Shattering / Splitting Steel Impale Champion Ascendancy, Bandits, & Pantheon Powers
Ascendancy (Duelist – Champion)
- Master of Metal
- Unstoppable Hero
- Conqueror
- Worthy Foe
Master of Metal provides an insane amount of damage in the form of additional hits for Impale, additional Physical damage per Impale, and 20% Chance to Impale and additional Armour if you’ve Impaled recently, which is pretty much all the time.
Unstoppable Hero, most importantly, makes you immune to Stuns if you have Fortify; beyond that the offensive and defensive stats it provides are also very good.
Conqueror provides some minor defensive benefits, but is necessary in order to take the last node.
Worthy Foe gives us a GIGANTIC damage boost, as enemies will no longer be able to evade our attacks, as long as they’re taunted (which thanks to Conqueror is always, unless they’re immune, such as because of map mods). This effectively gives us a 100% chance to hit an enemy without the need to stack up Accuracy. Additionally, to sweeten the deal, there’s also a flat 20% “increased damage taken” modifier on it as well, further boosting the damage provided by the node. It will likely be the largest increase you can acquire.
Bandits
You should kill all since the two passive skill points are more powerful than any of the benefits bandits offer.
However, if this is your first character of the league (which it will definitely be for ME), it is usually worthwhile to help Alira instead, to get the free resistances and Mana recovery, as they’re a lot harder to get reliably for your first character. You can then switch out to the kill all reward later on, using the vendor recipe.
Pantheons
Major: Soul of Lunaris is a great Pantheon choice for the build, as it provides important Movement Speed along with additional Physical Damage mitigation.
Minor: Soul of Shakari – Chaos Damage reduction is always a good addition to a build, before you get your “Divine Flesh” endgame option. Other minor gods can be chosen depending on personal preference, but they aren’t really strong enough to matter in a big way.
Pantheon powers can be upgraded by using 
Divine Vessel in the Map Device while you are activating the particular Map that contains the boss you need. Once you’ve killed the boss and captured his soul, you need to deliver the vessel to Sin in Oriath.
If you’ve beaten the Sirus encounter already, you will have to go back to any town in act 6-10 to talk to Sin, as he doesn’t exist in the new Epilogue town.
Main Page / TL;DR