S-TIER | BUILD GUERRIER EARTHSHATTER BRUTUS WARBRINGER (@Ulfhednar) | SAISON 5

Build Video

Build Overview

This Warrior build built around Earthshatter by Ulfhednar pushes the Warbringer in a direction rarely played in 0.5.5: stacking Strength with Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler, backed by a 94% block chance. The author leveled it as a league starter, then kept it for endgame. His personal track record fits in one line: eight deaths total, four of them on Arbiter of Ash, which he blames on his own mistakes. Everything else, including a group Expedition, goes by without a scare.

The engine is simple. Earthshatter plants earth spikes, Aftershock I makes them replay, and each replay can trigger Molten Shower from the hammer. Molten Shower‘s projectiles handle most of the single-target damage, while the spikes multiplied by Branching Fissures I clear the screen. The author dropped the warcry-triggered detonations from his first league version: less area clear, but far more single-target damage.

Around this core, three tricks make the build comfortable. Constricting Command and Defy I bring the mana cost of every skill down to zero. A bear form (Ferocious Roar) acts as a battery for warcries. A wolf form (Hysseg’s Claw as the second weapon set, Pounce as the leap) handles movement speed in maps. And almost every unique costs 1 chaos: only a well-rolled Svalinn is a real expense.

Strengths / Weaknesses

Skill Gem Setup by Step

This build offers 8 progression steps from leveling to the final build. Select a step to see the corresponding gem setup.

1 – 21 22 – End of Campaign BUDGET STR FACEBREAKER STR BRUTUS with Warcry Lightning BRUTUS Endgame 94% Block Endgame 94% Block STR BRUTUS

1 – 21

5 skills • 12 gemmes

Fracas déferlantRolling Slam

Brise-osBoneshatter

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Charge au bouclierShield Charge

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

22 – End of Campaign

6 skills • 17 gemmes

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

Fissure volcaniqueVolcanic Fissure

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Charge au bouclierShield Charge

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Étendard de guerreWar Banner

BUDGET

7 skills • 27 gemmes

Harbinger of MadnessHarbinger of Madness

Armure de récupérationScavenged Plating

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Marteau de forgeForge Hammer

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

BerserkBerserk

STR FACEBREAKER

7 skills • 23 gemmes

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

Cri ancestralAncestral Cry

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Armure de récupérationScavenged Plating

Marteau de forgeForge Hammer

Présence accablanteOverwhelming Presence

STR BRUTUS with Warcry

9 skills • 34 gemmes

Molten ShowerMolten Shower

Déclenchement en BloquantCast on Block

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Armure de récupérationScavenged Plating

Marteau de forgeForge Hammer

Présence accablanteOverwhelming Presence

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Cri ancestralAncestral Cry

Lightning BRUTUS

12 skills • 58 gemmes

Frappe à la masseMace Strike

DilacérationShred

Molten ShowerMolten Shower

Déclenchement en BloquantCast on Block

Armure de récupérationScavenged Plating

Marteau de forgeForge Hammer

Héraut du tonnerreHerald of Thunder

Barrière magmatiqueMagma Barrier

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

BondissementPounce

Cri ancestralAncestral Cry

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Endgame 94% Block

11 skills • 58 gemmes

Harbinger of MadnessHarbinger of Madness

Déclenchement en BloquantCast on Block

Bombe vivante abyssaleUntether

Déclenchement lors de CritiquesCast on Critical

Harbinger of MadnessHarbinger of Madness

Déclenchement lors d'Altérations élémentairesCast on Elemental Ailment

Téléportation foudroyanteLightning Warp

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

Régulation des chargesCharge Regulation

Cri infernalInfernal Cry

Héraut du tonnerreHerald of Thunder

Endgame 94% Block STR BRUTUS

14 skills • 61 gemmes

Frappe à la masseMace Strike

DilacérationShred

Molten ShowerMolten Shower

Levée de bouclierRaise Shield

Déclenchement en BloquantCast on Block

Compagnons gloussantsCackling Companions

Barrière magmatiqueMagma Barrier

Pieux telluriquesEarthshatter

Armure de récupérationScavenged Plating

Rugissement féroceFerocious Roar

BondissementPounce

Cri ancestralAncestral Cry

Marteau de forgeForge Hammer

Héraut de la cendreHerald of Ash

Recommended Equipment

• Weapon (set 1): Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler. Apply a Greater Jeweller’s Orb before any crafting, aim for Molten Shower at level 20 and the highest force roll possible. The author runs a 6 and 11, and describes the damage gap with a 6 and 12 as « ridiculous ». A runeforged fire version is a bonus, not a requirement: without it, Lifetap and Life Drain take over.
• Shield: Svalinn. Look for a roll with 0% damage taken on blocked hits, or 5 to 7% at most, since the Warbringer’s Turtle Charm ascendancy node already makes you take 20% of the damage from blocked hits. Ngamahu’s Chosen doubles damage but loses block chance: it’s a comfort choice versus a damage choice.
• Helmet: Constricting Command. With Defy I, no skill costs mana anymore. It also lowers by four the number of enemies required to count as « surrounded », so a single boss is enough. Keep the helmet’s evasion: Iron Reflexes converts it into armour.
• Body Armour: Titanrot Cataphract, for strength and armour.
• Amulet: Astramentis, which provides the build’s mountain of attributes. Recommended anoint: Stimulants for 16% permanent attack speed, or Lay Siege if you prefer damage.
• Rings: Ventor’s Gamble (life, rarity, spirit and triple resistance, around 1 divine) and a rare with strength, life, resistances.
• Belt, gloves, boots: rares with strength, life and resistances. On both boots and gloves, look for the « armour applied to elemental damage » affix, plus an attack speed suffix on the gloves. For leveling, Facebreaker does the job.
• Flasks and charms: Lavianga’s Spirits becomes a permanent flask since mana is no longer useful. On the charm side, For Utopia (defense with 200% of armour during the effect).
• Weapon (set 2): Hysseg’s Claw, only for the wolf form and its movement speed.

Gameplay Tips

• The rotation is three moves: four Forge Hammer casts to lay the cracks, a warcry from bear form to detonate them, then Earthshatter on top.
• Swap weapon sets without thinking about it: the swap is instant. The wolf is for crossing the map, Pounce for jumping onto the pack, then you switch back to mace and shield to strike.
• Ancestral Cry runs continuously thanks to ignites. On a long boss fight, recast it as soon as it drops.
• Roaring Cries changes everything: your warcries grant rage and buff your attacks even with no enemies around. Enraged Warcry I becomes optional, Efficiency I works just as well.
• To find a good Svalinn: on the trade site, add the « not blocked damage » stat group to exclude blocked damage rolls, then check « identified » under miscellaneous.
• Target playground: Rogue Exiles, Breach, Abyss and Delirium stacked together. The build’s clear speed handles full screens: the author sees it as his best farm for fun, not necessarily for currency.

Rotation and Weapon Sets: Mace, Bear and Wolf

Weapon set 1 is the mace and shield. Forge Hammer plants four fissures on the ground, a warcry makes them explode, and Earthshatter comes down on top. Two passive points are enough for Branching Fissures I to give three spikes instead of one, and a second passive applies this effect to each spike: up to six spikes per cast, which explains the build’s screen coverage. Aftershock I replays all of that a second time.

Bear form, Ferocious Roar, isn’t there for its damage: it serves as a base for the warcries. Infernal Cry adds 57% extra fire damage to it for free, Raging Cry grants rage on every empowered attack, and Enraged Warcry I bypasses the cooldown of Infernal Cry. The author notes that this last support isn’t even essential: he has never been bothered by the cooldown, and Efficiency I is a solid replacement.

Weapon set 2 is Hysseg’s Claw, which triggers wolf form. The wolf moves faster by default, and every movement speed node on the tree is taken for it. Pounce serves as a jump onto the pack; its mark, with Mark of Siphoning, returns a bit of life and mana on physical damage. It’s marginal, Earthshatter does almost no physical damage, but the jump alone is worth it. Since weapon swapping is instant, you alternate wolf for travel and mace for combat with no downtime.

Zero Mana with Constricting Command and Defy

Constricting Command is the helmet that makes this warrior Earthshatter build so comfortable to play. Paired with the Defy I support, it drops the mana cost of every skill to zero: the author shows himself casting everything with an empty mana bar. The helmet also lowers the number of enemies required to count as surrounded by four, which turns on the related bonuses as soon as a single boss is standing in front of you.

The funniest consequence concerns flasks. Since mana has no use left, Lavianga’s Spirits stays active permanently and becomes a passive buff. That is what makes the Stimulants anoint so worthwhile too: 16% permanent attack speed for a very cheap anoint. The author places it on his helmet through a Raven Shard; without one, the amulet is the right slot for it.

Passive Tree and Jewels of the Earthshatter Warrior Build

The tree invests first in block: a few nodes at the top of the tree along the path, some life on block picked up along the way, and one last node at 30% that activates with only one enemy around. That’s the node that pushes the counter from 87% out of combat up to 94% with monsters present. Iron Reflexes converts all evasion into armour, Jack of all Trades makes the attributes on Astramentis pay off, and ignite immunity rounds out the defense.

On the damage side, the key node is the one granting 1% fire damage per point of rage: 48% for the author at 48 rage, free damage that costs nothing else. Lay Siege, which promises 1% damage per point of block chance, is the build’s question mark: in game, the increase shown is far lower than expected, while Path of Building counts it in full. Three points are finally spent reducing Chill effects for the Expedition league mechanic; swap them for attack speed or life if you’re not running it.

The jewels do the rest. Look for « recover life on kill » on a jewel: without one, the author had to take Ventor’s Gamble for the spirit, in order to slot Cannibalism I into Magma Barrier, at the cost of a less offensive ring. One jewel grants 30% permanent block chance, another gives percent strength in a wheel packed with seven notables (life, leech, 3% life). A third, picked up for 3 divines, stacks permanent flask uptime with Roaring Cries, the passive that makes your warcries buff your attacks and grant rage even with no enemy nearby. Finish with +2 to the levels of Earthshatter, +3 if your budget allows it.

Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler: Crafting, Corruption and the Strength Line

This hammer is the heart of the build, and it demands a careful approach. Before any crafting, apply a Greater Jeweller’s Orb to open the sockets: the author learned this the hard way while trying to corrupt his own. Then aim for Molten Shower at level 20; the version that grants it cost 4 divines at the time of the video, and the damage difference over a lower level is significant.

Everything then comes down to the strength line. The author rolled a 6 and 11, saw 6 and 12 rolls go by, and describes the gap as « ridiculous ». The weapon’s fire percentage doesn’t matter if you’re running a runeforged fire version; otherwise a classic version works fine, and you recover life and mana through the leech support instead. Finally, note that past 1,000 strength, the marginal gain flattens out, which is why the author skips a 7% attributes node and keeps those points for the rest of the tree.

Cast on Block, Fire vs Lightning, and What Comes Next

Cast on Block links Lightning Warp, Boundless Energy I, Energy Retention and Life Drain. The last support slot is up to you: Encroaching Ground for area of effect, or Magnified Area I. This is the combo that, in the author’s eyes, makes Svalinn worth running over Ngamahu’s Chosen: with 94% block chance, the teleport keeps triggering non-stop.

Why fire and not lightning? The planner offers a lightning version with Valako’s Vice and Herald of Thunder, and it works. But an elemental build wants to bring the target’s resistances down to zero or penetrate them, and the fire version penetrates far beyond the 30% cap available to other elements. At equal budget, fire scales better.

What comes next is already announced: a Chaos Inoculation variant that stacks rage and attack speed, with a weapon corrupted through over-corruption earned over three attempts (attack speed and 550 flat lightning damage) and Herald of Ice to go full cold. In the meantime, this fire-version warrior build built around Earthshatter remains the author’s recommendation for starting the league.

Skill Tree