Hammer of the Gods Titan Build Guide
Looking to play a character that rushes into the fray ? Shattering the earth and obliterating enemies with a giant Hammer sounds like your thing ? Then look no further than the Hammer of the Gods Titan.
Rampaging through maps you mainly use Stampede, allowing you to keep up the momentum while clearing. Cold Infusion enables the powerful synergy between Herald of Ice and Polcirkeln, causing the very satisfying cold explosions that can chain across multiple screens.
Earthshatter is going to be your single target damage and Hammer of the Gods is here to obliterate bosses and any unusually strong rare you encounter.
Note: You do not need specific resistances on any item, just get the required total resistances amongst all gear combined. You need to cap your Resistances at 75% unless otherwise specified in the guide!
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This guide assumes you are at least level 68 and have completed Act 3 Cruel, to learn more about the leveling process check out our leveling guide.
Skills
- Earthshatter sends out fissures that spawn spikes you can explode with Seismic Cry or Infernal Cry for massive damage. You can pre-emptively place them while a boss is spawning or right before activating an essence. This gives you a big burst of damage and instantly stuns the target.. Note that Seismic Cry does not go on cooldown if it doesn't empower your attacks, which only happens if a target nearby is Heavy Stunned.
- Hammer of the Gods is your heavy hitter. If you encounter a very strong rare, use Infernal Cry to empower it then drop the Hammer!
Against bosses, you want to wait to land a Heavy Stun with Earthshatter, then use Seismic Cry and Infernal Cry before dropping the Hammer. - Stampede is the skill you use to clear trash while moving through the map. Alternate Seismic Cry and Infernal Cry in between Stampede uses.
- Herald of Ice is where all the massive explosions come from. The Polcirkeln causes it to chain off itself, allowing it to potentially explode multiple screens of monsters at once.
- Shield Charge is used for movement when there is nothing to fight. Leap Slam is also used for extra movement flexibility and to move while Shield Charge is on cooldown.
Use the <Prev and Next> arrows to navigate.
Skill Rotation
- If you encounter a rare monster that survives the Stampede, aim a couple of attacks with Earthshatter at the target and blow up the spikes with either warcry.
- If it is an especially tanky rare, drop the Hammer of the Gods after empowering it with Infernal Cry
- For bosses, you pre-emptively stack as many Earthshatter spikes as possible on top of them and explode them with Seismic Cry when they start fighting you. Keep doing this until the boss gets heavy stunned, then use both Seismic Cry and Infernal Cry, weapon swap to the dual maces and drop Hammer of the Gods.
ONLY WEAPON SWAP IF YOU HAVE 2 EXTRA MACES SIMILAR TO YOUR MAIN WEAPON, if you only have 1 or 2 good maces available to you, do not bother weapon swapping.
If you want more details about weapon swapping, check out this article.
While clearing, simply Stampede into monsters and alternate weaving in Infernal Cry then Seismic Cry between each cast.
Skill Leveling Priority
Passives
Ascendancy
Learn how to complete the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to earn your first 2 Ascensions with our Ascension Guide!
- Colossal Capacity provides you with quality of life in the form of additional inventory space.
- Hulking Form is one of the strongest ascendancy nodes in the game, giving a massive bonus to all the small passives allocated in your tree. This adds up to a large amount of pretty much everything the build wants!
Note: this does NOT affect the travel attribute nodes that can be changed between Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence.
- Earthbreaker gives you an additional 20% chance for your slams to aftershock, which is a 20% more damage bonus. It also allows you to have a 97% chance to trigger an aftershock on Stampede, making your clear extremely consistent
- Mysterious Lineage is a significant boost to your survivability.
Gearing
Offensive Scaling
- The biggest source of damage comes from your weapons. Getting good Weapons is your primary focus when trying to gear up.
- Speed and Area of Effect are also pretty important stats to improve clear and how smoothly the build plays.
- Having a source of Mana leech is very valuable. You can get it on your Weapon, Gloves or Rings.
- Lighting damage to Attacks from either Rings or Gloves is pretty valuable as it allows your Hammer of the Gods to inflict a pretty sizable shock on the target.
- Sources of #% increased damage: #% Melee Damage, #% Global Physical Damage, #% increased Damage, #% Increased Damage with Maces, #% Area Damage, #% Damage with Two Handed Weapons, #% Attack Damage.
Defensive Scaling
- Sufficient +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance to cap your Resistances
- +# to Maximum Life.
- +# to Strength because it gives you more maximum life.
- A shield with a high % Block Chance. Block is your biggest defensive layer while mapping so try to max it out as soon as possible. The Surrender is the best option for Mapping survivability. When block capped through your passive tree and jewels, it makes you nearly unkillable when fighting large amounts of monsters.
- Armour helps mitigate some of the Physical Damage you take while mapping, but should never be prioritized over Maximum Life
- If you are still struggling check out our Survival Guide for additional useful information!
Here's how you should gear your Hammer of the Gods Titan. Sorted mostly in order of importance
- Weapons are by far your biggest source of damage. Look for Weapons with the following stats:
- 2h + Shield Setup
- #% Increase Physical Damage
- Adds # to # Physical Damage
- #% Increased Attack speed
- +# to Level of all Melee Skills
- Leeches #% of Physical Damage as Mana
- Socket 2 Iron Rune into your weapon after using Artificer's Orb on it for a big amount of extra Physical Damage.
- Dual wield 2 handers
- Same stats as the 2h + Shield setup, except you do not need Attack Speed or Mana Leech!
- 2h + Shield Setup
Ideal Bases :
- Expert Leaden Greathammer
- Expert Oak Greathammer
- Expert Temple Maul
- Do not fix resistances with your shield in the endgame, swapping to Dual Wield for Hammer drop against bosses can leave you vulnerable to elemental damage.
- #% increased Block Chance
- +# to Maximum Life
- #% additional Physical Damage Reduction
- +#% To Maximum Fire, Cold, Lightning or Chaos Resistance
- +# to Strength
- % increased Armour and +# to Armour
- The Surrender is extremely powerful for your mapping survivability and should use it whenever you can acquire it and make sure your chance to Block is capped at 75%.
Ideal Bases:
- Expert Stone Tower Shield
- +# to Maximum Life
- #% increased Armour and +# to Armour
- +# to Strength
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Spirit (When trying to fit extra reservations)
- Morior Invictus is the best Body Armour for this build with Increased Maximum life as your first stat, and either Elemental Resistances or Increased Attributes as your second one.
Ideal Bases:
- Expert Steel Plate
- Expert Iron Cuirass
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Strength
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- % increased Armour and +# to Armour
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- Thrillsteel is the best choice for your Helmet if you can cap your resistances with it.
Ideal Bases:
- Expert Elite Greathelm
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Strength
- #% Increased Attack Speed
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Armour and +# to Armour
#% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
Ideal Bases :
- Expert Moulded Mitts
- +#% to Movement Speed
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Strength
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Armour and +# to Armour
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
Ideal Bases
- Expert Stone Greaves
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Strength, +# to all Attributes and other attributes you may need
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- For min-max Breach Rings with Life or Attribute Quality are very strong
- Polcirkeln is MANDATORY on 1 of your ring slots for Herald of Ice to be able to chain.
Ideal Bases
- Breach Ring
- Amethyst Ring
- Ruby Ring/Topaz Ring/Sapphire Ring/Prismatic Ring
- #% Increased Maximum Life
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Strength, +# to all Attributes and other attributes you may need
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Spirit (When trying to fit extra reservations)
- #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
- Instill a node that isn't too costly but grants a decent boost in power until you have a really good Amulet. Parrying Motion is a decent option to help you cap your Block and grants some extra movement speed. Lay Siege or Offensive Stance will give you a lot of damage if you can cap your block chance without instilling for it.
- Notable unique mentions: Astramentis to enable different auras such as Attrition for Pinnacle Bosses, or for an Energy Shield setup with items such as Atziri's Disdain
Ideal Bases:
- Amber Amulet
- Stellar Amulet
- Lapis Amulet
- Jade Amulet
- +# to Maximum Life
- +# to Strength
- +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
- +# to Armour
- Ingenuity is a very good option if you can get one with a good roll, as it allows you to get more value from Catalysts and more stats overall, especially ones you cannot obtain on belts such as #% increased Rarity of Items found, or more damage.
Ideal Bases
- Plate Belt
- Utility Belt
Jewels are the way we round up our %Block Chance and get our Rage generation
This build allocates at least 5 Jewel sockets which provide an excellent way to further customize your build. Specifically, look out for the following :
MANDATORY STATS :
- % increased Block chance
- Gain 1 Rage on Melee Hit
Additional stats in no particular order:
- #% increased Global Physical Damage
- % increased Melee Damage
- % chance to inflict Bleeding on Hit
- % increased Magnitude of Bleeding you inflict
- % increased Damage against Enemies with Fully Broken Armour
- % increased Attack Damage
- % increased Bleeding Duration
- #% increased Armour
- % increased Warcry Cooldown Recovery Rate
- #% increased Area of Effect - generic AoE is an extremely scarce stat otherwise. This increases the coverage of pretty much every skill you use.
- +#% to Maximum Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistance
- #% increased Weapon Swap Speed (QoL)
- Recover #% of Life on Kill
- #% increased Stun Buildup
Any of these mods are also good on a Time-Lost Jewel that affects a lot of nodes in the vicinity. These jewels are ESPECIALLY powerful because of the Hulking Form ascendancy node as it applies to those stats as well.
Against the Darkness is also a very powerful option if you can find one with good mods, such as #% Increased Maximum Life or various Maximum Resistances
Atlas Passives
Click the arrows to open the full tree in a new tab.
- The Stampede setup allows for very efficient Breach farming and pretty much every mechanic requiring good clear against content that has high monster density. Herald of Ice makes it exceptionnal for Breach.
- Trials of Sekhema are the main place where you might have issues, but that is fixed by having good relics with Honour Resistance and Increased Maximum Honour.
- The main map mods to avoid should be "+50% Monster Elemental Resistances" or multiple tank mods such as "70% more Monster Life", as it makes it harder to apply chill for the explosions. You CAN run one of these mods at a time depending on your damage, but it will slow down your clear speed and just makes the maps less fun to run! Other than that avoid too many bad damage mods such as "Monsters Damage penetrates 25% Elemental Resistances.".
- Essences on the atlas are needed to help with crafting gear while progressing, while the Waystone drop chance nodes allow you to sustain and progress.
Learn about the endgame activities available to you in Path of Exile 2 with our guide!
FAQ
Pick Strength for every travel node, pathing to the Polymathy cluster allows you to get a good chunk of extra strength, and more importantly the small Reduced Attribute Requirements passives significantly reduce the amount of strength needed to meet the requirements. Other than that, just try to look for as much Strength as possible from gear and do not feel bad about using a lower tier weapon. A well rolled Advanced tier weapon is good enough to last you until you have enough Strength to use the Expert tier weapons.
Pathing to the Polymathy cluster allows you to get some extra Dexterity and Intelligence, and more importantly the small Reduced Attribute Requirements passives, significantly reducing the amount of attributes needed to meet the requirements. Other than that, just try to look for as much Dexterity and Intelligence as possible from gear and do not feel bad about using a lower level Herald of Ice. It does not need to be max level, simply level Herald of Ice as high as your current attributes allow you to.
It is very important that you manage to enable Giant's Blood before farming Red maps, a shield tremendously increases your survivability. In fact, it is mandatory to be able to survive higher tier maps.
The red and green lines represent the weapon set specific passive points.
When you are using your Weapon set 1 (which will be your 2H + Shield setup), the tree allocated will include the red passives. These are passives you have to allocate by first clicking the "Weapon Set 1" arrow at the top right of your passive skill tree.
When you are swapping to your Weapon set 2 (which will be Dual Wield 2handed Maces), the tree allocated should include the green passives. Again, these passives have to be allocated after clicking the 2nd arrow at the top right to switch to "Allocating points for Weapon Set 2"
The passives that aren't colored are simply allocated normally without doing anything in particular
- Relic: 30% Increased Charm Charges Gained
- Venom Drought: 25% increased Stun Threshold
- Cruel Relic: 15% increased Life Recovery from Flasks
- Cruel Venom Drought: 10% to Chaos Resistance
NOTE: These bonuses are minor, if you picked something different for the Venom Draught, don't worry too much!
Video
Summary
- Stampede is a movement skill that crashes into enemies with giant echoing explosions
- Earthshatter makes quick work of potential surviving rares and has insane pre-stacking damage potential to instantly kill Essences as you open them or start off boss fights with a very early Heavy Stun.
- Hammer of the Gods takes advantage of heavy stuns to deal massive amounts of damage by utilizing the weapon swapping mechanic.
- Versatile mobility options with Shield Charge and Leap Slam.
- Block allows you to mitigate the majority of the attacks coming your way, with The Surrender making you virtually unkillable if you get overwhelmed (but beware of Area Attacks as you cannot block them!)
- BIG BONK.
Credits
Written by : cArn
Content Reviewed by : Cptn Garbage
Language Reviewed by : Tenkiei