3.26 | Banner Slammer | SSFHC | 25M DPS with Realistic Gear and No Uniques | 150M+ Deep Endgame

Short, rough, kind of not curated video summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG6BJ_EC6ws -

POB linked at end. Last updated 6/13/2025 10 minutes before league launch.

Hi! I'm Seiki. I sometimes write stupid things in global chats and once showed up in the yellow text in the SSFHC death alert log.

Before all else, please know that this seems to be a pretty untested build concept (in the sense of playing it for a league, because it's a new idea). I am not sure if it's going to be a great league starter as such. But I hope that the included Path of Building export is fairly representative of the core of my idea, how to scale it, and hopefully have a functional character that does something mechanically unique.

Because I am an SSF player who spends about half of my time in SSFHC as well, SSFHC viability is my goal here. I have tried to make this not a paper build, and the items I've included do have good, useful modifiers, but they are not T1 rolls - especially the weapon - so they are hopefully considerably reasonable; I recall making even better pieces on past characters in SSFHC.

As such, with SSF in mind, I have chosen to adopt the following restrictions:
- no uniques unless doing long-term progression
- no Essence/Delve/Incursion mods
- no cluster jewels to start or really clear most of the game
- no setups that more or less require level 100 to function
- I can in theory just play the build as soon as I get the main skill because I really dislike builds that are predicated on "just get level 90, these uniques, a 6L, and then completely respe and rechromatic your gear"

This build will leverage Champion's new ascendancy node. To quote the patch notes:

"

"The Conqueror Ascendancy Passive Skill has been replaced with the new Worthy Causes Notable, that grants Having a placed Banner does not prevent you gaining Valour, and Banner Skills have 50% increased Duration. Requires Inspirational."

The beauty of this node is that it functionally means Champion now has a built-in Perfidy and it solves the main thing that banners used to have going against them - not being able to actually build your banners up while using them. This means that it's possible to summon all three banners in relatively quick succession and juice yourself to the moon.

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE, ARE BANNERS CLUNKY AND AWFUL TO PLAY?

I think this is subjective. If you as a player place utmost value on complete 1 button builds, this build is not it. But this build is also not nearly as bad as old school warcry piano. For casual mapping, this build is your slam, War Banner, and then MAYBE the other banners when the time is right. So it's more or less a 2 button build.

It's DEFINITELY NOT as awful as ancestral totems for melee; banners have much better AoE, can't die, don't draw fire, and best of all, they are instant cast. They have absolutely no break in your movement and do not animation lock you. From playtesting with a Perfidy setup in standard over the last few days, I did not find them to be too obtrusive. But I used to play self-cast warcry piano back in the before times, so maybe I am desensitized.

Bossing will be a matter of putting down 3 banners every 20-30 seconds depending on how much banner duration you choose to scale.

Mapping is putting down the banners you need when you need them. It does mean that you're regularly using War Banner unless you have enough damage to stomp the map anyway. My hope is that I have enough defenses in the build innately to not be dependent on the defensive banners, but rather only need them when a clear threat is on the screen.

You can self-sustain the movement speed banner while running and leverage the lingering effect to run in any direction you wish at upwards of 400% movement speed depending on how you choose to itemize. So in that sense, for travel, it is zoomy - but it is not fully passive movement speed, so if moving at giga speed at all times without exception is a requirement for your goals (softcore, most likely), then this might be a demerit against the build. I probably will use it to zoom through heist with phasing flasks in SSF at some point.

HOW DOES THIS BUILD MECHANICALLY WORK?

We use automated warcries as an engine for efficient valor generation, which is scaled by passives. From there, when we have valor stacks, we can place whatever banners we want. Full valor stacks do not take long to build this way, and even half-charged banners if needed on short notice are quite strong.

The lingering effect means we have some wiggle room while clearing and periodically putting down whatever banner we want.

The 30% refund on Champion also scales with valor generation, which means that by the time you walk out of a banner's circle, even with boosted movement speed, you'll generate roughly 70 valor and you've built the rest while walking to your next point anyway.

For bosses or predictable league mechanics, like strongboxes, Harvest, Ritual, etc., we can preemptively place before engaging and go nuts. Also, with the addition of 50% increased banner duration on the new Champion node, this means that the banners last more than long enough to kill just about any boss once you have enough damage.

SOUNDS KIND OF NEAT SO FAR. ANY DRAWBACKS?

From my experience so far, the build like just about any has some map modifiers that can be a nuisance.

- non-curse aura reduction hits your banners, but then again, this mod hurts every build.

- enemies can't be leeched from can, depending on your character state, brick your mana pool if you don't have enough mana cost reduction. But once you do, it's not so bad as you can naturally sustain even the 6L cost with helmet implicit, jewelry -flat mana cost, and passives.

- the longer cooldown map mod doesn't necessarily brick the build, but it does slow down valor generation. Completely doable still. Just have to be a little attentive.

I am not yet at the point where I am wanting to try T17s, so I'm not certain how annoying this is or isn't.


HOW DO WE SCALE DAMAGE?

The damage from this build relies on the current standard setup of overexert, automate a lot of warcries, sometimes manually use Rallying Cry, and go. But we take the damage further by banners essentially tripling our damage through Precise Technique and increasing the increased damage enemies take.

So far, unless I can figure out some other configuration, I think Earthshatter might be the premiere skill for this. It incidentally benefits from autoexert valor engine anyway, but beyond that, Earthshatter is maybe the only slam skill that is actually okay with impale scaling, which enables us to leverage Champion's Master of Metal to thus give us the ability to take passive tree nodes that give 6% more damage instead of the typical 3ish% per point. Efficient, I think.

I am currently unsure if the +2 exert mace is the end goal. A slow Karui Chopper has been working well for me, and I don't have exert downtime IN PRACTICE with having to manually reposition and what not during combat. Exert is the move if you choose to stack more attack speed or if you can guarantee having a T1 attack speed roll on an +2 exert base, but I am not certain this is the move for non-trade context. Ultimately, I think this comes down to a "where your character is at, and if you're in trade league where you can ensure T1 attack speed on +2 exert mace" or not sort of thing. +2 exert does nothing if you don't have enough attack speed to squeeze it in - or if you have enough CDR on warcries.

BANNER/AURA SCALING FIGURES:

In short, at this level of investment, banners are running at almost 2500% effect of their baseline effect. The POB shows an aggregation of the valor stacks and increases if you want specifics.

Incidentally, having 216% aura effectiveness also makes other auras good. This is why I go Precise Technique; Precision and War Banner, both scaled up, is an easy 5k accuracy. And as this build is not stacking life in favor of trying to be a mitigation machine, we don't need much more. However, if we get REALLY good life rolls, we can just keep upping Precision's level.

It's worth noting that the "Enemies take 8% increased damage" for the banner mastery seems (and feels like in game) to be per banner. This is a uniquely large source of enemies taking increased damage as a result.

BANNER AREA OF EFFECT

Surprisingly, with this much AoE, banners are actually not bad. On this setup, they extend offscreen, which is surely enough AoE for any arena-based boss and it can be pushed further if you elect to take Increased Area of Effect Support and the corpse explode banner passive wheel that has more AoE. But from my testing, I am not convinced this is necessary.

This is the current AoE:


If I feel like I need more AoE as the build scales, using an unset ring to put a movement skill into it and then using inc. AoE might be the move.

SUMMARY OF DEFENSES/UTILITY:


1) 80%+ max elemental resistances. 85% possible with Brass Dome for bossing of necessary. Melding of the Flesh builds are possible due to the absolutely hilarious resistance totals this build achieves.
2) Full attack and spell block cap with Versatile Combatant.
3) 200% suppression. And, interestingly, a lot of flat spell reduction on suppressed hits from Defiance Banner - several hundred's worth.
4) Freeze/chill immunity from Pantheon and crafted suffixes. We can also elect, due to having over 200% suppression, to use Ancestral Vision, causing over 100% ailment avoidance while Defiance Banner is up. Because this is inconsistent, for HC, even though we frequently purge other ailments I will probably still keep the Pantheon and mods that help mitigate chill/shock.
5) Permanent 26 fortify.
6) 10% less DoT taken.
7) 30% reduced extra damage from crit; crit immunity if Brass Dome. Brass Dome isn't end all, be all that it used to be, but at the very least it can be a great swap to run crit maps in HC.
8) Reasonably high armor - around 30k totally unbuffed with completely reasonable gear, 62k with flasks, or as high as 127k with Determination if more armor is necessary. More is probably possible with some slight passive tweaks (Inexorable, for example).
9) Lots of movement speed when demanded.
10) Permanent no effort rage sustain. I am not certain if using an unset ring is worth using Berserk, but it could be worth it for softcore.
11) Effectively permanent 3 or 4 endurance and frenzy charge sustain depending on what player chooses to do with passives.
12) 1300% combined uncapped resistances. Not that this is super helpful, but it is pretty funny.
13) Passive options to passively maim enemies, which can be useful for things like Ritual if you want to create space.
14) Passive options for a 75% instant heal on demand on fully-stacked banners.
15) Passive options for ailment purges on every single banner use.
16) Regenerates around 15% of max life per second and can be made to access typical leech as well.
17) Purges bleed, poison, ignite so often that you might as well be functionally immune to them.
18) Life sustain is from multiple sources: about 15% passive regen, standard amounts of leech, and 870 life gain on block from Defiance Banner.
19) Fairly good Molten Shell.
20) Many warcries means we can leverage the debilitation mastery, resulting in quite high uptime of enemies doing 10% less damage to us.

LEVELING:


Do whatever you want. No need to overthink this. If you want to be "optimal," go do the usual Sunder thing.

I'm probably going to level following roughly the outlined steps I have in the passives in the POB. Not sure if it's optimal (probably isn't) but I want the enjoyment of watching the build come into its identity from early on as more mechanics are unlocked in the tree.

DISCOVERY: mercenary can run leap slam, which pops earthshatters. Earthshatter is strong for leveling now.

UPDATE: typical low level melee. Went in favor of some mana nodes around A3-A4.At ascendancy 2 with the 2nd valor node, I am getting to the point where I can sometimes the MS and damage gbanners up at 80+ stacks regularly. Getting very strong very quickly.

Seismic Cry feels like it's better to prioritize early than Intimidating Cry.

Battle Trance is a tremendously inexpensive anoint for SSF. Significant damage boost until better anoints.

PATH OF BUILDING (3.26 - Now Includes Commented Uniques of Potential Later Game Value in Item Tooltips)

https://pobb.in/aSIx4MviBeKy

Since first posting this guide, I have been able to squeeze about 20% more damage into the build as well as a little more valor generation without having to compromise in itemization or durability!

I have chosen to build around level 98 for the first and arguably main passive tree because this is where I've gotten to in SSFHC quite a few times. 93 feels pretty certain for me personally, and I've achieved 99 once, but never 100.

POB warrior disclaimer: I hope this is a fair PoB configuration until the very obvious aspirational tier gear setup. Of course the final stages of the build are a little silly, but it shows that there's high investment room for growth in the build idea for high budget trade league enjoyers.

For Earthshatter's config, some bosses are quite big, many maps have obstacles which means Earthshatter clusters more densely than it's unobstructed pattern, and so on, so I don't think 3 Earthshatter spikes is too crazy for general reference. Also, I have 1 ally marked in PoB for Rallying Cry because I am guessing the mercenary in 3.26 counts as an ally.

CHALLENGES OF THE BUILD:
1) Making a good exertion hammer in SSF is going to be difficult since the base is kind of a challenge itself; heavily limits recombination strategies.
2) MIGHT NOT BE VERY GOOD FOR GOLD FARMING. Out damage is behind us most of the time, and due to movement speed, I'm finding that I'm actually outpacing a lot of my gold drops. My Kingsmarch is in shambles.

Things I could see improving this build as longer term progression:
1) Exertion cluster jewels for some of the passives
2) Tattoos may or may not be useful. A TON of warcry CD tattoos might enable swapping out of the 2+ exert mace in favor of a higher DPS weapon or weapon with an interesting mastery.
3) Some certain sizes of Thread of Hope enable interesting passive shakeups that can tip the character in favor of either more durability or more DPS.
4) Utilizing a certain skill and unique interaction to capitalize on a unique aspect of this build to potentially push well into 6 figures of millions of DPS. However, because it is incredibly speculative until playtesting, I don't want to mention it it for now unless I can make it work later. I really don't want to bait anybody.
5) If mercenaries for 3.26 run damage auras, then this might warrant some changes.
6) +Gem amulets, but that's probably hard to make with other rolls.
7) Credit for idea on passive ailment immunity and prompting more discussion on ailment immunity: /u/GoodOldMalk. Stormshroud with 100%+ shock boots (essence mod + exarch implicit) can solve for passive ailment immunity as a longer term goal. So can the full Thick Skin wheel in conjunction with essence boots and avoidance crafted body armor mod at the expense of dropping 20% inc. banner effect. This might be conditionally worth it, but it does place a little burden on the passives as it implies taking the 10% aura effect mastery, dropping the ailment purge mastery on banners, and taking Thick Skin. This could be avoided by anointing Crystal Skin, but this means no Deep Breaths, slowing down valor generation significantly and necessitates warcry tattoos, which may require fitting additional STR into the build somehow. The solution for SSF will realistically probably be whatever happens first - Stormshroud, Ancestral Vision, or a rather well-rolled set of boots.
8) If, as longer term stretch goal, we can progress enough to get ailment immunity, this frees up the major pantheon power for whatever you want to do. Lunaris could be S+++++++ tier pantheon in 3.26 if things can chain off of mercenaries, not to making the build even more durable.
9) 20% chance to not eat a cooldown Runegraft might be kind of overpowered for us. No cooldown burned? 20% more valor per second and a little imputed uptime on Intimidating Cry if you have <100% uptime if you have a little attack speed.
10) Sources of "buffs expire on you slower" will extend your linger time. Not useful vs. bosses, and not a huge deal for moment-to-moment mapping, but still QoL nonetheless.
11) Chains of Emancipation is great for this build. I dug one up in Heist the other day and build my resistances around it. It was a little hard to fit as I'm insistent on keeping a natural unbuffed res cap, but doable. It's also relatively common, so you can throw it into the krangler and fish for even more power. I corrupted one to have AoE size and increased (banner) duration!

I would absolutely adore any feedback on this build - pointing out shortcomings that I might've missed, suggestions for future scaling, small optimizations you might see, and so on.

Reserving second post in case I have some expansion of these thoughts and want to detail them.

cue is a rat

excellent build friend

hey great pob, one small optimization you can make is side with oak to get +40 life and drop the +30 life mastery

Can you just touch on leveling a little bit? Or maybe add a section in the POB or the guide?

Other than that fantastic explanation and logic very interested and will probably start this

How do we handle ailments like ignite chill and shock

"

leegeyerburnest#1005 schrieb:

Can you just touch on leveling a little bit? Or maybe add a section in the POB or the guide?

Other than that fantastic explanation and logic very interested and will probably start this

Not too much to touch on here. Level however you like to. I'm not a speedrunner for leveling, and I think leveling is more fun if I can do it with the identity of hte build I'm working toward in mind, so I'm just building out this passive tree as I go. I'm sure you could do the usual Sunder leveling and switching over if you like speedrunning your leveling.

I have a low level test character at the moment and it feels fine for leveling in HC. Again, definitely not a speedrunning build, but it does start to take on its form and mechanics while leveling, which I find a lot of joy in.

Amazingly well-written and thought out!

Just wanted to say *be-all end-all not end all be all :) very commonly mixed up

"

leegeyerburnest#1005 schrieb:

How do we handle ailments like ignite chill and shock

Freeze is handled by flasks early as usual, then pantheon. Later, Ancestral Vision with at least one active banner can be one solution. Stormshroud is another. Making ailment immunity boots in conjunction with avoidance on the tree (and through essence modifiers) is also yet another option.

Shock is a real danger for me in HC, so that's why I have some crafted modifiers that reduce shock and will be using the -shock minor Pantheon until I have a more permanent solution deeper into progression.

Also, until permanent passive avoidance is secured on the character, we can purge ailments by summoning banners.

Awesome tree setup! I wanted to play this archetype in softcore and all I found were some heist trees. Has anyone played this with Awe and Terror? "Also cause" usually means it applies to the base effect meaning it should always be guaranteed 10% explode even with a single banner. The increased AoE is possibly a burden for keeping valour up while zooming and this doesn't have much %phys so I dunno how it would play.

Impossible Escape Eternal Youth to grab the 72% warcry CDR from deep breaths wheel would let you anoint Sovereignty or something else instead. Maybe not attainable in HC trade. That would take passive valour from 14.6 to 17.5 from my napkin. I don't know if that much warcry CDR is even necessary for circle mechanics. You'd have 2 full ones up by the time mobs spawn either way or 1 full one and 2 partials. Dread Banner might be the lowest priority I suppose.

It's gonna be fun to play around with. Fire pen ring with phys to fire might be the endgame play because it's like a 5x damage multi.

P.S. I saw that the small node between the two banner nodes gives another 5% increased aura effect which is a nice bonus.