[1.3] Grab a coat. Crit Freezing Pulse over 100k GMP EB/MoM (With videos)

AWAKENING UPDATE
From patch notes:
*Projectile skills no longer "shotgun". You can't hit the same target with more than one simultaneously-created projectile from the same source any more. They've been rebalanced around this.
*Freezing Pulse: Damage increased by 25% to compensate for the shotgunning mechanic change.

Single target is significantly nerfed, but AoE might be a bit better. You will need to use LMP though, because now there's no reason to go with GMP.

This is what I came up with after some theorycrafting.
http://poeurl.com/zs7Bdmz
Just note that I haven't actually tried this build in 2.0 yet, but this tree should be quite good with FP. One minus is that Vaal Pact doesn't work together with Zealot's Oath, so you shouldn't pick it. "Herald of Ice: Shattering effect no longer reflects damage to the player. Reduced added damage at all levels." This was the biggest problem when it comes to reflect. With some leech and +max cold resist you should be fine, even with the 25% damage increase.

I will try to remake this build in future, but right now I'm playing in Tempest, so it will take some time to get good enough currency base to make this build once more.


Pros

Cons


For some people con, for me pro - requires constant repositioning and good usage of flasks. Just sitting in one place and rightclicking won't achieve good results.

*Current tree @90:


*Finished tree(dual wands) - Spec out of Influence once you get PoI to level 20. This tree gives 27% increased aura effectivness so level 20 PoI gives 4*1.27=5% max cold resist. If your PoI is below level 20 then you need atleast 33% aura effect from tree, so Influence is a must.


*Finished tree(shield) - Same thing with aura effectivness as stated above.



*Bandits: Oak/Kill/Alira


*Gear:


Keeping AA and HoI in +2 wand for good survivability/damage boost. If I ever get level 21 PoI then it will go there instead of HoI for 1 extra max cold resist.

For difficult bosses, like Shrine Piety or Palace Dominus I take Saffell's Frame and replace 2nd wand with it. And use whatever purity aura I need for the boss resulting in 1 84% elemental resist. Or 2 84% because I can just turn off Herald of Thunder and use another purity aura.

*Notes:

Stuff to look out for on gear:


Auras:
*Herald of Ice+Clarity+Purity of Ice+Herald of Thunder


Reflect:
I don't have vaal Pact so I rely on high cold resist and some life leech. 35% increased aura effect from tree buffs PoI so at level 17 it gives +4 max cold resist(level 20 PoI=80% max cold resist). Also, flasks are incredibly important to counter reflect. Pop Atziri's Promise for extra life leech/Saphire for that extra 10% max cold resist and reflect isn't a problem. Getting cold leech wherever possible on gear helps too.


Links:
Currently have 5l so I have linked FP with GMP-Cold Penetraion-Spell Echo-Faster Casting. 6l would be Increased Crit Damage or Added Chaos/Lightning/Cold. Not sure which because ICD got nerfed hard. Or PCoC when playing in a party or running curse immune map.

Maps:
Can't do Blood Magic/No regen/Elemental reflect. Half regen is doable but keep low level AA(around 11-12, depending on how good your gear is) in you inventory for switching. -Max can be devastating if you are not careful and shoot a big pack with reflect aura. Otherwise not a hard mod.
Chilled ground is annoying as hell, slows movement speed and cast speed. Other mods are ez pz.

Atziri. While you can kill her with this build if really needed, FP isn't the way to go if you want to farm her. Even 84% lightning/fire res/level 22 AA and MoM I feel too squishy when her split phase starts. Other stuff is easy to kill tho. So, to sum up, this build can kill her but will probably die at least once or more.

Other thoughts:
Dual wands is good setup if you're not concerned about survivability. The DPS increase is huge and wand is one of the few places this build can get additional projectile speed.
Biggest flaw is big physical damage hits. i have CWDT setup and AA but sometimes even that isn't enough. So you need to play carefully and pray to whatever god you believe in that you won't desync into pack of added phys/crit rhoas.


*Deeps. This damage can be lower depending on monster cold resistance or get boosted by shock stack/Ass mark:


With 7 power charges


With power charges+Atziri's Flask


With power charges+Atziri's Flask+Vaal Haste


Defense:


*Videos:

not sure if power charge is worth the 6 points investment
I think power charge is only relevant against bosses, unfortunately there is no way to maintain power during boss fight, unless you are willing to sacrifice 1 gem slot for PCoC support gem or wearing Voll's protector (as assassin mark grants power charge only upon kill)

I am currently following this build (going Vaal Pact though)


Someone has a guide involving dual wield Apep with level 1 FP. He has over 100K+ shotgun DPS.
I think it might be worth a try with lvl 20 FP

Maybe I misunderstood something, but 6 point investment? All power charges are pretty much 1/2 points away from main build path. Right now I have no problems sustaining power charges because of HoT and Ass mark. For bosses I just switch out Curse on Hit Gem and cast it manually. I have 43% crit on Fp without charges and Ass mark gives like 9% so with really high cast speed bosses aren't a problem

I recall checking out that guide a while ago. Seemed quite interesting, only problem is that Apep's are 1ex each, so thats 2ex just on weapons. I got my wands for +-10c each. There's a lot of different ways to build around FP but the one I posted has turned out to be quite solid for me.

Thanks for feedback!

A short videeo of Gorge run should be up in ~7 hours.

"

VodkaBorschGG wrote:

Maybe I misunderstood something, but 6 point investment? All power charges are pretty much 1/2 points away from main build path. Right now I have no problems sustaining power charges because of HoT and Ass mark. For bosses I just switch out Curse on Hit Gem and cast it manually. I have 43% crit on Fp without charges and Ass mark gives like 9% so with really high cast speed bosses aren't a problem

I recall checking out that guide a while ago. Seemed quite interesting, only problem is that Apep's are 1ex each, so thats 2ex just on weapons. I got my wands for +-10c each. There's a lot of different ways to build around FP but the one I posted has turned out to be quite solid for me.

Thanks for feedback!

6 point investment includes:
3 points into +1 power charge
1 point into 18% more power charge duration
1 point into 4% more spell damage for each power charge
+1 power charge from Alira

Against bosses where you needed it most, there is no way to generate power charge!

"

laburnum wrote:

"

VodkaBorschGG wrote:

Maybe I misunderstood something, but 6 point investment? All power charges are pretty much 1/2 points away from main build path. Right now I have no problems sustaining power charges because of HoT and Ass mark. For bosses I just switch out Curse on Hit Gem and cast it manually. I have 43% crit on Fp without charges and Ass mark gives like 9% so with really high cast speed bosses aren't a problem

I recall checking out that guide a while ago. Seemed quite interesting, only problem is that Apep's are 1ex each, so thats 2ex just on weapons. I got my wands for +-10c each. There's a lot of different ways to build around FP but the one I posted has turned out to be quite solid for me.

Thanks for feedback!

6 point investment includes:
3 points into +1 power charge
1 point into 18% more power charge duration
1 point into 4% more spell damage for each power charge
+1 power charge from Alira

Against bosses where you needed it most, there is no way to generate power charge!

-150% crit for 3 points - worth it
-18% duration for 1 point - worth it, easier to sustain charges from Ass mark
-1 point for potential 28% spell damage boost - worth it
-1 point for 50% crit - worth it

As I said before, I have ~50 crit chance with Ass mark and without any charges. With Spell Echo/GMP and 0.21s cast speed bosses go down as quickly as rares.

Cold penetration would be a better choice than faster casting. Ignoring the faulty tooltip it gives you the same effective dps while requiring less mana per second and most important giving you better freezing.
With higher damage per hit you not only freeze longer (might be irrelevant as one should be 1-2 hitting trash mobs anyway) but you make it over the freezing threshold more often versus bosses. You can freeze bosses that have 30% more life than with the faster casting setup. My guess would be that you can't freeze bosses lvl 74 and higher.

BTW with that tree (only 40% manareg) you indeed need very specific gear with lots of mana regeneration.

Video up

"

Bada_Bing wrote:

Cold penetration would be a better choice than faster casting. Ignoring the faulty tooltip it gives you the same effective dps while requiring less mana per second and most important giving you better freezing.
With higher damage per hit you not only freeze longer (might be irrelevant as one should be 1-2 hitting trash mobs anyway) but you make it over the freezing threshold more often versus bosses. You can freeze bosses that have 30% more life than with the faster casting setup. My guess would be that you can't freeze bosses lvl 74 and higher.

BTW with that tree (only 40% manareg) you indeed need very specific gear with lots of mana regeneration.

I agree that Cold Penetration is one of the most important gems, because nearly all my damage is cold, except some lightning that HoT gives. And if I had 5l, I would definitely use it, but right now Faster Casting just feels a lot smoother and improves the ability to kite. Also, I haven't run into much problems vs cold resist mobs. Blue zombies will go down a bit slower and so will cold resistant rares with Purity of Elements aura. Its just not nearly as bad as, for example, when playing Fire Trap without Fire Pen and trying to kill fire resistant mobs. Probably because FP is a lot of smaller hits, while Fire Trap is 1-2 big ones.

Mana regen is indeed a hard thing to manage with skipping so many regen nodes. With good jewelry and aura effect nodes for Clarity I can run lvl 18 AA at the moment quite comfortably. I will have some problems when I get it to level 20 or higher, but there are more mana regen nodes to pick as I level up(Templar/Witch start).

Thanks for feedback!

Gear update.