Killer Kong

I tried a few different sets on Samson, like Swift Parry or Bolster for example and the results were a bit underwhelming to be quite honest. I decided the best set for him out of what I tried was Savage/Lethal or maybe if your Samson is too slow and you got the battle pass, the Instinct set. We could have went with Perception but I chose Critical Damage as his 2-piece or in my case Killstroke for a little extra speed. More damage > more accuracy to some degree here so I kept that in mind.

I wanted to hit some stat thresholds. Like 200 accuracy or more. 80k-100k health. 2,000-3,000 defense. 100% critical rating and as much critical damage as possible. We want our Samson to smack hard and smack hard again but we also wanted him to land his stuns so we also were wise to pick vulnerable prey.

* Some artifact sets have upgraded versions available. If you have a better upgraded version of this recommended artifact set, definitely use that instead.

Samson has some of the most unique style masteries in the game honestly after breaking him down. There is so much going on that you normally wouldn't use that seems viable here and some of his kit is actually supplemented or just built in defense masteries. The support tree can offer a lot of utility and extra health or accuracy depending on how you decide to go.

I went with the Offense tree here to get down to Helmsmasher. There was several masteries I liked for Samson I don't normally use and some I normally use that I wouldn't here. 

Starting with the first row, when you build a go-1st nuker, you might want to use Heart of Glory for more damage when full health. We're getting nuked here so without a heal after the nuke, we won't have full health. Unless we got rocked and it's looking bad, we also won't need Grim Resolve. You will want to build him surrounded by some champions to help him survive. Pythion for example is a nice teammate. I found myself nuking enemies with shields more than I nuked them with full health so I felt that was a high percentage pick.

Going Shield Breaker also allowed me to go after Ruthless Ambush for extra damage on the first hit and Opportunist to help get some extra damage on anybody stunned by an initial counterattack. Single Out also gave me an additional 8% to anyone on the second hit that survived the first hit with 40% or less health left.

Normally you might go Bring It Down but in this case, Samson is the one with higher health. Especially if you counter-pick him against attack based teams. So now you have the option of Wrath of the Slain or Cycle of Violence. I chose Wraith of the Slain since I could guarantee a dead ally before his first attacks but if you can't do that, then pick something else. Anything else.

Methodical and Killstreak just made a lot of sense. You get extra damage on your A1 counterattacks, then you get some extra damage after you kill someone, however that happens. The Defense tree just seemed to double-down on a lot of what Samson already does. He already counterattacks so you don't need Retribution of Deterrence. I'd rather grab Cycle of Revenge. There is a nice synergy between his passive and Improved Parry though.

For the complimentary tree, I chose the Support tree for the extra accuracy. I wanted the Stun to land and to get the extra 12% damage on my A2 attacks. If you wanted to, you could go extra health from Steadfast to squeeze out a tiny bit more damage. It's up to you how you want to balance out your accuracy statistics.

You could go down to Lasting Gifts for more turns on the buffs and grab Cycle of Magic. I had Sun Wukong in mind to take advantage of Spirit Haste. I think he makes a great partner to Samson in this regard.

Like I said before, just one of the more interesting kits with mastery pairings I've seen in this game. A fun one to analyze and build.