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A Boneshatter Titan build can be one of the most fun builds inPath of Exile 2. Because it’s basically an entirely melee-focused build, it’s a difficult one, as well. Building a character with this focus in mind is going to be a tightrope walk between focusing on survivability and damage, and both are going to be important as you level up.
But built well, a Boneshatter Titan can wipe out hordes of enemies in a couple of swift moves. It might cause some growing pains while leveling up because certain things that are integral won’t be there right away, but we’ll cover how to manage the road there.
Act One
Act One is going to be where you’rebeginning to establish your build. For a bit of this act, you aren’t going to have the tools or skills necessary to make your build function. At the same time, you’re also going to bebuilding muscle memory to go through your rotation.
Early Equipment
In the early going, you’re going to want tograb a mace; a mace combined with a shield is going to prove fruitful because this build is going to lack defensive capabilities, at least for a while.
If you’d prefer a two-handed mace that will also function with it.
With either variation of this weapon, you’ll have access to bothMace Strike andRolling Slam.Mace Strike will be your Basic Attack and will build up Stun,which will be pivotal to the build.Rolling Slam will be replacedby another skill down the linebut it is going to be useful for now.
Skills In Act One
In Act One, you’ll be grabbing many of the skills you’ll need for many of the minion enemies but will belacking a bit in single-target damage.
This entire build does focus heavily on group damage, but that problem does lessen the further you go, as Perfect Strike gets upgraded.
With your skill gems, you’ll want to pick up:
You’ll want tograb these in this order, and they’ll come very quickly in Act One. The purpose of it will be tobuild up a Stun effect on enemies, which will result in aball of light appearing over them. Once that happens, you’ll want touse Boneshatter, which will damage them and nearby enemies.
Earthquake and Shockwave Totemare often used in tandem; an earthquake creates a Jagged Ground, and a Shockwave Totem eruptsthat Jagged Ground every time it detonates.
Infernal Crywill also essentially create a status on enemiesinside the radius when you activate it;when those enemies die, they’ll explode.
Skill Rotation
All of this combines for aton of area-of-effect (AoE) damage. In the beginning, the rotation is usually going to goRolling Slam > Boneshatter, and if enemies are still standing,Infernal Cry > Earthquake > Shockwave Totem.
You’ll be activating Boneshatter at any point here when the glowing light appears on an enemy, and it shouldn’t take long before the entire group is dead.
If you have a shield with you, you can Raise Shield after you’ve activated the Shockwave Totem in your rotation. This will keep you from taking as much damage, and the Shockwave Totem/Earthquake combo will continue damaging and stunning enemies, allowing you to use Boneshatter when prudent.
Support Gems
These Support Gemsare going toessentially become modifiers that you slot into your Skills. They’ll add meaningful extra effects and, sometimes, change the way that a skill works. This part of the build can be experimented with a bit more, but slotting the wrong thing in can also effectively kill a build.
Thankfully, these are not permanent changes, and you may slot these in and out at will, giving you the freedom to try things out.
We’ll mention Support Gems that are helpful to the build, andif you’re just starting out,it’s highly recommended you stick with the gems that we mention. That’s not to say that other gems couldn’t add value to the build in a different way, andif you want to try something else, feel free.
Impact Shockwave
Boneshatter
This one is quite important andcontributes to a lot of AoE damagewhen Boneshatter is used.Without this,yourdamageto groups of enemiesis going to be much lower.
Magnified Effect
This is aflat area increase to the AoE effect of Boneshatter.
Overpower
Mace Strike
This is going tocause your Mace Strike to inflict extra Stun. This will primarily be a concern for Boss enemies because most other enemies are going to go down in one rotation.
Against a Boss, this will make a tremendous difference in how often you get to use Boneshatter.
Ruthless
This one issimilar to Overpower, but more hyper-focused on Bosses. Every fifth strike is going to deal significantly increased Stun; against smaller enemies, you won’t often go to a fifth strike before they’re dead.
Martial Tempo
Shockwave Totem
This is going todecrease the time between shockwaves, making the totem deal more damage in a smaller amount of time.
Fire Infusion
This is going tocause your Shockwave Totem to deal a small amount of fire damage.
Jagged Ground
Alternatively, you can grab Jagged Ground for the Shockwave Totem instead of one of the above. This gives the totem achance to spawn extra instances of Jagged Ground itselfon top of the ones created by Earthquake.
Window of Opportunity
Perfect Strike
This makes thewindow for Perfect Strike smallerbut causes it todeal more damage when the window is hit. If you’re confident in hitting the window, this is basically a flat damage buff.
Execute
This causes Perfect Strike todeal increased damage to enemies under 35% health. With this equipped, you’re going to start to really melt bosses once they get low on health.
You likely are not going to fill all of these in Act One. In general, if you grab Impact Shockwave, Magnified Effect, Martial Tempo, and Overpower and/or Ruthless, you’ll be in good shape. Grab the others as you see fit.
Act Two
By Act Two, you’ll have ahandle on the basics of how this all works together and when you should use each skill.This is good becauseAct Two begins to ramp up the difficulty significantly, particularly in the back half.
Equipment Choices
For the most part, you can freely switch betweenone-handed and two-handed maces. In general, it’s going to be adamage vs. defense debate. With a one-handed mace, you’ll be able to survive significantly longer, but with a two-handed one, you’ll be able to deal more damage.
We had more luck with a one-handed weapon and a shield, particularly against groups of enemies. But, certain Bosses are going to be easier with one or the other, and itcannot hurt to have both options available in your inventory.
Skills In Act Two
There is only one skill that we’ll be investing in in Act Two:Leap Slam. This is going toreplace Rolling Slam as an essentially more impactful form of it. For the most part, anytime that you would have used Rolling Slam, use Leap Slam instead.
Leap Slam is going to open up many enemies to Boneshatter immediately. Leap into battle with Leap Slam > Boneshatter, and then hit the rest of your rotation.
Because Act Two doesn’t have much to add regarding skills, there isn’t much to talk about when it comes to Support Gems. Many of the gems you get here are going to bespent getting the ones mentioned above in the last act.
That said,Lacerate can be a good choice for Leap Slamor as a variant to use onMace Strike. While this skill might not be integral to the build and might be replaced later on, the bleeding effect that Lacerate causes can create a nice damage-over-time (DoT) effect on enemies, which is especially helpful against those with higher health.
Act Two is where things start getting tougher. It might be prudent, if you’re having trouble with a particular fight, to grind through earlier levels again to level up, earn gold, and get new gear. Check the characters in your hub to see if they’re selling anything helpful, and come back to the difficult fight once you’ve progressed a bit.
Act Three
In Act Three, we’ll unlock access to support skills that make us more active in terms of fleshing out our build again.It’s going toprovide the foundation for perfecting this buildas you progress further through the game, post-Act Three, and into the hardest content in the game.
There are not many changes here when it comes to our equipment choices.One thing that is useful throughout the campaign anda good habit to start with iscollecting gearof a similar quality to what you’re already wearing,whichhas different resistances.That way, if you come up on an enemy that deals a heavy amount of a certain damage type, you can head to your stash and swap your gear.
Skills In Act Three
With the skill gems that you get in Act Three, you’ll want tocontinue upgrading the skills that you already haveto the level of these higher-value gems. There isn’t anything new we’ll be getting here, butthose upgrades are going to be meaningful, as are the Support Gems we’re about to go over.
Later on, once you’re through leveling in the main campaign, keep an eye out for theHammer of the Godsskill. There are other skills to experiment with later on alongside this, but that one is an integral one to this build, in the later content of the game.
In Act Three, you’re going to start gaining access to Support Gems that allow you tochoose skills from the next row down.One of these, in particular, is going to be crucial:Brink.
Brink is going to go on your Leap Slam ability, which is what you’re using that causes the most consistent Stun, at least to groups of enemies. Sometimes, you will be causing too much Stun and won’t be able to use Boneshatter.
With Brink equipped, you won’t have to worry about that and will be able tomake much better use of Boneshatterfrom there on out.
Passive Skills And Ascendancy
Passive Skillsare something that you’ll beapplying every time you level up, and can respec atThe Hooded Onefor gold. There are a lot of Passive Skills available, and it’s the part of the build that’s the easiest to tinker around with because it only requires gold to try new things out.
Ascendancy is achievedby completing Trials, the first of which is the Trial of the Sekhemas in Act Two. These act as more passives, essentially, and will help to support your build. This is where you pick your class; for this build, we’ll choose Titan.
Passive Skill Choices
Our focuswill, for the most part, be onincreasing melee damage, armor, and Strength. Other things that we can do along the way will be helpful, such as increasing area-of-effect range and attack speed.
Ascendancy Choices
Over time, you’re going to geteight Ascendancy Points. The only thing that youcannot get with this build is Crushing Blows,which will essentially make this build uselessbecause it will nearly remove our ability to Boneshatter enemies.
Apart from that, the top and bottom branches of the tree focus on defensive capabilities; if you’re looking toincrease your armor, go with the top. If you’re looking toincrease your health and health regen, go with the bottom.
The best bet, in that case, is to stack with the one that your gear is more focused on. If you’ve already stacked a lot of gear with your armor, that percentage increase will be higher. If you haven’t, the health regen might suit you better.
The most notable one after this isEarthbreaker, which willgive our Slam skills a chance to cause Aftershocks, essentially boosting out AoE damage further.
