Marauder - [3.25]🔥Fire Slamming Chieftain🔥 (Tectonic Slam / Volcanic Fissure / Consecrated Path / ANY SLAM) - Forum - Path of Exile (2024)

Yes you can. In fact this is the way I started planning this build, by modifying Zizaran's League Starter. Here is a checklist of the steps to converting a physical build to a fire one:

- Swap Brutality with Elemental Damage with Attacks
- Swap Vulnerability with Flammability
- If not using Infernal Cry, add it (not linked to Autoexertion)
- Drop Pride, add Herald of Ash/Purity and/or Blood and Sand
- Get a Fire Exposure source (easiest is an Eldritch Implicit on Gloves)
- Drop passive points from physical damage node wheels (they're actually not that bad, but we need more points), pathing to Lava Lash/Divine Judgement/Divine Fury gives good damage and access to better masteries.
- Drop passive points/affixes that give physical damage leeched as life/mana, they do not work

Take these Pros and Cons with a grain of salt. I currently have around 1000 hours in this game and while I'm not a beginner, I don't play a lot of builds either. So when I say this build is tanky I'm basing it on my own feeling as I don't have a lot of experience with other stuff.

Some things about me: I'm the type of player that likes playing a single build over an entire league since I don't enjoy running through the acts. I also take long breaks from the game, I usually play one league per year but I play it pretty intensely.

Warcries have infinite power. This means that we can benefit from Warcry buffs even without an enemy in range. This has several interactions:
Enduring Cry will always give us 10% life regenerated per second and maximum endurance charges, no matter what our max endurance charge cap is!
Infernal Cry will always give 25% phys as extra fire
Battlemage's Cry will always give +2.5% to Critical Strike Chance (this allows as to go get crit chance capped with minimal investment)
With the Rage mastery allocated, each warcry gives 5 Rage, making us Rage-capped
Vengeful Cry (optional) gives 25 temporary max Rage
Intimidating Cry and Seismic Cry will give 18% increased movement speed and 25% more armour (and 75% increased stun threshold), respectively. But we're usually autoexerting at least one of these.
Rallying Cry has no useful buffs, so it can be autoexerted. However when manually cast it give 5% more dmg per ally affected.

These are just the baseline buffs, when we get "Increased Warcry Buff Effect" stats we will scale these effects. The endgame build has around 100% increased warcry buff effect, so you can double most of these effects

When using Medium Cluster Jewels with exerted damage some notables become really strong as well:
Warning Call will always give us 100% increased Armour
Mob Mentality will always give use one RANDOM charge (power, frenzy, endurance). This allows us to easily be power and frenzy charge capped as well without any other investment.

Sione, Sun's Roar: a welcomed newcomer, this provides huge QoL to our Warcries. In my opinion I think it's a bit underpowered but I need to play other ascendancies to see how useful this is. It replaced Tawhoa, Forest Strength, if you want to test the old node to see how it felt check the "Tawhoa's Felling" Weapon.

Tukohama, War's Herald: free Fist of War support, essentially making our main skill a 7-link. Fist of War is one of the more unique support gems in the game and I love it since it looks so cool. It becomes stronger if we attack slower and hard, and since we're not going for (too much) attack speed we can get it every 2nd or 3rd attack, giving us between 30-50% more damage. All in all a solid node if a bit boring since it just gives a support gem instead of a unique effect.

Tasalio, Cleansing Water: makes capping elemental resistances really easy by stacking fire resist only. Gearing during levelling becomes really comfortable. In the endgame it gets a bit outscaled since capping resists is not that hard, but it still frees us some spots to get other defensive or offensive stats in place of the elemental resistances. Unaffected by Ignite is one less headache to solve when playing.

Valako's, Storm's Embrace: the strongest Chieftain node, so strong that probably all Chieftain builds take it no matter what they do. Maximum elemental resistance is one of the strongest defensive mechanics in the game, and with this node we can get to 90% max elemental resist (you can't go over 90%) by just investing in maximum fire resistance. Since the normal cap is 75%, the problem to solve is finding how to get 15% maximum fire resistance. (Check the PoB or "Problems and Solutions" section below for ways to achieve it.)

The other nodes are not that good for our build, we're not doing ignite or strength stacking and we don't need explode nodes since we're exploding enemies with our raw strength hehe.

Fortify if you have don't get it from the passive tree (cluster jewel or fortify node wheel)
Fire Penetration (the Awakened version is especially good)
Endurance Charge on Melee Stun (once you get 7+ Endurance Charges)
Cold to Fire if using Ice Crash (if you also need Fortify swap it with Elemental Damage with Attacks or another gem).
Fist of War if you're not playing Chieftain

Extra options if you also want to replace Pulverise and or Melee Phys due to attack speed issues: Added Fire Damage (good damage early but gets outscaled), Ruthless, Concentrated Effect, Elemental Focus, Combustion, Shockwave.

Blood and Sand adds good damage for just a 10% mana reservation. We're usually setting it to Blood stance and keep it there. If you are autoexerting less than 2 Warcries or do some mana reservation tricks you can fit both Heralds. If you have to choose between one of them, both give similar amounts of damage but Herald of Purity has some special synergy with Rallying Cry. I may underestimate Herald of Ash's overkill effect so I need to test it more.

Fun thing to note: aside from Precision, none of these are actually considered Auras in game so they won't be affected by increases/reductions or other modifiers to Aura effect

Note: * means that the warcry can be either manually cast or autoexerted (when a warcry is linked to autoexert it does not give any buffs, only exerts for your attacks).

No Crit version
Auto warcries: Autoexertion - Battlemage's Cry - Flammability - Seismic Cry* - Rallying Cry*
Manual warcries: Enduring Cry - Infernal Cry - Urgent Orders - Intimidating Cry*

Crit version
Auto warcries: Autoexertion - Intimidating Cry* - Seismic Cry* - Rallying Cry*
Manual warcries: Enduring Cry - Infernal Cry - Urgent Orders - Battlemage's Cry - Flammability

Since Battlemage's Cry gives around 5% base critical strike chance which is huge, we have to manually cast it and also move Flammability so it's still applied on our attacks.

The standard el33t melee chad racer setup. Leap slam has no cooldown and scales with both attack speed and movement speed, while Frostblink is an instant-cast blink that can be used in tricky situation (if you're a League of Legends player it's like Flash so you understand how strong it can be).

The Frostblink trick: Since Frostblink has an instant cast, it does not interrupt our character's action, which means we can Frostblink mid-slam to reposition ourselves while we're locked in our long animation and/or redirect our slam if the opponent teleports or uses annoying and dangerous stuff like a proximity shield or mana bubble (again, if you're a LoL player it's like a Flash-skill combo which can be game-changing).

You can also use Flame Dash instead of Frostblink. It has 3 charges for more frequent dodges but you won't be able to do the reposition mid-slam.

Standard CWDT setup. Molten Shell gives good tankiness when it's active. Make sure your gem levels are correct (Molten Shell needs to have a less or equal "requires Level" value than CWDT). Can decrease or increase it based on preference (you probably need a lower level while progressing).

Other options: can also try Vaal Molten Shell and use the Vaal version as a manual defensive button, or drop the CWDT gem entirely and manually cast Molten Shell when you know you're gonna get hit by big damage. But we're already using many buttons.

Immortal Call can also be an option

Think we already had too many buttons? THING AGAIN. With the changes to Rage in 3.25 our Rage generation is really good so we can keep Berserk up for a really long time. For my current setup it gives 16% More Damage.

But the cherry on top goes to the new skill: Vengeful Cry. It is a retaliation warcry skill, which means it can only be used for 2 seconds after taking a savage hit (15% damage dealt to maximum life in one hit) which gives 25 temporary max Rage and prevents Rage decay. Since we stack Warcry Buff effect this gives closer to 50 max Rage (51 for my build). This gives my build a whopping 35% more damage during the buff effect.

But how do you reliably take savage hits?

Though they are individually strong, Berserk and Vengeful Cry also multiply each other, giving my build 71% more damage.

Note: Both skills are unchecked by default in my PoB link so they're not included in DPS, the actual damage numbers are even higher when we use both, but it also shows that this build can scale good without them.

If you're using more Auras and/or Enlighten you won't have enough slots for both of these unless you're using some Unset Rings. You can drop one or both of these skills. While Vengeful Cry has a really interesting interaction with our build, it is not needed and may feel clunky. Berserk gives a pretty good semi-frequent buff but another Aura will just give permanent strength which can overall feel better. But do give them a try first and see how they feel. For bossing especially they're extremely satisfying to combo together.

Initially, we get most of our points from the passive tree, we get 6% from the two maximum elemental resistances node wheels (Prismatic Skin and Nomadic Teachings), 1% from the Barbarism node, another 1% from Soul of Steel and an extra 1% from the Armour mastery which gives it if all your equipment gives armour.

We also run Purity of Fire for up to 4% max fire res (at gem lvl 20). There are also 1% max fire res eldritch implicits on both the Body Armour and Boots. Don't expect to reach the 90% cap until the endgame. Use a Ruby Flask until you get capped. You can also temporarily use Ancestral Cry (gives max elemental resistances but can't be exerted cause it's for Strikes only).

When we begin opimizing the build we will start to drop stuff (starting with Purity of Fire) and use 2% max fire resist jewels. Switching to Cluster Jewels will unlock more Jewel slots so we can drop some passive points to path to other, more useful nodes. Expect to need 3-5 jewels with 2% max fire res by the end of the build. The Body Armour can also go up to 3% using higher tier Eldritch Implicits and the Boots can give 2%.

Early solutions: Take the Cannibalistic Rite node. Before unlocking oils and anoints use a Mana Flask (with "Enduring" Prefix). After you have access to some oils anoint Attack Damage Mana Leech nodes (Spirit Void, Essence Sap or Clever Thief, I recommend the last one since it also gives Life Leech). If you still have problems take the Life Mastery "Skills Cost Life instead of 15% of Mana Cost" and/or the Tireless node wheel.

Later solutions: Cluster Jewel with "Fuel the Fight" notable so you can anoint something more useful and -7 mana cost benchcraft on rings.

Other solution I haven't tested yet: Damage recouped as Mana.

Mana quickly becomes a problem once you start reserving mana and putting links on your main gem + the constant Warcrying. A quick solution would be Mana leech, but all the easily accesible passive nodes or stats on items give only "Physical Damage Leeched as Mana" which does not work for this build (while physical damage nodes work for our build, physical leech does not as it happens after all our damage is converted to fire). Funnily enough the most common Cluster Jewel notable ("Fuel the Fight") is also insanely useful for us as it's our only way to get attack damage mana leech with minimal investment.

Easy solutions: Use Blood Rage and get a Silver Flask for Onslaught. You can also temporarily swap Pulverise and/or Melee Physical Damage for other support gems (check the Gems section for alternatives). I think these support gems are really good so it's better to find other solutions.

Later solutions: Get better Onslaught sources(boots craft or "Lead by Example" Cluster notable), Frenzy charges through "Mob Mentality" Cluster notable. Get attack speed on base Jewels. Craft Attack Speed on your weapon or buy one with a good attack speed.

Since we're using a slam, pulverise and melee physical damage we have a lot of "less Attack Speed" modifiers. While we're a slower attack speed build, too slow will make the game unplayable and the build will feel trash. Overinvesting in attack speed is not that bad since we will have a faster animation but we can just attack less frequently to proc more Fists of War while we dodge or use a Warcry.

Tectonic Slam or Volcanic Fissure: use either the Fire Mastery ("40% of physical damage converted to fire damage") or Avatar of Fire
Consecrated Path: use Avatar of Fire or Fire Mastery + Gloves implicit/benchcraft
Physical Slams: use Avatar of Fire + Fire Mastery + Gloves implicit/benchcraft
Ice Crash: use Avatar of Fire + Cold to Fire Support

NOTE: We use Xoph's Blood in our build so no need to path to Avatar of Fire.

In my case, my number one reason is for roleplaying reasons lol. The fantasy of being a Karui exile that ascends to shooting volcanoes with the blessings of the Karui gods feels really fulfiling. All that without becoming a corrupted fiery boi like Kaom.

But also, I was planning this build for a long time, before the Chieftain rework. At that point, it was the go-to ascendancy for fire slams. After the rework, most nodes we cared about became way more generic but the 90% max ele res is really good. The new warcry node is also really good for what we're planning to achieve.

Yes this build can be played with Juggernaut, Berserker and probably even Champion, Inquisitor and Slayer (I'd say this is the order of viability but I haven't tested any yet). In fact Juggernaut seems to have better synergies with most of the things we're trying to achieve if we're going for Tectonic Slam of Cataclysm (as Chieftains we end up getting Forbidden Flesh and Flame for the Unflinching node). But overall I'd say Chieftain achieves what this build wants to do in the most tightly knit way.

Make sure to take the "Warcries have a minimum of 10 Power" mastery if you're switching to any of these ascendancies, otherwise you're gonna have a really bad time.

Juggernaut has really good tankiness and endurance charge support, Berserker has insane damage but gives a lot of attack speed which we don't like as much, Champion has fortify, adrenaline, taunt and banner support, Inquisitor has lots of damage scaling, Consecrated Ground and crit support and Slayer has good damage, accuracy and AoE, leech support, 20% culling strike and crit support.

Note: If you want to play with Tectonic Slam of Cataclysm I recommend going Marauder to have access to Unflinching since it is the only solution I've found that makes Endurance Charge Generation feel good.