everseen's HCSSF Earthshatter Berserker League Starter

Welcome to my League Start Guide for Earthshatter Berserker!

All info will be updated within the POB in the description of the YouTube guide until Mobalytics gives us a way to edit information.

I'll be playing this character in HCSSF this league for 3.27. My POE Profile is https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/everseen-0826

This build is one of the simplest league start builds for 3.27 that will get you to a stable farming spot for other builds.

POB: https://pobb.in/BU64xHvwhVBQ

T16 Map Regex, Mostly takes out the absolutely worst mods.

"!s on h|efl|eec|ur$|gen|s rec|o al|oj|ked"

TIPS AND TRICKS FOR THE BUILD

• In Act 1 marauder has one of the worst experiences out of all the classes, I prefer to not use Shield Charge although that is probably the most efficient way to level and traverse until you get Sunder. I also like to use Ground Slam with Ruthless Support and Momentum Support early game. Momentum is kind of a sleeper gem that doesn't get too much attention but basically if I stand still my attack speed keeps going up for each hit and if I move I gain a buff that gives me movement speed. This feels really good on slow and awful early game melee combat because simply the monsters are faster than you. It's typical to use Chance to Bleed Support instead but I just prefer momentum
• Use blacksmith whetstone recipe for axes, white base, 1 whetstone, and a rare rustic sash for the best tier aside from using a unique sash. Get rare rustic sashes by using essences on them Make sure to use essences first on white axes you find on the ground to hopefully get an upgrade if you badly need one
• Don't forget that now we can gamble for axes as well to try and get something usable
• Take lots of elemental resistances on the tree to help with gearing early on and help Alira to get +15 to all elemental resistances. This can be refunded later by selling 20 orbs of regret with a jade, amber, lapis, or onyx amulet to get the other corresponding buffs instead if you want.
• Early on you will want to get warcries exert an additional attack to bring Intimidating Cry to 3 exerts total. The mastery will also prevent leap slam from consuming your exerts and will leave them to be consumed by Sunder.
• When you reach act 3 make sure to do the library quest to get Fortify Support support, try to fit this in your links ASAP until you can path to the fortify mastery and replace fortify with Fist of War Support form Act 4.
• When you reach act 4 you will want to use Overexertion Support as soon as possible and buy Autoexertion in act 3. Link Autoexertion with Intimidating Cry as well as Seismic Cry for huge aoe. In act 4 you also want to get fist of war which will be a huge damage increase.
• For ascendancy pathing I like to grab Crave the Slaughter first for tons of attack speed, followed by War Bringer to basically make it so Intimidating Cry has 100% uptime with 6 exerts and then Defy Pain for getting into maps to give us a slight boost in sustain.
• With the bloodlines this upcoming league I will be trying out the Breach Bloodline to get less physical damage taken. Overall none of them look super interesting for slams since Oshabi got it's Adrenaline removed.
• Another thing we use later is to get the mastery for warcries have 10 minimum power and warcries grant rage. Each warcry will grant 2 and since we are using 5 or so of them it's a ton of rage generation. These 2 masteries will also make it so you sustain and keep your maximum rage indefinitely.
• Personally when applying warcry quality I actually try to stagger them a bit so they have different cooldowns. Intimidating cry at 20 quality, maybe put infernal cry at 13%, maybe put generals cry at 20% because it will trigger really often to detonate spikes.
• For mana issues, you'll have to use a mana flask and you can link Mana Leech Support to Infernal Cry if you want. Ideally you will want a Viridian Jewel with mana leech and the craft for -mana cost to non channeling skills. This craft comes from killing a boss on a high tier map. Try to roll an "Enduring" Mana flask early so you can keep using your skills and the flask doesn't deactivate when your mana reaches full. You can also use Earthshatter with Lifetap Support in the beginning but I prefer to just use a mana flask.
• A great way to get quality warcry gems on league start is to actually buy from Tujen's inventory where he will sell random quality gems.
• Weapon swap to a Redblade Banner with Enduring Cry which will give you 5 endurance charges instantly because of the infinite warcry power from the shield
• When in the campaign I highly suggest pathing to Disciple of the Unyielding becuase it gives a lot of added benefits for endurance charges as well as taking the endurance charge right above it for 4 endurance charges. Coupled with good armour and the Fortify mastery you will be pretty tanky during the last half of the campaign.
• One of berserkers problems is being a bit squishy early on, you want to prioritize getting a decent chunk of armour once you get to maps, ideally through a decent chest piece but there are other ways on the passive tree to do this. One is iron reflexes by going for hybrid gear, just be careful because some of the dexterity requirements are quite taxing for gear. Another is taking the Armour and Evasion Mastery for 8% increased armour per endurance charge. You can also take the two hand mastery and refund the increased damage for rares and uniques (depending on your current damage of course) but you can take 10% increased armour per red rocket on weapon. Hopefully getting 60% increased armour which is quite strong. Another good node is Vengeance and can grant 1% armour per rage.
• Use Sunder to complete campaign, much easier to blast with and farm merciless lab to get maps, scarabs, pre mapping gear, and quality for Earthshatter.
• Earthshatter benefits from getting an additional spike to be detonated with warcries when it's at maximum quality. If feeling like staying in lab, farm quality for Intimidating Cry for cooldown recovery which equals more double damage uptime and for General's Cry which has a very short cooldown already and will be used to detonate spikes. General's Cry has no other function than detonating Earthshatter spikes.
• Farm Delirium for a 5 or 4 passive exerted attacks medium cluster from delirium so that you can get perma onslaught through the Lead By Example notable. Since we are continuously warcrying and we get onslaught for 4 seconds on warcry it's permanently on our character. You also want to go for Warning Call because it will give you lots of armour % which berserker struggles to get. You can alternatively run the Notable Mob Mentality to get a random charge when you warcry. This is used in particular to sustain and keep your frenzy charges while bossing.
• For Echoes of Creation, you will need quite a lot of armour and physical mitigation to pull it off. It's really not a good idea to have bad defenses while using this item. Having additional physical damage reduction on your chest piece along with 6 endurance charges and at least 30k armour with a bit of leech will help. Basically dogpile on as much recovery as you can. Also you can benefit from the Glorious Vanity (Doryani Corrupted Soul) Keystone from the Glorious Vanity timeless jewel coupled with Divine Shield to get 15% of your life as energy shield. Basically divine shield will give us energy shield recovery which will combat the damage we take from Echoes.
• When you complete the campaign use your gold to gamble for Axes so you can try to get an axe with flat phys/% phys or attack speed. Try to get 2 of the 3 mods and craft the last mod.
• When starting out in maps, use Harvest Reforge Chaos on Amethyst Ring to get your chaos res capped easily.
• Use harvest reforge Defense on chest pieces to try and get something decent with armour
• You can also gamble for body armour and have a chance at hitting a 5 link.
• Get your settlers town up and running ASAP so that you can send crimson bars to Ngakanu because this place will give you strength gear. The more bars you send, the better the link/socket chance will be as well as the modifier tier.
• Late Game you can get an Exarch Implicit for your body armour that gives an Endurance charge every 12 seconds which will allow you to drop the 100% increased duration of charges mastery. Might have to use a conflict orb for this since it's exceptional tier,

Solving Mana Issues:

Link Mana Leech Support to Infernal Cry, this will make it so the exerted attacks will be leeching mana.

Get a Viridian Jewel ASAP with %Phys Leeched as Mana

Use Lifetap in your Earthshatter links

Get a mana flask with the "Enduring" Modifier which will make it so your flask will continuosly recover mana even though you've hit your maximum mana

Take Spirit of War on the passive tree for 0.5% leech if desperate

-mana to channelling skills craft

Changes I made:

Used Fortify support instead of fist of war to gain 5 passive points in the endgame stages of the build

Took "Bastion Breaker" on the Passive Tree along with the mastery to get 100% overwhelm physical damage reduction

On impale maps I take the protection mastery for "You cannot be impaled" Good for expedition as well

Used another medium cluster to make use of the Mob Mentality notable to have 100% uptime on endurance and frenzy charges. This allows us to drop Disciple of the Unyielding.

Went full 100% Suppression on the build because Suppression helps a lot with T17's.

Used a Ruby/Topaz/Sapphire Flask for T17's as well, was much comfier.