[Archived] Self-Bleed Boneshatter Slayer

You always want to have as close to 100% hit chance as possible. The best way to achieve this is simply using gear with a lot of accuracy. For me it was the helmet and one ring.

However, before you get the good gear, you can change your aura setup to Pride + War Banner + Precision to help with that for no extra cost.

You can also change your passive tree a little bit and allocate Eagle Eye, Acuity or Twin Terrors to get accuracy at no extra cost of gear.

Before you get accuracy on your gear/passive tree, your aura setup should look like this
Pride
War Banner
Precision

After you get enough accuracy on gear/passive tree, you can change them to:
Pride
Dread Banner
Herald of Purity

After you get enlighten level 3, you can swap Herald of Purity with Flesh and Stone:
Pride
Dread Banner
Flesh and Stone
Enlighten, level 3

Before you get the Overlord cluster notable on your cluster jewels, your main 6-link gem setup should look like this:
Boneshatter
Ensurance Charge on Melee Stun
Fortify
Melee Splash
Increased Critical Strikes
Increased Critical Damage

With this setup, you will need to cast Hydrosphere when there is only one target and target the Hydrosphere with your boneshatter to increase your single-target dps.

You can also swap Melee Splash with Ruthless and then you will not have to cast the Hydrosphere but your single-target dps will be lower.

After you get Overlord on your cluster jewels, you can swap Fortify with Melee Physical Damage (ideally awakened) and you should also upgrade to Divergent Melee Splash:
Boneshatter
Ensurance Charge on Melee Stun
(Awakened) Melee Physical Damage
Divergent Melee Splash
Increased Critical Strikes
Increased Critical Damage

Once you reach level 68, you can get most of the core unique items for cheap.

Weapons are simply two times Nebuloch. If they are expensive on league start, simply use high-pdps maces instead. Get them to 20% quality ASAP. Getting 30% quality is not important and you can do it later once you have currency to spare.


Boots are The Red Trail. They should be cheap.


Gloves are Veruso's Battering Rams with the +1 Maximum Frenzy Charge corrupted implicit. They should be cheap even with the corrupted implicit. If the implicit is expensive, simply use them without it until you can afford it.


The last core piece to this build is Militant Faith jewel with Transcendence (that is "converted by high templar Maxarius"). You do not need to get it immediately on level 68 if it is expensive, but until you get it, you will be vulnerable to boss attacks and you will not be able to face-tank them as I do in the videos.

You should also pay attention to the small bonuses for Devotion as we can get up to 140 devotion easily. The best one is reduced elemental ailment duration as this build is quite vulnerable to ignite and chill is annoying. The second one can be either increased effect of non-curse auras as an offensive option, or simply get +% to all elemental resistances per 10 devotion - that will make it easier to buy other pieces of gear.

The random number is not important, just make sure that no passive notables that we allocate are converted.


Once you get the Militant Faith, you can also buy Replica Loreweave. It has a huge downside - that it reduces your maximum resistances. However, we counter this downside for the most part by using Transcendence. The only real weakness is elemental damage over time, but if you have an ignite immunity flask, you will not encounter any problems until you reach some of the endgame boss fights. Then it is a good idea to upgrade to Loreweave for more defenses.

Before you can afford it, either use Tabula Rasa or any rare chest piece with lots of life.



Use a rare helmet with lots of accuracy, life and resistances.


Your rings can fill what you are still missing - that is intelligence and accuracy, then they should also have added physical damage to attacks, life and resistances.


Amulet can have global critical strike multiplier, then it is similar to rings - attributes, added physical damage to attacks, life and resistances.


Use a rare belt with lots of life and fill your missing resistances.


Good flasks to use are Rotgut and Diamond. Life flask should not be necessary but it is nice when you cannot leech anything. I also like to use a mana flask with any immunity that I need (poison/ignite/chill) because it has lots of uses. Sin's Rebirth is a nice damage boost as well as immunity to ignite.

You should also try to get the cluster jewels ASAP. Large cluster jewel with Overlord can be expensive, but it should be affordable with only 2 notables. Medium cluster crit cluster jewels should be pretty cheap - get Basics of Pain + any other good notable, it does not have to be Pressure Points. Small Cluster Jewel with Enduring Composure is also very nice.


The Golden Rule jewel is only needed for boss fights. It is not needed for mapping. You can get either Maim or Corrupted Blood immunity here as a corrupted implicit.

Thread of Hope with Medium ring is very nice for this build.

You can also get either one rare jewel with life + any damage increase or a cheap Watcher's Eye with one good Pride modifier (increased attack damage, chance to impale or intimidate on hit).

Get 30% quality for your Nebulochs.

Try to cap your chaos resistance too. Keep in mind that 8 endurance charges give you 64% chaos resistance so getting the rest of it shouldn't be that hard. You can get some on the small cluster jewel passives too.

You can upgrade your rings and amulet to have the same thing as before as well as one good influence damage modifier or just very good rolls.


I like to have life recovery rate on a belt but it is not required. Simply get a good stygian vise with lots of life and resistances.


Get the expensive cluster jewel with Overlord and Feed the Fury.


Also, get the expensive Watcher's Eye with double pride modifiers.


You can upgrade your flasks setup.


Optionally, you can switch from Replica Loreweave to Loreweave. This is a damage decrease but it will help you survive against elemental damage over time. Loreweave is only good against bosses life Shaper, otherwise Replica Loreweave will be better, definitely for mapping.

You can also get some enchants on your gear. I managed to farm a decent helmet and belt enchant myself.


Lab Farming

Use your favourite skill up to level 12. It does not really matter which one. You can get all the mentioned gems either as quest rewards or they can be purchased from a town vendor. My recommendation is the following:

Damage skills:
Ground Slam > Chance to Bleed > Ruthless
Ancestral Protector > Maim

Defensive skills:
Steelskin
Dash
Enduring Cry

Auras:
You will need a lot of accuracy during leveling and you will most likely not have it on your gear. That is why it is a good idea to use War Banner and high lvl Precision for levling.
War Banner
Precision

At level 12, ideally even before you finish act 1, switch your main skill (Ground Slam from my recommendation) to Shattering Steel. Support gems stay the same.

Shattering Steel is an insanely strong ability for leveling as it gives a good chunk of flat added physical damage. You can use it all the way to level 68 for leveling. You need to use axes for this ability (do not use swords as you cannot use Boneshatter with swords if you decide to switch later).

Shattering Steel > Chance to Bleed > Ruthless

Whenever you equip Shattering steel, you will be given two abilities: Shattering Steel itself and Call of Steel. Simply cast Call of Steel here and there to reset your Steel Shards.

You can get new auras. Use Herald of Purity for now and simply level up Flesh and Stone.
Herald of Purity
Flesh and Stone

Also, get Blood Rage. It gives you life leech but also a degen. If you cannot outheal the degen reliably, start using it after you get your first ascendancy.
Blood Rage

As soon as you get your first 4-link you can update your main damage setup:

Shattering Steel > Chance to Bleed > Ruthless > Vicious Projectiles

You can also buy several gems that will be needed later to start leveling them up. Simply socket them on your weapon-swap weapons.
Ancestral Cry
Melee Physical Damage
Endurance Charge on Melee Stun

You get another aura in Act 3 - Pride. Use the following auras and simply level the rest of them without using them. They will be needed later.
Pride
War Banner
Precision

The best curse for leveling is Vulnerability. Simply cast it on bosses.
Vulnerability

Gems that will be needed later:
Warlord's Mark
Vengeance
Dread Banner
Assassin's Mark
Battlemage's Cry
Ancestral Warchief
You do not need to buy them all immediately but once you need them, return to Act 3 and buy them from the town vendor Clarissa.

You can keep leveling with Shattering Steel if you wish, but you can also start using Boneshatter. There are several changes that you need to make:

First of all, do not use Boneshatter before your first ascendancy. Complete the Labyrinth and get Brutal Fervour as your first ascendancy.

Make sure that you have Tribal Fury and Call to Arms notables already allocated.

Put Ancestral Cry on your movement keybind so that you cast it off cooldown. Do not use Battlemage's Cry for leveling as your clear and stun chance is not that great and you will need the extra clear from Ancestral Cry.

Throw away the Shattering Steel setup and instead use:

Boneshatter > Fortify > Melee Physical Damage > Ruthless

In order to get the Fortify Support, you need to do the optional quest in Act 3 for Siosa in the Library called A Fixture of Fate.

If you decide to use Boneshatter, you can also try using Warlord's Mark. It gives you rage if you stun the enemy that increases your damage by a lot. However, chance to stun depends on the mob hp and your own damage output so it is possible that you will not have enough damage to stun during leveling. Try it out in game and see for yourself.
Warlord's Mark

The strategy is to cast Warlord's Mark on the low hp mobs and hit them. If you stun them, you will get rage that will be displayed over your mana bar. If you see no rage, you probably do not deal enough damage to stun yet, so do not use this trick.

Optionally, you can also cast Warlord's Mark and Leap Slam on the cursed enemy, which guarantees you a stun against an enemy that is full-life.
Leap Slam > Faster Attacks

After you get max-rage you can stop using Warlord's Mark and use Vulnerability instead.

If you have enough to stun, you can also get Berserk in Act 4 which consumes your rage and increased your damage by a lot.
Berserk

You can change some of your gem setups in this act:
Cast When Damage Taken > Steelskin >Summon Ice Golem
Vengeance > Chance to Bleed > Maim
Ancestral Protector > Ancetral Warchief > Multiple Totems

If you have enough damage to stun enemies cursed by Warlord's Mark, also get Berserk and cast to on bosses/tougher enemies.
Berserk

No change in Act 5.

You will get -30% to all elemental resistances, so make sure to cap your resistances at 75% after Act 5.

Immediately after entering Act 6, do the optional quest for Lilly Roth (Fallen from Grace) that will unlock you the option to buy all possible skill gems from her.

After this quest, you can update your gem setup that will not change all the way up to maps. Your setup should look like this (if you have 6-link like Tabula Rasa, you can get the blue gems in your main setup as well):

Damage Skills
Boneshatter > Fortify > Melee Physical Damage > Ruthless ( > Increased Critical Strikes > Increased Critical Damage)

Ancestral Protector > Ancetral Warchief > Multiple Totems
Vengeance > Chance to Bleed > Maim > Power Charge on Critical
Ancestral Cry
Vulnerability

Optionally you can also use the trick with rage:
Warlord's Mark with Berserk
You can drop the Chance to Bleed gem in Vengeance setup if you need the gem slot for this. And you can use Leap Slam to guarantee stuns.

Auras
Pride
War Banner
Precision

Defensive Skills
Cast When Damage Taken > Steelskin >Summon Ice Golem
Dash (or Leap Slam > Faster Attacks )

Once you finish Act 10, start following the 'Early Mapping' setup in PoB. You will need to buy some gear, change some of the gems and some of the passive points.