[Expedition] PoE 3.15 Duelist Spectral Shield Throw Gladiator Starter Build

Welcome to PoE 3.15 Spectral Shield Throw Bleed Gladiator Guide. With this starter build, you are tanky with 75/75 block and explode everything!

Quick Jump

Pros & Cons

• + fast mapping
• + great clear with bleed explosions
• + can do all content
• + tanky with 75/75 block, tons of armour & molten shell 
• + really fun Captain America playstyle (throwing a shield that chains)
• - lacking some single target until you invest currency
• +- you need to play the game yourself

Skill Tree

Ascendancy: Blood in the Eyes -> Gratuitous Violence -> Painforged -> Versatile Combatant

Pantheon: Lunaris or any you like

Bandit: Kill All

Passive Tree & PoB

Path of Building Link: 

Early / Mid / Late / Late with Cluster - https://pastebin.com/A3RnfEyP

Gems Setup

Main Link

4 Link

Spectral Shield Throw - Vicious Projectiles Support - Brutality Support - Unbound Ailments

5 Link

Swift Afflication Support

6 Link

Deadly Ailments Support / Cruelty Support / Lifetap Support

Most support gems have affordable Awakened versions.

Aura Setup

Pride or Malevolence: 50%

Pride has the potential to do more damage and also affects our initial hit. With Malevolence you can outrange enemies and its always up. Malevolence also has a nice Watcher's Eye mods to scale our bleed further.

War Banner: 10%

Pretty good for just 10%. Adds another Physical Damage Multiplier. It also helps our single target as you can just place it on the boss for a big boost.

Herald of Purity or Aspect of the Spider: 25%

More Physical Damage and some cool looking dudes

or

a stacking dps + slow debuff (Mandatory for Fenumus Gloves)

Utility

Blood Rage: Leech, Frenzy Generation, Attack Speed. Mandatory.

Dash: Just to get over Gaps.

Enduring Cry: Good regen, Endurance charges, Just use on autocast with Call to Arms Keystone.

Shield Charge - Lifetap - Faster Attacks - (Fortify)

Movement setup. Fortify is added through the weapon. You could also use Culling Strike Support if you feel comfortable with your mana.

Keep in mind that your Shield charge does a lot of damage as it also scales with your shield. In lower tier maps or just to have some fun you can easily shield charge packs to death.

(Vaal) Molten Shell: With the granite flask i have over 35k armour, which gives some huge boosts. You can use the normal version as additional life and the vaal one as "oh shit" button. You can also link it to Cast when damage taken. 

Ancestral Protector - Multiple Totems - Maim - Culling Strike

Good bossing setup: Maim + Cull are a great dps boost. And the attack speed is good QoL.

Corrupting Fever - Brutality Support - Efficacy Support - Swift Afflication Support / Empower

Damage Support that scales well with all our multipliers. Go for Empower 4 if you have the money. 

Flexible Setups

Tempest Shield: Gives 3% Block and you have some open gem slots. Also gives a free shield mtx

Vulnerability - (Blasphemy): If you are using Impresence. See gear section. Otherwise get Vulnerability another way (ring, trigger, corruption)

Precision: I use it to boost my Accuracy a bit and for my watcher's Eye. Just adjust the level to your mana needs. Only run if you don't play RT and have a related watcher's mod.

Gear Setup

Weapon

There aren't a lot of good Statsticks for physical SST. For a cheap and strong weapon i choose Advancing Fortress

15% Block Chance, free Fortify and some defense are quite good.

Alternatives: Prismatic Eclipse with 3 green Socket for 36% attack speed buff, as it's a global modifier. You can also corrupt it for RT.

Quality does not increase Physical Damage
Grants 1% increased Area of Effect per 4% Quality
-------------------------------------------------------
12% increased Global Physical Damage
-------------------------------------------------------
73% increased Physical Damage over Time
Adds 16 to 35 Physical Damage
14% reduced Enemy Stun Threshold
Gain 18% of Physical Damage as Extra Fire Damage
Attacks have 30% chance to cause Bleeding
41% increased Damage with Bleeding
Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill, with a 8 second Cooldown and 150% more Cost

Runic Hatchet with Warlord Influence. Go for double bleed mods. I also like trigger craft so you can't forget your tempest shield / blood rage and put vulnerabilty on it if you don't have a another source.

Keep in mind that most buffs on weapons are local modifiers, so won't affect your SST.

Shield

Colossal Tower Shield with as much armour as possible.

You can buy a ilvl86 for some chaos. Just throw some dense Fossil on it and you should be able to get one with 2k+ armour. This should be enough for nearly all content.

In 3.10 you can also use Defeaning Essence of Dread. They are now really cheap and always have a > 400 armour roll.

+438 to Armour
147% increased Armour
16% increased Stun and Block Recovery
Recover 4% of Life when you Block
+25 to Intelligence
+18% to Quality

With Harvest you can go for a Shaper / Warlord base and craft without affecting your big armour prefixes. Life gain on block is just crazy.

Chest

Lioneye's Vision

Easy to coluor. Mana leech included . Life and a ton of armour. Free Pierce.

Pretty good chest overall.

Influenced Astral Plate

+12% to all Elemental Resistances
---------------------------------------
+127 to maximum Life
+38% to Fire Resistance
+23% to Lightning Resistance
10% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit
Enemies you Kill Explode, dealing 3% of their Life as Physical Damage
7% Chance to Block Attack Damage

Always a good pick for any build.

Life, Res, Influence modifiers of your choice. I got Redeemer for Frenzy on Bosses and crafted Block for reaching the cap.

Amulet

Allocates Piercing Shots
+16 to all Attributes
Adds 15 to 21 Physical Damage
+490 to Armour
+70 to maximum Life
33% increased Stun and Block Recovery
Vulnerability has 100% reduced Reservation if Cast as an Aura
Gain Maddening Presence for 10 seconds when you Kill a Rare or Unique Enemy

Impresence

Good life, Armour, Physical Damage and Vulnerablity aura. Presence aura also looks nice in my opinion.

Alternative:

Rare with Physical damage, life, Resist.

With Elder or Hunter you get access to "Physical Damage over Time Multiplier"

Annoint:

Cleaving / Growth and Decay / Crystal Skin / +30 Intelligence / Ambidexterity

Ring

Adds 4 to 14 Physical Damage to Attacks
---------------------------------------------
+146 to Accuracy Rating
+54 to Evasion Rating
+78 to maximum Life
+44% to Cold Resistance
Non-Channelling Skills have -9 to Total Mana Cost

Just 2 rares with alot of Resist and Life.

I use the mastercrafted Prefix for -9 Mana cost.

Warlord influence for another possible source of vulnerability.

Belt

Stygian with Life, Resist

Gloves

Fenumus' Weave

Aspect of the Spider, Attack Speed, Additional Damage for Bleeds

Rare Apothecarys Gloves (increased Damage over Time) with Life, Attack Speed, Resist.

Hunter influence can give you "Physical Damage over Time Multiplier"

Boots

8% chance to Dodge Spell Hits if you've taken Spell Damage Recently
+12% to Fire and Lightning Resistances
------------------------------------------------------------
+43 to Intelligence
+88 to maximum Life
+20% to Cold Resistance
+19% to Lightning Resistance
Projectiles Pierce 2 additional Targets
19% increased Movement Speed
12% chance to gain Onslaught for 4 seconds on Kill

Armour based boots with Life, Resist, Movement speed

Hunter influence can give you pierce.

Helmet

Spectral Shield Throw fires 5 additional Shard Projectiles
---------------------------------------------------------------
+123 to maximum Life
3% increased maximum Life
+35% to Lightning Resistance
Nearby Enemies take 9% increased Physical Damage
+30 to Intelligence

Armour based with Life and 9% Physical damage.

You need an Elder ILvl85 Base for the mod since and it's not that easy to roll.

A good alternative and cheap helm which is always available with a lot of lab enchants is Crown of the Inward Eye

Jewels

Intuitive Leap - you can grab 3 really good nodes with it in the Ranger area

https://imgur.com/VOFF8Qk

Watcher's Eye - If you have the money go for it. There are some good Malevolence mods.

60% increased Attack Damage while affected by Precision
+21% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence

Rare Jewels:

Look out for

- Maximum Life
- Damage over Time
- Damage with Bleeding
- Physical Damage
- Attack Speed (while holding a Shield)

Flasks

Bubbling/Seething Divine Life Flask of Staunching

Instant heal flask as in most of life builds with bleed removal.

Alchemist's Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline: Going fast

Experimenter's Granite Flask of Iron Skin

The Iron Skin suffix boosts our armour by a ton. Great flask for Molten shell

Perpetual Silver Flask of Warding

We don't have a source of Onslaught so we go with this one.

Ample Quartz Flask of Heat

I love Phasing and some extra Defense is welcome. You can swap this flask for something you like.

I choose the Warding and Heat Suffix for my last 2 Flasks. For me thats the most important ones. Prefix are changeable. 

Cluster jewels

Large:

12% increased Physical Damage as enchant scales our damage very well. As Notable you can choose between Force Multiplier, Battle-Hardened, Iron Breaker, Master the Fundamentals ...

12% increased Attack Damage with shields can be used as well. Here you have Notables like Gladiator's Fortitude

Medium:

+5% to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier

Notables like Exposure Therapy, Rend, Vivid Hues

Small:

- 1% Chance to Block Attack Damage

can fix some missing block

- 4% increased maximum Life
can't go wrong with that one. Just go full life e.g. with Fettle or use some hybrid notable like Gladiator's Fortitude

Leveling

With some gear leveling as SST is really fast.

You can just use the common leveling items such as:

- Tabula Rasa
- Blackheart Rings
- Lochtonial Gloves
- Goldrim Helmet
- Wanderlust Boots

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For Leveling i would prefer Splitting / Shattering Steel until 30.

Titcus Span will easily carry you to Blood Aqueduct.

At level 61 swap for Chernobog's Pillar. It costs nothing and with over 1k armour you will get into maps fast.

Not sure about leveling with this character for league start. You could try Shield Crush. Lycosidae / Kaltenhalt are good early game shields.