Description

Very effective and in-depth build that requires only a small investment into gear, capable of running maps, designed for Standard but can be adapted for Hardcore

Suggested Leagues: Default, Hardcore, Anarchy

Passive Skills

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• Level 78 end game Standard passive tree
• Adapted level 80 Hardcore passive tree (more life, less block, less resists [more gear intensive])
• Early-Mid Skill Tree

Gems

Infernal Blow (Main Gem) 4 Link

Infernal Blow
Melee Splash
Melee Physical Damage
Blood Magic

Infernal Blow (Main Gem) 6 Link

Infernal Blow
Melee Splash
Melee Physical Damage
Blood Magic
Added Fire Damage
Faster Attacks

Gloves slot (Auras)

Hatred
Vitality
Reduced Mana

Boots (Blood Magic Auras/Utilites)

Grace
Decoy Totem
Enfeeble
Blood Magic

Shield (other utliities)

Enduring Cry
Determination
Reduced Mana

Helmet (Secondary single target ability)

Frenzy
Melee Physical Damage
Added Fire Damage
Blood Magic

Flasks

Flask Set 1

Life Flask
Life Flask
Quicksilver Flask
Granite Flask
Ruby Flask

Bandits

Help Oak in Normal Difficulty - Rewards +40 to Maximum Life
Kill all the bandits in Cruel Difficulty - Rewards 1 Passive Skill Point
Help Oak in Merciless Difficulty - Rewards +1 to Maximum Endurance Charge

Gear

Build Enabling Gear

The Facebreaker unique gloves are of course mandatory in order to make the build work, due to the huge More physical damage mod on the item, you do not need to spec any damage on your passive skill tree and instead can go full on into shield block/life/endurance charges and defensive keystones like Iron Reflexes and Unwavering Stance.

Gear - Choosing between Uniques/Rare

Gloves: The Facebreaker unique gloves, these are best in slot and should never move, 4 link them and link some of your auras together with reduced mana and you are done with them.

Boots: If you have a pair, the Wanderlust unique boots are a great start to cruise through normal difficulty. Also, if you have a pair of Lioneye's Paws, they are also very good for levelling, do note however that paws give a lot of dexterity, which may cause you to accidentally overlevel your Grace gem, make sure you don't come to rely on the dexterity on them that way when you want to replace them you can still use Grace.

Shield/Quiver: Apparently being able to use a Quiver while unarmed is a bug that will be fixed in the future, hence why this build is focused around using a shield. However, if you have access to one, Broadstroke can be a good quiver for boosting your damage early on. You'll want to get used to using a shield as soon as possible, Crest of Perandus is a good start. For late game, you'll want to use the unique shield Daresso's Courage (requires level 54) this shield gives triple resistances, which synergize well with the Elemental Resistances on Equipped Shield passive nodes you'll be getting at the start of the Templar tree. Once you are at end game (around level 70) consider using one of two shields as an upgrade to Daresso's: Prism Guardian to run 5 auras, or Lioenye's Remorse if you need more health. If you want to be able to run 5 auras, and keep the resistances of Daresso's, consider using Prism Guardian. To run all 5 auras you'll need both the Reduced Mana Reservation talents (highlighted in the passive tree) and auras linked into Prism Guardian. Place your 3 regular auras (Hatred, Purity and Vitality) linked to Reduced Mana in Facebreakers and then link Reduced Mana, Determination, and Grace to Prism Guardian and you can have all 5 on at the same time.. If you need Health, Lioneye's Remorse is an amazing shield that also gives roughly 2000 armour by itself (before modifiers). Choose which shield depending on what you need.

Chest: The Fox shade unique Wild Leather is a good leveling chest piece because of the added physical damage mod on it. I suggest switching out for something else around act 1 cruel and not using it at all in Hardcore because it gives no survivability. When looking for a chest piece, just look for Resistances and Health. Armour, armour/evasion or pure evasion pieces all work fine thanks to Iron Reflexes, use what's available for leveling and upgrade as you see fit.

Belt: For a belt you'll need the unique Meginord's Girdle, due to the large physical damage mod on it, it's nearly as mandatory as Facebreakers is, it'll be the only expensive purchase you'll have to do to make the build work.

Helmet: Once again, what you'll be looking for on a helmet is simple; health and resistances, however if you have access to one I used Hrimnor's Resolve (required level 55) for a long time, the ability to dodge chill/freeze is awesome because you are a melee character. For late game, replacing your helmet with The Bringer of Rain will be the next step to perfecting the build. When 4 linked, Bringer creates a 7 link thanks to the mods of adding Melee Physical Damage, Faster Attacks and Blind. Once you have Bringer I recommend changing your 4 link to: Infernal Blow, Melee Splash, Blood Magic, Added Fire Damage/Culling Strike. I personally use Culling strike, and recommend it to anyone who isn't fortunate with chromes, as it can be difficult to chrome 4 reds onto Bringer. Culling Strike's instant killing utility is still very useful, though Added Fire Damage will offer more damage. Remember to de-spec out of Unwavering Stance once you have Bringer, that way you can make use of the Blind support gem linked to it.

Trinkets: Finding good trinkets for Facebreakers is easy, there are only 3 required mods to make them work for this build: Flat added physical damage, health, and resistances. Anything else is useless/optional, % increased fire damage is nice to add a bit of damage to infernal blow, while other things like accuracy are worthless thanks to Resolute Technique. Choose what base ring you want according to what you currently need, if you need resistances I recommend using a Prismatic Ring, and for health use a Coral Ring. For an amulet, I recommend using an Onyx Amulet, it allows you to level your gems. If you are really hurting for stats, the only way to get more is with the Astramentis unique onyx amulet (rolling +to stats mods on trinkets can be difficult).

Flasks

For flasks, run 2 Health Potions, 1 Quicksilver, 1 Granite, and 1 Ruby Flask. On your first Health flask slot, try to get a potion with the Panicked (or something similar) prefix on it, this prefix heals the potion's amount instantly on low life, and is very important because there is next to no room to get Chaos Resistance on gear/passives. The second health flask should be something that'll see more general usage, such as the Ample prefix (increasing the amount recovered but reducing it's speed), you'll mainly be using this flask for maps with half/no health regeneration. For the quicksilver flask, try to get Perpetual to keep the flask charges up easier, allowing for more uses. Running a granite flask is standard to just about every build these days, I recommend the Perpetual prefix for more up time and Iron Skin for more armour. Finally, your fifth slot should be a ruby flask, this is to counter Elemental Reflect which is deadly to this build, because Infernal Blow's splash is mostly fire damage, the reflected damage will also be Fire, thus, using a Ruby Flask before hitting the mobs will minimize the damage you take. Special mentions include finding/making a flask with the Warding suffix on it, this is especially important for the Lunaris Temple, where the Vulnerability cursing mobs can be lethal otherwise. You may also want to consider getting a flask of Heat (dispels Freeze) due to the fact you are melee, this can be vital in an emergency situation, try to get it on your Quicksilver flask or second Health Flask.

Guide

Gems

There are only 3 Gems that are not available through quests (due to either not being accessible or needing something else):
Enfeeble
Frenzy
Purity

These gems you'll have to find or buy, fortunately, gems are a dime a dozen to buy from another player, so it shouldn't be difficult to get one. I recommend buying all 3 as soon as possible (most importantly Enfeeble) so they can begin to level along with your other gems.

Quest Rewards

Normal

Act 1
-Ground Slam (for leveling); Enemy at the Gate
-~Anything~; Mercy Mission
-Infernal Blow; Breaking some Eggs
-Decoy Totem; The Caged Brute
-Added Fire Damage; The Siren's Last Cadence

Act 2
-Enduring Cry OR Hatred; Intruders in Black
-Melee Splash; Sharp and Cruel

Act 3
-Enduring Cry OR Hatred(take what one you did not take in Intruders in Black[Normal]); Lost in Love
-Added Fire Damage; Sever the Right Hand

Cruel

Act 1
-Grace; Enemy at the Gate
-Melee Physical Damage; Mercy Mission
-Vitality OR Determination; The Caged Brute
-Melee Physical Damage; The Siren's Last Cadence

Act 2
-Blood Magic; Sharp and Cruel

Act 3
-Vitality OR Determination (take what one you did not take in The Caged Brute[Cruel]); Lost in Love
-Reduced Mana; Sever the Right Hand

Merciless

Act 1
-Reduced Mana; Mercy Mission
-~Anything~; The Caged Brute
-Faster Attacks; The Siren's Last Cadence

Act 2
-Blood Magic; Sharp and Cruel

Act 3
-Faster Attacks/Life Leech/Blood Magic/Reduced Mana (take what you want); Sever the Right Hand

Playthrough Guide

Normal

Start off by grabbing the Ground Slam gem from completing Enemy at the Gate, use it to level until you can use Facebreakers (level 16). Right after being able to equip Facebreakers and Meginord's, you can grab the Melee Splash gem from Sharp and Cruel in act 2. This is where things get really easy, you can breeze through normal with next to no effort, slow things down a bit by the end of Act 3 however, as the Arc Witches + Shield Chargers hurt, a lot. Pick up and identify all gear and put on what's usable, Normal is extremely easy for a Facebreaker.

Cruel

Act 1

This is where the difficulty ramps up, you lose 20 to all resistances in cruel, though this should be neutralized by the resistance nodes you've picked up on your passive tree. By now you should be using a shield, and should have some decent health gear. If you feel you are a bit underleveled or undergeared for this difficulty, skip the side quests (Mercy Mission and A Dirty Job) and rush right to The Ledge and farm it until you feel more comfortable, just like before, if you have decent cold resistance, Merveil should be a pushover.

Act 2

Unlike the other 2 difficulties, you have to kill the bandits in Cruel, Oak can be a challenging fight, but with Enfeeble and Endurance Charges he should fall relatively easily, I recommend against summoning your Decoy Totem unless absolutely necessary, because he will leap slam spam from you to the totem and back if you have it up. With a decent health pool, Vaal should be relatively easy, do not try to tank his smash though.

Act 3

This is where things should slow down a lot, just like last time, the shield chargers and arc witches are a deadly combo, if you are having trouble fighting both, walk forward and get their attention and then run away. The shield chargers will-well- shield charge, after you and the witches will be left behind. If done correctly you can separate them from one another and make things a lot easier. Piety can be a bit difficult if you run out of flask charges, so don't be afraid to portal back to town to refill them and then come back.

Merciless

Act 1

You'll notice your resistances have taken another plummet, -60% now. This is where you have to start making dynamic decision, if you are lacking cold resistance, skip the Tidal Island, and if you don't have high damage trinkets or a large health pool, skip the Fetid Pool. Don't worry about completing them straight away, come back later when you are better equipped for their ramped up zone levels. Once again, head straight for the Ledge and begin farming it until you feel is necessary. I usually farm The Ledge until around level 58-59, and then complete the rest of the act (skipping Mercy Mission and A Dirty Job). A special consideration may be required for Marooned Mariner quest too, you may need to skip the pirate cave, the flicker strike mobs can straight up 100 to 0 you if you aren't extremely careful, if you run into one too many near-death situations, don't bother completing it, come back later and pick up your skill point.

Act 2

Once again, you may need to skip the Weaver's Lair due to the flicker strikers. I usually head left to get the skill point from Bestel for The Way Forward before heading to the right. Once you are done with the quests you want to do (sharp and cruel, the great white beast) book it over to The Fellshrine and begin farming that. I usually farm Fellshrine until about level 66, here you can pick up much better gear and don't forget, killing any magic or rare mob has a high enough item level for the Chaos Orb recipe. Once you are comfortable to move on, max out your lightning resistance to as much as possible for the Chamber of Sins.

Act 3

Now that you are in merciless, you'll really begin to see the weaknesses of being a melee, with -60% chaos resistance, the chaos bombers inside of the sewers are utterly deadly, and if necessary swap out your Ruby Flask for an Amethyst Flask if it means surviving a bit better. Don't bother with the Solaris or Lunaris Temple until later, head on over to the Docks and begin another process of farming. Farm until roughly level 70, with better gear you'll have a lot easier of a time in the rest of the act, completing Solaris gives you access to the Eternal Laboratory for mapping.

Maps

This Facebreaker build has a relatively easy time running difficult maps. You should have accumulated some level 66 maps from the Docks farming you did earlier and any runs through Lunaris Temple. If you didn't, farm some more, you'll get some eventually. Once you have a decently large pool of maps (about 10 or so), you can safely begin mapping. Alch ALL of your maps (unless one dropped blue), simply because Alting maps are inefficient. If you have read a mapping guide before, you have probably seen the best mods for running a map are (such as maze or increased monster pack size), most of the good map mods give little to no quantity bonus for running them, and a lot of the time, alting maps will develop bad habits, you'll want to keep alting until you get the perfect mods, and when you run the map, get little in return. Therefore, I recommend alching all maps and just running them, unless they are ridiculously difficult, you shouldn't have much of a problem so long as you understand the limitations of this build.

Difficult Map Mods

These mods are being highlighted as definite potential build killing mods/mod combinations, I highly suggest staying away from them until you are better gear/levelled for them.
-Elemental Reflect (The #1 killer, try to avoid this mod as much as possible, only run it if you have to)
-Elemental Reflect + Monster Pack Size (This is nigh-suicide, never run this unless you have friends which can help you, if you have to run it, use your decoy totem to split the mob packs apart, always have max endurance charges up, and pop your ruby/granite flasks before attacking a pack, this cannot be stressed enough, put up all of your defensive walls to avoid a death)
-Area is inhabited by Sea Witches + Multiple Projectiles (This can be very dangerous, especially if it is a pack of Deadly mobs, due to the freeze locking capabilities, replace your quicksilver flask with a Sapphire flask for this type of map)
-Area is inhabited by Goatmen (This gets a special mention because of the Goatmen that cast Molten Shell, hitting an entire group of them with Molten Shell up = practical instant death, always have overcapped Fire Resistance before attempting this type of map)
-Temporal Chains + Anything (Temp Chains can be deadly with certain mods more than others, the mobs on the map itself can also contribute to the difficulty)
-Extra Elemental Damage (This mod can have Cold, Fire, or Lightning extra damage, which can lead to really harsh mod combinations if combined with things like % extra monster damage, you can be freeze locked or triple shock stacked easily, be very wary running this type of map, carry dispel potions [dispel shocked, freeze] before trying this map type)

Maps to Watch Out For

-Dungeon; The boss here is Brutus, and as with any melee, he can be very difficult until you have better gear, like Lioneye's Remorse. Not impossible, but I highly recommend putting off this type of map until later.
-Wharf; The Chaos Damage snake boss of this map can be very difficult considering the fact you get next to no chaos resistance unless you are uber geared. Stay away from this map type as much as possible.
-Thicket; This map can spawn a lot of chaos damage snakes, and they kill you very fast, another anti-melee map, even the boss isn't very friendly (an Ironpoint the Forsaken remake, he hurts a lot).
-Shore; This map's boss is based off of Hailrake, and he freeze locks very easily, if you are confident that you can run it (having Hrimnor's Resolve helps a lot), the map isn't as difficult as the others mentioned, but still something to avoid as much as possible.

Find what maps you enjoy running, sell the ones you dislike, to make you mapping experience as rewarding as possible. What I have outlined here are some guidelines to picking what map type you want to run.

Map Synergies

-The Coward's Trial; On This map, hordes of undead mobs will spawn in waves at a time, and at the end of every wave, a Rare Necromancer will spawn, and begin to resurrect the mobs that were slain. Because Infernal Blow destroys corpses, you won't have to worry about this, the unique boss at the end is also a necromancer, and drops a guaranteed unique item.
-Acton's Nightmare; Once again, this map is riddled with undead, and the unique mobs are Necromancers, because you use Infernal Blow, this map is relatively easy to run.

Other

Item/Passive Choices

-Abyssus(Unique Helmet)
Abyssus is a unique high level pure armour helmet that gives a massive amount of damage to any Facebreaker build. The reason I did not recommend it to be run on this build is that it also gives a physical damage amp (rolling 40-50%) against you, and since this build is built around being tanky, you will take a lot of damage. If you have spare currency and would like to experiment, Abyssus will offer you a lot of damage, but I recommend against it because of the huge drawback to using it (remember, you are melee).

-Inner Force(Passive)
Even though this build highlights the ability to use 5 auras, I did not choose to spec into Inner Force because of the recent nerfs it receives (from 30% boost to all buff effects to 18%), meaning the amount of points needed to reach it are not nearly as effective as they were before. For the hardcore adaptation of this build however, running Inner Force is a feasible option and is still a very strong passive.

-The Anvil(Unique Amulet)
The Anvil is a relatively new unique (at this time of writing) that increases the maximum block chance by 3% (from 75% to 78%). Although I see the implications of using this unique, I decided against using it for this build because of the loss of damage from equipping it. Not only do you lose attack speed by equipping it (10%) but also the flat physical damage from any other amulet, meaning you can lose thousands of dps, for minimal gain. Although an option, this build strives to be tanky and also able to solo maps effectively, so I advise against it.

-Life Leech(Support Gem)
Life Leech is usually a vital gem to effectively countering Reflect, however, in this build I do not use it. This is because of the other ways offered that stop reflect from destroying you (Ruby flask, granite flask, enfeeble), thus allowing you to free up a gem slot for something else. However, this is personal preference, if you want to use Life Leech, I recommend replacing Added Fire Damage/Culling Strike from the main link, note however that it can be difficult to chrome 4 red sockets on Bringer of Rain for end game due to it's hybrid red/green stats (armour/evasion).

-Multistrike(Support Gem)
Again, this is personal preference, this build functions fine without Multistrike from my experience, and thus isn't necessary. In addition, Multistrike is a drop only gem not available from questing, thus it is not feasible to any player who hasn't already accumulated wealth (needing Facebreakers and Meginord's is expensive enough).

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for reading this guide, and I hope you can make use of it to work towards becoming The True Facebreaker. If you want to message me in game regarding the build (or just want to chat it up) my in-game name (I'm on the Amercian gateway) is The_True_Facebreaker
If you can't contact me (or I'm offline) you can pm me on the PoE forums, my account name is Raenarill01. For any direct questions regarding this build, drop a comment in the comment section below, I'll be sure to respond. Finally, if you want to see a quick gameplay video and see the end game gear for this build, you can check out This Video
to see me do a quick run of Merciless Docks and show the end game gear for you.
Thanks again for reading, and I look forward to seeing more Facebreakers around PoE!

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