[2.1] Freezing Infernal Blow || Glacial Hammer + Herald of Ice Build

Overall 2.1 has buffed this build by a LOT. I think the new patch has made it very strong.

No changes to the passive tree. Replace AA with Blasphemy + Frostbite for more freeze and damage. Melee Splash got buffed HARD, so expect to clear a lot better if using Glacial Hammer. Due to the reduced mana cost of glacial hammer and changes to mana, you can run this completely off mana regeneration alone.

I don't recommend going dual curse, but if you want to, I suggest using Warlord's Mark and grabbing the extra curse node. You will also need some reduced mana reserved (around 14% from the Templar wheel) to pull this off.

My level 87 character for reference (Pizzahippo)- https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/supreme_pizza/characters

So I've always wanted to make a build revolving around Herald of Ice and its on-kill mechanic. This build's aim is to trigger Herald of Ice through shattering enemies and then deal substantial AoE damage through Herald of Ice. Herald of Ice will also be able to freeze and shatter enemies and this will thus trigger a chain reaction of Herald of Ice explosions.

Glacial Hammer is an underused skill that is very effective at Freezing. Our build allows us to obtain 60% Freeze chance which will then shatter with Herald of Ice explosions for an Infernal Blow effect. Video shown below.This skill is interchangeable with Ice Crash depending on preference.

Ice crash also works quite well since Ice crash itself does damage unevenly over 3 stages, with the outer-most region dealing 40% less damage. With Herald of Ice, the inner region dies first, which triggers the Herald of Ice explosions, which then quickly kill off and shotgun the outer regions, and also damage its surroundings, thus making them a very powerful combo.

To make this build work, we need a significant amount of cold/elemental damage + Frenzy Charges to scale up Herald of Ice. Crit would be unviable as HoI has 0% base critical strike chance. This also means we have to rely on % Freeze chance to freeze our enemies. Unfortunately, there are no full cold weapons (aside from Dyadus-Offhand), so we need to try and convert as much of our physical damage to cold damage to achieve a lengthy freeze duration.

This is accomplished with the Moonbender unique Axe, which converts 25% physical to cold damage and 25% physical damage to lightning damage. The 25% lightning damage allows us to shock enemies for 50% more damage and is also scaled up with elemental damage nodes (such as from Doryani's Catalyst).



Anyways, there's also a lot of other very interesting synergies in this build which I'll explore later throughout the guide. Keep in mind this build still isn't in its final form just yet and I may be updating it further in the future.

Glacial Hammer version (replace IC and Melee Physical damage with Glacial Hammer and Melee Splash)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI1g7DR40Tg

Ice Crash, T9 Gorge Run with increased monster damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkZX-kugdPY

Pros

- Very Budget to gear, roughly 1 Exalt total.
- Unique build
- Many explosions, looks very cool
- High Clear Speed
- Tanky
- Fun to Play
- Heaps of Freeze

Cons

- Heaps of Explosions so might lag a little
- Can't run BM / Ele-Reflect maps
- Hard to level with, since essential gear has high level requirements

This is my current gear at the moment. Overall it is quite cheap, and since we use a lot of uniques, we don't have to spend a lot of effort towards finding good rare gear.



I use Doryani's Catalyst as my main weapon, this weapon has very high DPS and is also quite cheap these days, I managed to get mine for around 30 chaos. Basically, since our build will be converting 100% of physical to elemental damage, we can really take advantage of the 100% increased elemental damage from Doryani's. The elemental damage also provides a significant bonus to our Herald of Ice damage, which is very crucial. Another thing to note is the elemental damage leech which applies to both our attacks AND Herald of Ice, therefore giving us a fair chunk of survivability.



I use Devoto's Devotion as our helm of choice. This helm gives us a very nice 16% attack speed and some good chaos resistance + Armour. But the main selling point is the massive dexterity it offers. Up to 65 dexterity along with our unique amulet basically covers all the dexterity we need, and we don't have to bother getting Dex elsewhere. All these benefits make this helm a very solid choice for our build.



As mentioned earlier, I use a moonbender in our offhand for full physical to elemental damage conversion. The 25% lightning damage allows us to shock enemies with our 15% shock chance. This will allow us to gain the full benefit of increases to both elemental and physical damage. The axe also offers a level 1 lightning warp, but this is rather useless.



This is my chest-piece. Any rare 5L chest is a viable option. I was originally going to go for a 5L Belly but then I alched this chest and decided to keep it. So you can either use this or a 5L Belly/LC. Each has its own perks and is based on preference.



Standard gloves, I managed to get a high armour one that also gives me some nice life. Try to stack as much armour as you can since we will be getting quite a bit of % armour from the tree. Also look for "increased attack speed" or "added cold damage to attacks" if you can.



Now, we need these boots because of Unwavering Stance. Trust me, getting stunned is not fun at all. We give up the evasion from our Devoto's but it is well worth it. The boots also provide a significant life bonus which is really nice to have. The only downside is the lack of sockets but it is manageable.



We are using Dyadian Dawn as our belt, aside from the high resistances and life it offers, it also provides us with 0.6% attack damage leech, which is huge for our build (3 times the effectiveness of the leech from Catalyst!). Since we have 100% physical to elemental damage conversion anyway, we don't have to worry about the "deal no physical damage" effect.



This is our amulet, it offers a very nice bonus to dexterity, which when coupled with our Devoto's Devotion, fulfills all our dexterity needs. The 20% increased Freeze and Shock duration are very helpful towards maintaining long freezes. The 5% chance to freeze and shock is also very nice to have, along with the Life and Mana. The reduced item attributes requirement also helps us as we can grab less dexterity than necessary.

Since we aren't a crit build, we have no need for power charges anyways.



For our rings, just grab resistances, life and cold/elemental damage if possible. Also try and get as much % increased mana regeneration rate as you can. As we will not be relying on mana leech but mana regen instead from Rallying Cry.

The Ideal Flask of choice would be "Taste of Hate". This would be the best flask for our build but it is too expensive for me at the moment. It provides a lot of additional cold damage which will help freeze and it provides a lot of survivability. We can also make the flask run for a lengthy duration since we are always using our mana.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgAAlKDYTRhW2mL56Gh02L3-Crc-QYeDXzwtg8xTpRynDF_GrsT2_lQNzStQHM6vp4Y7FPY9D3flfLtX4oKb7SA62JBVJy8aOHIPWfNG11cpcYUwlzmKsUL60maeFm_jajbpJKqPRh0UHxjNFlH7VcY6WKyY99eboQQHg9tMs-_rPV9SU5eVwFQI9G0Zl_RqQ7zqU9SNgtHknwEXVEwtEQ8igZ6hVkqOPDsNogDhc8BmBLPvfDwFaPLwH3Kp15ZoWInYfNn3MmZUlG-mVzrh8kX-jzWSTeM=

Bandits: Oak - Kraityn - Kraityn

This is our 106 point Skill Tree layout. As you can see, defensively we grab 106% increased armour, 174% increased life and 5% life regen. This will allow us to regen through Bloodrage.

Offensively, we grab a lot of elemental damage, some physical damage, cold damage and 6 jewel sockets. The usage of these jewel sockets I will explain below. We also pick up 36% increased AoE to increase the radius of our Ice crash significantly. We also get 40% mana regeneration rate to maintain Ice Crash.

We only obtain 1 keystone, Resolute Technique. Unwavering Stance will be obtained from Kaom's Roots.

For the 6 jewels sockets that we have, we need at least +2 mana gained on hit somewhere, (+4 mana gained is ideal if possible). The rest can be divided from the affixes listed below.

- % Freeze duration + Freeze chance
- % Increased area damage
- % Increased cold damage
- % Increased melee damage
- % Increased physical damage with one-handed Melee weapons
- % Increased physical damage with maces
- % Increased damage
- % Increased physical damage
- % Increased physical damage while dual-wielding

- % Increased attack speed
- % Increased attack speed while dual-wielding
- % Increased attack speed with maces
- % Increased attack and cast speed
- % Increased attack speed with one handed melee weapons

- % Increased Maximum Life
- % Increased Resistances
- % Increased Armour

Try to get jewels with at least 3 of these mods in total, 4 is ideal. Also try to get any additional attributes if necessary.

Here are the ones I use at the moment. They are quite cheap I got them for around 2-4 chaos each.

These are the gem links I use.

For Ice Crash / Glacial Hammer:



Replace Melee Physical damage and Ice Crash with Glacial Hammer and Melee Splash, to run GH variant.



Try to 20q your Ice crash / Glacial Hammer with 'Perfection' if possible since it gives a nice cold damage bonus / Freeze duration. For a 6L, I would recommend perhaps Added Cold damage or Life Leech/ Life gain on Hit. Increased AoE is also nice, but we already have 36% from the tree so we don't have to go overboard with heaps of AoE.

For Herald of Ice:



This provides the biggest damage output for Herald of Ice while also maintaing a decent mana reservation. Increased AoE along with the % Increased AoE from our passive tree turn Herald of Ice into a mini-Ice Nova.

For Defense:


Cast when damage taken and temporal chains work really well together. The temporal chains also has the added benefit of increasing our freeze duration. Since we can obtain 20q easily through perfection, I highly recommend having a 20q Temp chains, because this will make our Temp chains equivalent to a level 23 one with no quality.

For Mobility:



Standard Leap Slam + Fortify, very nice to have and the fortify bonus is very handy. The leap slam also provides chill to enemies and this will boost our Ice crash / GH damage since we have Hypothermia.

For Utility:



Rallying Cry will be our main source of mana sustain along with mana gained on hit. With a level 20 Rallying Cry, it would be similar to having a level 20 clarity. With Increased duration, one shot of Rallying Cry lasts over 12-14 seconds. For packs, the mana regen isn't really needed due to mana gained on hit, but for single target rare enemies, it might be necessary to pop it before engaging them. Also note that Rallying cry also provides us with a lot of bonus damage, so use it every 12-14 seconds if possible.

We also have Bloodrage for the increased attack speed and frenzy charge duration. Frenzy charges are important because they scale up the damage for our Herald of Ice as well. Keep the Bloodrage at low levels though (level 14), since it is hard to get enough dex to sustain it.

Other:



Arctic armour provides that extra boost to defences. The chill on enemies also boosts our damage indirectly from Hypothermia. Either way, it is a very good addition, since when we are 'Ice Crashing', we aren't moving around like Cyclone. Portal is nice and optional if you want to save on TP scrolls.

Leveling will be quite difficult early on, I would probably recommend leveling with Flame Totem + Firestorm, as it is the fastest method towards leveling.

Since we get our gear quite late, it may be better to go Ancestral bond (since it is very close) and some fire nodes, then respec at around level 61. I suggest using this weapon:



Before switching to Catalyst at level 75.

All in all, a very enjoyable build guide for me to make. Feel free to leave any comments or questions below and I'll try my best to answer them.

Thanks for reading!