PoE 3.9 Mauarder Molten Strike Juggernaut Tanky Build (PC,PS4,Xbox,Mobile)

This PoE 3.9 Mauarder Juggernaut build is the highly overused Molten Strike Juggernaut. The reason is because of the survivability and the synergy with endurance charges. We are aiming for 9-10 endurance charges in this build (depending on boot corruption or not).

Quick Jump

Pros & Cons

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

Go Unflinching first to get the Endurance Charges rolling and to supplement crappy leveling gear.

Next, get Undeniable for massive accuracy, attack speed, and damage bonuses (Can get this one first if you really need it).

Next, get Unbreakable since hopefully by then you will not still be wearing a Tabula Rasa and will have a 5 or 6 link body armour with some armour and life. 

Lastly, get Unrelenting to finish out our defenses with endurance charges. Or if you refuse to use Kaom's roots due to the movement speed/lack of gem links, go with Unstoppable. 

Pantheon 

Soul of Solaris is the best because of the reduced extra damage from crits, reduced elemental damage, and reduced area damage. If you don't have stun immunity of some kind yet, go with Brine King. 

For minor, pick based on situation. But, I'm partial to Tukohama and Ralakesh.

Bandit: Kill All (recommended) OR spare Oak

Passive Tree & PoB

Early -> Mid -> Late (with Avatar of Fire from Xoph's Blood)

Path of Building Link: https://pastebin.com/9LCnHdLE

Gems Setup

Molten Strike> Concentrated effect> Multistrike> Elemental Damage with Attacks> Combustion> Rage/Endurance Charge on Melee Stun(single target) and Ancestral Call (clearing). 

We are purely scaling damage to the orbs, not the melee hit. This is further scaled by the Iron Grip, Point Blank, and Avatar of Fire nodes in the skill tree. Multistrike is very good even with the comparative less attack speed, and the damage does not show up accurately in Path of Building dps for the orbs because it doesn't realize the production of the orbs is tied to every "melee strike". When using the Point Blank ascendancy, Concentrated effect is ALWAYS a dps increase. Normally the balls go from a distance between 5-20 from the player in a circle. Concentrated effect does not shrink the size of the actual orb explosion, just the distance of the radius they can travel. This means that it not only increases the overlap of orbs on a target because they are closer together, but it also means that Point Blank will give its full effect to more of the orbs on average. Elemental Damage with Attacks is pretty self-explanatory. 

While leveling, immolate is better than Combustion (assuming you are using Flammability for your curse on hit), but once you get Nebuloch's, Combustion is better. However, if you are using a helmet with pseudo six link Immolate and Concentrated Effect explicits, that is fine. Fire pen is also an option, but since we have so much negative resist with this build, I find that fire pen is not that strong compared with the other 2. 

With the new gems that came out with 3.7, Rage support and Endurance Charge on Melee Stun (especially with 10 endurance charges) are very good and likely better than Immolate (and possibly Combustion and Elemental Focus assuming you can keep up rage stacks) late game for single target. The increased area of effect on Pulverise is actually a detriment to us due to Point Blank and I don't think that the increased melee area damage actually effects our projectiles. The last gem should be left to your preference. 

Ancestral Call probably does not help us with single target much anymore because we have to melee strike an enemy to create the projectiles. It will still be the absolute best gem for mapping/clearing tho. 

In case your interested in your actual dps, here is a link for a molten strike damage calculator. (I am not sure if this is up to date*)
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1903956

Alternative Fire Main Skills 

Vaal Impurity of Fire (level 21)> Vaal Impurity of Ice (level 21)> Vaal Impurity of Lightning (level 21)> Enlighten (level 3 or 4).

As I mentioned above, the Vaal Impurity of X gives a cooldown with additional elemental damage reduction that stacks with it from other sources. This is especially good for fights like Uber Elder where you are worried about a certain kind of damage (cold). You can also use them as psuedo-flasks to get rid of status effects. HOWEVER, the short buff of Vaal Impurity of Fire, drastically lowers our damage because it negates our negative fire resistances on the enemies and sets it to 0. Only use this as a defensive emergency cooldown for fire damage. The other 2 do not affect our damage. 

Once again, you only need level 21 auras if you have a helm with +2 to level of socketed aura gems to get the magical level 23 gems for 5% max res compared to 4% max res. But, this can be very expensive and is not mandatory. 

While Enlighten level 4 is ideal, it is also expensive. But, it would potentially free up 4 skill tree points if you can get one. I would probably keep it, however, because I like having extra mana for molten strike or leap slam if you do not use blood magic. 

*For a DPS alternative, you can use Haste/Vaal Haste, Herald of Fire, or Anger. But keep in mind you will be losing 4-5% max resistances and will be MUCH more vulnerable. You would probably also need a generic Purity of Elements for 1 of your auras just to reach resist cap pre-endurance charge. This would increase clear speed for farming if you are having no trouble surviving. 

Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1)> Wave of Conviction (lvl 7) Vaal Molten Shell (lvl 10) 

Minus 25% to fire resist on wave of conviction is very nice and spams all the time on a level 1 CWDT. It will also always debuff fire due to Avatar of Fire. Keep in mind that if it procs again, the first wave disappears and is replaced by the second wave. If you find that this is happening too much, raise the level of the CWDT/WoC setup. 

We use level 1 CWDT with Molten Shell so it is up as often as possible while we use the Vaal Version for an "Oh Crap!" button. The damage mitigation is the same at all gem levels, but the damage and added flat armour are the only thing we get out of levels. Since we have so much armour, and we are not using it for an offensive skill, this is not that big of issue. Our goal is to get to 50,000 armour so we can get the max effect out of Molten Shell/Vaal Molten Shell. You can swap things around to add an Increased Duration support gem if you wish. Immortal Call is useless for this build despite all the endurance charges because it lowers our damage way too much to lose our endurance charges not to mention making us less tanky.

Orb of Storms (or Storm Brand)> Curse on Hit> Flammability

This is our standard Curse on Hit setup. Most people go with Storm Brand over Orb of Storms, but I don't like the way it feels. If you want to swap things around, Increased Critical Strikes support and Power Charge on Critical for the Elemental Overload node are an option, but probably not worth it, honestly.

Leap Slam> Fortify> Blood Rage (lvl 16-18 probably based on your Dexterity)> Blood and Sand

Leap Slam is nice because it can go over ledges too. Another option would be Blood Magic for its mobility/utility which you can do if you are willing to lose projectile damage on Molten Strike to put the Forify there instead. Faster Attacks is also a good alternative for getting around faster. Note that Leap Slam and Fortify are the only part of this that needs to be linked.

Blood Stance from Blood and Sand is amazing for Molten Strike. The less Area of Effect is actually a bonus due to the Point Blank node and we get a free 15% area damage for the Molten Strike Projectiles. Virtually no reason to use Sand Stance. 

For alternatives, consider Ancestral Protector for the attack speed (if you somehow have another way to acquire frenzy charge other than blood rage) or consider using Enduring Cry to start getting endurance charges on boss fights that don't start with adds. Vaal Haste (without regular Haste) is also a great dps cooldown option but probably not worth it if you are using Vaal Impurities and Vaal Molten Shell.

Gear Setup

For a more detailed selection of gear, please refer to the PoB Link. The gear selected in the PoB is not mandatory if it is not stated.

Weapon

Most important is weapons. You want to buy the ones with the highest physical dps you can followed then by physical as extra fire damage. If you find that you are still not tanky enough for whatever your doing, You can replace the offhand with a Saffell's Frame shield. This will give you more max resistances, but you will lose 10% reduced elemental damage. This is a gain of about 1-2% effective max resistances, BUT you will lose more than half of your damage!! Keep that in mind.

If you can't afford them yet, go with the highest phyiscal dps 1 handed maces that you can. Extra damage as fire, attack speed, and crit would be good bonuses. 

Also, the reason our charges look like Elder tentacles is because of a hidden stat on the Nebuloch's.

Ring

For the rings life gain on hit> max life> strength. 

An alternative would be Thief's Torment ring(s). It takes up both ring slots, but gives you crazy amounts of life and mana on hit as well as resists. I, personally, do not think that on this particular build that it is worth losing 2 endurance charges, but most other Jugg builds probably would be better with it. 

Gloves

For the gloves, increased damage while leeching> attack and cast speed> armor/es. This can be a little more costly than some of the other pieces. If you cannot find one, use a rare with good life and resists and maybe attack speed.

Boots

We use Kaom's Roots for boots. Corruption for +1 max endurance charge> Max Life. The trade off is we get tons of life and save from having to get the Unstoppable ascendancy because it has immunity to stun and freeze as well as negates all attack speed debuffs such as temporal chains (but the snare still applies), but we lose 4 gem sockets, all chance to evade, and all boot movement speed. However, we attack so fast that can get around with leap slam just fine. Or if it really bothers you, get a quicksilver flask. 

If you are willing to lose a lot of defense, you can take Unstoppable over Unrelenting and go with extremely well rolled rare boots with Life>resists>movement speed. This will give more DPS by allowing more gem links such as Ancestral Protector, but we will lose alot of our max life. 

Amulet

For the amulet, by far the highest dps and highest life option is a Xoph's Blood, but it can be expensive. In case you were wondering, the covered in ash effect give enemies 20% more fire damage taken (multiplier) and 20% reduced movement speed. It also saves you a skill point on Avatar of Fire. As mentioned above, you can replace the amulet for an Aul's Uprising Amulet with Purity of X reserves no mana cost. This lets you fit in Vitality as an aura which by itself is not that great, but when paired with a Watchers Eye that has life gain on hit with Vitality active, turns this build into the tankiest thing possible with instant full life recovery. I prefer the extra damage, as we are already super tough anyways.

If you need a budget option, you can get a rare with life> fire damage/elemental damage with attacks/attack speed> resists or a Carnage Heart for damage while leeching and more max leech. 

Helmet

For the helm Resists>> life> + levels to socketed Aura Gems. This may seem counter intuitive, but we are dying for Pre-endurance charge elemental resists at this point. There are only of 2-4 pieces of rare gear in this entire build in order to get resists (depending on body armour). We need this because, while it is unlikely, It is possible to get 1 shot before we get our endurance charges active. This chance goes way, way down if we can at least cap our elemental resists with just our gear and auras. 

Also, as I have mentioned above if you have level 21 purity of X gems and a +2 socketed aura gems explicit on your helm, you can get an extra 1% max res for each element. This can be very expensive, especially as bad as we need life and resists on this helm. 

For a third, even more expensive option. You can try to go for a very well rolled Socketed Gems are supported by Concentrated Effect and Immolate Helm. This will give you a pseudo 6 link for molten strike. If you do this, you can replace your body armour with a Kaom's Heart which will drastically increase your HP, making you a tanking god. BUT, You would probably have to take off the Kaom's Roots, because you wont have enough gem links to make the build functional with the both of them. 

Body Armour

Speaking of body armour, I am currently going with an astral plate with high life rolls and some resists. The armour helps with Molten Shell with damage prevenetion but it is greatly increased due to Ascendancies, the flat armour from the Nebuloch's and the physical mitigation from the endurance charges. Life>>resists>armour. 

If you have the currency, you can get an elder astral plate with high life, % life, resists, and maybe base critical modifier, but that would be close to mirror tier so most of us probably can't afford that.

Another option would be a Belly of the Beast. It gives more HP than any non-elder astral plate, comes with all res, and give your life flask more recovery to boot. As I mention above, the highest HP option would be a Kaom's Heart with a pseudo six link molten strike helmet. 

Belts

For belts, Resists> Life>> Elemental Damage with Attacks or flask/recovery effects. The best option would be a Stygian vise for the extra abyss jewel socket or a very well rolled leather belt. Remember, this is our other rare piece, so get as much resists as possible. 

Jewels

For Jewels, you need one Wildfire. The best would be a corrupted one with immunity to corrupted blood. Otherwise, just get a high fire damage roll and use a bleed flask. 

For other jewels, you want them all to have high life rolls. If you are still missing base stats/resists or want more life on hit, get it here. You probably also want 1 abyss jewel with Onslaught on kill. If you are not using Kaom's roots, you can get a blind on hit abyss jewel because blind counts as evasion. 

Top DPS stats to look for: Flat physical damage to attacks (base/while duel wielding/with 1 handed weapons/maces), flat fire damage, %increased damage, %increased area damage, %increased projectile damage, %increased fire damage, % increased attack speed, % increased Global Physical Damage (Melee Physical Damage does not affect the projectiles except with strength from the Iron Grip Passive). 

Enchantments 

By far the best helm enchant is +2 projectiles to molten strike, but it is almost impossible to find/afford a helmet like that, especially with the stats that we need on it. So, I recommend running it through lab yourself. 

For gloves, it is your choice. All of the damage/non-fire ones will be converted to fire at a rate of 50% due to Avatar of Fire, so physical or fire enchants are probably the best. 

For boots, up to your preference. The movement speed and regen/leech ones are pretty good.