[1.3] The Frozen Orb Duelist

This is an Archer (bow & arrow) build that utilizes the Duelist start point to obtain the require passive skills to maximize damage and survivability for this build.


Concept
The main part I love about PoE is making builds and my original goal was to make something similar to Frozen Orb spell from Diablo 2. I tried to make Witch caster using Ball lightning, maximizing AoE and Three Dragon's mask to convert shock to freeze. The results were mildly interesting and I eventually got bored of it due to its lack of damage as Ball Lightning is in my opinion, a terrible skill the GGG released prematurely.

The next skill I that I felt had potential to imitate the mechanics of Frozen Orb was Tornado Shot. After looking into ways to achieve a high amount of Cold Damage while maintaining good DPS, I found that Physical Damage conversion to Cold Damage along with Increased Weapon Elemental Damage from Passive Skill and Support Gems greatly increase the Cold Damage output.


Build Required Items
There are 2 cheap Unique Items that are required to make this build work:

Asphyxia's Wrath* (Quiver) & Hrimsorrow (Gloves)


*The Asphyxia's Wrath that I use has additional arrow mod which I bought for 1 exalt. This is not a must and can be swapped for the corrupted mod of "XX% Physical Damage converted to Cold Damage" for even more Cold Damage output.

These 2 uniques are very cheap as there is limited to almost no foreseeable use in high level builds. However, these items when used together converts 45% of your physical damage to cold damage which provides a large amount of cold damage to your bow attacks.

With these 2 items, you effectively turn Tornado Shot into something similar to Frozen Orb spell.

I have always dream of building a fun build that freezes and shatters almost everything it kills while maintaining a good damage output and map clear speed, without costing a your left kidney, and this build seems to have hit the spot.

Gameplay Video (Level 90)


Pros & Cons


Skill tree at various levels:


Bandit Quest Reward choices


Skills & Support Gems


Current Gear / Item setup:


Flask Setup


Build Playstyle
- Play this build like you would with any standard archer character
- Keep moving and don't stand still like a turret
- Be ready to kite enemies that don't die in a few hits
- Know that this build is rather squishy, don't try to tank
- Swap between a few shots of Tornado Shot and a shot of Ice Arrow to freeze/ ice patch
- Skill cycle: Split Arrow (with Curse on Hit) > Ice Arrow > Tornado Shot > repeat as required
- Use Ice Arrow when dealing with reflect physical as you will convert 85% of your physical damage to cold damage


High Level Mapping & Map Mods
- Most Maps up to level 78 aren't a problem for this character and can run them rather quickly
- Thrives on doing increased pack size and fracture (swap LMP to GMP for total destruction)
- Swap out Added Fire for Life Leech when doing reflect maps
- Swap out Added Cold for Mana Leech when doing 50% or no mana/hp regen maps
- Elemental Weakness Curse & Minus Max Elemental Resist maps shouldn't be a problem as long as you play carefully


Atziri Viability: YES!
- Stand in a line with the 2 Vaal Construct Bosses (not between) and spam Tornado Shot until 1 dies leaving the other with low HP
- Kill the Melee Cleaver followed by Cycloner by kiting them in a box around the boss area and lastly the Ranged guy which is easy
- Use Tornado Shot in her normal and invulnerable phase. Use Ice Arrow to burst down one of her images in her split phase
- Died once to Vaal Constructs on my first try but I got a Mortal Hope drop after dropping Atziri XD


I don't usually record while PoE, but if there is a request, I can add one showing what this build can do.

I am currently almost reaching level 90 and this build makes it a breeze to run maps. Will add more to this build as I work my way around the passive skill tree. Target is to reach level 95.

Feel free to leave a question or suggestion on ideas to improve this build, I am all ears.

Please be gentle, its my first time sharing a build idea :)

Added a couple of images and made some minor changes.

I'd like to see the build in action, just to know what it looks like.

I tried to do something similar a while ago, but got bored pretty quick, hope your build is much better than the crap I made back in the day. :D

Ya, it took me a while to figure a way to make a fun build that emphasizes on dealing cold damage while maintaining a respectable DPS and survivability.


As requested, I have made and uploaded a video.

The video shows this character running a level 77 map from Zana.
Map Mods are:
- Chilled ground
- Increased Monster Cold Resist by 50%
- Increased Monster Cold Damage by 87%.

This character easily breeze through the map eventhough there increased cold resist which makes my effective DPS only around 75% instead of 100%. The Chimeras and Chill Ground further slows me down but only barely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CJYabeF9Z8&feature=youtu.be


Cheers :)

What advantages does this have that would make me want to use this build over a regular tornado shot one?

"

Sammun wrote:

What advantages does this have that would make me want to use this build over a regular tornado shot one?

I am not too sure about regular tornado shot builds as I never tried one.

My guess that it would be the fun of freezing or chilling all the monsters you run into and also barely leaving any unshattered corpses.

Main goal was to build something like Frozen Orb which is a projectile leaving the player, while releasing more projectiles and to use cheap and totally underused uniques like Hrimsorrow and Asphyxia's Wrath.

and you don't need to buy a Drillneck which I think most Tornado Shot builds are made around. A Drillneck probably cost my entire built with change to spare haha.


Uploaded another video of this build running a Level 77 Shipyard with Fracture and Increased Monster Speed Mods.

Link: http://youtu.be/K8yn5PkXcrs

Thanks for the person who mentioned that I didn't put up the bandit quest choices, totally slipped me.

Bandit quest reward choices:

Normal: Help Oak for bonus HP
Cruel: Help Oak for bonus Physical Damage
Merciless: Kill all 3 bandit lords for 1 free skill point

Also added to original post above.

This build is fun so far.

Started a new character in Standard, was getting bored of Torment. I had some of the items needed, but bought seven quivers and corrupted plus 1 arrow on, ofcourse the worst one ;) ..

I'm having a blast so far and can't wait to see how it scales later. Having a few mana issues early on, but I figure it will be corrected as I move on in the tree. I really enjoy the Frost experience, always seen it as lacking in the "mage" department, now I'm getting that feel, albeit with a bow, but never the less it feels caster like.

big thumps up so far, will follow the thread, and hope more pick up on it. I'll comment as I get further.

just stopped reading and i really wanted to say that ball lightning is actually one of if not the best lightning skill and i find this general hate train about really misleading for a lot of people , if you think ball lightning sucks then you probably don`t know how to build around it , sorry but had to say it.No need to mislead people..