Freezing Pulse Templar Build [1.3.0 updated!]
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Since freezing pulse seems to have been buffed somewhat, I respecced an old templar to screw around with freezing pulse. My build personally could use a lot of work, but as a rough guide for anyone who wants to use a Taryn's for freeze pulsing again, here's what I came up with.
With 1.3.0, I find the overall feel of this build has gotten a lot smoother. Increased tankiness, and with freezing being so effective and with the damage buffs, almost nothing hits you. Update notes
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I haven't checked this post in a while! Noticed it got put onto build list for Templars so I thought I should update this a bit. I've obtained a lvl 21 Freezing Pulse and I've respecced slightly for more dps. Next level I plan on grabbing the projectile nodes near Shadow which should bring my base dps up to around 12k ish per projectile. Other than damage being increased (being able to reach 100k+ more easily) the build has gained a bit of tankiness! I'm really not specced for tank but from this update alone I've gained roughly 400 hp, up to 3,808. Nothing to brag about but if you'd like to spec more for tankiness that's much more realistic now, 4.5k+ with good gear is quite attainable. Cast speed has decreased due to the way I've specced it (DPS could possibly be higher if you spec more for cast speed instead of crit) Also gained another 10% chance to freeze! o: I've also started running Assassin's Mark instead of Frostbite, mostly because the extra power charges are nice and you're already at a very high chance to freeze, I mostly run solo so freezing is not too hard. Started using Atziri's Promise for more damage and leech And yes I have not made many improvements at all but I really haven't been playing PoE at all lately, which will hopefully change with this update updated december 20th 2014 Pros
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-Easy to get decent dps (~65k tooltip with 5L Taryn's)
-Can reach very high dps with less currency than other specs (doesn't require mirrored items for end game dps) -DOES NOT rely on legacy items (legacy Maligaro's is optional and will not provide a game changing difference if it's legacy) like some other freeze pulse builds I've seen with witches that use shav's -Runs Arctic Armour so titty bitches and dogs are no threat -Maximizing DPS relies on gems mostly and not rolling rare items -Will freeze a LOT of stuff (33% chance to freeze without curses) -Very good in groups -Deal more damage to your frozen enemies with Taryn's and shock Cons
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-It's a staff, some survivability is lost from lack of shield
-Can be hard to max resists without said shield if you're on a budget -Dies to reflect if you aren't careful -Can get expensive to go for FULL end game damage (level 4 corrupted empower is like 60 ex+ currently) -Not the smoothest ride if you're leveling from scratch -Draws survivability from most enemies being frozen -Probably can't do Atziri, unless you're super end game(even then probably not) Reasoning behind Templar and Taryn's
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This version of a freeze pulser relies on the use of Taryn's Shiver unique staff. It doesn't use power charges, unless you want to spec for power charges specifically (you can run assassins mark to generate your charges) but personally I find power charges very tedious to maintain and I can't justify sacrificing a slot for the support gem. It takes too long in my opinion to generate all 7 of your charges and at that point whatever you want your max dps for is likely dead. This isn't to say a power charge spec is inferior, it's just my preference to run without them. The HP is low end, but with good rings/belt/necklace you can easily hit 4K which is acceptable. I run arctic armour(at lvl 13), discipline, clarity, and herald of ice as auras and with decent mana you can sustain freezing pulse all day. The 20% increased damage on frozen enemies is also very useful on Taryn's and the +1 to cold gems helps us get a higher level Freezing Pulse more easily.
Leveling
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I respecced my old templar into freeze pulse, but if you are starting from scratch I would suggest leveling with a wand and shield and switching over to Taryn's when you reach level req. EB is a priority and you'll have difficulty sustaining FP without going for it as soon as you can. At around lvl 55 your tree should look something like this, however I would recommend using something other than freeze pulse to level. Bandit choices: Oak, Alira, then Alira/kill all depending on your preference My current tree (lvl 85) End game tree My current gear
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Flasks
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Gem Choices
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Auras
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Running 4 Auras now, Herald of Thunder has really brought up my dps along with a few gear swaps. Freezing Pulse
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I'ms still debating on running empower with freezing pulse. If I 6 link my Taryn's anytime soon I will most likely run Cold Penetration. This is because your dps will be more effective against high resist mobs (if lvl 3-4 empower increases dps by about 20-30% of tooltip, Cold Penetration will nearly double it on high resist mobs), and on mobs with low resists they are just going to be completely obliterated anyway. Some stats DPS (with auras and flask)
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 Dps has gone up due to some respeccing and lvl 21 Freezing pulse Defense (nothing impressive)
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 So obviously it seems like templar is very sub-par in regards to freeze pulse. My survivability is low, but there are ways to make this build way tankier. Instead of going with an armour/es rare chest, you could use Lightning Coil and run purity of lightning with aura nodes. HOWEVER, what's interesting about a templar spec using the Taryn's is the capability of freezing bosses VERY easily (with my 5L Taryn's I have ~65k dps but freeze most bosses if shotgunned) and the ability with a 6L Taryn's and an empower to increase dps dramatically. With a higher budget (6L Taryn's and possibly level 21 freezing pulse) you can add a corrupted empower(lvl 4) to reach level 25 freezing pulse. Also this type of super end game spec relies mostly on your skill gems, and allows a LOT of lenience in the skill tree for survivability and flexbility on how you run it. Other thoughts
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Why not spec for power charges?
As stated earlier you can spec for 7 power charges and run assassin's mark, however I prefer to use frostbite/elemental weakness because I find maintaining power charges very tedious How expensive is the build? My most expensive item is my legacy maligaro's which are not needed at all, nerfed ones work fine or other glove choices work too. For around 40k DPS on this build with moderate survivability I'd say you're looking at ~13 ex max, mainly because of the 5L Taryn's, but you may find one cheaper. Hardcore viable/newbie friendly? AS far as hardcore goes, my exact spec would get crushed. However you can run alternate versions of this build with Lightning Coil and run purity of lightning, and go for more life nodes. With enough tweaking you can get this build fairly tanky. I wouldn't recommend this build for new players mainly because it requires some currency to start with, and you can make more effective builds at lower levels to get started in the game. Reflect? Rip in pepperonis(maybe). With this new 1.3.0 update I find that my tooltip dps is down a bit(about 300 per proj) but tankiness has gone up, and I believe effective dps has increased significantly in a way that does not affect reflect damage too much. Reflect may or may not be a big issue depending on your dps and tankiness, personally I try to watch out for it but I haven't found it to be a problem, just a bit startling when your hp dips unexpectedly. Curses? If you want to be a team player I'd say run Elemental Weakness. If you're by yourself run frostbite, or if you are with other crit glass cannons run Assassins Mark. Can you start as a Witch? You can start as a witch if you really want, but getting the templar's survivability nodes helps early on and I prefer this spec as Templar. Undoable map mods? blood magic, -%max resists, no regen, and ele reflect is hard if you're glass cannon like I am. Half regen is very do-able if you turn off AA and most other mods shouldn't be too much trouble (ele weakness being an exception if your gear is ass). Planned Improvements
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Still working on getting a some better gear for tankiness, but my dps has gone up significantly from last update (8.6k per proj to around 11.5k base). I'm really gearing towards 6L Taryn's and putting in Cold Penetration for the last link, simply because this will (most likely) enable me to freeze every boss (while farming merc dominus in a 4 man crew, his first from will get 3 shot and frozen+shocked very easily, which got me wanting to use Cold Pen to just go full out and freeze every boss). Also next level (lvl 86) I plan on respeccing into the Shadow's projectile damage nodes, which should increase dps by around (hopefully) 700-1k per projectile.
Feedback and ideas for improvements are greatly appreciated. I exiled an exile, now you almost resemble an exile, exile. Last edited by LotsOfCandy#1232 on Dec 20, 2014, 1:56:16 PM
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Main CON missing: Almost impossible to get this staff.
Plus VERY squishy build according to your Tree Last edited by sorielle#4718 on Sep 1, 2014, 6:15:12 AM
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" I don't think it's that hard to get a Taryn's? I bought mine 5L 6S for 5 ex, doesn't seem like the hardest or most expensive item to get. In regards to squishiness, my spec is glass cannon because even up to 76 maps(haven't checked further) mostly everything stays frozen, so I usually get away with being all spank but no tank I exiled an exile, now you almost resemble an exile, exile.
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I'd like to see some action :))
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Bump I guess? Just wanted to update build for 1.3.0! Update notes are in the build guide but if you somehow missed them and TL;DR, tankiness up, dps up(tooltip down).
I exiled an exile, now you almost resemble an exile, exile.
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Hey, what do you think of this tree for Hardcore?
It has lots of mana regen to run high level AA, HoT and HoI + Clarity or Grace if you have more mana regen from items. Plus it has 176% max life. No crit, but a lot of freeze chance (25% from tree, 8% from Taryn's) + frostbite + extra damage to frozen from Taryn's and Celestial Punishment. The 2 points in Practical Application can be respecced into +11% life from the points next to Cruel Preparation and Blood Siphon, I just find it useful to level LMP/GMP and HoI. Around lvl 85 you can have this build and from there you can grab Anihilation and Doom Cast for crit or Heart of Ice and Storm Weaver for cold dmg, plus you can grab Vaal Pact in 3 points and finish the life wheel. By the way, is there a specific reason why you go with GMP over LMP? Last edited by Francius#6521 on Dec 17, 2014, 6:04:52 PM
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" For hardcore this tree seems inefficient. You need to be running clarity + discpline because theres almost no way you'll have enough mana regen otherwise (I have 143 mana regen with 2.7k mana pool)and you missed out on the 3 staff crit nodes(these are very important, I didn't take them from my first respec and picked them up after, and gained more than 1k dps). The cast speed seems a bit unimportant and there's a huge lack of armour on the tree. I made this one and it has more efficient dps, and better survivability. I took the aura reserve because you can run Grace(keep in mind you run armour + es gear for a mana pool) if you really want but I would suggest Determination instead(you'll have 3-4 auras so these nodes are necessary) Even then it's a bit iffy as far as survivability goes but if you REALLY want more hp you could spec out of all the crit and go towards the life wheel like you had it before. Edit: Forgot completely about gmp/lmp sorry! GMP is used over LMP because even though damage reduced is more, you can stack freezing pulse projectiles to get 5x your tooltip damage when you focus them on one mob. This makes GMP strictly better, I can honestly not think of a reason to use LMP (unless you want to nerf your damage potential for some reason) I exiled an exile, now you almost resemble an exile, exile. Last edited by LotsOfCandy#1232 on Dec 17, 2014, 7:05:01 PM
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Updated the build a bit, went from around ~45k tooltip to ~65k tooltip, changes significant enough to change guide in my opinion.
I exiled an exile, now you almost resemble an exile, exile.
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Essentially, Glass Cannon Freezing Pulse builds are throwback builds of a time where it was considered a decently strong spec.
It is difficult to justify choosing this build over a simple Arcer/Flameblast/Incinerate other than it is fun. Other than that, something to consider as an improvement would be to drop the Taryn's completely and use dual Daggers. The Cold Penetration cluster above the Witch is in the same place as the Dual Wielding cast speed nodes, so not much adapting is required. The benefit is 70%+ crit chance with good gear and better freezing. If you are going Glass Cannon, fully commit to it. Using Cold to Fire will drastically make reflect easier to deal with, too. Forget about Added Lightning and run Herald of Thunder. You can still shock bosses without it. Freezing is a useless defence if you kill things instantly. IGN: SlightRedeye (GMT + 0:00) Last edited by SlightRedeye#1935 on Dec 20, 2014, 2:15:04 PM
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" It's definitely something to consider, I think if I had more currency for OP daggers and a good 6L armour/es chest it would make dps go through the roof. However for even more dps running 2x void battery might do more and then spec into power charges. There's a lot of different variations compatible with this build. For now I'm going to use a Taryn's because I could always save up a lot of currency and spec into using different weapons, but I chose Taryn's initially to highlight that it's quite easy to reach ~50k tooltip without spending crazy amounts. But for people who plan on going completely glass cannon, yeah crit spell damage daggers or void batteries are a better option. Thanks for the suggestions though, something to think about in end game specs. I exiled an exile, now you almost resemble an exile, exile.
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