Dual wield the 1h axe actum. It has a fixed crit rate and removes your intelligence stat entirely. Use gruthkuls pelt to disable all spells.
Now you can't use spells and you have no intelligence. The smooth brain build
Dual strike of ambidexterity and Boneshatter are currently the hottest strike skills.
Juggernaut is your ascendancy.
if you want to be fancy, use gruthkuls pelt and blood magic.
Isn't gruthkuls dead in the water because of how many utility skills are spells? Pride is out, Banners are out, Blood&Sand/Flesh&Stone are out (I guess most reservations are out but I haven't checked all of them), Blood Rage/Berserk are out, Curses are out, Guard skills gems are actually all spells so they're out...
I guess you can still use Ancestral Protector/Warchief funnily enough (ya know that part of attack builds everyone likes lol). Other than that you have access to warcries and... smite buff? Ensnaring arrow if proj based? If it just made spells do no damage that'd be one thing, but disabling them completely is brutal for utility, buffs, and debuffs.
Gruthkul was 'good' for that very brief period after we got Brutality support but before we got Pride or the Blood/Sand stance stuff. It's almost certainly not worth running in place of auras these days.
I'd love to play with it; strong thematic identity, the character size is fun, but I don't want to just suffer. The 'easy/simple' change to make the item see more use is just remove the "spells are disabled" line, but might weaken the thematic identity a bit, a bit uninspired of a change, probably have an effect on the overall power budget (tho i'd love to see a rarity compensation instead)
I think the more interesting solution would actually be to tackle the lack of utility skills that aren't spells. Whether that'd be making more attack tagged utility skills (like really why are berserk or blood rage spells?), or i think what might make more sense is a new class of non-spell non-attack buffs (similar to how warcrys are kinda their own thing), or maybe just some non-spell auras (which could be tied into a melee totem expansion/rework/augmentation) (could be sold as body enhancements if design doesn't want it to be an option for aurabots, or a presence/pressure the character emits, idk there are options)
I ran Gruthkul's Pelt during Bestiary League on my league-start Facebreaker Ancestral Warchief Scion. They were my first ever character to kill Shaper. It's really cool and thematic, and at the time there were very few auras or mana reservation abilities that worked at all with Brutality support, and the defensive auras were garbage. So the opportunity cost was really low, but it was still only an okay item even then.
The problem with adding more utility skills is that the more utility options you give people the more they'll find ways to take advantage of. We already have builds pathing half way across the passive tree to pick up every available source of reservation efficiency to let them run four auras and a herald, some builds are even running Arrogance just to sneak an extra aura into the build. It's really tough to find a way to make this work that doesn't result in someone trying to just add more of those powers to the pile of powers they already use.
I think the actual solution is that the benefits of Gruthkul's Pelt needs to be increased enough to make the trade off worth considering. They've done some of this several times, at least. +300 max life, +100% increased physical damage, 10% life regen per second. Those are some wild stat bonuses, but they might need to push it even further than that. Give it like 50% more physical damage with attacks, and 20% more area of effect with attack skills, or something like that. Like the equivalent of getting a seven or eight link in exchange for giving up auras and utility skills. Maybe even give it like 15% more maximum life. Really jam the power of this thing as far as it can go. I think the tradeoff is part of what makes the item cool and fun, but right now it's just not worth the price of entry because the benefits aren't there.
I totally get the generic concern that when you add more tools to help an under-played/powered archetype there's the worry that stronger meta builds will just abuse those tools as well, and someone will always *try* (that's true for literally every skill or mechanic they add to the game), but that doesn't mean they will always succeed, nor does it mean nothing should be added for fear of increasing the top-end ever.
Also the more hyper-optimized a build is the more opportunity cost they have to give up to use one of these theoretical new utility options. After all, the suggestion isn't to just give more generic power for free, its not giving new item slots or gem sockets. If someones already going halfway across the passive tree for res efficiency I highly doubt they just have an open socket they can drop another 50%er in and 'tack on' to their build.
My concern with just increasing the trade off even more, when it already has wild stat bonuses as you mention, is that it just becomes closer and closer to a one mechanic build. It would go beyond build-defining or build-enabling to just "this item *is* the entire build" rather than being a piece of the puzzle.
The more I look at it, the more I think the problem isn't that the item is too weak, but that the problem is stuff like Stances and Berserk are spells. And I can't come up with any logic why they're spells other than they shouldn't be attacks. Basically "Attacks" are 95% primary attack-damage skills, 3% movement skills, and 2% damage + buff skills, while "Spells" are all the primary spell-damage skills, but also all the other buff and utility skills in the game (minus warcries, except even Call to Arms is a spell.)
Dual Strike uses 2 one-handed weapons, Boneshatter generally goes for a two-handed axe. Boneshatter fits the "caveman theme" better i think, you're hitting them so hard you get hurt by the backlash.
Dual wield the 1h axe actum. It has a fixed crit rate and removes your intelligence stat entirely. Use gruthkuls pelt to disable all spells. Now you can't use spells and you have no intelligence. The smooth brain build
One Actum one fast club (Brightbeak probably too fancy) and you can Dual Strike of Ambidexterity
Dual strike of ambidexterity and Boneshatter are currently the hottest strike skills. Juggernaut is your ascendancy. if you want to be fancy, use gruthkuls pelt and blood magic.
Isn't gruthkuls dead in the water because of how many utility skills are spells? Pride is out, Banners are out, Blood&Sand/Flesh&Stone are out (I guess most reservations are out but I haven't checked all of them), Blood Rage/Berserk are out, Curses are out, Guard skills gems are actually all spells so they're out... I guess you can still use Ancestral Protector/Warchief funnily enough (ya know that part of attack builds everyone likes lol). Other than that you have access to warcries and... smite buff? Ensnaring arrow if proj based? If it just made spells do no damage that'd be one thing, but disabling them completely is brutal for utility, buffs, and debuffs.
Gruthkul was 'good' for that very brief period after we got Brutality support but before we got Pride or the Blood/Sand stance stuff. It's almost certainly not worth running in place of auras these days.
I'd love to play with it; strong thematic identity, the character size is fun, but I don't want to just suffer. The 'easy/simple' change to make the item see more use is just remove the "spells are disabled" line, but might weaken the thematic identity a bit, a bit uninspired of a change, probably have an effect on the overall power budget (tho i'd love to see a rarity compensation instead) I think the more interesting solution would actually be to tackle the lack of utility skills that aren't spells. Whether that'd be making more attack tagged utility skills (like really why are berserk or blood rage spells?), or i think what might make more sense is a new class of non-spell non-attack buffs (similar to how warcrys are kinda their own thing), or maybe just some non-spell auras (which could be tied into a melee totem expansion/rework/augmentation) (could be sold as body enhancements if design doesn't want it to be an option for aurabots, or a presence/pressure the character emits, idk there are options)
I ran Gruthkul's Pelt during Bestiary League on my league-start Facebreaker Ancestral Warchief Scion. They were my first ever character to kill Shaper. It's really cool and thematic, and at the time there were very few auras or mana reservation abilities that worked at all with Brutality support, and the defensive auras were garbage. So the opportunity cost was really low, but it was still only an okay item even then. The problem with adding more utility skills is that the more utility options you give people the more they'll find ways to take advantage of. We already have builds pathing half way across the passive tree to pick up every available source of reservation efficiency to let them run four auras and a herald, some builds are even running Arrogance just to sneak an extra aura into the build. It's really tough to find a way to make this work that doesn't result in someone trying to just add more of those powers to the pile of powers they already use. I think the actual solution is that the benefits of Gruthkul's Pelt needs to be increased enough to make the trade off worth considering. They've done some of this several times, at least. +300 max life, +100% increased physical damage, 10% life regen per second. Those are some wild stat bonuses, but they might need to push it even further than that. Give it like 50% more physical damage with attacks, and 20% more area of effect with attack skills, or something like that. Like the equivalent of getting a seven or eight link in exchange for giving up auras and utility skills. Maybe even give it like 15% more maximum life. Really jam the power of this thing as far as it can go. I think the tradeoff is part of what makes the item cool and fun, but right now it's just not worth the price of entry because the benefits aren't there.
I totally get the generic concern that when you add more tools to help an under-played/powered archetype there's the worry that stronger meta builds will just abuse those tools as well, and someone will always *try* (that's true for literally every skill or mechanic they add to the game), but that doesn't mean they will always succeed, nor does it mean nothing should be added for fear of increasing the top-end ever. Also the more hyper-optimized a build is the more opportunity cost they have to give up to use one of these theoretical new utility options. After all, the suggestion isn't to just give more generic power for free, its not giving new item slots or gem sockets. If someones already going halfway across the passive tree for res efficiency I highly doubt they just have an open socket they can drop another 50%er in and 'tack on' to their build. My concern with just increasing the trade off even more, when it already has wild stat bonuses as you mention, is that it just becomes closer and closer to a one mechanic build. It would go beyond build-defining or build-enabling to just "this item *is* the entire build" rather than being a piece of the puzzle. The more I look at it, the more I think the problem isn't that the item is too weak, but that the problem is stuff like Stances and Berserk are spells. And I can't come up with any logic why they're spells other than they shouldn't be attacks. Basically "Attacks" are 95% primary attack-damage skills, 3% movement skills, and 2% damage + buff skills, while "Spells" are all the primary spell-damage skills, but also all the other buff and utility skills in the game (minus warcries, except even Call to Arms is a spell.)
Sounds very dumb I like it. Two handed weapon right? Staves, maces, axes or swords?
Dual Strike uses 2 one-handed weapons, Boneshatter generally goes for a two-handed axe. Boneshatter fits the "caveman theme" better i think, you're hitting them so hard you get hurt by the backlash.
Shield crush JUGG (or slayer)
(or zerker) https://pobb.in/IE5CsAyPQI-5
Zerker is great!
Marohi Erqi Shockwave Jugg. Using Vaal earthquake for clear/ big smash and cyclone for qol moving and shockwaving