Hi. In game, I’ve been approached quite a bit about how to make the most out of this combo, so I thought I’d put together a quick guide with some helpful tips. This is mostly a thread consolidating information that’s been posted in random threads here with a few things of my own. If there’s anything I may have missed, feel free to add on. This thread is assuming Gizzard/Squirts with the new UE/CC3 setup.
1. Sheet toughness is not an accurate representation on what to expect for your Shield. This is because the shield you generate from gizzard does not take into account vitality.
If your goal/playstyle is to keep this shield up as much as possible, vitality becomes the worst stat to have in general. You would want to go full on damage reduction such as all resistance, single resistances, wraps, gunes, SP gloom etc. This also gives dex more value as it’s not a “true” diminishing return factor when it comes to armor, which helps out your shield.
2. Your shield does not regenerate via life per second like health.
When your shield takes damage, it stays at that state until after you don’t take damage for 4 seconds. Due to the incoming bonus damage from squirts on the first hit, it is crucial that you don’t consistently take damage until your shield gets a chance to recover to it’s max state. Often times this is what causes shields to drop prematurely.
Shield not regenerating like health is to prevent permanent snapshotting to gain a super shield. DMKT, Iria and I attempted to do so for nearly 5x the shield of our health, but with the shield “resetting” after 4 seconds instead of regenerating it was not possible . You can still go into the GR with the super shield, but it’ll only last until the very first hit.
3. After shield drops with squirts, there’s a 2 second activation time before the damage from squirts starts to ramp up.
Much like gizzard gem, you cannot get hit during that window for the buff to start.
4. Consider rolling life per second on belt.
The normal quadfecta is dex/vit/ar/life % for most belts. In this case, try rolling life per second instead of life % if you are following point 1. With lower vitality, life % has a lot less value in total, and of course 0 value for your shield.
You can also consider rolling life per second on bracer (you get up to 10k on the bracer slot) in place of vitality or dex. All resistance works well in place of vitality as well.
5. Consider using evasive fire, hardened as your generator.
With the addition of the crimson set, resources are a bit easier to manage and therefore opens up other generator opportunities. Hardened is a great choice for 25% more armor in tight pinches. This also scales well with shooting for dex over vit in paragon points, helping your shield out quite a bit for very little sacrifice.
6. Consider using the life per second legendary potion.
This is a very good potion for gizzard and unlike the other gear stuff, you can snapshot this potion continuously during the rift. The 20k per second you get from potion is worth 20 Gizzard levels. If your shield drops, use the potion and let the shield pop back up. You’ll then have an extra 20k worth of regen tagged on to the shield.
IMO the best potion to use for this setup but requires some management from the player.
You can also do the same thing with smoke screen, healing vapors and the passive brooding, but those require hefty sacrifices to skill/passive choices, whereas potion is practically a free slot by comparison.
7. Cubing Prides Fall is an excellent option for both physical and fire.
The RCR from prides fall gets added to your sheet RCR (with diminishing returns), therefore scales with crimsons 3pc buff. This is a nice way to add a little more toughness to the shield as well as reduce cost of vault and MS for more MS’s throughout the rift. A great option for a boost in both offense and defense if you don’t need the raw toughness of gunes.
Prides fall will stay active as long as you have the shield up.
8. There’s no need to worry about a laughably low health pool using this combo.
It is common to be around 300k health pool if going full blown gizzard/squirts CC3. If you’re taking any damage to your health pool, the squirts 50% incoming damage bonus is not in effect. Couple that with the increase toughness from CC3 and the insane life regeneration from the gizzard gem, you’ll stay at near full health most of the time. I have yet to die in my normal farm runs in mid 110’s nor have I died yet in 120+. YMMV.
EDIT:
9. Consider using Fortress Ballista in armor cube instead of gizzard for season 20.
Fortress Ballista works similar to gizzard but you are able to restore your shield upon attacks, making it a stronger option than gizzard. This will only work in season 20 with the ability to cube another weapon in the armor slot. For most, however, you sacrifice gunes, so give it a whirl and see if it works out for you.
Hope this helps out anyone interested in the combo. Happy pew pewing!