10 Best Marauder Builds in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League

When it comes to melee builds, the Marauder is always at the forefront next to the Duelist in Path of Exile. It can ascend to three different classes that bring a lot of good things for melee builds to the table.

Thanks to the changes Grinding Gear Games has made in the past couple of years, the Marauder has seen a resurgence in terms of the overall popular classes in PoE.

So, if you are thinking about creating a character soon, we invite you to read this article to completion first. For today, we are going to give you our picks for the 10 best Marauder builds in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League!

Why Choose the Marauder

The Marauder is a STR-based class in Path of Exile that specializes in melee combat. The pathing of this class on the passive tree begins on the southwest side, where a bunch of melee damage and life nodes are present.

This class uses armor as the main defensive layer, enabling it to mitigate physical damage to a great extent. The high amount of HP ensures that the Marauder can stay on the battlefield longer than most classes in the game relative to the amount of PoE Currency invested.

The Marauder is able to ascend to three different classes, namely:

Berserker

GGG has created the Berserker mainly for those who want raw power. This ascendancy class contains mostly offensive nodes that make it quite a formidable presence on the battlefield.

The Aspect of the Carnage gives you 40% more damage, boosting your attacks immediately just by taking this particular node. Do not mind the downside because that 10% increased damage taken can easily be mitigated by your armor and resistances.

Then you have Flawless Savagery. This is ideal if you want to go for builds that emphasize physical damage and high amounts of crit. Flawless Savagery also ensures a smooth leveling experience, especially if your character is not fully geared yet.

War Bringer is a build enabler, particularly for builds that use General’s Cry like the Blade Flurry Berserker. This empowers your warcry skills to generate a temporary resource called Rage. If you have more than 25 Rage, your “exerted attacks” deal 50% more damage due to this node’s effect.

Crave the Slaughter and Rite of Ruin usually go hand-in-hand. The former gives you consistent Rage generation, while the latter triples the effects of Rage, thus giving you more attack damage, attack speed, and movement speed per point.

Blitz grants you the ability to generate Blitz Charges. This notable passive skill reduces your critical strike chance by quite a bit. However, it makes up for it by providing you with a lot of attack speed based on the number of Blitz Charges that you have.

If you want to strike hard and fast, the Berserker is definitely the one for you!

Juggernaut

If the Berserker is built for pure offense, the Juggernaut is a defensive force to be reckoned with. The Juggernaut is made primarily for those who want to create a character that is capable of taking hits without worrying about survivability. This ascendancy class is perfect for league start scenarios because you get a ton of value just by taking some specific notable ascendancy passive skills.

Unbreakable makes you tanky without a heavy investment. This notable ascendancy passive essentially doubles the armor value of your equipped body armor. Furthermore, 8% of your armor mitigates elemental damage from hits. That is why stacking armor as high as you can pretty much sorts out your defenses.

A 100% chance to hit is mandatory if you are playing melee builds. The good news is that the Juggernaut helps you achieve that thanks to Undeniable – an ascendancy node that gives you a flat amount of accuracy. What’s more, if you improve your STR attribute, you can gain even more accuracy as a result.

With Undeniable, accuracy is not just about guaranteeing that your attacks will land successfully, but it is about boosting your attack speed as well. You gain 1% attack speed for every 150 points of accuracy rating from your gear and passive skills. Therefore, this node is great during league starts all the way to the endgame.

Untiring provides you with consistent life regeneration, which is why it is a perfect node for those who like using Righteous Fire. The 40% increased life regeneration it provides is no slouch. Couple that with the 1.5% life regen based on the physical damage you have prevented in the past 10 seconds, and you have a pretty tanky character that just wouldn’t go down!

The rest of the notable ascendancy passive skills on the Juggernaut tree are all about Endurance Charges. Unflinching not only raises your Maximum Endurance Charges, but it also grants you the ability to reliably and consistently generate charges when you are hit. Unyielding is more for those offensive-minded folks who want to gain more damage and AoE per Endurance Charge. 

Lastly, Unrelenting gives a ton of damage mitigation and chaos resistance, provided that you invest in raising your Maximum Endurance Charges as high as you can. 

Juggernaut is a class best suited for those who want a tough character they can rely on.

Chieftain

The Chieftain is a more well-balanced ascendancy class compared to the other two. GGG reworked the Chieftain a couple of leagues ago and it has been quite a popular option for many Path of Exile players and for good reason – this ascendancy class is just so good, especially if like builds that primarily deal fire damage.

Hinekora, Death’s Fury is an amazing notable ascendancy passive. This node gives you the ability to make enemies explode on kill, dealing a whopping 500% of their maximum life as fire damage to nearby monsters. Do not be fooled by that measly 5% chance to explode because it is actually much more consistent in practice. 

Tasalio, Cleansing Water is great for defense. Once you take this notable ascendancy passive skill, all you have to think about is improving your fire resistance and your cold/lightning resistance will follow suit. This node is typically paired with Valako, Storm’s Embrace to make your maximum elemental resistance on par with each other. So, if you have 85% maximum fire resistance, you will have 85% cold and lightning resistance as well.

If you like builds that deal fire damage, then the Chieftain is worthy of consideration for sure!

Best Marauder Builds

With the three ascendancy classes explained, it is now time to talk about the cream of the crop. We have scoured the internet for information about the popular builds in the current league so you do not have to.

So, without further ado, here are the best Marauder builds in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League:

10. Vaal Reave Juggernaut

The first build on the list utilizes a melee attack skill called Reave. When used, this skill prompts you to strike an area in front of you, which grows in size the more stacks you gain. When you reach the maximum of four stacks, enemies within 41 radius will be hit, making Reave a great skill for optimum map-clearing speeds.

Although you can slay map monsters using this skill with ease, Reave is actually not bad in terms of single-target damage. If anything, the Vaal Reave Juggernaut is a powerhouse because it is a STR stacker. Besides that, it uses Replica Alberon’s Warpath to take advantage of that attribute to a great extent.

You see, Replica Alberon’s Warpath has a unique effect where your attacks gain up to 80 chaos damage for every 80 points of STR that you have. Since you are taking your STR attribute to the moon, these boots grant you insane amounts of chaos damage as a result!

Now, this build has some pretty interesting mechanics. For one, it uses the Redblade Banner – a unique shield that heavily improves your warcry skill, granting some Rage with the help of the War Bringer notable ascendancy passive skill from the Berserker. The latter can be accessed by equipping the appropriate Forbidden Flesh and Forbidden Flame jewels.

Speaking of warcry skills, Battlemage’s Cry enables you to gain a huge damage boost by converting spell damage to attack damage. Now, you are probably wondering where spell damage comes from. Well, you have the Iron Will keystone passive for that.

For the uninitiated, Strength in Path of Exile is an attribute that provides you with 1% melee physical damage per five points of STR. What Iron Will does is it gives you spell damage per 5 STR as well.

As you can see, the Vaal Reave Juggernaut stacks STR astronomically high to have the power to slay anything in the game. But, it does not stop there!

The endgame version of this build also utilizes a unique ring called the Original Sin. This is an incredible ring that basically converts all elemental damage to chaos damage. Besides that, nearby enemies will have their chaos resistance reduced to nothing, making your attacks hit the hardest they can be.

To maximize the effect of the Original Sin, you are going to use a self-crafted Jewelled Foil using the Deafening Essence of Zeal (attack speed) until you get added lightning damage, crit chance, and critical strike multiplier. Next, you lock your suffixes and then use a Veiled Orb to get a veiled prefix. Unveil that for a chance to get chaos penetration.

The added lightning damage factors into your total chaos damage thanks to Original Sin. Any elemental damage you have on your other equipped items will also be taken into consideration.

The Iron Fortress is another key piece of the puzzle which is the Vaal Reave Juggernaut. This is a unique body armor that gives you a ton of melee physical damage based on your STR. Additionally, this thing allows you to reach the attack block cap of 75%, that is of course if you have reached a high enough STR to make that happen.

If you want to take things to a whole new level, you can get The Adorned, which is a unique jewel that amplifies the effects of corrupted magic jewels. The magic jewels that you are going to use in conjunction with The Adorned are those that have a critical strike multiplier and a flat amount of STR.

The Vaal Reave Juggernaut is not cheap, but what you are getting is a build that works amazingly well the more PoE Currency you invest in it.

9. Smite Chieftain

If you want an incredibly tanky character that also has its damage sorted out, then you might want to try your hands on the Smite Chieftain. This is another “stacker” build in PoE, albeit you are not stacking any attributes here. Instead, your goal is to get your armor up as high as you can, which in turn, boosts your damage as well. How is this possible, you ask?

One major component of the build is the Grasping Mail. This thing can be obtained via a vendor recipe, where you sell an inventory’s worth of Breach Rings to any PoE vendor. By doing so, you will get a rare body armor that has one or two Breach-only modifiers.

That said, there are a couple of mods that you need for the build to work. They are:

• Armor is Increased by Overcapped Fire Resistance

• Evasion Rating is Increased by Overcapped Cold Resistance

To understand how important those mods are, elemental resistances in Path of Exile are only capped at 75%. Assuming that you do not raise your maximum elemental resistances, any points that are added to fire, cold, and lightning resistance beyond that number are considered “overcapped resistances.”

When you continuously add more fire and cold resistance, you are going to get additional armor and evasion, respectively. That is why that particular Grasping Mail is a staple among armor-stacker builds in the game.

Now, if armor is the only defensive layer you should work on, what will you do with the excess in evasion? Well, the amount of evasion you get from the said body armor will not go to waste. That is because you are taking the Iron Reflexes keystone passive as well. This keystone essentially converts all your evasion to armor.

Having a ton of armor is good and all, but what about the offense? Do not worry about that because this is where the magic happens. With all of the armor you have stacked, you are going to utilize the Replica Dreamfeather to factor that into your overall damage calculation.

Basically, the Replica Dreamfeather has a unique effect where you gain 1% attack damage per 450 points of armor. When you have all of the pieces of this build put together, you can gain upwards of 4 million armor. Just imagine how much damage you can deal with that amount!

Okay, enough with the mechanics, let’s talk about the main skill gem for this build. Smite is a skill gem in Path of Exile that prompts you to perform a melee attack, dealing lightning damage to nearby enemies.

After executing the attack, you will gain a temporary buff that grants you added lightning damage that gets better at higher gem levels. For this reason, you will insert Smite into March of the Legion to raise the level of the gem by at least five points. We say “at least” here because you can purchase a March of the Legion with two corrupted implicit modifiers, such as “+2 to Level of Socketed AoE Gems” and “+2 to Level of Socketed Aura Gems,” thus adding four more levels to Smite!

Perhaps an armor-stacking build in Path of Exile is not new to you, especially considering that other ascendancy classes can do it too. So this begs the question: What does the Chieftain bring to the table that separates it from the other ascendancy classes?

That is a good question! Well, there are a couple of notable ascendancy passive skills that the Chieftain has access to. The first is Tawhoa, Forest’s Strength. As part of the class rework, this node now allows you to summon a Mirage Chieftain after using Smite. This temporary minion will use Smite along with you, which helps immensely whether you are clearing a map or fighting any of the pinnacle bosses in the game.

The second notable ascendancy passive worth talking about is Tukohama, War’s Herald. This node grants you two effects, but the only thing that matters here is that huge level 30 Ancestral Call. This effect works similarly to a level 20 Ancestral Call in the sense that it grants you the ability to hit two additional nearby targets. However, the difference is that you gain a 10% more damage multiplier, which is huge when it is factored into your overall damage! In short, not only will your Smite hit more monsters with one strike, but it also deals more damage.

With that said, did you know that you can scale your damage even further? That is possible, though you will have to spend an exorbitant amount of PoE currency to achieve it. Are you interested? If so, read the next bit.

What people usually do when they create armor-stacking builds in PoE is populate their characters with loads of Small Cluster Jewels, particularly one that grants mana reservation efficiency for skills.

The reason why is that the jewels can roll a notable passive skill called Introspection, which increases the effect of your auras by 10%. Why do you want this, you ask? This is so that your Determination and Grace auras provide you with more armor and evasion. And, if you have more armor and evasion, your damage is also going to go up due to Replica Dreamfeather. Does it make sense now?

Surely, you need Large Cluster Jewels to be able to fit them all. Hence, you are going to obtain at least a couple of Voices. Despite the name being plural, it is just a single unique Large Cluster Jewel that allows you to fit up to three different Small or Medium Cluster Jewels. Aim to get those with “Adds 1 Small Passive Skill Which Grant Nothing” so that you can save a ton of passive skill points in the process (by the way, this particular jewel is also known in the community as “1-passive” Voices).

Of course, this build requires heavy investment without a doubt. However, if you are a month in and you just want to spend your hard-earned currency somewhere, perhaps spending it to create the armor-stacking Smite Chieftain will be worth your while.

8. Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Juggernaut

Most melee skills in Path of Exile would have you go as close to the enemy as you can before initiating an attack. This is, of course, a bit cumbersome, since there are monsters that have the knack of running away at the mere sight of an enemy. So, if you are frustrated with that, you can try the Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Juggernaut out!

Volcanic Fissure of Snaking is a transfigured version of Volcanic Fissure and has a notable difference from its regular counterpart. Every time you use this skill, you slam the ground and a winding fissure is created shortly after. Then, this fissure would travel outward and seek nearby enemies. Upon reaching its target location, the fissure erupts, dealing massive fire damage that hits monsters in an area. 

The “snaking” part of this skill occurs when the fissure travels to the enemy’s location. Raising the quality of this Transfigured Gem will cause the fissure to erupt an additional time for a total of three eruptions.

With that out of the way, what does this build bring to the table? The Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Juggernaut is another stacker build in PoE. However, rather than stacking copious amounts of armor like the Smite Chieftain, you are going to raise your STR attribute as high as possible.

Because of that, certain items mentioned earlier (read Vaal Reave Juggernaut) are also used here, including the Redblade Banner, Replica Alberon’s Warpath, and The Iron Fortress. The major difference in regards to the items is the Replica Frostbreath – a unique Ornate Mace that enables chaos damage to inflict Chill upon your enemies. This is great because when you attack chilled enemies using this weapon, you will deal double damage. This bodes well for both map-clear speeds and eliminating pinnacle bosses in PoE.

In terms of the notable ascendancy passive skills, you are going to take Undeniable to increase your accuracy and attack speed. Unbreakable is, of course, a staple among many Marauder builds that ascend to the Juggernaut. This effectively doubles the armor value of The Iron Fortress, making you survive even the most damaging hits from the enemy.

Untiring increases your chances of survival due to that hefty boost in life regeneration rate. And then, you have Unstoppable, which is a node that not only increases your movement speed, but makes you immune to stuns as well.

For jewels, you have the Split Personality. This is a unique jewel that is commonly used by attribute-stacking builds in Path of Exile. Acquire two pieces of this jewel with the “+5 to Strength” and “+40 to Accuracy Rating” bonuses. For maximum effect, make sure to insert them into a Large Cluster Jewel that is placed at the upper-right corner of the passive tree.

Those are just the mandatory stuff that you can obtain for the build to work. Of course, you can spend a bit more to buy synthesized rings and amulets that have any STR mods on them, but you can do that at a later time until you have enough PoE currency.

If you are able to get all of the necessary pieces together, the Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Juggernaut ensures that you’ll have a blast playing this build!

7. Rage Vortex of Berserking Berserker

Another Transfigured Gem is the star of the build and this next one is kind of fun to play. The Rage Vortex of Berserking Berserker (yes, it is a mouthful, but please bear with us) is a STR-stacking build that takes things to a whole new level in terms of map-clearing speed.

By now, you already know the core principles of a STR-stacking build, such as the use of the Redblade Banner, The Iron Fortress, Replica Alberon’s Warpath, and the Split Personality Jewels, so we are not going to talk about that here. Instead, we are going to focus on other aspects that have not been covered thus far.

Let’s start with your primary attack skill, the Rage Vortex of Berserking. Unlike the base version, this Transfigured Gem enables you to create a “ragestorm” that follows you around wherever you go. You can summon the ragestorm by using the skill with at least 10 Rage. What’s interesting about it is that it will spin and attack enemies it encounters so long as you have enough Rage left in the tank. When the said resource is fully depleted, the ragestorm disappears, and you are going to have to generate Rage in one way or another to repeat the process.

That said, Rage generation is not a problem at all with this build, primarily because of the Berserker ascendancy class. If you’ve read the class description earlier in the article, you know that the Berserker specializes in utilizing and generating Rage without a hitch.

Crave the Slaughter grants you the ability to generate 1 point of Rage when you attack the enemy. Besides that, this node raises your Maximum Range by 10 points, ensuring that your ragestorm has a near-permanent uptime.

If your Rage has been fully exhausted, you can recover a huge amount with the help of  Battlemage’s Cry. This is possible thanks to the War Bringer notable ascendancy passive skill.

It is important to note that Rage Vortex of Berserking is an attack skill, so the spell damage that you have gained from stacking all of that STR, and taking the Iron Will keystone passive, must be converted to attack damage. Hence, the presence of Battlemage’s Cry.

The said warcry skill does not even have to be self-cast because it is linked to the new Call to Arms Support. If you have played Path of Exile prior to Patch 3.24, you may think that this sounds familiar. Well, it is! The support gem bears the same name as that of a particular keystone passive on the southwest portion of the passive tree (which is now called Warlord’s Call, by the way).

What Call to Arms does is it automatically casts the warcry skill it is linked to (which, in this case, is Battlemage’s Cry) whenever it is off cooldown. Don’t forget to raise this gem’s quality to 20% using Gemcutter’s Prisms to increase the cooldown recovery rate of Battlemage’s Cry.

So, how exactly do you play this build efficiently? Start by casting Blood Rage and then scouring the area for huge packs of monsters. Once you see a bunch of enemies, use Ambush to instantly teleport to their location, and then spin your weapon with Rage Vortex of Berserking.

If you have at least 10 Rage on you, it conjures up a ragestorm that will attack the monsters for you. At this point, you just run around and see your foes die a quick death!

When fighting against pinnacle bosses, you will need to do something extra. Before using Ambush to propel yourself towards the enemy, you lay down your Ancestral Protector and Ancestral Warchief totems to gain increases in attack speed and damage, respectively.

What’s more, the totems are linked to Withering Touch – a support gem that grants your totems the ability to automatically apply the Wither debuff. This debuff causes affected enemies to take more chaos damage as a result.

Despite being a STR stacker, the Rage Vortex of Berserking Berserker is surprisingly cheaper than the previous attribute-stacking builds mentioned in this article. You still need a lot of PoE Currency, mind you, but what you are getting is a fun and enjoyable build that you can enjoy until the league ends!

6. Venom Gyre Berserker

It seems that the Berserker ascendancy class is synonymous with STR-stacking builds because why wouldn’t it be? War Bringer is always an essential component to such builds because it grants the ability to gain Rage when using warcry skills, so it is only fitting that those who theorycraft attribute-stacking builds utilize the Berserker over any other ascendancy classes in Path of Exile.

That being said, the Venom Gyre Berserker does not start as a STR-stacker, but rather a character that wields a one-handed claw like the Gemini Claw or Imperial Claw. Let’s talk about the star of the show, shall we?

How does Venom Gyre work? Venom Gyre is a projectile-based skill in PoE with some mechanics that are unique to this gem. When you use the skill, it prompts you to fire multiple projectiles forward that return to you after reaching their maximum travel distance. 

After they have returned, there will be a small icon at the top-left portion of the screen that tells you how many projectiles you have “caught” at the moment. Venom Gyre actually works in tandem with another skill called Whirling Blades. What is its role in this equation?

Well, the projectiles that have returned to you will actually be released every time you use Whirling Blades. This is a very good thing because it will result in a “shotgun” effect that deals huge amounts of damage. That is why you only use Whirling Blades after you have reached the maximum amount of 40 projectiles for the best results!

War Bringer is not the only notable ascendancy passive skill that synergizes really well with the Venom Gyre Berserker. Flawless Savagery adds up to the damage total, but ultimately, it is Blitz that elevates this build’s damage to new heights.

If you recall what we have said earlier, Blitz allows you to gain up to 20 Blitz Charges. One Blitz Charge is equivalent to 2% more attack speed at the cost of 8% reduced critical strike chance. Mind you, it is a “more” multiplier, which in Path of Exile, actually provides you with excessive amounts of ASPD compared to an “increased attack speed” modifier.

Do not worry about the reduced crit chance that is intrinsic in a Blitz Charge. You can easily address that by simply adding the “Increased Critical Strikes” support gem to your Venom Gyre setup.

Now, to be able to use Venom Gyre, you have to equip a one-handed claw. If you are starting out, you can use the Wasp Nest as it is a pretty good weapon for the build that virtually costs nothing. Search for this unique weapon on the trade website. Usually, it is offered at a measly price of a single Chaos Orb, but the price may vary at the very start of a new league.

In the endgame, you are going to use a self-crafted Imperial Claw using the Essence of Zeal (Attack Speed) to craft it. Spam the said Essence until you get crit chance, critical strike multiplier, and added chaos damage. After that, lock the suffixes and then use a Veiled Orb. Hopefully, this process won’t remove the added chaos damage prefix, but if it does, you just have to spam Essences all over again.

Anyway, the veiled mod that you need is: “Attacks With This Weapon Penetrate 14% Chaos Resistance.” To finish the crafting project, all you have to do is go to the Crafting Bench and put “50% Increased Spell Damage, Gain 4% of Non-Chaos Damage as Extra Chaos Damage.”

Alternatively, you can try your luck with Path of Exile: Necropolis League’s Graveyard Crafting Mechanic. Put as many corpses that increase your chance to obtain chaos, attack speed, and critical modifiers. For the rest of the mods, bury corpses that make them scarcer.

While not really mandatory for the build to work, you could invest in a well-rolled The Adorned unique jewel and couple that with as many corrupted magic jewels as you can, preferably with the following mods:

• + to Strength

• +% to Critical Strike Multiplier with One-handed Melee Weapons

Other upgrades you can purchase in the future include a 12-passive Large Cluster Jewel (Claw Damage), the Forbidden Flame/Flesh Jewels (with Undeniable as the matching modifier), and synthesized accessories with “% Increased Strength” as the implicit mod.

The endgame version of the Venom Gyre Berserker is definitely worth the investment. It is quick, deadly, and efficient – all the things that you’d want in one of the best Marauder builds in 3.24 Necropolis League!

5. Detonate Dead Chieftain

Do you want a character that does not involve using plenty of buttons just to kill enemies? If so, you are definitely going to love the Detonate Dead Chieftain! This build utilizes some mechanics that allow you to just run around the map and see enemies die in a fiery explosion!

So, what makes the Detonate Dead Chieftain tick? For starters, the build uses the Cast When Stunned Support (CWS) gem. As the name implies, this support gem triggers any linked skill gems attached to it whenever you are stunned by enemy hits. You are probably thinking: how do you get stunned consistently for this to be effective?

There are actually a few key things that can make that happen. Valyrium – a unique ring that makes it so that your stun threshold is based on your energy shield rather than your life. If you do not know, the stun threshold refers to how much life has to be taken off of you before you get stunned. 

Now, Valyrium is used in conjunction with the keystone passive called “The Agnostic.” When you have this keystone allocated, your maximum energy shield is effectively reduced to zero. The life recovery provided by The Agnostic is a nice bonus, but you are taking it primarily for the fact that you have zero energy shield. As you can tell, you will pretty much be stunned whenever you take a hit.

Obviously, getting stunned often is not a good experience. To address that, you have to use a couple of items, namely the Immutable Force and Bloodnotch. The former significantly increases your stun recovery, while the latter enables you to recoup the majority of damage you have sustained from stunning hits. With this combination of jewels, you are sure to make Cast When Stunned Support work really well without the downsides of getting stunned in the process.

With the CWS tech explained, let’s now discuss Detonate Dead. Judging by the name of the skill gem, Detonate Dead requires you to use corpses to, well, detonate. When there are corpses nearby, this skill will cause massive explosions that deal huge amounts of fire damage in an area. The damage of the resulting explosions is based on the corpse’s maximum life.

If Detonate Dead requires corpses to activate, where will you get a steady supply, especially if you have just entered a map? That is a good question and the answer to that is very simple!

To have a reliable supply of corpses to detonate, you will use Desecrate linked with Cast When Stunned support. When you get stunned by enemy hits, Desecrate will immediately be cast, giving you the components you need for every monster to go kaboom shortly after.

The playstyle that we have talked about just now is best in a mapping scenario, so how do you deal with bosses? That is where Vaal Breach comes into play!

Whenever you fight bosses like those found in T17 maps or any of the pinnacle bosses in PoE, you activate Vaal Breach to summon monsters. The small minions will get bunched up together, and when they do, Detonate Dead will cause a massive explosion that deals an enormous amount of damage to the boss!

The Detonate Dead Chieftain has two variations that have slightly different items. The more tanky version uses Transcendence for that incredible elemental damage mitigation. This keystone passive is only accessible if you insert the Militant Faith Timeless Jewel (Maxarius) on the passive tree.

If you want to know what makes Transcendence special, we must first talk about how armor works in Path of Exile. Normally, armor in this game provides you with physical damage reduction. The more armor you have, the less physical damage you receive as a result.

When you have Transcendence allocated, armor no longer reduces your physical damage, but it mitigates the elemental damage you take instead. Of course, you have to address physical damage mitigation to survive. For this reason, some of your items must consist of physical damage to elemental damage conversion. Fortunately, PoE is rife with such things as the Cloak of Flame and The Fulcrum. More on this in a bit.

The other version is more suited for optimal map-clearing speeds. This variation of the Detonate Dead Chieftain utilizes the Winterweave, which is a unique ring that increases your movement speed by 10% when you are ignited. If you are asking where the ignite comes from, in this context, you have The Fulcrum’s “Elemental AIlments You Inflict Are Reflected to You” to thank for that.

Okay, what is this The Fulcrum we are referring to here? It is a unique two-handed Ezomyte Staff that gives you a huge amount of extra damage based on your physical damage. But more importantly, this weapon converts the physical damage you receive to fire, cold, and lightning damage!

The previously-mentioned Cloak of Flame aids in your survivability as well. This body converts 40% of physical damage taken as fire damage. The combo of The Fulcrum and Cloak of Flame works best on the Transcendence setup. 

Phew, what a doozy! However, this just speaks to how awesome the Detonate Dead Chieftain is. If you want to play a comfortable character that is able to withstand all forms of punishment in the game, then we highly recommend that you try this one out!

4. Blade Flurry Berserker

All of the builds that have been mentioned thus far require a ton of investment to feel comfortable. But, do not worry! There are some builds that do not need a lot of PoE Currency, such as the next build we are going to talk about.

The Blade Flurry Berserker is a great way to utilize Cyclone in a different way. How? In this build, the popular attack skill gem is linked to Cast While Channeling Support and Desecrate. As discussed in the previous build (Read Detonate Dead Chieftain), Desecrate is used as a means of generating corpses for your main attack setup, which is composed of Blade Flurry and General’s Cry.

But wait a minute! Isn’t General’s Cry a warcry skill? Yes, it is! You see, General’s Cry allows you to summon up to six Mirage Warriors to fight for you. What’s incredible about them is that they utilize whatever attack skill gem that is linked to General’s Cry. In this case, it is Blade Flurry.

Now, Blade Flurry is a channeling attack skill that prompts the user to repeatedly hit enemies in the area in front of them. The longer the skill is channeled, the more powerful it gets.

Blade Flurry, by itself, is not a fantastic skill gem. However, if you have six Mirage Warriors that use it, the damage will be concentrated in the area where you are currently spinning with Cyclone. Thus, this build is an effective boss killer that is capable of downing even the most formidable monsters in Path of Exile.

This build works incredibly well with a modest investment thanks, in large part, to the ascendancy nodes that are available to the Berserker. Because General’s Cry is an integral part of the build, it just makes sense that you take War Bringer as one of your notable ascendancy passive skills. This allows you to activate Berserk to give a bit more oomph to Blade Flurry.

The tandem of Flawless Savagery and Blitz makes it so that your Mirage Warriors attack at a faster rate, making quick work of the enemy. And of course, the Aspect of Carnage is a no-brainer. The 40% more damage multiplier just cannot be beaten, particularly because you get that bonus simply by allocating points to it.

Take note that the Mirage Warriors will do the bulk of the damage. To make your role more meaningful when playing this build, you not only summon the said minions with General’s Cry but you also inflict curses on enemies via Asenath’s Gentle Touch.

Asenath’s Gentle Touch is a pair of gloves with a unique effect that makes enemies killed near corpses affected by your curses explode, dealing 3% of their life as physical damage to nearby monsters.

With the gloves equipped, you simply just spin with Cyclone and any monster hit by your attack will be affected by Temporal Chains, which is a curse spell in Path of Exile. Temporal Chains, for the uninitiated, significantly reduce the action speed of enemies that are cursed by this spell.

The only items that you will use that are a bit expensive to obtain are Paradoxica and a Watcher’s Eye jewel with the mod: “% Chance to Impale Enemies on Hit with Attacks While Using Pride.” Apart from that, the rest of the items are very cheap on the trade website. Based on current market prices, you could put all of this together on a 20 to 30 Divine Orb budget. 

So, if you want a better and more fun way to use Cyclone, then the GC Blade Flurry Berserker is an amazing contender!

3. Dual Strike of Ambidexterity Juggernaut

The third entry for the best Marauder builds in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League is a melee STR stacker called the Dual Strike of Ambidexterity Juggernaut.

Dual Strike of Ambidexterity is a Transfigured Gem that is one of a kind. That is because you have to actually equip and wield two different weapon types to use it. The skill gem has a very interesting interaction with dual-wielding, where the bulk of the damage comes from the main-hand weapon, while the offhand weapon’s attack time is used when initiating the assault.

Because of the unique property of the Transfigured Gem, your main weapon for the build is Paradoxica, specifically one that comes with chaos penetration and double damage. For your offhand weapon, it can be anything so long as it is not a one-handed sword (because Paradoxica has that weapon type). Since the offhand in this scenario is just to aid the main hand, the weapon should have a very high attack speed to make it count. The good news is that Path of Exile has a plethora of options for you to choose from.

If you do not have a lot of PoE currency at your disposal, you can opt for Brightbeak. This one-handed mace can roll absurd amounts of attack speed, physical damage, and crit chance – mods that can certainly benefit the build.

Later on, you can equip a self-crafted Imperial Claw with attack speed, crit chance, critical strike multiplier, added chaos damage, and chaos penetration. This is a bit on the expensive side, so you may want to stick with Brightbeak for the time being.

The Dual Strike of Ambidexterity’s damage primarily comes from the chaos damage granted by Replica Alberon’s Warpath. The usual strategies from the previous STR-stacking builds apply here as well, such as equipping the Iron Fortress, placing a couple of Split Personality jewels on the passive tree, and taking the Iron Will keystone passive to convert STR’s physical damage bonus to spell damage (which is then further converted to attack damage via Battlemage's Cry).

For the ascendancy nodes, Undeniable and Unbreakable are staples in any melee attack build that uses the Juggernaut class. The increased accuracy and attack speed granted by Undeniable synergizes well with the Dual Strike of Ambidexterity. On the other hand, Unbreakable turns you into an impenetrable powerhouse that can take a beating without ever going down.

The major difference here compared to the other builds mentioned on this list is that you will be taking two different notable ascendancy passive skills. The first is Unlinching – an ascendancy node that provides you with a sustainable and reliable way of generating Endurance Charges.

The second node you should take is Unrelenting. This notable ascendancy passive skill gives you additional physical damage reduction and reduces the elemental damage you take while you’re at maximum Endurance Charges. Unrelenting boosts your chaos resistance per Endurance Charge as well!

In terms of upgrades, you can certainly get The Balance of Terror, particularly with the line that says: “Inflict Withered for 2 Seconds on Hit if You’ve Cast Despair in the Past 10 Seconds.” This jewel enhances Despair in that cursed enemies take considerably more chaos damage!

If you are asking how this build is played, you turn on Automation to activate Berserk and Blood Rage whenever they are available. After that, search the map for huge packs of monsters and then eliminate them with Dual Strike of Ambidexterity.

During tough encounters, drop your Ancestral Protector and Ancestral Warchief totems for a huge damage boost. And oh, manually cast Despair for The Balance of Terror to take effect.

Battlemage’s Cry is cast automatically thanks to Call to Arms Support. So really, all you have to think about is finding a monster to kill and let the automated processes do the other stuff.

The Dual Strike of Ambidexterity Juggernaut is worth checking out, not only because it deals absurd amounts of damage, but because of the unique properties of the Transfigured Gem itself. Let us know of your experience if you build this in the future!

2. Boneshatter Juggernaut

The last remaining builds on this list are, thankfully, quite affordable to put up. We are just going to include some upgrades if you want to elevate their damage to the next level, especially if you like their individual playstyles.

Anyway, the penultimate build here is a familiar one and that is the Boneshatter Juggernaut. If you have played Path of Exile for a while, you may have already heard of this one. But if you are completely new, then read further, you are going to want to hear this!

The Boneshatter Juggernaut is an incredible league starter that is able to take down even the hardest bosses in the game, with some investment of course. The bulk of its damage comes from its “Trauma” mechanic. What is it, you ask?

Every time you whack your enemies with Boneshatter, you will receive one stack of Trauma, which grants 5% more damage at 20/20 (lvl/quality). Theoretically, you can stack Trauma infinitely, but one thing that prevents that from happening is the self-damaging component of the skill itself.

You see, you take some physical damage with every use of Boneshatter that becomes increasingly painful the more Trauma stacks you have. So, how do you resolve this then? Fortunately, this issue is not hard to address.

The best and cheapest way to address the physical damage you receive from Trauma stacks is by raising your character’s armor value. This is done by equipping mainly armor-based gear or even those hybrid pieces that grant armor and evasion (if you want spell suppression as another form of defense, that is).

Next, you can equip The Celestial Brace – a unique pair of gloves that was introduced in Patch 3.24. The Celestial Brace improves your chances of survival by giving you heaps of armor and physical damage mitigation by way of Fortification.

Basically, the said gloves grant you the ability to get up to 30 Fortification stacks which translates to a 30% physical damage reduction! If that is not good enough for you, The Celestial Brace even boosts your attack speed as well!

To improve your survivability even further, you can roll “% of Damage Taken Recouped as Life” on your rings (suffix) and helmet (as an implicit modifier via Eldritch Embers).

Vaal Molten Shell is an amazing addition to the build. This is a popular guard skill for builds that have an insane amount of armor. This is activated automatically thanks to Cast When Damage Taken Support. Remember, you get damaged every time you use Boneshatter, so CWDT is always activated because of that.

If you are planning to create the Boneshatter Juggernaut and use it as a league starter, you can settle with a rare Despot Axe that is crafted using Essence of Contempt. Spam the said Essence until you get physical damage, accuracy, and attack speed.

When you have enough PoE Currency, you can start crafting the endgame weapon for physical damage builds. The idea is spamming the Deafening Essence of Contempt until you get a trifecta of physical damage mods.

After that, put “Prefixes Cannot Be Changed” and use Harvest Augment Speed for a chance to acquire a T1 attack speed. Lock the prefixes again; only this time, you will use a Veiled Orb. Doing so will put a veiled suffix on the two-handed Despot Axe.

The mod you are looking for is either double damage or increased attack speed if there is a rare/unique enemy nearby.

For the belt, you have a few incredible options. Ryslatha’s Coil is a belt that you can get for cheap, but make no mistake, this one is a powerhouse! This belt gives you the usual goodies, including STR, life, and added physical damage.

However, the reason why Ryslatha’s Coil is a viable belt to use for the build is that it significantly increases the damage of Boneshatter. The belt’s unique effect works similarly to Volatility Support just in case you are wondering.

The Magnate is another inexpensive solution to boosting your damage, but this belt does so in a different way. Instead of increasing the damage range of Boneshatter like what the Ryslatha’s Coil does, The Magnate enables the skill to deal double or triple damage per swing if you are able to hit its STR requirement.

If you are going to use The Magnate, make sure to get your STR to at least 400 points to take advantage of the triple damage that is provided by this unique belt.

We think that you already know the last great belt for the Boneshatter Juggernaut, but if you still do not have an idea, it is actually none other than the Mageblood. This belt does not necessarily amplify the damage of Boneshatter, rather, it is more for quality of life.

When you have the Mageblood equipped, you gain the possibility of having a permanent uptime of Onslaught (via the Silver Flask), getting huge amounts of armor (thanks to the Granite and Basalt Flasks), and obtaining the power to move very quickly (with the Quicksilver Flask).

Whether you are thinking of starting a new league or if you just want a reliable build that you can take well into the endgame, the Boneshatter Juggernaut should be a part of your top three!

1. Righteous Fire Chieftain

And now, we have come to the very end. The Righteous Fire Chieftain is not only a popular build, but it is considered by many as one of the best Marauder builds of Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League! Why is that?

Righteous Fire has been in the game since closed beta. This fire spell skill has received many notable adjustments, with one implemented just in the previous league. So, what changed?

Well, Righteous Fire no longer has a flat amount of fire damage. Instead, you scale its damage by increasing your life. More specifically, 70% of your HP will be factored into the damage calculation. For this reason, your gear must consist of modifiers that increase maximum life wherever possible. 

Anyway, the Righteous Fire Chieftain is great in almost every scenario. You can use it as a league starter, play it in Solo Self-Found (SSF), and it can even survive in hardcore. This build is quite an awesome mapper that can take on bosses without a hitch.

Even though this build has no problem facing any monster in PoE, it does suffer from mediocre single-target damage. That is why you also include Fire Trap into the mix. Fire Trap allows you to throw a trap at a targeted location that creates a burning ground shortly after.

The Fire Trap deals damage in two ways. The first one occurs when the trap explodes a couple of seconds after landing on the ground. The second comes from the burning ground. You can scale Fire Trap’s damage by raising its gem levels beyond level 20 and getting as many fire damage and fire damage over time modifiers on your gear as you can.

Part of what makes this build appealing is its laid-back playstyle. When entering a new area, you simply activate Righteous Fire, use Shield Charge to move around the map, and then throw Fire Traps whenever you encounter a harder enemy than usual.

When you are facing a bunch of enemies, use Infernal Cry and Punishment to increase the damage they take for a brief period. Infernal Cry gets automated as soon as you link it with the new Call to Arms Support Gem.

Now, Righteous Fire can be utilized by many different ascendancy classes, including the Inquisitor, Guardian, and Juggernaut. However, what does the Chieftain possess that makes him stand out?

The Chieftain gives you a much easier time capping your elemental resistances with Tasalio, Cleansing Water. Thanks to this node, every time you increase your fire resistance, your cold and lightning resistance will get sorted out as well. This allows you to focus only on raising your fire resistance and chaos resistance, which is quite helpful when it comes to gearing.

When Righteous Fire is activated, it will gradually reduce your life in the process. You can resolve that by making sure that your fire resistance is capped. However, that typical 75% ceiling may not be enough, especially in the endgame. That is why Valako, Storm’s Embrace is crucial to the success of this build.

Valako, Storm’s Embrace is akin to Melding of the Flesh, albeit without that nasty downside. Therefore, you raise your maximum fire resistance using Purity of Fire and your other elemental resistances will follow suit! Having 90% total resistances can significantly improve your survivability and that can easily be achieved with the help of this notable ascendancy passive skill!

In terms of offense, Hinekora, Death’s Fury is an incredible node that enables you to make quick work of the enemy. With this ascendancy node allocated, enemies that you kill have a chance to explode, dealing a huge amount of fire damage to monsters that are nearby.

You might laugh at the measly 5% chance for that effect to activate, but it is actually more pronounced in reality. This is even more so whenever you see multiple enemies bunched up together.

Ramako, Sun’s Light weakens your enemies’ resistance to fire damage over time. This node requires you to be standing still, but that is not a problem at all. You just have to stay in one place for a split second and the game considers you as “stationary.”

How about the items? The reason why the Righteous Fire Chieftain is great for league start scenarios and in SSF is that it does not require any items for the build to work. Just make sure that you have your maximum life and fire resistance in check and you should be ready to go!

Of course, there are items that elevate certain aspects of the build, so let’s start with some inexpensive ones. Immortal Flesh is a unique belt that not only gives you a tremendous amount of life regeneration, but it also reduces the physical damage you take from hits. Both are useful modifiers for this build and the good thing is that this belt can be yours for a low price of two Chaos Orbs! The price of this belt may be a bit expensive a few days into a new league, though it drops down considerably after that.

Rise of the Phoenix is a cheap way to address your fire resistance early on. This unique shield has a lot of useful modifiers, including armor/energy shield, life regeneration, fire resistance, and ignite avoidance when in low life. The main reason why you pick this shield up, however, is for its +5% to maximum fire resistance.

An alternative shield you can use is the Dawnbreaker. With this shield equipped, up to 20% of cold, lightning, and physical damage is taken as fire damage. Due to the ease of achieving 90% fire resistance on this build, almost anything that hits you in the game is quite negligible.

For body armor, you have a few options. In the beginning, you can craft your own armor using Essence of Greed until you get fire resistance, chaos resistance, and other useful modifiers.

When you have enough PoE Currency, you can then transition to the Cloak of Flame. It is best paired with the Dawnbreaker to reduce any physical damage you take from hits. The Lightning Coil is a viable option as well. Similar to the previously mentioned body armor, 50% of physical damage is taken as lightning damage when you have the Lightning Coil equipped.

If you have saved up enough PoE Currency, we highly recommend that you get the Defiance of Destiny. This is a unique amulet that has grown in popularity since it was introduced a couple of leagues ago.

What the Defiance of Destiny does is it recovers up to 35% of missing unreserved life before you get hit by the enemy. In other words, if you have sustained damage from a previous attack and you are about to receive another one, this amulet will heal a huge chunk of your life before receiving damage. Isn’t it wonderful?

It is important to note that because the amulet is quite popular now, expect it to cost a considerable amount of currency. It is something that you can get later down the line, so do not feel pressured into purchasing it immediately.

So, where do you go from here? You can think about getting a Mageblood and The Adorned if you really want to take things to a whole new level. As for the mods on the corrupted magic jewels, aim for “+% to Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier” and “7% Increased Maximum Life.”

Otherwise, when you have your fire resistance capped at 90%, look for the following modifiers:

• Damage Over Time Multiplier

• Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier

• + to Maximum Life

• % Increased Maximum Life

• % Increased Fire Damage

• % Increased Area Damage

The Righteous Fire Chieftain is an awesome build that can be used as a league starter and taken well into the endgame with enough investment. This is the reason why it is the most popular Marauder build in Patch 3.24!

Tips

With the best Marauder builds in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League already revealed, here are some handy tips that will help make your gaming experience a whole lot better when using this particular class:

Focus on Armor

Spell suppression is one form of defense in Path of Exile that essentially halves the spell damage you take from the enemy’s attacks. While it is a good defensive layer to add to any build, it is best that you focus solely on armor instead. Why? 

The answer is very simple: it is very difficult to cap spell suppression for Marauders because all of the spell suppression nodes are situated on the right side of the passive tree. 

Although it is possible to wear a few pieces of gear that have “% Chance to Suppress Spell Damage” on them, the fact that you cannot reach 100% is just a waste.

If there is any consolation, armor reduces the physical damage you take anyway. So the more armor you have, the better you are at surviving even the most damaging hits!

Don’t Be Afraid to Take Attribute Nodes

The Marauder class has very easy access to passive skills that boost your STR. However, there are support gems that would require you to have a minimum amount of DEX and INT. That is why do not be afraid to take the notable passive skills that give you a considerable amount of the said attributes.

For example, the Swift Affliction support gem needs you to have 111 DEX if the gem is at level 20. If your DEX stat at the moment is 98, you can take the “Proficiency” node just near “Soul of Steel” at the southwest portion of the passive tree. Doing so will give you plus 30 to dexterity, thus allowing you to use the said support gem.

Once you have rectified the situation by using gear that has DEX and INT mods, you can use an Orb of Regret to refund the passive skill point, which you can use to allocate a different node.

Try and “Overcap” Your Resistances

Whether you are playing the Righteous Fire Chieftain or not, it is always a good idea to overcap your resistances.

You see, if you do not have any mods that raise your maximum resistances, your fire, cold, lightning, and chaos resistance will only be limited to 75%. Although that is good at the beginning, it might not be enough later on, especially when you are facing the pinnacle bosses in PoE.

Hence, try to find some pieces of gear that increase your maximum resistances as soon as possible. One inexpensive way to do that is by using any of the elemental resistance flasks, such as the Ruby Flask, Sapphire Flask, and Topaz Flask.

Experiment to See What You Like

If you are a complete beginner in Path of Exile, you might assume that you can no longer change ascendancy classes if you have already selected one. That is actually not the case! 

You can still change ascendancy classes, provided that you have unallocated the notable ascendancy passive skills prior to interacting with the Divine Font at the end of the level 75 labyrinth. Be ready to spend about 40 Orbs of Regret to do this because refunding an ascendancy node requires five refund points each!

Having said that, each of us has individual preferences. Your buddy likes playing the Boneshatter Juggernaut, but you may prefer the Detonate Dead Chieftain for its interesting mechanics.

Whatever the case may be, do not be afraid to experiment until you find which of the Marauder ascendancy classes works best for you!

Get Comfortable with Crafting

Crafting is an essential part of your life in Path of Exile primarily because it is one of the only ways you can gain access to god-tier items. Although it can be quite daunting due to the sheer number of materials and mechanics at play, crafting is certainly helpful from the beginning all the way to the endgame.

Luckily for you, we have a dedicated crafting guide that gives you all that you need to know about how to craft items in the game. Be sure to bookmark it for future reference.

Conclusion

The Marauder is the best class to choose if you want to be up close and personal with the enemy. It has easy access to passive skills that boost your life, bolster your defenses, and enhance your melee/physical damage capabilities.

If you are tired of dying and would want a character that can take a beating without dying, then the Juggernaut is the ascendancy class for you. On the other hand, the Berserker is quite an appealing choice if you want to go purely on the offensive.

There are some merits to choosing the Chieftain. For one, it is a great ascendancy class if you decide to use Righteous Fire for leveling and well into the endgame. Moreover, it is incredibly easy to cap your resistances thanks to the notable ascendancy passive skills available to the Chieftain.

So, there you have it! We at RPGStash hope that you have enjoyed this guide. If you try any of the builds mentioned here, feel free to share your experience.

With all of that said, good luck on your adventures in Wraeclast, Exile!