The Frozen Dagger (ST/CoC - Self found, noob friendly) [Gameplay Videos]

Updated Gear and Passive Tree. Will update current stats tomorrow.

Well, this is among the fastest pack clearers without a doubt. But its single-target falls off so hard -- I've used the same character to Cyclone-EK instead.

I advised a friend who was levelling a CoC char to use Spears to level into EK, once the EK gems got substantial damage and his life nodes were up. Seems like a good use of the build so far.

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primaeva wrote:

Well, this is among the fastest pack clearers without a doubt. But its single-target falls off so hard -- I've used the same character to Cyclone-EK instead.

I advised a friend who was levelling a CoC char to use Spears to level into EK, once the EK gems got substantial damage and his life nodes were up. Seems like a good use of the build so far.

Well, clearing packs is most of what farming is all about. Straight Single Target fights are few and far between. Also, the ONLY single targets I have found to be time consuming are bosses. If you can clear packs twice as fast, that more than makes up for 2x longer to kill the 1-2 bosses in a map.

Are you using cyclone/ek exclusively for single target? Or are you running it for everything?

Hey Juggla! Love the build. Been trying it out the past week myself and I'm loving "The Frozen Dagger" :)

Especially the "Frozen" part. So I kind of changed things up a bit and went a slightly different route. I decided to focus on just cold damage (ice spear / cold snap) and go for an Acrobatics build. My thoughts on that were if I'm going high risk, might as well take it all the way! :P ...and I find that with the high freeze rate, dodge works quite naturally. Either shit is frozen, or I dodge, or I evade, or I block, or I go "SHIT SHIT SHIT" and surgeon's health pot through it / whirling blades away / die.

I'm 67 now and just starting 66 maps. They are going REALLY well right now. Clear speed is great, nothing tickles me one bit so far.

Here is my current passive tree at 67:



I picked up the spell damage and some of the cold damage nodes near Shadow start, most of the big evasion wheel near Scion, the evasion/health nodes at Ranger start, and then Acrobatics all the way to Phase Acrobatics. Most of the other stuff is the same. If I make it further in, I'm mostly planning to just pick up more crit/multiplyer, spell damage, and a wee bit more health.

I dropped a bunch of physical damage nodes even though they also gave dagger crit because it wasn't double dipping with my spell crit. On the same note, I ditched Mind Drinker. I wasn't doing enough physical damage to even break my crap energy shield on phys reflect, so I figured the mana gain was minimal (at best). I hardly notice a difference since ditching it. (This was also all BEFORE I started using a level 5 ST (thank you, crafteri for that!))

Gear wise, I have to say right now that Berek's Grip is my savior. I actually picked up a second after seeing how well the first was going.



The total 10% of all damage done to frozen targets in health is more than enough to keep me up through anything that isn't a boss or elemental reflect. And since getting a second, I can even start to hit an ele reflect pack and go "oh shit" in time to NOT kill myself now! (I may have died a...lot...on Ledge farming to ele reflect before this). The added cold damage is also wonderful as my main damage source.

As far as Voll's, it made NO sense to go for one after I picked up Acrobatics. My mana would take a huge hit and just to get the power charges? Instead, I'm currently just running my Tabula Rasa that was on my Summoner.



It's not great. But I need a 6 slot for this to work, so that is all I had. I figure it's actually not that different from a 6L Voll's for this build and works for the time. My goal is to just get a rare, pure evasion 6L.

My current weapon set up is a fun dagger I found and an Ungils



(EDIT: Ignore gems in this dagger; I'm just leveling them :P)

My next big purchase will probably be Alpha's Howl. Especially nice with all that evasion!

And gem wise, nothing too different, though my chest is ST (lvl 5) / LMP (Q12) / CoC / PCoC (Q15) / Ice Spear / Cold Snap.

- - -

This is my first leap into "new build" territory (though it's mostly just an edit) so I'm sure this is all coming off quite rambly. But I just wanted to say thank you to Juggla for posting this build. It's been the most fun I've ever had playing Path of Exile and also the strongest I've ever felt on one of my characters.

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Yordle wrote:

Hey Juggla! Love the build. Been trying it out the past week myself and I'm loving "The Frozen Dagger" :)

So glad to hear it!! :D

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Especially the "Frozen" part. So I kind of changed things up a bit and went a slightly different route. I decided to focus on just cold damage (ice spear / cold snap) and go for an Acrobatics build. My thoughts on that were if I'm going high risk, might as well take it all the way! :P ...and I find that with the high freeze rate, dodge works quite naturally. Either shit is frozen, or I dodge, or I evade, or I block, or I go "SHIT SHIT SHIT" and surgeon's health pot through it / whirling blades away / die.

I also typically use Spear/Snap for the hard content. Currently in 72 maps I almost exclusively run that setup. Unless I roll a cold res rare map then I switch it up. I SERIOUSLY considered going Acro into PAcro. But I just didn't want to give up the damage/crit

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I'm 67 now and just starting 66 maps. They are going REALLY well right now. Clear speed is great, nothing tickles me one bit so far.

Good to hear. Depending on your gear you may notice some drop off in clear speed come early 70's maps. I noticed it specifically at lvl 72. So, I speced into some more dmg.

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Here is my current passive tree at 67:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYBAF4FfQW1BfkILg5IEZYV8Ba_GYYZihmOGo8gnCHAJDwk_SaVJ6ktgy9vMHE6QkLDSVFLeEwyUUxTNVVLVi1W6lptXfJh4mNDbWxte3BScLtw1X1bfXV_xofbjDaS85P8lwabjZu1naOnXKxHrH-uz7MOtMW1SLvjwFHC7MM6xKLGospK037UI9UA1U_ZE92o3nffhOKA44TnVOuO7YPy4fPq9tr7Cfyr_rr_kw==

That looks suspiciously close to a Ranger build I am planning, and have already started in nemesis ;)

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As far as Voll's, it made NO sense to go for one after I picked up Acrobatics. My mana would take a huge hit and just to get the power charges? Instead, I'm currently just running my Tabula Rasa that was on my Summoner.

Yah If I ever come across a godly 6l eva/es chest I will likely drop voll's. But even then I'm not so sure. I have tested and I feel like PCoC just doesn't proc enough to keep up satisfactory Snaps.

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This is my first leap into "new build" territory (though it's mostly just an edit) so I'm sure this is all coming off quite rambly. But I just wanted to say thank you to Juggla for posting this build. It's been the most fun I've ever had playing Path of Exile and also the strongest I've ever felt on one of my characters.

You and me both. It is the ONLY reason I worked so hard on this thread. I want to share the experience with others that don't have an endless supply of currency to build OP chars at the drop of a hat. Also, with those who are like me and have no desire to play the trade game and just want to play the game itself.

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Juggla1570 wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

Well, this is among the fastest pack clearers without a doubt. But its single-target falls off so hard -- I've used the same character to Cyclone-EK instead.

I advised a friend who was levelling a CoC char to use Spears to level into EK, once the EK gems got substantial damage and his life nodes were up. Seems like a good use of the build so far.

Well, clearing packs is most of what farming is all about. Straight Single Target fights are few and far between. Also, the ONLY single targets I have found to be time consuming are bosses. If you can clear packs twice as fast, that more than makes up for 2x longer to kill the 1-2 bosses in a map.

Are you using cyclone/ek exclusively for single target? Or are you running it for everything?

Every map has that boss that we have to deal with - and if not, Piety and Dominus await. Using the same Ice Spear build but chroming into EK is how I switch-- so I can't change them on the fly, I had to make the decision to leave Ice Spear for good :< (for mapping and farming Piety/Dom).

To give you an idea, on the same char, and Ice Spear:

- Piety dies in about 10s if she stands still - much longer and unreliable if she warps away.
- I have yet to defeat Dominus without the use of portals with Ice Spears.

Using EK:

- Piety dies in about 3s if she stands still - longer and unreliable if she runs away. The trick is to let her take the fire buff so she runs to you, then you just spin in her face.
- Dominus pops in about 3s, and goes to phase 2. Phase 2 Dominus pops in about 3s, before Blood Rain is cast.

On clearing mobs: Ice Spear wins out hard before EK hits Lvl 16. After that, EK has equal clear speed BUT with a little more hassle (as the cone of EK might miss the fringe mobs, about 1 in 5 fights you have to clean up a little).

As for freezing: EK + Hatred (Cold) hits so hard it reliably freezes map mobs and bosses, albeit at a shorter range than Ice Spears.

I did try very hard for a single-target setup 4L to take on solo bosses, but they all sort of hobbled along. The final straw was when I ran the Ice Spear build in my guild parties -- combined with a summoner, the Ice Spears lagged everyone out. I'm full time Cyclone-EK now (which has its flaws -- you have to be a lot more aware of the angle of attack and dangerous melee mechanics.)


P.S. I have 88.7% main hand and ~84% OH crit, 89% hit, over 500% multiplier, full resists and am properly flasked. The issue simply is - the rate at which ST hits is only really insane when throwing at a pack. If it's a single target, no matter what you do with the gear or build, you'll be throwing 1.5 - 2 daggers per second.

@primaeva

Since your last post I have taken to using 4l cyclone>CoC>EK>Cold Snap for single target. Without a doubt it absolutely destroys DS in kill speed. With Temp Chains or Frostbite they are either frozen or slowed even with their massive HP. The problem arises with mana. If I get extremely unlucky and don't proc an EK or 2 I go oom. Luckily I have WB on BM and can get out and regen for a second if I need.
I don't have time right now but i will be updating the main post to add Cyclone for single target. Thanks for the idea :D

-Added cyclone to the main post.

Added 2 Piety kill videos using ST and DS as main skills. primaeva keeps saying that the damage "falls off so hard". And, I am not trying to ruffle feathers or anything but you can't tell me that 10 seconds to kill piety is "to long". Is it that fastest kill in the world? no way. Will it 1 shot a full group kill? not in the least. But ... A) I built this as a solo player. B) it is still really acceptable damage.

Edit - Added new gloves to the last gear update. And, momentarily, editing in some thoughts on CwDT.
Edit - Also updated Stats for new gloves and added other Spell stats to it (fireball and cold snap)

I'm currently running a st coc ek fp build. Would another cold skill be better off then fp? I'm looking to modify my build and passive. I've got a weak 1.6k life and I'm very squishy.. If I hit a really nice coc vs a big mob I end up lagging myself and die quick af I'm just looking around to boost my hp and / or dmg to either tank a Lil more or kill me before I lag out. Maybe I need to read this on my laptop, I may be missing this info if it was Alrdy posted.

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iiTzChunky wrote:

I'm currently running a st coc ek fp build. Would another cold skill be better off then fp? I'm looking to modify my build and passive. I've got a weak 1.6k life and I'm very squishy.. If I hit a really nice coc vs a big mob I end up lagging myself and die quick af I'm just looking around to boost my hp and / or dmg to either tank a Lil more or kill me before I lag out. Maybe I need to read this on my laptop, I may be missing this info if it was Alrdy posted.

Holy cow ... yah with 1.6k (I am assuming no ES) FP is definitely not the right skill for you. You need more range and even a QFP with faster projectiles isn't going to get you what you need. Especially if you lag out a alot. You might try the base build in this thread. ST>CoC>LMP>Ice Spear. That will allow you to be further away from the fight, giving you more time to dig yourself out of the lag spikes. As well as you gain the xtra crit from the 2nd form of Ice Spear will give you that xtra time while they are frozen. Yes, FP freezes but has a much shorter range. And the freeze time gets progressively lower the further away you are.