[3.25] Ice Crash-Jugg-2h-Axe-Crit (FREEZE THE GAME) 100% Crit Rate Full Screen Explosions

"

Would you mind taking a look at my gear and telling me what I should look to upgrade next?

Ideal flashripper for tearing through red maps has decent attack speed, crit chance and crit multi rolls and at least one mid-tier pDPS mod, leaving space to craft the other. Two solid pDPS prefixes and space to craft a relevant suffix (or something you can easily lop off with harvest crafting) is also good.

If you can get 350+ pDPS you should be fine farming currency for your other BiS pieces (pandemonius especially). Avoid flat cold like the plague, we scale off phys, though added cold as the third prefix mod is fine since you can harvest annul that off if you want to redeemer slam later for a chance at %phys as added cold.

You can potentially save money on the axe by getting a 5 link (ensure it still has 6 sockets though). Your warcry setup can go in it (get inc aoe support, helps a tonne with knockback and power generation). Some people will list good dps axes that aren't 5 links much cheaper because they don't think people will be as keen to buy them if they aren't fully linked. Works out well for us!

Try to search for some surgebinders with max rolls (7%) on the buffs for endurance and frenzy charges. Should still be very cheap.

You also want a stygian vise ASAP to get an abyss jewel with onslaught on kill in. Can also get a bit more flat life on that jewel, and unholy might on kill if you want. You also want to get an Abyssus going as soon as you can fix your resists (best way is via jewels imo). You can get another jewel socket by dropping Diamond Skin - a good and relatively cheap jewel can net you more resists than that passive and %life/more damage/both on top.

Get lion's roar and wise oak ASAP. Drop quicksilver flask. Also try to get an instant or half-instant life flask.

Thanks for the help! I was able to grab a Redeemer base for 3c and craft this item for almost nothing. It gave me a 30k dps increase, and that's without Harvest shenanigans! :)

I think the build is just too squishy. Maybe get rid of the Abyssus helmet.

edit: invested already around 13ex in this build and still has problems with High Red Tier.

Im not really sure, if this build is viable.

Already well over 20ex into this build. Nearly perfect gear but the survivability is just not there.
Red maps are terrible, even with all stacks up.
Bosses that get juiced up by the maven can and will one shot you. Even on t13s.

Not sure where this build lost it, but it's definately NOT viable.

Haven't played in a long time (since 3.9), but I'm having a blast with the build so far, thanks a lot for sharing it.

I'm currently farming simulacrums with this build. Not deathless, but clearing wave 20 every time. Hitting tier 5 rewards on most rounds. Can clear t16s with ease. Bosses do not 'oneshot' me. I farm A9 Sirus and rare elder/shaper maven 4 ways comfortably.

"

Nearly perfect gear but the survivability is just not there.

How do you have 'nearly perfect gear' if you do not have a 6 link? Your anoint is bad (oils are mega cheap, get Heart of Ice ASAP), you haven't upgraded out of kaom's and don't even have a relevant corrupt or enchant on them (+1 endurance charge with decent life is not expensive). Your axe has no attack speed - no wonder you are having a hard time surviving. Things are hitting you before you are hitting them, and your leap slam must be horribly slow. Redeemer cold mod on your axe should be the last thing you invest in - you have no added crit chance or crit multi. You are also only level 88. Your jewels are 'just starting maps'-tier. Your abyssus also has a high extra phys dmg taken mod. You are very far from being 'nearly perfect' by any estimate.

Do not call a build 'not viable' if you are simply gimping your mapping and bossing potential with poor gear investments. I honestly have no idea how you've invested 20ex into your gear unless you were scammed on something.

"

I think the build is just too squishy. Maybe get rid of the Abyssus helmet.

Abyssus provides a third of my dps. We mitigate against the added phys by having 90% phys dmg reduction. We are more vulenrable to elemental damage than phys, even with abyssus. Check your PoB calculations.

"

Thanks for the help! I was able to grab a Redeemer base for 3c and craft this item for almost nothing. It gave me a 30k dps increase, and that's without Harvest shenanigans! :)

Not bad at all, but needs attack speed slammed asap. The problem with crafting with a redeemer base though is that you can hit a movespeed suffix instead (about a 1/9 chance, but happened to me once). If you plan to farm harvest I would hold onto any currency you get and see if a well-built non-influenced axe comes up (livesearch helps a lot). It will probably be cheaper to buy a solid axe that's missing one craftable mod and redeemer exalt slam later for the extra cold mod instead.

I could also sell you one of my old axes - has everything except a flat lightning mod that needs to be harvest annulled off to make space for a redeemer slam.

Spiked gloves or debilitation gauntlets? The +2 sec to warcry cd could hurt survivability with less enduring uptime but if we're taking deep breaths can that mitigate the issue somewhat?

Also on the topic of deep breaths, if we're taking that do we still need the increased AoE support on our warcries? If we switch to a second wind only setup we can move that to another piece of gear and have a possible 6L for... Something. I have no idea what that can be and how much it can benefit the build doe, just a thought. I'm not good enough at the game yet to think that out myself.

@jekojeko

My build is perfectly fine on defensive layers. The attack speed does not hurt this build that much and leap slam is instant as it is. For a build that claims most content is "laughable" it just does not what is promised. You better dodge the hell out of shit if you want to live. The 10% on the abyssus isn't changing that fact.
Heart of ice is a nice dps addition, but still does nothing for the survivability.
As in terms of costs: Pandemonious is expensive, a good circle of fear is expensive. A mediocre fleshripper is easily 3ex. Yes I could've shaved off a few pennies here and there, but still running around on a 10+ exalt build and struggling with red maps. That does not justify calling this build a "league starter."

At best it's a decent boss killer at min-maxed gear. With good enough mechanics and no lag to get around it's clear weaknesses.

If I wanted to play a dodge/out dps enemies build to survive, I'd opt for a non tanky and non melee build.

Just my 2 cents.

I took a peeksie at your current variant of this character and noticed some changes to the skill tree/ascendancy points that aren't in the linked POBs. Do you feel what you have right now is running better than what you used before?

Cheers!

"

My build is perfectly fine on defensive layers. The attack speed does not hurt this build that much and leap slam is instant as it is. For a build that claims most content is "laughable" it just does not what is promised. You better dodge the hell out of shit if you want to live. The 10% on the abyssus isn't changing that fact.
Heart of ice is a nice dps addition, but still does nothing for the survivability.
As in terms of costs: Pandemonious is expensive, a good circle of fear is expensive. A mediocre fleshripper is easily 3ex.

Sorry, but this is nonsense. You've come in here claiming the build is 'not viable' while other people here and elsewhere are doing endgame content with it and having a blast. Everything you're saying here just betrays that you don't know how to properly build and scale a character yourself, and you just want to blame that on someone else's build, which you aren't even following properly in the first place. This is like coming to a chef and telling them their recipe is bad, when you put half as much flour in as you were supposed to and left it in the oven for five hours too long.

Lower attack speed means it takes you longer to hit things which gives them more time to hit you while you are standing still swinging your big axe down. This is not rocket science. We do not have any block and we do not stack dodge or evasion, so even at max endurance charges and resists we are going to die if we get hit by too many things at once, because they will generally all hit us. Try doing wave 20 of a simulacrum and tell me that attack speed does not help your survivability.

If your leap slam really is 'instant', then why is 'dodging the hell out of shit' a problem for you? In reality, it is not nearly as instant as other travel skills, and attack speed scaling helps it alot. That is why the alt quality version of leap slam that gives bonus attack speed is decently pricey. 5 ex for an uncorrupted 20/20 at the time of writing. But hey, those people must be really getting scammed if leap slam is 'instant', right?

Again, more DPS is absolutely more survivability for a build like this. More DPS means you oneshot mobs more reliably. More DPS means you can do that without even using warcries.

Pandemonius was only expensive at the start of the league. At the time of writing this, it is only around 75c. Far from expensive now.

A 'good' circle of fear is a minor upgrade from one that just gives us the cold damage buff and a relevant implicit or two. I am doing endgame content with one that did not cost more than a single exalt.

I killed A8 Sirus with an axe that has been sitting in my sell tab listed for a single exalt for a while now, and no-one is buying it, so I doubt it's even worth that.

"

Yes I could've shaved off a few pennies here and there, but still running around on a 10+ exalt build and struggling with red maps. That does not justify calling this build a "league starter."

I league started with it and got all watchstones and started comfortably clearing rare 10 boss invites and Realms fights after about a week. So yes, it worked perfectly as a league starter for me. So it works perfectly as a league starter, period. So the problem, again, must be you.

How you spent 10+ exalts (funny how that's gone down from 20+, huh?) and didn't get a 6 link setup for ice crash as a first priority beggars belief, to be honest. At least that part makes it obvious to everyone that you really don't know what you're doing and, again, that you're just looking to blaim your own failed league start on someone else's hard work. And that's really unfair, in my opinion.

"

At best it's a decent boss killer at min-maxed gear.

I can currently phase A9 Sirus in a matter of seconds, and I've hardly 'mix-maxed'. My axe can get much stronger, my jewels likewise. But yeah, 'decent'.

"

Spiked gloves or debilitation gauntlets? The +2 sec to warcry cd could hurt survivability with less enduring uptime but if we're taking deep breaths can that mitigate the issue somewhat?

If you want to do juiced stuff/simulacrums with this build, I would recommend against anything that decreases warcry uptime. Easier to pick up warlord influenced spiked gloves on the market as well (bought some with culling strike recently, slowly crafting them up).

Deep breaths and inc aoe support are best to use together, I believe. Getting as much AOE as possible on your warcries helps with power generation and knockback in the heat of jumping into big packs. I can't imagine a better 5 or 6 link for the build than the warcry setup listed.