Overview
This is a defensive Gemling Legionnaire built around Shield Wall and Resonating Strike, with poison as the damage payload and chill as a free rider. The core interaction comes from pairing Ice Fang Orbit with Vestige of Darkness: physical damage from hits contributes to chill magnitude and freeze buildup, and damage against poisoned targets also feeds chill magnitude, so every shield slam both poisons and chills the pack at once. Slowed, poisoned enemies then take more hits, and the loop feeds itself.
The character is built as a wall first and a damage dealer second. The creator reports roughly 23,000 armour (about 87% physical damage reduction) with a large portion applying to elemental damage, about 10,600 unbuffed evasion, 33% block, nearly 200 life regeneration per second, meaningful mana recoup, and around 47% chance to deflect. A very high elemental ailment threshold means ailments barely land, which neutralises Ice Fang Orbit’s own drawback of taking chill magnitude while poisoned.
This is an in-progress update rather than a finished character. The creator is explicit that the shield, belt, amulet and Mirror of Invictus rolls all still need work, and that a Mageblood is the next major target.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Extremely tanky — high armour, block, deflection and regeneration all layered together
- Chill applied automatically alongside poison, slowing packs without any dedicated cold investment
- Bleed-immune with a high ailment threshold, so stuns and elemental ailments are close to non-issues
- Excels at sustained-pressure content like Ultimatum and high-tier Trial rooms, where face-tanking matters
- Poison damage scales off physical hit damage, so global physical and damage-over-time mods on gear are rarely wasted
Cons
- Resistances are still uncapped without spending chest sockets on them, and gear is admittedly mid-tier in several slots
- The weapon-set passive split (offensive skills on set one, war cries on set two) is fiddly to configure correctly
- Requires an armour-break step before the damage ramps properly, so the rotation is not a single button
- Several key links are still five-link, so the showcased damage sits below the build’s ceiling
- The chill-magnitude payoff is not yet fully exploited — the creator is still searching for a way to convert it into permafreeze
Key Skills
- Shield Wall — the primary damage skill; three casts stack three simultaneous poisons on a target
- Resonating Strike — the main attack, supported with bleed, rage, poison and close combat
- Herald of Blood — bleed pops that apply additional poisons for fast pack clear
- Infernal Cry / Fortifying Cry — war-cry setup routed into Admonisher, Bolstering Yell and Roaring Cries for empowered attack damage
- Berserk — kept over an alternative-quality setup because the plus-two gem sockets outweigh the extra rage
Gear & Anointments
The build runs a Bodark helm (corrupted for increased life regeneration) and a Mirror of Invictus chest for life regeneration rate and socketed spirit. The amulet needs at least plus two to melee and is anointed with Leeching Toxins for extra poison magnitude plus life recovery on killing a poisoned enemy. The shield wants the highest raw armour available with locked sockets, and the hammer is chosen for global physical and damage-over-time mods. Socketables matter more than usual here: a Soul Core of Takati for increased poison magnitude, an Idol of Thrall Dana for an extra poison, a Rune of Cruelty in the gloves for ailment magnitude, and an Idol of Cyrus for attack speed. Ice Fang Orbit is the mandatory ring; the second ring is a resistance-and-flat-chaos rare. A Mageblood is the stated upgrade target for the belt slot.
Endgame Notes
The creator describes Ultimatum as a breeze and tier-30 Trial rooms and the Trial Master as comfortable, thanks to the regeneration and life-on-kill layers. Clear speed is described as acceptable rather than fast, with bossing rated as good and expected to improve with better gear.
Credits & Source
Build credited to JorgenPOE. See the source video for the full build’s gameplay footage + voice commentary: COLD POISON! Gemling Shield Wall Build - Build Update 1 - 0.5.5.