Amulet (Intelligence Requirement)

Desired mods:
- Prefix: # to Maximum Life
- Prefix: Adds # to # Physical Damage to Attacks
- Suffix: #% Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier

The ideal amulet here would also have the following modifiers:
- Prefix: #% Physical Attack Damage leeched as Mana
- Suffix: +# to Intelligence

As a bonus, there is a new craft available on the Crafting Bench for "+1 to Minimum Power Charges." This increases our base critical chance, and because we have no other sources of power charges, this is pretty good.