BalorMage’s Dominating Blow Guardian
Intro
This is a zero budget, league start and hardcore viable build guide designed for all players veteran and new. If you’re a seasoned player and just want the POB link, you can find it below. If you require a more detailed guide then read on!
Videos
Changelog
v3.01 – 15/01/2021
- Updated tree and Path of Building for 3.13 (Ritual)
- Updated POB
- Everything A-OK with this build for ritual and echoes.
v3.0 – 18/09/2020
- Updated tree and Path of Building for 3.12 (Heist)
- Added section for alternate gem quality
v2.01 – 22/06/2020
- If you’re having issues with getting the army out quickly, try Melee Splash instead of Fortify or Maim or Brutality. Awakened Melee Splash is cheap too.
- Beware Baran and his mobs! They will make your minions appear to be made of paper.
- Spectres are proving to be quite the liability and you’ll do fine without them. Try carrion golem or stone golem
v2.0 – 18/06/2020
- Guide overhauled for 3.11 (Harvest League), including:
- Updated tree (and leveling trees)
- Added cluster jewels
- Updated with new warcry skills
v1.0 – 11/03/2020
- Guide Published
Overview
The written portion of this build guide is designed for new players who feel like they need some hand holding. As such some things that veteran players and experienced racers might do in the early levels have been left out as to not be too complicated. That being said, this should still be a smooth and quick leveling experience.
This build is a little more advanced than the other build guides, involves more important gems and a bit of balancing man reservations and such. We have done our best to cover this but if it is your VERY FIRST league I would suggest running one of the other guides rather than this one.
Path of Building
Not sure how to use Path of Building, or what it is? Engineering Eternity has a brilliant guide that you can check out here https://exiledguides.com/home/poe-tools/path-of-building/
Pastebin Import: 3.13 POB
Passive Tree, Ascendancy & Pantheon
Level 90 Tree
Ascendancies
- Normal Lab: Radiant Crusade
- Cruel Lab: Unwavering Crusade
- Merciless Lab: Bastion of Hope
- Eternal Lab: Time of Need
Pantheon
Major – Soul of the Brine King
Upgrading all of this pantheon is a low priority, as the most important part is given to you by default.
Minor – Soul of Shakari
Capture Terror of the Infinite Drifts
Gem Setup
Main Skills: Herald of Purity & Dominating Blow
- Herald of Purity – Brutality Support– Multistrike Support – Melee Physical Damage Support– (Minion Damage from the helmet)
- Dominating Blow – Multistrike Support – Brutality Support – Fortify Support – Feeding Frenzy Support – Maim Support or Melee Splash (optional)
4 Link: Support Spectres
- Raise Spectre – Elemental Army Support – Blood Magic Support – Meat Shield Support
Other skill gems:
- Tempest Shield (level 8) – Cast when Damage Taken Support (level 2) – Vaal Molten Shell (level 10)
- War Banner / Vulnerability / Convocation
- Flame Dash / Summon Holy Relic / Summon Skitterbots / Rallying Cry or Enduring Cry (depending on whether you want offense or defense)
Alternate Gem Quality
- Herald of Purity – Alt quality 2. Summoned Sentinels have 20% increased Cooldown Recovery Rate
- Dominating Blow – Alt quality 2. Summoned Sentinels have 20% increased Cooldown Recovery Rate
- Dominating Blow – Alt quality 3. Maximum 2 Summoned Normal Sentinels of Dominance
- Feeding Frenzy Support – Alt quality 2. Supported Skills have 10% increased Minion Movement Speed
- Summon Skitterbots – Alt quality 2. Minions have 10% increased Effect of non-Damaging Ailments on Enemies
- Vulnerability – Alt quality 1. 10% increased Effect of Curse
- Melee Splash Support – Alt quality 2. Supported Skills deal 40% more Damage to surrounding targets
Gear, Flasks and Jewels
Gear
Gearing for this build is mostly about links; all of your rare gear should just have as much life as you can get while still capping resistances.
Elder Helmet:
- +2 /+3 to socketed minion gems.
- Any level of “Socketed Gems are Supported by Minion Damage”.
Uniques:
(Refer to the Mapping section for more information about these items)
Flasks
On these flasks, we will need to roll some affixes when we reach maps. It doesn’t matter which of the last three flasks has which affix, as long as all three affixes are covered.
-Staunching, for bleed
-Warding, for curses
-Heat, for freeze
This combination will mean you cannot bleed, be frozen, or be cursed while your flasks are active. This is very helpful and strong, especially with certain map modifiers.
*Note* The Quicksilver Flask could also have any of these suffixes initially if you are okay moving through maps a little more slowly. This is just the ideal setup; what’s really important is you have the Enduring mana, Staunching, Heat, and Warding on utility flasks by the time you enter maps – in that order
Jewels
Primary jewel stats:
Secondary jewel stats:
Leveling
There are some good general leveling guides that can be found here for specifics on how to get through the acts: https://exiledguides.com/home/beginner-guides/leveling-guides/
Mapping
There are a few key items that enable this build to start pushing higher maps. One is a unique claw The Scourge, this drops from Shaper guardians so unless you are farming those early on days 1 to 3, you’ll want to buy this from trade.
Our next upgrade involves turning our Herald of Purity into a 5-link. In order to do this, we need an elder helmet that has the modifier “Socketed Gems are Supported by Level XX Minion Damage”. The catch, however, is that adding this extra link will make Herald of Purity cost more mana than we have available, so we also need to acquire a Circle of Guilt unique ring to reduce the mana reservation at the same time.
Helmet:
The elder helmet will likely be self crafted – you can do this with any Elder helmet and a Bound Fossil. The rolls we are after are:
- +2 to socketed minion gems (if you can afford to buy an ilvl 86 helmet, then +3).
- Any level of “Socketed Gems are Supported by Minion Damage”. (The difference between a level 16 minion damage and a level 20 minion damage is negligible.)
Ring:
There are a few different modifiers this ring can have, we need one with the following mods:
- Herald of Purity has (15–20)% reduced Mana Reservation. NOTE: This needs to be 20% – but you can buy it at a lower roll and use divine orbs. Fertile Catalysts can also add quality which will make the value higher.
- Sentinels of Purity deal (40–60)% increased Damage
Note that the implicit values of the ring are random, there’s nothing you especially need in the implicits, so buy whatever you can afford (the mods that best synergise with our build will also be the more expensive rings).
Further Improvements
Once you obtain a second Circle of Guilt ring, and some appropriate cluster jewels (the details of these are in path of building), you can respec your tree to gain more offensive and defensive power.