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In the Dawn of the Hunt league, things have been rough for most hardcore players, but Lexd’s HCSSF Warrior run is on another level. No fancy meta builds here—just a pure Shield Bash challenge. Act 1 was a grind, slow and cautious, but in Act 2 he pushed through with the same single skill, turning it into a real weapon for ladder climbing. It is not about wiping the screen in seconds, it is about being an unshakeable wall. One Warrior, one shield, and a lot of stunned, bleeding enemies lying in his wake. If you have ever looked at PoE 2 Items wondering if a single piece of gear could carry a run, this is the proof you needed.
The build starts and ends with Raise Shield. Hold to block, let go to crack heads. Damage scales off shield armor, stuns are tied to threshold mechanics that can be tricky if you do not invest properly. Early on, picking the right supports made all the difference. Brutality II pumped the physical damage high enough to chew through bosses. Bleed brought steady damage over time, deadly when repositioning mid-fight. Pin I/II converted stuns into pins so big packs would not bounce him around. The passive tree was straight to the bottom-left, taking stun threshold first, then armor, block chance, and a bit of thorns for reflection damage. No ascendancy perks meant this was a raw Warrior build relying purely on player skill and solid fundamentals.
In SSF, gear upgrades are rare wins. Lexd’s jump from a 93-armor shield to a beefy 192-armor monster in Act 2 practically doubled his bash damage, cutting boss fights in half. A lucky grab of Aryan’s Cobble Helmet shored up life and resistances against nasty chaos zones. Thorns jewelry from vendor crafting was a sneaky boost—it let him chip away at packs just by holding block. By the time Act 2 wrapped, his effective health while blocking sat around the 5k mark, absurdly tanky for a solo self-found setup.
Boss fights told the real story. Wrathbreaker and Rattlecage were stun-locked into the floor without much trouble. The Kabala Constrictor Queen dragged on, demanding patience and clean positioning. The hardest battle came with Zalmarath the Colossus—a 22-minute slugfest where bleed and thorn damage eventually wore it down. Even the infamous Trial of Sekhemas, which chews up most melee builds, barely scratched him thanks to perfect block uptime. Watching it all felt like a lesson in knowing your skill’s rhythm and sticking to it under pressure.
This Shield Bash run is proof it is not a meme at all—it is a legitimate hardcore tool. Surviving in HCSSF is all about mitigating damage, and this skill makes you feel like a moving fortress. If you want a real challenge, take stun nodes early, keep crafting better shields, and master that pause between blocking and bashing. With the pace Lexd’s setting, a top 100 Warrior finish is possible, and maybe even likely. The shield meta might just be coming, and now is the time to buy PoE 2 Items to get ahead of it.
The build starts and ends with Raise Shield. Hold to block, let go to crack heads. Damage scales off shield armor, stuns are tied to threshold mechanics that can be tricky if you do not invest properly. Early on, picking the right supports made all the difference. Brutality II pumped the physical damage high enough to chew through bosses. Bleed brought steady damage over time, deadly when repositioning mid-fight. Pin I/II converted stuns into pins so big packs would not bounce him around. The passive tree was straight to the bottom-left, taking stun threshold first, then armor, block chance, and a bit of thorns for reflection damage. No ascendancy perks meant this was a raw Warrior build relying purely on player skill and solid fundamentals.
In SSF, gear upgrades are rare wins. Lexd’s jump from a 93-armor shield to a beefy 192-armor monster in Act 2 practically doubled his bash damage, cutting boss fights in half. A lucky grab of Aryan’s Cobble Helmet shored up life and resistances against nasty chaos zones. Thorns jewelry from vendor crafting was a sneaky boost—it let him chip away at packs just by holding block. By the time Act 2 wrapped, his effective health while blocking sat around the 5k mark, absurdly tanky for a solo self-found setup.
Boss fights told the real story. Wrathbreaker and Rattlecage were stun-locked into the floor without much trouble. The Kabala Constrictor Queen dragged on, demanding patience and clean positioning. The hardest battle came with Zalmarath the Colossus—a 22-minute slugfest where bleed and thorn damage eventually wore it down. Even the infamous Trial of Sekhemas, which chews up most melee builds, barely scratched him thanks to perfect block uptime. Watching it all felt like a lesson in knowing your skill’s rhythm and sticking to it under pressure.
This Shield Bash run is proof it is not a meme at all—it is a legitimate hardcore tool. Surviving in HCSSF is all about mitigating damage, and this skill makes you feel like a moving fortress. If you want a real challenge, take stun nodes early, keep crafting better shields, and master that pause between blocking and bashing. With the pace Lexd’s setting, a top 100 Warrior finish is possible, and maybe even likely. The shield meta might just be coming, and now is the time to buy PoE 2 Items to get ahead of it.