Mors' Max Str, Ironwill, Freeze pulse build (updated for 1.3 tree (tentative)

You seem pretty dead set on EK. I gave it a whirl just a bit ago and honestly they feel pretty similar. The tooltip really doesn't reflect the sort of damage FP is doing and I guess in my case I prefer it for mobility/cc reasons and that the projectiles do reach much farther than EK does.

I also had no fucking idea those boots existed. It wouldn't be a utterly massive dps increase for me but I definitely want to see for myself. I also had no clue there was a cast speed shield mod, although I doubt I can maneuver much more with resists on gear.

The tankyness of my character has always felt good which is something I guess I neglected to mention.

"

but I think FP is not the best choice for going IW.

Could you elaborate? It seems pretty apt given the ideal dps range is melee.

Really I'm just curious if there's another approach to this skill wise since the build itself is pretty nondiscriminatory. A number of things have come out since Mors made this build originally (Tendrils, Cascade, Flame Surge). I almost never use the flame trap in my Doon and sort of wonder if I shouldn't just be using Vaal Gems instead.

Possible Range and Effective Range

"

The tooltip really doesn't reflect the sort of damage FP is doing and I guess in my case I prefer it for mobility/cc reasons and that the projectiles do reach much farther than EK does.

While FP might reach farther than EK (especially with quality), it barely deals any damage at max distance. It also certainly is true that the damage of point blank FP shotgun is massive.
Ek on the other hand deals normal damage at max distance, but cannot shotgun nor reliably hit something at max distance (due to fixed spread).
I personally think while engaging at long distance with EK, even only actually hitting 75% of the time, gives me far better options as FP does.
And and at certain times I really value that option (Igna Phoenix)



Gearing: Damage and Resists

"

I also had no fucking idea those boots existed. It wouldn't be a utterly massive dps increase for me but I definitely want to see for myself. I also had no clue there was a cast speed shield mod, although I doubt I can maneuver much more with resists on gear.

I really like Alberon's Warpath, as with my usual gear I have around 900 base STR, which means an additional 160 STR.
Yeah, resists sometimes are a problem, but I try to run a rare amulett instead of Astramentis, because I can get HP/resist on it.

I think you really undervalue how big of an damageboost cast speed is.

Both of those shields costed me 1-2 chaos, and give both more than 1k DPS.
While it is not easy to cap resists with that setup (2 res slots on each ring, 1 on amulett, 2 on belt, 2 on helmet, 1 on shield) it's also not THAT hard to do, and is well worth the effort.



Ethereal Knives vs. Freezing Pulse

"

"

but I think FP is not the best choice for going IW.

Could you elaborate? It seems pretty apt given the ideal dps range is melee.

Well, as mentioned above, EK gives more options regarding distance at which to engage.
It also benefits more slightly from passives (Path of the Warrior) and gear (Meginord's Vise). It is also way easier to get the right socket colors on chest you'd usually want to wear with that kinda build (usually Belly of the Beast due to insane base life) or Lightning Coil (if you find you can sacrifice some damage aura for Purity of Lightning, makes gearing for resists even more annoying without PoL)
BBB is far harder to get than BB.
While you might feel that a 20% Faster Projectiles is better than Faster Casting, FC makes you far more mobile (due to not being locked for long with spell echo).
Also, with Faster Projectiles the spread with EK gets even more annoying and FP gets even farther away from it's ideal distance.

My biggest reason for thinking that EK might be the way to go, is die way damage is scaled and dsitributed:
with FP, the bulk of your damage will be Cold (obviously). Which means to have somewhat of a problem against resitant mobs. Thus you need to run Cold Penetration to be somewhat efficient. It also means you have a big problem with ele reflect as you either have to carry a Sapphire Flask.
The support gems that are really good with FP are (does not include general caster supports like Echo, FC, Empower... or crit supports):
Cold Pen
Faster Projectiles
The auras you'd probably wanna use with FP:
Herald of Ice
Herald of Thunder
Purity of Ice
Haste
Both Heralds are (from the point of added damage) rather lackluster, as you have quite the reduced effectivness (50 less from GMP, 10 less from Echo) which results in shorter shocks.
Haste is only really good if you invest a lot in aura effectiveness and it's not really usable if you do not have Astramentis.

To compare:
EK does not need GMP or LMP, so the effectiveness of added damage of any kind is high.
It also is physical damage which you already want high mitigation against and it can only ever hit 9 targets at once, so reflect is hardly a problem.
Physical does not get resisted like elemental does, so you also need no penetration gem.
It also has insanely good support with gems/auras
Gems
Added Fire
Auras
Herald of Ash
Herald of Ice
Herald of Thunder
Hatred
With EK, you can (and should) run all heralds AND hatred which not only doubles you per-hit damage, but also spreads it over different elements.
3 of those supports (Added Fire, Herald of Ash and Hatred) scale with your base damage, thus provide far more per hit damage (and average damage) than you could get with FP.
As your damages is split quite evenly between physical and elemental, you do not suffer very much from reflect (and thus have no need for something like PoI) but you suffer from both types a little.
Also, keep in mind that Inner Force buffs 2/3 of your main % damage buffs.

All in all, EK has a far wider damage spectrum, with far less reasons to worry about reflect/resist

Curses
Without a shadow of a doubt, FP has by far the better curses available.
Frostbite makes you king of freezing and Elemental Weakness helps out Herald of THunder too.
You might also go for Assassin's Mark or Projectile Weakness if you should choose so.
Curses make FP shine.
Curses for EK on the other hand suck. A lot.
You realistically can only use either Vulnerability or Projectile Weakness.
Vulnerability increases only part of your damage, and even that by not very much.
Projectile Weakness on the other hand does buff everything and gives insanely awesome pierce.
On the other hand the knockback might actually push your opponents out of range. The high DEX requirement makes it only usable with Astramentis.
So what's left for EK?
Well, as we have jackshit to boost our damage, we can use defensive curses.
While Enfeeble is nice for bosses, I really prefer Warlord's Mark in my CWDT setup.
Lifeleech is usefull, Manaleech makes No/Half Regeneration maps playable and Endurance charges on kill is also highly usefull. Now we also neither have to use Life Leech gem, nur Doryani's Invitation.

So, FP has far better curses to boost its damage, while EK gets a little utility.
Sounds like FP is far ahead.
But remember that Map/Act bosses have 60/70% reduced curse effect on them and usually far more resists than you can lower.
So curses are most effective against targets that do not need to be cursed.

PS


PPS




Pro's and Con's of other choices

Well, I have been playing IW variants for more than a year now and can comment on a few skillchoices:
Glacial Cascade

Flame Surge

Lightning Tendrils


Opinion about skills I havent tested a lot:
Arc - even more limited hits than EK, lightning damae range
Arctic Breath - seems worse than FP
Ball Lightning - feels like it moves way to slow to have good clear speed
Cold Snap - might actually be decent with Romira's Banquet
Ice spear - not enough crit mutli on left side of tree

Generally I think Tendrils is the most promising. I might retest it with the new Templar area.
Personally, I hate leaving Marauder/Templar Area and I have problems with skills that require too many offcolors on Belly of the Beast.
I personally try to not use stuff that is too expensive or hard to get.

Edit:
Just respecced another 84 Marauder to test out tendrils with new tree.
Lvl 16 Tendrils = 20k DPS
Tendrils - Faster Casting - Lightning Penetration - Iron Will - Empower (lvl 2) - Concentrated Effect
Insane mana cost though
I'd reccomend it for anyone who can live without Belly

TL;DR

The biuld would be good to alpha howl? Why so we could put some more aura not?

Ey man thanks for the insight, tendrils really does sound exciting. I know on paper the Heralds shouldn't be very effective but honestly I'm about to hit 80 in bloodlines and have just been shitblasting through maps (in comparison to when I hadn't been using both). I'm really starting to like this guy.

Cold Snap seemed pretty sick when watching Zenociders's build, shame it uses a 6L Carcass and really struggles with ele reflect since the damage comes in such large pulses.

Hopefully I find another six link to mess around with to test out some of these skills.

"

Teddi wrote:

The biuld would be good to alpha howl? Why so we could put some more aura not?

In my case I'd be spewing like 80 life and 40 str for slightly more effective auras. I think the only purpose howl serves is for elemental builds that use Wrath/Hatred where the levels matter. For us a 22 Haste and Grace would mean 1% more cast speed and 200 more EV.

"

Ey man thanks for the insight, tendrils really does sound exciting. I know on paper the Heralds shouldn't be very effective but honestly I'm about to hit 80 in bloodlines and have just been shitblasting through maps (in comparison to when I hadn't been using both). I'm really starting to like this guy.

The Heralds (at least HoI and HoT) are pretty much the only damage "auras" you get as a caster, so I think you have no choice but to use them.
The mentioned ones are after all like adding half an Added Cold/Added Lightning gem to your spells.
If you manage to get Inner Force though, they get really really exciting.
This is also the reason I prefer EK.
A Inner Force buffed Herald of Ash adds ~19% of your phys as fire damage, which is basically like linking and additional lvl 1 Added Fire Damage.

Also, if you have access to Elementalist and Celesital Punishment, they increase the chance of you doing 25% increased damage.
In case of HoI, even if you freeze and shatter just one mob in the pack, the explosion can trigger a chainreaction, killing off the whole pack.

When I first tried C Punishment, I thought it might be gimmicky and I might have to drop it.
But doing even 70+ maps it feels like it adds so much.
HoT is proccing constantly, mobs and packs shatter quite often and I often see burning mobs.


Edit:
If you dont have any negative multipliers (LMP/GMP) the damage they add is quite nice.
At lvl 18 Gems and same level EK
HoT adds 49-799
HoA adds 249-374
HoI adds 247-332
and Hatred 650-976
@ 920 STR with mediocre gear (still missing a little bit lightning res)

@Aernilion thank you so much for your updates on the build I was really interested in trying it out in torment league. So are you still using the tree you posted a page back?

@hewbiebrown
http://poeurl.com/y9sRjLI
my current tree, lvl 81.
Managed to get Vorici to 6 so I socketed belly.
Still running 73 maps with ~41 Lightning res and a 13k DPS with a 3L.

I recently took Righteous Decree to make sure I could sustain a 6L (or atm half regen maps).
Now going for Duelist endurance charge.

If you plan to start level with it, you might wanna make use of the Diamond Skin cluster.
Also you can use Lifesprig/Reverberation Rod until you get a Doon

"

The Heralds (at least HoI and HoT) are pretty much the only damage "auras" you get as a caster, so I think you have no choice but to use them.

What about Righteous Fire? Starting to think about it as of late. Like presently I'm reserving a herald on blood magic but it sure would be nice to not have to.

I actually played an IW GC with RF in Domination (or Anarchy, no idea).
While it certainly is powerful, I always felt like playing an RF char with GC instead the other way round.
Also was a giant pita to not be able to do 50/25 regen maps.
I also disliked that I had to use a mediocre shield.

All in all it might be worth it if you play in a party, but if you play alone the damage should more than suffice.

I updated with a tentative 1.3 tree, I've seen a lot of discussion in these pages about the build and how to play and adapt it to other gems, which is fantastic!