Path of Exile – Build: Ground Slam Marauder [Guide]

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• Overview
• Passive Skills
• Active Skills
• More Info

But despite being the easiest build you can play in the game, people would still want to play a solid melee character and smash enemies on the head with a big weapon. This build is exactly for that purpose, using a Marauder that takes a big weapon and hits the ground with it to damage as many nearby enemies as possible.

Overview

This is a straightforward build for the Marauder that makes use of a two-handed weapon, preferably a mace since it’s much stronger than an axe. All the equipment you need are strength-based, so it’s easy enough to pick out whatever you’ll be wearing. Adding to that, the gems you need for this build are red ones, which are the most common when dealing with strength-based equipment.

The really good thing about this build is that you will never miss your attacks, which does a lot to provide you with a high DPS output. Meanwhile, your defense is mostly reliant on your health regeneration, which should be at around 200 HP per second at least. Of course, that can only serve its purpose though if there is also high armor and life pool to go with it.

Being a beefy tank that compensates for the fact that you’re using a two-handed weapon, which leaves no space for a shield. But the high damage output also makes up for it. Add the fact that you don’t need to worry about dexterity and intelligence means that you can focus on just being as big and strong as you can and making use of Ground Slam to best effect.

Passive Skills

[Click here to view the Passive Skill Tree for this build]

The advantages brought on by these passive skills when you’ve reached a high enough level is that you’ll always hit with your attacks, you’ll never get stunned while being able to stun enemies, you will hit really hard, you won’t run out of mana, and you will be really hard to kill. This makes leveling up a breeze and you’ll plow through mobs of enemies really fast.

As for the disadvantages, there are a few. For instance, you will run out of mana pretty fast until you can get mana leech. The Marauder is also quite slow in the early game, so you’ll have to learn how to cope with that. There are also some gems that you’ll have to buy from others, so you can’t get them early enough.

Active Skills

Your primary attack is Ground Slam, which delivers splash damage in spades. It can then be supported by Life on Hit, as well as Faster Attacks, Added Fire Damage, Mana Leech, and Elemental Weapon Damage. If you get a 6-linked weapon (preferably a two-handed mace), then you should put these on.

As for single targets, you can use Heavy Strike, which delivers a big dose of damage on individual enemies so you don’t waste mana on Ground Slam when you’re just hitting one at a time. You can bolster it with Life Leech, Stun, Melee Physical Damage, Faster Attacks, and Added Fire Damage.

Unfortunately, Ground Slam does cause desync, which you will grow to hate. That’s offset by how much damage you can put down in a short amount of time, so you’ll hopefully dispatch enemies fast enough before any desync starts occurring.

More Info

For more information regarding gems, auras, and gear that you’ll need for this build, [visit this link].