"Champion that which you love. He who fights for nothing dies for nothing."

The Champion is a defensive/support class that can act as a tank for their party by taunting and debuffing enemies, buffing their allies with an aura, or Intimidate enemies to reduce their defenses. 

This Build can clear all content (maps/shaper/lab/atziri + ubers etc). And be fun and engaging, not cost an extraordinary amount of currency, and have the ability to be a league starter with the ability to do all content later on as you upgrade and invest into your character.

 

Pros & Cons

Pros

• + Very fun and engaging build to play
• + Demonic Reave MTX looks amazing!
• + Very fast pace build
• + Incredible movement speed with whirling blades
• + Very decent aoe clear
• + One of the best single target gems in the game
• + Great evasion/dodge/dmg reduction
• + Free 100% accuracy with ascendancy class
• + Free fortify on 100% of time
• + Stun immune
• + Can do almost all map mods (avoid any reflect phys OR ele)
• + Able to do all content (all maps, uber atziri, all labs, shaper and guardians, elder, uber elder)
• + Amazing defensive capabilities
• + Easy/Cheap to gear with room for lots of improvements as you get more currency

Cons

• - Ele Reflect OR Phys Reflect maps are NOT possible
• - Can not leech maps are NOT possible
• - Can be decently expensive to fully min/max yourself for end game gear

 

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

Unstoppable Hero > Fortitude > Conqueror > Worthy Foe

Bandits

Help Alira for the 5 mana regen/s, 15 to all resists, and 20% crit multi

Pantheon

• Minor God - Shakari. 
• Major God - Sould of Solaris 

Passive Tree

 

Gems Setup

Helmet 4L setup for reave (use for leveling 38+): Reave - Multistrike - Melee Phys Dmg - Inc AO

Body Armor 4L setup for blade flurry: Blade Flurry - Melee Phys Dmg - Maim - Conc Effect

5L EDWA

6L add Inc crit damage

3L Setup: Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Blood Magic

3L Setup: CWDT (lvl 1) - Immortal Call (lvl 3) - Increased Duration

4L Setup: Hatred - Ancestral Protector - CWDT (lvl 13) - Ele Weakness (lvl 16)

4L Setup: CWDT (lvl 20) - Lightning Golem - Herald of Ash - Portal/BloodRage

Note: Portal/BloodRage should NOT be linked to CWDT + Golem. Herald of Ash can or cannot be, it doesn't matter either way.

 

Gear

Overview

Helmet

Abyssus is the only way to go. The % extra physical damage taken you want the LOWEST (40% if possible), then comes global crit multi, then the attributes, really wish this puppy had life

Weapon

Claw is 100% mandatory for this build. Can use swords/daggers to early level with, but as soon as you need to leech life/mana and you start picking up claw nodes on tree, claw will be required.

Base: Best base is imperial claw.

Stats: High Phys Dmg > Attack Speed > Crit Chance > Crit Multi.

Start Claws: Ornament of the east works all the way up until you can use bloodseeker. Bloodseeker will carry you for all your content until you get a good 350+ pdps claw with crit and attack speed.

Stat Stick

Stat sticks are crazy good ever since shaper/elder items became a thing. I would aim for 2x phys dmg as extra xxxx damage that are 30%+ and try to craft global crit multi on it. The amount of damage this adds is utterly insane.

*IMPORTANT NOTE* You have to make sure that your stat stick is a basetype that does NOT work with reave (axe/scepter) if you get a sword for example, reave will alternate hands when it attacks. Getting a base that is not used with reave make it only use your main hand weapon.

Chest 

Farrul's fur is BiS here but there is a high probability that it will be unavailable in the future. It gives very high life, tons of armour/evasion, max frenzy + power charges, and adds 2 seconds to cat's stealth along with letting aspect of the cat reserve no mana. Note that if you do go with this chest you must roll/craft aspect of the cat on one of your items (stat stick would be best). If Farruls fur is unavailable belly of the beast would be the go to option, though a very high rolled loreweave would probably outshine it greatly.

Gloves

A good rare pair of gloves is your best bet here. First try to get a good pair of spiked gloves, the bonus melee damage scales up to 20% which is huge and adds a good chunk of damage. Then go for the stats.

Stats: Spiked base > High Life > Attack speed > Dual res's

Boots

Good rare pair of boots is the best option here. Whirling blades is used for 99% of your movespeed. So in actuality movespeed on boots matters very little if at all.

Stats: High life > Tri Res > Movespeed

Belt

Another Good rare piece is the best bet here. Easy to get remaining resistances and super high life & elemental damage with attacks. Even though we are a physical build, with hatred + herald + stat stick adding ele dmg to us, we do quite a bit of ele dmg as well. HEADHUNTER is great on this build and you are more than welcome to use it if you want to spring for one, or get lucky.

Stats: Highest life possible > EDWA > Finish Resistances you need > Strength > Flask stuff

Jewelry

Jewelry is to fill out as much dmg and the rest of ur defensives as you can. Really good pieces can get really expensive. The good thing is that with belly + rare gloves/boots + Passives you should already have a good chuck of your resistances filled out. Steel ring base is the best you can get especially with a double phys roll. Lapis/Onyx/agate/citrine base for ammy would be best and you need some int for gems

Stats: Phys dmg > Life > Any remaining resistances > Crit/Crit Multi (Ammy only) > EDWA

Jewels

Watcher's eye crit hatred can be very expensive and not 100% required but is almost like running a free Increased crit strikes gem, it is amazing the amount of damage it adds.

 

Enchants

Gloves - NONE! Spiked Gloves implicit is best you can get. If you do not have Spiked gloves then get w/e you want.

Boots - Two-Toned boots are one of my favorites if you can find a good pair, the extra resists really help. Leech/increased attack + cast speed are both good ones too but only work if you have killed RECENTLY (within last 4 seconds) so does not work with single target + bosses which is by far the most important.

Helmet - 12% increased reave radius is BiS. Can get 40% increased blade flurry damage, but the reave radius is definitely a lot nicer as our damage is already completely insane.

 

Simple Leveling Guide

- Cleave can be used to level the entire way until level 38 when you get multistrike. 4 Link it when you can with onslaught, melee physical damage, and Maim.

- Set up a 4 link Blade flurry for single target with melee phys dmg, conc effect, ele dmg with attacks.

- Use any 1 hand rare weapon with the most flat phys dmg on it. Crit/Attack speed don't matter much at this point though I hate slow weapons personally. Base does not matter at all here either. Claws, Swords, Daggers w/e is fine while EARLY leveling. Once you need leech, you need to have a claw for soul raker passive.

- Use ornament of the east claw as soon as you can and upgrade to bloodseeker claw as soon as you can after that.

- For armor pieces (helm/chest/boots/gloves etc) just try to get a good amount of res and any life you can.

- Use a mana flask until your mana leech is good enough to sustain your skill. Especially for boss fights in which you will run out of mana quickly.

- If it is not the start of a league elreon jewelry while leveling is wonderful. Along with your normal leveling uniques such as: Goldrim, wanderlust, tabula etc.

 

Expectations