Velyna's Sunder of Earthbreaking Slayer (PoE Settlers of Kalguur 3.25)
Introduction
Sunder of Earthbreaking is one of the best ways to enjoy the melee archetype, so good it barely feels like melee at all! Shoot waves forward as you slam the ground, hitting enemies at the edge of the screen for full damage.
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.
Overview
Pros
✔️ Easy leaguestart and scaling – Ground Slam can easily be used until you get the special sunder gem, and 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-long Range – Sunders waves travel quickly to hit things at the edge of your vision.
✔️ 3 Button Gameplay – All we do is dash-slam-dash. 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 sustained and safe, slamming away. Sunder also has secondary damage that procs on hitting enemies, giving it good clear for melee.
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.
###page-button:ground-slam-slayer-pob-skills#Pobs and Skills###
###page-button:ground-slam-slayer-gearing#Gear###
###page-button:ground-slam-slayer-ascendancy-bandits-pantheon#Ascend and Pantheon###
The 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.
###page-button:ground-slam-slayer-pob-skills#Pobs and Skills###
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.
