"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 is very cheap to start and get to end game and have decent damage & clear speed. We doesn't require any specific unique at all, so very SSF viable.

 

Quick Jump

• Pros & Cons
• Playstyle
• Leveling
• Skill Tree 
• Gems Setup
• Expectations & POB
• Gear Setup

 

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Decent damage & clear speed.
• Vaal clones melt the boss's while you can sip tea.
• Build is very cheap to start and get to end game with.
• Doesn't require any specific unique at all, so very SSF viable.

Cons

• Pure melee build so need to get up close and personal.
• Cannot do reflect maps. Every other mod is game.

 

Playstyle

You jump into the mob using leapslam which applies Fortify buff and attack to clear them. Release your clones (Vaal Double Strike) when facing high life/dangerous monsters to clear them safely.

Ancestral Warchief can be used to gain more damage or clear mobs from distance. Make sure you use attack in place-Either hold shift or use the Num-Lock trick.

 

Skill Tree 

Ascendancy

• Worthy Foe
• Unstoppable Hero
• First to Strike, last to fall

If you find Adrenaline Unreliable you can go with Fortitude.

Bandits

This quest is given to you by Eramir in the Forest Encampment after you complete Through Sacred Ground or talk with any of the bandit leaders. There are three different bandit leaders. You can either side with one of them (and kill the other two) to get the respective reward or you can kill all of them to get the reward from Erami - from Gamepedia

Kill All

Pantheons

The Pantheon List

These can be switched according to the map mods/situation

• Major: Soul of Solaris
• Minor: Soul of Tukohama

Passive Tree

 

Gems Setup

CHEST

Color's required:
1. 4 Red 2 Green
2. 4 Red 1 Green 1 Blue
3. 5 Red 1 Green

Vaal Double Strike + Maim + Melee Phys Damage Support [These 3 should always be in setup]

+ Ancestral Call + Melee Splash [For mapping]

Although you can clear upto T15 boss's easy with the above 5 links but for pure single target switch the above 2 gems with

+ Multistrike + Chance to Bleed (or even Weapon Elemental Damage Support)

6th link can be either

Increased Critical Strike support or Culling Strike or Chance to bleed (when used as 6th link then use Ruthless as switch gem for single target or Ruthless

GLOVES

Blood Magic + Leap Slam + Faster attacks support + Fortify

BOOTS

CWDT + Immortal call + Increased duration + Enfeeble(can use Ice Golem or Blood rage instead of curse)

HELME

Ancestral Warchief + Maim + Melee Phys + Conc

AURA'S

• Hatred--Always on
• HOI--- For mapping
• HOA--- For single target

Arctic Armour can also be used for extra phys defense

You can generally run 2 Aura's but can go 3 Aura's with a lvl3 enlighten support.

About Adrenaline (First to Strike, Last to Fall)

You can proc Adrenaline using either

• Righteous Fire (slow but use's only 1 gem slot)
• Using a 3 link setup:- Blood Magic + Blasphemy + Any curse

Either scenario, Activate/Deactivate to get 20sec Adrenaline boost, you can use life flask to recover your health back faster.

 

Gear

Important Stats you need on your gear

• You need at-least 12-20+ dexterity on your gear.
• Upwards of 70+ intelligence on gear.
• #% of Phys Attack leeched as Mana (You can take a mana leech node on the tree until you can get this mod on your gear).

Weapon

Main Hand needs to be a One handed Sword with high PDPS

Offhand preferably a scepter(can use an Axe or Sword too) with gain phys as extra elemental damage. (This is a Shaper mod)

Armours

Any rare 5-6 link with Armour & life. A shaped +1/crit chance chest with those stats would be BIS.
Unique chest you can use is Belly of the Beast or Loreweave.

Gloves & Boots

Any you want to to balance out your resistances/stats
Also best to stack some dexterity & Intelligence on these two to use some of our gems and gear.

Belts

You can use Perseverance, since we have almost permanent fortify we get permanent onslaught with this belt too. The rest of the stats ain't bad either. But you can use a rare Rustic Stash or Stygian Vise to give boost to your resis & health too.

Rings

Preferably Diamond for increased critical chance with whatever stats you require for balancing your needs.

Amulet

We use a Carnage heart for extra stats, some resistances, leech and damage. Any rare with the stats you require can be used too.

Jewels

Mods to Look For

• Increased Phys Damage
• Critical Strike Multiplier
• Attack Speed
• Health

If you have the currency I would recommend a watcher's eye with increased crit chance. This gives us a pseudo 7 link DS similar to adding increased crit chance gem. But it's quite expensive atm.

Flasks

• A life Flask, Quicksilver & Diamond with Bleed/Freeze remove mods.
• Lion's Roar Give's Huge Damage boost but knock-back can be annoying.
• Sin's Rebirth is not really required but boost's both damage & defense. A cheaper alternative would be Atziri's Promise.
• The new Soul Catcher Flask is great for our vaal clone's.

 

Leveling

LEVELING SUMMARY

Leveling should be should be pretty easy considering we get to use all our 4 main damage gems before lvl 20.

We started with straight up double strike. Later added melee splash, then Maim & finally Melee Phys. This 4 link should get you to upto lvl 50.

Make sure you lvl up your Ancestral call gem with the rest too. You can also switch between Maim & Ancestral call for extra AOE.

SKILL TREE PROGRESSION

With Skill Tree we follow the 3 way pattern

1. Upto lvl 30 we head left towards Marauder section: Lvl 30 Tree

2. Upto Lvl 60 we head a little down towards our own Duelist tree & then move right towards Ranger section: Lvl 60 Tree

3. After 60 we fill in the rest of the missing nodes & jewels(4 nodes) as we level up.

IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE DURING LEVELING

1. We will have insufficient Intelligence or Dexterity while leveling either for some gems or gear. So stack them on your gear. If you still feel need for more Intelligence then grab the "Wisdom of Glade" node along right side of our tree path.

2. Mana Leech is required to keep our attacks. Best to grab a mana leech node along the minor dexterity node's on our skill tree path. This is only until you get this mod on your gear somewhere.

 

Expectations & POB

POB link: https://pastebin.com/SEwRGTU9

(If you do not know how to use it, see the instructions below, otherwise please ignore)

• Download Path of Building (link: https://github.com/Openarl/PathOfBuilding)
• Copy pastebin URL.
• Launch path of building.
• Click on Import/Export.
• Click Import from Pastebin
• Paste the URL copied in step 2.
• Done!