[3.25] Banner of War Champion (For Build of the week, hopefully)

Hello Everyone!

This is my first time writing something on the forum, so I apologize in advance if this post looks weird or lacking in any way. I will do my best to update the thread with enhanced visuals. I just wanted to get this out here as soon as I can!


I want to present my build as an entry for Build of the Week.



I call it the Banner of War Champion, as a build archetype I will coin in this thread.


Briefly, this build utilizes all three banner skills in the game using Warcries as the main "valour-engine" to power my banners. In addition, I utilize the Unique Body Armour, Perfidy, as the keystone unique for this build. It allows players to gain bypass the restrictions of no valour gains when inside a banner area.


Main Features:

Offensive Power with War Banner's More Melee Physical damage bonuses (and accuracy rating)
Defensive Power with Defiance Banner's Spell Suppression bonuses and movement speed for kiting and map zooming.
Chance to Block boosts with Dread Banner, as well as additional recovery on block
Pseudo-overcapped resistances within a banner's effect with the Rallying Icon notable.
Free 3 charges of Endurance and Frenzy when we place a banner with Maximum Valour
Up to 63% Life recovered instantly with Recovery per Valour Banner Mastery
Up to 10.5% Life regen per maxed out Banner with Champion's Inspirational node


Mechanics:

Valour - Lifeblood of banners. The more you have, the greater the AREA and EFFECT of these banners per point. It can be capped to 105 with the tree, but there are restrictions on how to gain it. By default you gain 1 valour on melee kill, or on-hit against uniques/rares, no more every 0.5 seconds. So only 2 Valour per second at most!

Problem: NEED MORE VALOUR

Solution/s:

1. Tree grants up to 100% increased Valour gain
2. Perfidy allows up to 50% increased Valour gain
3. Warcry-Valour Engine using the Banner Mastery: Gain 5 Valour when you Warcry, if able.

For my case, I have the 50% bonus from Perfidy, and 60% from the tree. With 110% increase: I generate at least 10 Valour per Warcry.

Next problem: 10 Valour per 1 Warcry, so I have to warcry 10 times to reach at least 100 stacks?

Solution: More Warcries!

Warcry problem: I have to piano gameplay


Solution: Autoexertion. With 4 warcries for my case.

I have identified the below as suitable warcries that give me the most benefits:

1. Intimidating Cry for Double Damage!
2. Infernal Cry for Combustion!
3. Rallying Cry more damage per ally affected by the warcry
4. Seismic Cry for Slam Augmentations
5. Ancestral Cry for Strike Augmentations

For my case, I prefer slams. I also plugged in Herald of Purity in my build just for Rallying Cry.


Benefit Maximization :

1. Use Overexertion for Big damage: For my case, I have 4 warcries on me to get around 52% More damage with exerted attacks.
2. RAGE-Engine with Rage Mastery: Warcries grant 1 Rage per power WITH Warcry Mastery: Minimum 10 power for warcries.

Notes for RAGE-Engine Technique: Try to have your autoexerted warcries with different qualities to have them with differing cooldowns. The reason for this, is so that Warcries trigger in an interval that prevents rage's inherent loss.


So basically that sums up everything about how this Archetype is wired. It's Defenses are inherently from the Health Regeneration, Free Suppression that the banners provide, but I also utilize additional mechanics:


1. Precise Technique: With the Accuracy rating bonus from the Warbanner, you don't need to stack too much accuracy rating to achieve 40% more damage. I also don't see myself investing too much on Criticals, I wanted to so that I can pivot with aggravated bleeds with critical/exerts, but I made this as a league-starter. Money was a problem.

2. Echoes of Creation: With HP Regen inherent on this build, some PDR, I can actually take the 82% of my HP as damage each time I attack. I also choose to get the 25% recoup from the leech mastery to mitigate it some more. Echoes actually helped me with some mana problems as well when I take the 10% mana recoup from Mana Mastery.

3. Bannerman Notable for what I would coin: "Banner-chaining" where in I utilize Inspirational Champion Ascendancy node to refund Valour when I exit banner area. The Valour refund is ALSO AFFECTED by increases to Valour gain, so that way when I exit Defiance banner's radius, I can plant another defiance banner to maintain speed.

4. Self-aura botting: I invested in two Reservation Mastery areas in my tree, and utilized up to 4 auras because Champion's Inspirational Ascendancy offers aura boosts. Might as well, right?

5. Ancestral Vision: Since I go way above 100% spell suppression, I can get away with virtually free Elemental effect avoidance too.

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Some videos of Early and Later versions of my build:

Normal Maven, Double Strike of Impaling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcinxMuXdMg

Searing Exarch with Earthshatter of Prominence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0EqRgXrIJ8

Uber Sirus with Groundslam of Earthshaking https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dG1cqKgH_4k

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I know, I need to work on flasks etc. Might get a mageblood in a month.
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I hope you enjoy this build. I worked so hard on it for a month now, and I have enjoyed beating the crap out of Uber Sirus over and over - something I never thought I could do my entire life hahaha. Cheers!

This is nice, is there a way to automate banner placing?

Unfortunately no.

This is one of this build's huge downsides as most of the time I can't spot the Valour value when Boss bars take up so much space up with the buffs.

Uber Maven with Late game gear and Mageblood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsG9MoGZaXY

Latest POB: https://pobb.in/eZb1nJeo25en

So far so good, it can do a lot of the uber bosses as I've been farming Sirus and Eater of Worlds. Maven was probably the most difficult fight for me, followed by Uber Uber Elder since I have skill issue.


I have dropped Stance skills and Herald of Purity in favor of Pride, with a Watcher's eye for Pride to increase Maximum Impales and Determination to boost my PDR so that Echoes of Creation will not hurt me too much.

Dropping Herald of Purity allows me to focus a bit more on Impales as a solid damage multiplier, and a pseudo- critical chance with the Impale Mastery: 20% chance on Hit to remove ALL Impales from the enemy, Impales removed this way MULTIPLY their Reflected Damage for THIS HIT by the number of hits they have left.

So with 9 Maximum Impales, I can have respectively: 9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 = 45 highest maximum impales on an enemy with an expected minimum of 9+8+7+6+5 = 35 Impales on an enemy. So 35-45 Impales on enemy with an increased Impale effect of 39(from Impale Supp) + 27(from Savage Skewering) 66% increased baseline.

I have also taken the Harpooning Impale nodes that boosts the baseline to a further 76%, where as I have conditional Impale effect increases Totalling 100% from 30% on non-impaled with harpooning node + 20% non-impaled effect with Impale Mastery + 50% with Deliberate Brutality notable from anoint.


I have 176% increased Impale effect on the first Impale giving me a multiplier of 0.27 of Impaling hit's damage. If I hit the all-impale proc the 9 Impales will deal 2.43 times my big hit damage.

On the minimum expected proc all impale, the first impales will have 1.35x my hit damage while the 30 impales left (6+7+8+9 newer impales) will deal their impales with 76% increased effect, for 5.28x of the hit damage.

At the minimum, I can deal a total of 6.63x of my big hit damage.


I'm sorry for the paragraphs! I'd like to express these calculations in a more visual manner in the future, when I decide to create a video.