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How To Unlock The Full Potential Of The New Svalinn Unique Shield In Path Of Exile 3.25?

Aug 07, 2024

Svalinn is a new Unique Shield in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur, and it will drop from Sasan, the Bandit Lord, as part of the new league mechanics. Svalinn has a very powerful modifier called “Chance to Block is Lucky”, which doubles your chance to block, allowing you to choose a favorable outcome.

I think this is a very cool POE item that is very powerful if used correctly, and it can enable some tanky builds that are centered on blocking. In this guide, we’ll talk about what this Svalinn Unique Shield is good for, and how to unlock its full potential.

Chance To Block Spell Damage

Let’s take a look at the modifier on Svalinn: 13% Chance to Block Spell Damage. This is a modifier that could potentially roll between 10%-15%. Considering the rest of the shield, this is a good start.

How To Unlock The Full Potential Of The New Svalinn Unique Shield In Path Of Exile 3.25?

Ward

Next, let’s look at Ward. Ward is a defensive measure that blocks hit damage before Life or Energy Shield. I don’t mean you’ll get a lot of Ward from this shield, but you may hit the blocking cap while using this shield. And Ward has been buffed to refresh every 2 seconds instead of the old 4 seconds.

This is actually a fair amount of damage reduction, since it doesn’t deduct from your Life or Energy Shield, but is absorbed by this shield. So not a completely useless modifier.

Minus Max Chance To Block

Now we come to the important set of mods on this Svalinn Shield: minus 10% of the maximum chance to block attack and spell damage. These mods combined will reduce the maximum base block chance of attacks and spells from 75% to 65%.

Lucky Block Chance

But the next modifier, “Chance to Block is Lucky”, makes up for this. Lucky is a property that is rolled twice, and you can choose the more favorable result. So with Chance to Block is Lucky, you will roll twice for Chance to Block incoming hits, which means your effective block chance is higher than your actual block chance.

The benefit you get from a Lucky roll is largely dependent on the base properties of your roll. So you’re better off with maximum base block chance with Svalinn equipped (65%), which gives you an effective block chance of 88%, which is insane.

The new Gladiator has a new Skill Ascendency Notable, which grants you Lucky Block Chance whenever you’ve recently blocked. This is a great mapping node, but it’s much less reliable for boss scenarios.

Svalinn’s Lucky Block Chance is unconditional, though it’s always active. This is a very powerful start, and having it means investing in blocking is more rewarding.

Triggering Blocks

Svalinn also has one final modifier, which triggers a socketed elemental spell with a block time of 0.25 seconds. With such a high effective block chance, no matter what you put on this shield, you’ll be safe as you move through the map.

PoE: Svalinn Build Guide

How To Maximize Block Chance?

In POE 3.25, investing in blocking has become more rewarding, as many of Block Wheels in the tree have received huge buffs.

For example, Safeguard Wheel near Templar starting position now provides 10% Chance to Block Spell Damage, and it also increases maximum spell block by 3%. What’s more, it also restores 50 Energy Shield when blocking. This sounds like a small amount, but with such a large effective block chance, it will make up for the recovery of most hits in a mapping environment.

There’s also a new Wheel here, located near Blood Magic Keystone, that’s similar to Safeguard. This doesn’t provide the 3% maximum block chance, but that’s for attack damage, and it also has a 12% block chance.

Another new Block Mastery Wheel, Wall of Steel, gives extra attack block chance and some flat armor if you’ve recently blocked.

There’s also a new Block Mastery that adds 1% chance to block spell damage for every 5% chance to block attack damage. So if you have 65% chance to block attacks, you’ll get 13% chance to block spell damage from spending that point.

Besides these options, many other Block or Shield Wheels that provide block chance have been buffed. This means it’s easier to cap attack and spell block chance with a lower POE Currency investment than before.

There’s also Tempest Shield, which provides a lot of spell blocking. If you’re playing a Scion or Necromancer, you might also want to consider Bone Offering.

Glancing Blows

Of course, there will still be Glancing Blows. But the real potential of this shield is having such a high effective true blocking ability that it can avoid the vast majority of incoming hits, especially considering that you can’t recover from blocking with the shield, so Glancing Blows with this setup aren’t too useful.

How To Build A Map Clearing Build?

When combined with something like Mjölner, this shield becomes a very interesting map clearing build. You’ll be able to easily use Mjölner and Svalinn’s triggered spells and Tempest Shield’s triggers to clear monster packs.

When you need a nuke to knock down a stronger target, you can use the new Divine Retribution spell to deal a lot of damage. It can be used by blocking, and it can overlap to hit the same target multiple times.

All in all, this new unique item is really fun. What do you think of it? Will you try to equip this Svalinn Unique Shield? Do you have a better way to make the most of all its mechanics? See you next time!

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Next: How To Deal With Bandit King Sasan In Path Of Exile 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur? - Location & Strategy
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