Hello Everyone.

introduction

This week I shared a way of using the new revealed Battlemage's Cry gem here in the sub and went into great thought of coming up with a build that would use it: Boneshatter with Eternal Apple.

some cool mechanics

The cherry of this build is using Battlemage's cry to support yourself with annoying to cast spells (like Phase Run or any Mark skill gem). Due to gem slot restrictions I decided on dropping phase run in favor of running Poacher's mark and a cwdt 1 + storm brand setup (in hopes of generating frenzy charges on bosses). The other spell I have linked with Battlemage's Cry is Summon Stone Golem. So with one exerted attack I'll be able to resummon the golem and the others will apply poacher's mark (getting a frenzy charge on kill while clearing and 5% chance on hit versus bosses).

Since GGG went a long way to nerf everything, I decided to nerf myself further and not use Dash in this build, perfectly simulating the old ways of PoE I think they are trying to bring back. Leap Slam was the skill of choice: not only it does not require dex, I can exert it to cast mark skills and leaping into a pack before hitting with boneshatter; the price is that it sucks a lot when compared to dash.

At the time of this writing, the current hit damage, not counting ruthless blow, is 754k. I'm now at the point of completely disregarding attack speed in DPS calculations, only considering it as a QoL feature for the build.

the dps issue

To reach such a number, I used the following mechanics:

• Eternal apple with Intimidating Cry, Rallying Cry and Ancestral Cry

• Swapped out a ring to fit an Essence Worm into the build, so I could use Herald of Purity to have more allies with me and make Rallying Cry 25% more damage actually reliable. The allies are: 3 totems, 4 sentinels of purity and 1 stone golem

• Considering one attack per second even if i'm actually close to 2 on PoB. This matches perfectly with all the exerts and I want this guy to be a combomaster, lining all exerts perfectly.

• Two warcries on self cast: battlemage's cry (to cast supported spells, get some more damage via spell damage jewels) and seismic cry (stun threshold)

• the notable Escalation does not grant damage to warcries triggered in Eternal Apple (even if the wording is exactly like the notable Admonisher, and Admonisher does remove ailments when triggering warcries in Eternal Apple).

• Went blood magic because I wouldnt be able to pay costs of non-triggered skills anyway and gotta pay the costs for triggered ones now too

• Went low life to use bloodthirst support for more damage (I suppose its a great gem these days); other links are fortify support, brutality support, ruthless support and melee physical damage support.

• Using maim support (level 1 to match the new value) with ancestral warchief

• Alongside herald of purity, using pride (initial effect), war banner

• Rage set at 25 on pob

• Berserk active (should have 66% uptime; ~10s up, 5s down)

• Frenzy charges up at stated before

• Considering boneshatter at 280% given the number of other melee gems on patch notes, 70-110 added phys dmg @level 20 and 2% more trauma damage, 8 stacks (conservative); I invested in 90% increased skill effect duration for a total duration of 11.4s

• added boneshatter simulation, mortal conviction and battlemage buff in aquamarine flask

• added new support gem numbers into callinellus malleus

• accidental 51% unreserved life for maximum confirmation that this is the way

So after all that, the combo should be 3 hits in 3 seconds:

~750k, ~750k, ~1.5m

And the cycle repeats in Eternal Apple.

So nearing 1m dps, which was considered low to my previous standards; specially considering that i'm a berserker.

defense

• Fortify

• around 8k life

• around 2k leech rate per instance

• Berserk

• 2 minimum endurance charges

• (bad) aspect of carnage

• petrified blood

• defy pain (with nullified reflect damage)

• 600 hp regen

what is missing (TLDR)

Looking for some protips from you guys or even a double check to see if i'm missing anything or did some oversights in some sections. A plan B with already released skills would be great too (ground slam, earthquake, etc). The dps number is something I would expect from Jugg or Chieftain, but not Zerker.

If i'm way off boneshatter, I might have to rethink it with a strategy to stack trauma instead of the current slow hitting boneshatter. Another thing that is yet to be checked is if the AoE component will damage enemies hit by the Strike component of the skill. Surely not to be included against uber bosses in dps calculations, but should be great for mapping.

the pob: https://pastebin.com/9mBAMR7b

updated pob with takes from the thread: https://pastebin.com/Qm7Ffm7i (using molten shell in battlemage's cry as a 4l and moved phase run + seismic cry + leap slam to weapon; portal is on weapon swap)