Velyna's Ground Slam Slayer (PoE Necropolis 3.24)
Introduction
Ground Slam is one of the oldest skills in PoE, first added July 4th 2010 with Version 0.6.0. Since then it has received almost nothing but buffs and is currently one of the best ways to enjoy the melee archetype!
We scale our damage by stacking Dexterity with Hollow Palm Technique to put a spin on a classic. Since Hollow Palm doesn’t use a weapon or gloves this creates a very unique power fantasy of slamming the ground with bare hands, unleashing a shockwave of earth that destroys huge packs of enemies.
The Slayer ascendency enhances this with Brutal Fervour and other defensive bonuses while attacking and leeching. On the damage side it boosts AoE and attack speed plus accuracy, not to mention how great the 20% cull feels.
Overview
Pros
✔️ Easy leaguestart and scaling – Ground Slam is available immediately on entering the first town, and you can use it the whole way to endgame. Just follow the leaguestart PoB and use a classic two-hand weapon setup until you transition into Hollow Palm.
✔️ Screen-wide AoE – Slayer gives a massive boost to Ground Slams already large radius, allowing you to hit most of the screen.
✔️ 3 Button Gameplay – All we do is dash-slam-dash, maybe drop a totem sometimes. We need nothing else besides flasks.
Cons
❌ Stat Budget – The build uses a lot of uniques, plus we cannot equip gloves or a shield. It’s not terribly hard to pack enough on belt/rings but keep resists in mind while shopping for gear.
❌ Chaos/Degens – Related to stat budget, it’s very hard to fit chaos res into the build. Also a small life pool can make degens scary.
How Does it Play?
As long as a Slayer is attacking they are leeching, and while leeching become immune to bleeds, stuns, and reflect. This keeps you toe-to-toe, punching enemies in the face. Ground Slam is perfect for this because it rewards being fairly close to enemies while also allowing enough distance to dodge incoming damage. With enough AoE you can clear most of the screen at once, the main difficulty being that it’s a frontal cone not a circle.
With few buttons to press the gameplay really reinforces a feeling of tearing enemies apart without gimmicks or stacking damage through aura’s/warcries.
Damage and Defensive Scaling
For every 10 Dexterity we gain 14-20 flat physical damage, this is the core of the build. Impale, %phys damage, %damage while dual wielding, attack speed, all of these work as well.
On the defensive side we have Armour, Evasion, Fortify, Spell Suppression. Impale immunity or Corrupted Blood immunity can be obtained on the tree. Slayers overleech and Ailment immunity round out defenses.
Resources
Crafting and Upgrading for Beginners
Using this Guide
For build imports head to the PoB and Skills page.
Pobs and Skills
Gear
Ascend and PantheonThe build is designed to work through stages, explained next to the imports. The same page contains leaguestart tips and gem setups for leaguestart and endgame.
The gear page contains info about the endgame setup, links to help you search for items, and sometimes crafting tips as well.
Leaguestart
- My Leaguestart PoBs go step-by-step to place your talents during act 1-10.
- There is also an act-by-act guide for which gems to use, you can find it on the Skills page.
After the campaign get your lightning/cold/fire resistances to 75 and get life on every slot. You can wear a blue ring if it has life and resistance, that’s fine. Also start shopping for uniques.
The leaguestart is meant to grind out immediate upgrades in early maps, some builds can push into reds immediately and some not. Grind where you are cozy while upgrading.
When you can easily farm low maps, start looking to buy items for the next stage.
Midrange/Transition
Some builds require a transition stage because levelling with our desired skill is not viable. If transitioning is required there will be a list of items to gather before doing it, and then you build towards the next PoB like always.
You will probably unlock most of your atlas while gearing out this stage, so don’t be afraid to spend on incremental upgrades. The faster you kill monsters the faster you make money.
Midrange will add more expensive uniques and any build-defining items. Usually not much crafting yet, but all rares should have the required life/resists/attributes plus good other mods. Flasks should also be decently rolled.
Check the gem setup in PoB, it usually changes slightly from leaguestart.
Endgame
Pushing past the final atlas bosses and into the post-campaign content, this is where you add those final millions of DPS to finish off the build.
Upgrades will become more expensive overall, and may require some basic to intermediate crafting. If a difficult craft is required, instructions will be given on the Gear page of the guide.
The cost of this stage is different for every build and changes with every patch. If a build is generally very cheap or very expensive I will mention it in the Pros/Cons section.
