Please explain Facebreaker

[Bob Loblaw]

So I found the ever popular facebreaker gloves but I am not understanding the hype. Could someone please tell me how I use this equipment to the best of it's ability.

ie. What weapon/gems/passives to use?

Please explain at my level, which is to say at an idiot's level.

Thank you in advance.

[Svastik]

It multiplies (heavily) physical damage. So you cann't use a weapon but you use your fists instead. As far as I know you can use a shield as well just no weapon. So you sohuld be getting things like iron rings (or rings with phys damage mods) and then uniques that have pure phys rolls like Meginords belt and Foxshade top for example. Passives would be physical nodes, nothing weapon specific. Most people use them as a leveling tool more than a true late game build. Need to use melee skils with it so if you're starting as a witch you probably won't do very well to start.

[Turbulence]

Wait, weapons don't do physical damage?

[Loco]

The gloves only affect unarmed physical damage is what Svastik meant.

[naptalie]

Originally posted by Benz:

Wait, weapons don't do physical damage?

Someone being sarcastic is actually wrong, many weapons do just elemental damage, but anyways, The gloves multiply incredibly your phys dmg, much more than any weapon can, so it scales really well with base physical, allowing for insane synergies with the many melee skills incredibly cheaply. But if people do have a decent amount of currency, regular melee weapons will out dmg it most of the time.

[dstrsk]

Dont forget that u need at least Meginord's unique belt to make ur dps any close to endgame viable, best combo is max flat phys rolls on ur jewelery + meginords girdle + abyssus helm + 6L chest, but u can also go for bringer of rain instead but u will have bad time with chaos resistance.

[Glenn Shiesty]

welp comming from a person who has a facebreaker build, I kept my last pear in beta selling out the rest i had.......i kept a pair aside to make a build because i thought it wasnt worth the hype...........long story short i sold off 3 chars from beta for like 60-70 ex i dont remember but i picked up a 284% bor and a max str roll meginords in last week of beta to make this "cheap build" have to say it was..........i dropped a couple c and ex here and there for some other "gear" namely carnage heart so i could level quickly through from 20-merc.......have to say these glove are the tits ive used them on 6 other chars to level from 1-60 in the span of like 30 hrs of casual play which to me is priceless i just plop skill gems i intend to use with my "real build" in my swap and i just proceed to (infernal/frenzy/elehit/dominating blow) my way through the game as i level on every char quickly easily etc........my bor duelist thats 80 atm uses cyclone but i also got a 5 link carcass jack i use with abyssius if i want to use infernal blow instead....which i rarely do since hitting 67........furthermore i duelcurse with screams so thats kewl a duel curse bor cycloning facebreaker.....anyways if you arent using them to make a "facebreaker build" use them to level in the corse of leveling up the duelist i crafted 40-50 phys roll rings and ammys none really that late game viable but i can swap infinatley in n out whilst leveling with those gloves on my other chars which is convenient and the carnage heart provides me with the stats so i can just hp node up to 60 on any char and then get weapon specific :) which is cool if i make a 2 h sword duelist that turns out to be lame i can delete it and make a 2 h axe mace etc duelist in a weeks time while also running maps on my 80 duelist inbetween play on the rerolls...........if you do infact plan a "facebreaker build" you will' need should get a perendus pine buckler for leveling since it gives you lifesteal hp/ hp regen and you can use that till 54 where then if you come across come chaos you can grab a daressos courage, or even a mirror for its high res till you equip a late game shield of choice or the ideal "lioneyes" if you do make a facebreaker build i would suggest looking up forums as you should be either a scion/duelist/merc merely just grabbing as much hp nodes as possible and RT.....which is why this build is so great if you get nice rolls on hp rings with highest phys roll and some res with added hp those are your most ideal rings.......you can get a good amt of hp from them depending on your %hp gained in tree......its that this build isnt very gear dependant till late game where you/anyones gear gets gear dependent late game weapons or not in regards to jewelry and tri res hp roll ms roll boots etc........GLHF :) i like this build one of my faves glad i sold off my other 3 to free up some char room/stash room/ and for new builds i am currently leveling a templar through 50s for a taryns build........and another duelist for wings of entropy........and a dot ranger all of them i am either leveling with facebreakers or duel brightbeaks(spek, leap, ground, gla(splash)). Those 2 builds are so far as ive seen teh fastest leveling builds

[old Charlie]

friend of mine plays a lvl 80 marauder with infernal blow (and switches to dominating blow sometimes). He has almost 5k Hp and hits for way more than 30k Damage with melee-splash. He has an insane clearspeed that gets only interrupted if he fails to see a reflect-elemental-aura. Dominating blow on the other hand does only about 20k damage, but makes him practically invincible...

[chubbyninja89 (TNB)]

I have two questions about the Facebreaker build.

#1. Which character/class is the best for it?

And #2. Would giving added chaos damage help at all? Because I would think it would help, but I'm not sure.

[Idomaus]

Originally posted by chubbyninja89:

I have two questions about the Facebreaker build.

#1. Which character/class is the best for it?

And #2. Would giving added chaos damage help at all? Because I would think it would help, but I'm not sure.

All classes can use FB, but Mara, Templar and Duelist have better access to Str/Melee physical/Melee range nodes. 10 Str = 2 increased physical damage. Melee Weapon nodes are useless, you're unarmed. You'll need lots of flat physical damage on your gears, best item is Meginord's Girdle. Bringer of Rain is mostly used, but downside is the inability to use a chest armor. Abyssus helmet is awesome as well, but it's a dangerous helmet.

There are only 5 skills you can use unarmed: frenzy, infernal blow, dominating blow, cyclone and elemental hit.
Usual setup is Infernal Blow + Multi Strike + Melee Physical Damage + Melee Splash + Blood Magic.
Added Chaos is not that great, it's flat damage and won't scale. Added Fire is much better.

[chubbyninja89 (TNB)]

Originally posted by Idomaus:

Originally posted by chubbyninja89:

I have two questions about the Facebreaker build.

#1. Which character/class is the best for it?

And #2. Would giving added chaos damage help at all? Because I would think it would help, but I'm not sure.

All classes can use FB, but Mara, Templar and Duelist have better access to Str/Melee physical/Melee range nodes. 10 Str = 2 increased physical damage. Melee Weapon nodes are useless, you're unarmed. You'll need lots of flat physical damage on your gears, best item is Meginord's Girdle. Bringer of Rain is mostly used, but downside is the inability to use a chest armor. Abyssus helmet is awesome as well, but it's a dangerous helmet.

There are only 5 skills you can use unarmed: frenzy, infernal blow, dominating blow, cyclone and elemental hit.
Usual setup is Infernal Blow + Multi Strike + Melee Physical Damage + Melee Splash + Blood Magic.
Added Chaos is not that great, it's flat damage and won't scale. Added Fire is much better.

Ok thanks. I was just thinking of making a Shadow Facebreaker build, and getting the two full nodes of added chaos damage to help out. And because he was pretty close to a lot of attack speed points. And attack speed is really good for a FB build right?

But I do have to ask about the blood magic thing. How is that helpful to this build? I mean I'd think it'd be hard enough to play this build, the blood magic seems to be more of a problem then a helpful thing. It uses life instead of mana right?

But if you have to get pretty close to your enemy, won't you already be taking a lot of damage already? And using your life instead of mana be more hurtful instead?

[Shajirr]

Just search official forums for any Facebreaker build?

If you try to make one without understanding game mechanics, I can guarantee you 100% that you will fail.

[Idomaus]

Could work with a Shadow, even a high attack speed one. I remember a Face Breaker Witch. Difficult, though, needs accuracy, strength, flat phys damage... .. Might lack the biggest advantage of FB builds, life and damage through strength and the vicinity of the Resolute Tactics and the Master of the Arena nodes. But experiment a bit, learning by doing and stuff, there are no mistakes, only happy accidents ;)

The Blood Magic gem is an unloved necessity, most basic melee's simply can't regenerate or leech mana fast enough to sustain their attacks due to their smaller mana pool and some specific leech restrictions. So they use their way larger HP pool, leech it back faster and use their mana solely for auras.
See http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Life_leech

Added Chaos, even increased by 79%, adds a flat amount of damage to every hit you deal. Isn't easily scalable any further. Since Forsaken Masters you can add flat chaos damage on jewelry, but the price... O.o
Added fire on the other hand adds some percent of your physical damage as extra fire damage, raised further by every strength node, physical damage, fire nodes, everytime a single melee gem levels up... A perfect addition is the Herald of Ash, which is the same principle.

White Spirit is right, you should do some research on the main forum, especially Korgoth's http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/445390

[Woodwyrm]

one of the early builds, IIRC, used facebreaker and infernal blow and basically smashed through anything and everything that showed up.

[Sick Boy]

Originally posted by White Spirit:

If you try to make one without understanding game mechanics, I can guarantee you 100% that you will fail.

Why do you think he asked for an explanation on how they worked?

[Y0H0]

Thank you for making such a comprehensive and well written guide. :)