[0.10.0] Build of the Week submissions

"
Plastic_Cup wrote:
Hardcore Cold Snap Witch
IGN: Plastic_Cup

Introduction:
This build was created to utilize a skill that is underused and in some cases not used at all, let alone as a main damage source. This build revolves around critical strikes to provide your damage and fuel for your main ability, this provides sometimes unpredictable and dynamic game play while maintaining extremely fast clear speeds.

The Build:


This build utilizes a Unique item called Voll's Protector to accommodate your use of Cold Snap. Cold Snap has a cool down that can be completely bypassed by consuming a Power Charge.

Beginning the build is very easy, you start with a slightly weaker Freeze Pulse HP Based Build and transition later to Cold Snap when you have your support gems and build at a comfortable level of Crit and acquire a Voll's Protector (with at least 3 linked Sockets).

Once you make your transition you will start by using Ice Spear at range to collect 5-7 Power Charges via Crits. You can begin to spam Cold Snap at this point and the very first time it crits you will see the beauty of this build.
NOTE: This IS a Hardcore character and I have encountered Elemental reflect packs, although they can be scary if it is en masse', it will not outright kill you in most cases even without a Life Leech Gem.

Gems and Gear:
The Gems you NEED for this build to work are very limited and almost all of them benefit directly from Quality.

You will need:
1-3 Cold Snap gems (Preference I use 2, one for single targets and one for AOE, you can use a third as a Power Charge Generator to avoid Ice Spear)
Ice Spear
Clarity
Discipline
Purity
Critical/Elemental Weakness (Solo/Team Respectively)
Increased Critical Strikes
Increased Critical Damage

Added Support:
Concentrated Effect
Increased AOE
Added Cold
Added Chaos
Added Lightning
Cold Penetration
Elemental Proliferation
_______________

Spoiler


FAQ:

What happens when you don't crit for a while?
The simple answer to this is that you always have Ice Spear as your fallback spell, in an instance that your Cold Snap does not crit within the (roughly) 11 casts you get to expend per cycle a few Ice Spears will get you back rolling again.

Is this end-game viable?
ABSOLUTELY and your map team will love you for it. This build has the passive benefit of freezing almost everything on screen full time and a Quality Cold Snap makes it even better.

Pros:
Incredible AOE and Single Target Crowd Control
Shocks with Added Lightning
Great damage
Good solo clear speed
No max range on Cold Snap
Synergy with a Wander is amazing

Cons:
Some crit dry streaks that have to be made up for with Ice Spear
No ES buffer for Incoming damage
Damage will suck mid-game
Charge Management


This is so cool! ;D

Is it possible to Combine the Ice Spear with Spell Totem ? Or will the Totem get the Power Charges instead of you then?
Hybrid Fire/Summoner - Pushed to the extreme :]

Introduction
This build started from a fire witch, completely dps oriented. I quickly realized that DPS is a poor choice in PoE, so shifted to summoning and tanky talents in the templar tree. This build revolves around manually blocking enemies with your skeletons, in hopes of them blowing up, while keeping 2 firestorm totems raining death on your enemies. Specter choice is also important, using fire banners with GMP dishes out insane DPS. Any projectile mob that uses fire damage actually works. Lastly, I use firetraps to have that burst DPS I need on necros, incinerators, alchemists or bosses. Everything in this build synergizes to take maximum advantage of the flammability curse and the fire damage passive talents, while still being able to tank, making it an -excellent- solo build. Very fun and engaging build, I have rolled like 5 characters above 50, and I keep coming back to this character.

I have heard people talking about this build and telling me it's not a unique one, as much as I've had people tell me they've never seen anything like it.

As such, I do not wish to claim full credit for it. What matters is that I built it myself, while soloing, dying, and cursing like all of you :) add a pinch of theorycrafting into that and you have it.

It's a game anyways, chill and enjoy it :]

The Build:
Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAuMEswdjCPQRUBRNFm8ZhRoyGjgabB8CJKoqjSycLKcxiDbFNtg26TvhPV9DY0SrRtdI50kbSbJNuU3YT31RYFJTVa5VxlcrWPVZ81orXcZgbWZPZp5r220ZcU1zU3kDfRiAVoFJgW-CEIM4hWCHZYhAi3qMdo9Gj6aQVZeFms-boZwtnYCdrp3EnjyiAKPypqynCKcrp4SplarEr7eyOLUEtzHAGsBUzLzPZdDQ2CTa3d3z37Di9-Nq5CLmgexV7IrwH_Fs99f60v3P



Build exactly as shown work for lvl 83, if you have to sacrifice talents, first thing I would is fire damage and crit. DPS isn't necessary with this build, it's only gravy.

Build has no gear requirements! You can play this as your first character and you will wtfpwn the game :) Of course, Bones of Ullr will help you (1 additional specter, which means like 20% DPS more). Of course, also, the more linked slots you have on your gear, the more you can push this build.

How to play it:

First thing you need is to be able to run clarity and vitality, keep your summon's HP up :) Vitality works in %'age of HP, which is great for summons (My zombies have 7k hp, imagine my specs! even .5%/sec of their hp is an enormous amount). You also want to be able to be cycling minion healing potions. I use two instant ones, and one that lasts very long and restores a huge amount of hp. Instead of mashing a single potion when I need healing or my summons do, I use those three potions separately, always utilizing the charge restoring potential to the maximum. I also use those whenever my pots are full so I keep my specters full hp.

You want minion life and damage linked to your specters, and later, a great support gem helps a lot! GMP, LMP, Chain work very well for that purpose. So does life on hit if you use melee specters/Ratatata mobs in Lunaris (Tentacle Miscreations)!

Early in the game, you want to rush for Minion Instability so you can chain summon your weak skellies without it being a waste of time. It will help you a lot on harder bosses (Swarming skeleton swarms to block has been my way since I switched to summoning, massive damage if they get hit by AoE damage). You will want to link fast cast to your skellies as soon as you can.

Soon you'll be summoning skellies fast enough to block a charging mob, even though they most often than not run straight through them, I still have the reflex to do that.

After MI, you want to be heading towards dual totems so you get it not far after 31.

This allows you to dish insane fire damage while still moving, avoiding attacks and blocking mobs!

From there on out, it is very smooth sailing, you have all the tools you need to roll your face on your keyboard and laugh at the world war going on on your screen.

Fire traps necessity come out much later in the game, in summoner fights. Sometimes you will find that your low number of minions doesn't allow you to keep up with packs of 3-4 summoners. Then, your tanky talents come into play. You can run around the mass while your summon tanks, and mass firetrap every single one of them. Mass summoning zombies also helps a lot in summoner fights.

As Specter Choices go, as you progress through the game, pick up the mobs that piss you off most, they are generally the ones that will work the best as specters :)

This build served me well many times at clearing maps under 10 minutes solo.

Also earned me quite a reputation as a tank/blocker in parties, as I can tank with my skellies and still dish out insane dps without even paying attention.

Gem and Gear setup

Helm is 3b-1g, all linked. Raise Specters - Minion Damage - Minion Health - GMP

Wand (DPS WAND! I DON'T WANT TO SEE MIDNIGHT BARGAINS OR QUEEN'S DECREES WITH THIS BUILD! -lol-) is 3b linked. Summon Skellies - Fast cast - Minion HP.

Gloves is 2R-1B Link and 1R unlinked: Vitality - Clarity - Reduced Mana and a lonely reju totem, for rougher fights where I have used all my pots.

My armor is 3R-2B Linked. Spell Totem - Firestorm - Concentrated Effect - Fire Penetration - Increased Quantity (The 3 latter ones are optional)

You also need 2-3 firetrap gems (Their cooldown is separate)

Raise Zombies (Obviously)
Flammability (Gravy, but it helps a lot)

Here is my gear:
Spoiler












As you can see, my gear is somewhat gimped for my level.

Currently trying incinerate in my totems, but Firestorm really is my spell of choice for them.

Problems son ?

- Always go back to get your favorite specters. I used not to do that, and I used to die. I don't anymore, and the time I take to go get them is largely offset by their insane dps.

- Always summon your skeletons first. Make sure you have a wall ready before casting your 1.5sec cast time totem :D

- Always keep your zombie supply full. They provide tanking while you pop your first skellies.

- Advance by summoning skellies far in front of you. If you see them react you will know there is a threat in front of you. Better than running into it.

- Keep your run speed relatively low, so you have time to react before running into a pack of charging Rhoas.

- Don't be afraid to puss out in corners and summon skellies in front of you to form a wall. They are your lifeline, your dps, your blockers, your tanks, your friends, your girlfriends.

- Specters dying too much going into dangerous rooms ? Throttle them with your totems. Summon both of them into a doorway and it will throttle all your summons. Don't go into the room alone though, resummon your army into the room until it's safe.

- WALL YOUR PARTNERS! THEY ARE MUCH MORE DPS THAN YOUR SPECTERS IN MOST CASES!
This is a very computer heavy build. A very abused, OP, over-the-top build. Show your friends you're not an elitist asshole. You have time to protect and help them with this build. They will thank you for it, and won't mind you lagging them out to no end, even if their flasks don't regen :d

If you wish to see it in action, I often stream at twitch.tv/jdtuggey. You can also look into my past broadcasts to find a moment where I'm running a map. This build is very average mid-game, but gets so OP past lvl 70 it's hardly believable.

If you have questions, I'm often available IG @ Farspire or BarroomBrawlah

Here is an highlight of my stream demoing the build: http://www.twitch.tv/jdtuggey/c/2022991

No idea why the audio is cut in the first minute. Protect your ears when that flux pavilion song starts at 1:10 after a short hiccup in the stream.

Here is the link to my stream: http://www.twitch.tv/jdtuggey/
Last edited by Tugzor on Mar 13, 2013, 1:47:18 PM
"
Daumen wrote:
This is so cool! ;D

Is it possible to Combine the Ice Spear with Spell Totem ? Or will the Totem get the Power Charges instead of you then?


No, spell totem is a separate source, and as thus, would be the one generating the charges if it could wear a Voll's
Post was way to long so I removed it and provided a link to the latest, cleaner version of my build guide.
Now presenting! Venom ink; malice in the pen, poison on the paper, anger in the mind.

Brought to you by Dat LLC, in partnership with Harassment Industries.

*Disclaimer* No actual products are being sold, shipped or presented. *End of disclaimer*
Last edited by DarkNRG on Mar 19, 2013, 9:00:57 PM
"
Tugzor wrote:
"
Daumen wrote:
This is so cool! ;D

Is it possible to Combine the Ice Spear with Spell Totem ? Or will the Totem get the Power Charges instead of you then?


No, spell totem is a separate source, and as thus, would be the one generating the charges if it could wear a Voll's


Spell totems do accumulate Power Charges because they are an extension of the characters spell, but because the maximum amount of power charges a totem can have is 0, it will gain a power charge up to it's maximum amount resulting in 0 power charges.
"
Plastic_Cup wrote:
"
Tugzor wrote:
"
Daumen wrote:
This is so cool! ;D

Is it possible to Combine the Ice Spear with Spell Totem ? Or will the Totem get the Power Charges instead of you then?


No, spell totem is a separate source, and as thus, would be the one generating the charges if it could wear a Voll's


Spell totems do accumulate Power Charges because they are an extension of the characters spell, but because the maximum amount of power charges a totem can have is 0, it will gain a power charge up to it's maximum amount resulting in 0 power charges.

Oddly egnouh they seem to have 3 endurance charge because sometime my totem kill warlord mark cursed monster and get endurance charge.
IGN : DCDTDito
stand by for RF + PA + Incinerate build modification!



edit: after testing out incinerate, I think I still prefer Freezing Pulse :/
Build of the Week 14
The first Righteous Fire/Non-Shavronne's/Shavronne's HC
Shameless self-proclaimed theory-crafting extraordinaire and forum crusader
Last edited by Invalesco on Mar 14, 2013, 11:59:01 AM
"
DCDTDito wrote:
Oddly egnouh they seem to have 3 endurance charge because sometime my totem kill warlord mark cursed monster and get endurance charge.

Yep. Reason for that is they can actually benefit from Endurance Charges, whilst Power and Frenzy Charges wouldn't do anything on a Totem. They use your stats, after all.
I'm not sure if Build of the Week is still going on, but I wanted to submit Argohuskar, my Lvl 78 Righteous Fire/Low Life Freezing Pulse Templar. The original, very in depth guide for this build is posted here http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/235987.

You can also see the build in action in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk5KVBg6x4s


Build Summary:
-Runs constantly active Righteous Fire and Low-Life/Pain attunement status for massive spell damage; a 277% More damage multiplier at max level, up to 292% More damage with proper gear.
-Uses Zealot's Oath to regenerate all the damage dealt by Righteous Fire to energy shield
-Ghost reaver taken to gain survivability via massive ES leech from our massive DPS
-Utilizies Freezing Pulse with Added lightning damage to deal even more DPS. Due to shock mechanics it shocks and amplifies damage more the more dps you have, creating a powerful positive feedback loop.
-Runs 6 auras at same time, taking advantage of the lack of need for our health pool


And here is a copy of my full guide:
Spoiler
With the release of 10.2 and the new Shavronne’s Wrappings unique, I've decided to write a guide for my Low-Life/Righteous Fire Freezing Pulse templar. I’ve been working on this character since early into open beta and struggled for a month trying to make it map viable. The new unique has instantly made this build possible and, in my opinion, has turned it into one of the strongest, if not the strongest, caster builds at the moment. This Low-life/Righteous fire templar outputs insane dps while maintaining pretty decent survivability with the option to have very high MF.

Build Summary:
-Uses righteous fire for massive spell damage buff.
-Freezing pulse /w added lightning and Ice spear totem as main abilities.
-Zealot's Oath with high Energy Shield pool/low max life to negate Righteous Fire burning damage
-Pain attunement with 3 auras reserved on life to gain further damage boost
-Ghost Reaver to leech energy shield

Pros and Cons Summary:
Pros:
-Insanely high damage- your final spell damage is multiplied by 250-290% using PA and RF. Shocks amplify this even more.
-Decent survivability due to high freeze uptime and massive life leech
-Six auras provide a lot of offensive and defensive utility
-Good farming build due to ability to use Wondertrap, the largest MF boost item in the game
-Really fun! A true faceroll dps build

Cons:
-Less survivability in terms of raw ES pool when compared to CI
-Relatively difficult build to pull off; large number of passives required and thus doesn’t work until late game
-EXTREMELY gear dependent. Two specific uniques are absolute must-haves
-Not immune to chaos damage
-Low sight radius in dungeons can get annoying
-Vulnerable to cold damage- this is largely negated using Sapphire flasks


Overview:

The core of this build uses the low-life state and Pain attunement combined with a constantly active Righteous Fire to obtain an enormous spell DPS boost. Righteous fire is constantly kept active by using Vitality and life regen nodes combined with Zealot’s Oath to transfer the life% regeneration into %Energy Shield (ES) regeneration. By having a very low life pool and very high es pool, the regeneration from Zealot’s Oath can outheal the damage done by Righteous Fire. Ghost Reaver is used as the main source of survivability and ES regeneration. These are the essentials of the build: low max life for a low damaging RF, high energy shield to tank and offset low life , and ES regeneration via Zealot’s Oath and Ghost Reaver to offset RF burn damage and leech back any damage taken from mobs.

This core build can then be applied to essentially any caster build. I have chosen to build a cold-crit caster using Freezing pulse with Ice spear totem support. The reason this was my top choice was due to a number of factors: firstly, freezing pulse linked with multiple projectiles deals very good AoE AND single-target dps due to the overlapping projectiles. The downside of this is that freezing pulse requires you to be in close range and thus vulnerable to attacks; however this is offset by the fact that Freezing pulse and Ice Spear (and other cold spells) also provide unparalleled defensive utility for an offensive spell due to the ability to freeze mobs on crit. On a crit-heavy character you thus can keep large numbers of mobs frozen while dishing out big damage numbers.


What makes this build so good?

This build essentially works similarly to a Chaos innoculation (CI) cold crit templar; you have basically no life pool, and your ES pool becomes your effective life. It focuses on the same stats in passives- as many energy shield nodes as possible, and then crit nodes and elemental/cold damage nodes. However, for an investment of about 10-15 extra passive points in order to pick up Zealot’s Oath, Pain attunement, Elemental adaptation, Inner force, Ghost reaver, and one life regen node you are rewarded with the ability to use the Righteous Fire and Pain attunement buffs. Combined, RF and PA multiplies your damage by 277% at max level (or up to 292% if you are using a wand like mine). That’s right, for 10-15 points sacrificed in minor nodes, mostly in things like 6% cold damage or 3% cast speed, you get to dish out almost THREE TIMES as much damage as your fellow conventional caster. Actual damage is buffed even further due to increasing returns on shock and static blows. Furthermore, the ability to reverse life for auras in order to induce the Low-life state means that you can run SIX auras that further buff your survivability and damage. And on top of all that, being in the low life state allows you to use Wondertrap, the largest mf boost in the game, making this build good for farming as well.


What are the drawbacks of this build?

Spoiler
There are some drawbacks to this build. With the 0.10.3 patch you no longer will have as much pure ES as a CI build since you cannot take Imbued shield for the 20% More energy shield. So this build sacrifices some raw survivability- 20%- in order to achieve the 300% damage boost. However this build is still very survivable in endgame maps if build correctly with proper gear- the fact that you are killing things considerably faster and leeching 3 times as much ES combined with the ability to run many auras like Grace, Vitality, and Purity as well as shrugging off all elemental damage due to 83-85% resist does make up for the fact you will have ⅙ less ES than a comparable CI build.

There are also some annoying drawbacks- being on low life constantly means you will have severely reduced vision radius in indoor maps. You are also not immune to chaos damage, and so will have to stack chaos resistance otherwise you will eventually die from -60% chaos res. There are some map mods that simply cannot be played- mainly blood magic maps, 50% slower and no regen maps, and -max player resistance maps. Another drawback that is shared between this build and CI is being very vulnerable to cold damage and the chills/freezes that accompany it, as chill and freeze duration is based upon your pitiful max hp.

The most significant drawback of the build however is that it is simply not an easy build to accomplish. The interaction between Righteous Fire/Zealot’s oath and your health/ES means careful balancing of your resists, hp, hp regen passives, and ES and requires you to meet a threshold ES pool size to pull off. The core pieces of the build (Zealot’s Oath + Ghost Reaver + Elemental adaption + Pain Attunement) requires you to take passives from four different character’s passive areas; and the build requires all the pieces of the puzzle to fit together in order to work. This means that this build basically doesn’t do anything until the end of Cruel difficulty, meaning some people may struggle with levelling until you get to that point.
The gear requirements are also very prohibitive; the Shavronne’s Wrappings unique that is absolutely required for the build is extremely expensive at the moment. However, once you do manage to collect all the pieces you are rewarded with a character that can faceroll through anything.



My character’s stats:
Spoiler


Passive build:
Spoiler
Current Passives (Lvl 78) http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBAnEC_gQHBLMFWwx9EH8RLxa_HNwdFB8CJ-0pTy0fLUcy0TbFOtg74ULDQ2NFR0bXRwZMs03YUEJY9VnzXcZd8l76X2pgbWZPZp5nvW0ZcFJw1XFNe9d_xoFJgW-Cm4fbiEKLjIw2jHaOZI9Gj_qZmprPm6GdgJ3Enjyio6cIpyusqrI4tQS297b6tzG4k8AawcXB88Lsw23GntDQ2CTb593z34Thc-L35CLrY-wY7DjtIO5v8h3z3fPq96b3wfrS_Ks=

Endgame Passives (Lvl 89) http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBAnEC_gQHBLMFWwx9EHsQfxEvFr8XVBzcHRQfAiKBJ-0pTysKLR8tRzLRNsU62DvhQsNDY0VHRtdHBkyzTdhQQlj1WfNdxl3yXvpfamBtZk9mnme9bRlwUnDVcU1713_GgUmBb4Kbh9uIQot6i4yMNox2jjyOZI9Gj_qZmprPm6GdgJ3Enjyio6cIpyusqrI4tMW1BLb3tvq3MbiTvjrAGsEAwcXB88Lsw23GntDQ2CTbGtvn3fPfhOFz4vfkIutj7BjsOO0g7m_yHfPd8-r1S_em98H60vyr

New Whispers of Doom Dual curse variant: This build I think would be even stronger since having Frostbite + elemental weakness is a huge damage boost, especially against resistant mobs. Once I can afford the 30 regrets or something I will need I may switch to this


All-out tanky endgame variant (lvl 89): grab literally almost every ES passive on tree


Notable passives and passive choice explanation:
Spoiler
*Zealots Oath: Life regeneration applies to energy shield instead of life. For %Max Life regeneration bonuses such as that from Vitality, you instead regenerate %Max Energy shield. This is used to counter the constant damage dealt by Righteous fire. We take 1% life regeneration from passives and add another 1.8-1.9% from Inner Forced Vitality.

*Ghost reaver: Life Leech applies to energy shield instead of Life- Since our energy shield pool IS our life pool and we cannot regenerate ES while Righteous Fire is on, we ghost reaver to leech life during combat. Because of our massive damage, the life leech is easily maxed (at 20% per second) and it provides us with very good tankability via leeching.

*Elemental adaptation: +5% to all maximum elemental resistances. This increases our max fire resistance and thus significantly reduces the amount of damage Righteous Fire does to us. It is also one of the best survivability passives in the game.

*Inner force cluster: 30% increased effect of buffs on you. This is probably THE best passive cluster in the game (well now that Imbued shield is introduced that is easily the best passive in the game). This passive is very important to us. It buffs all aura effects on us, and we are running 6 auras so that is a no brainer. More importantly, it increases the effect of Righteous Fire on us. This includes increasing the burn damage- we now burn for 130% of our max life per second (which sucks but not that big a deal), as well as increasing the MORE spell damage modifier. This means that instead of 81-87% More spell damage from Righteous fire, we now receive a bonus of 105-115% More spell damage.

*Pain attunement: 30% More spell damage on low life: Also another huge More spell damage buff.

Other important passive choices:

*Static blows: We will be using added lightning damage with our Freezing pulse, and static blows is taken in order to apply shocks to enemies for an additional damage boost. I will eventually have a section with more in-depth analysis of Shock in this build.

*1% Life regenerated per second: This tiny extra %Max Life regeneration node is required in order to fully counter Righteous Fire’s burn.

*Grabbing hybrid armor/es and evasion/es nodes instead of raw es nodes: These node clusters in the templar/shadow trees are stronger than the raw es clusters in the middle of the map due to Body and Soul/Nullifcation even if some may be a little out of the way. More importantly, the +armor and +evasion bonuses are actually very helpful because we will be relying on inner force boosted granite flasks and Grace auras for armor and evasion to help with our survivability.

*Critical strike vs critical multiplier: I chose to focus on critical stike nodes initially even if multiplier nodes might give more raw dps because I felt it was more important to have more frequent freezes for survivability than more spiky dps. Furthermore, the fact we are using Added lightning damage and shocks means that there is already an inherent pseudo-crit multiplier since every crit will apply 3 shock stacks on a target (if the lightning damage rolls high enough).

*Mana/mana regeneration nodes: I didn’t get very many of these because there weren’t many easily reachable good mana nodes that seemed worth the skill points. 7% Reduced mana is really good, but for your other needs you likely will have to rely on +mana regeneration from your gear (e.g. rings, shield, wand).


Righteous Fire Endgame Math:

Spoiler
Righteous Fire base gem deals 100% of your max life to you per second as fire damage. With inner force this gets buffed by 30% to deal 130% of your max life per second. This damage is reduced by your fire resistance, which will be 83% as a result of elemental adaptation+purity (technically at lvl 20 purity you get 85% resistance but it takes forever to get there).

A lvl 75 or so character with my build with Eye of Chayula and NO substantial +Life on his gear will have around 500 hp. That means righteous fire will deal:

500 * 1.3 * 0.17 = 110.5 damage dealt per second.

Since we have 1% life regeneration from passives and ~1.8% from inner forced Vitality. With Zealot’s Oath this means we regenerate 2.8-2.9% of our max energy shield per second. The amount of energy shield you need in order to outheal righteous fire is thus:

110.5 dps / (0.028% es per second) = 3946.43

So we need 4k energy shield (with discipline) to completely outheal righteous fire with this build. This is the point at which you can switch from using a Springleaf shield into a spirit shield.


Damage boost math:

Righteous Fire and pain attunement are both MORE spell damage modifiers, meaning they are applied multiplicatively after all other damage calculations are done. Different More spell damage modifiers are also multiplied individually.

At lvl 20 Righteous fire adds 87% more spell damage. With inner force this gets increased to 113% more spell damage. Pain attunement is 30% more spell damage always.

Your buffed dps is then: Current dps * (1+113%) * (1+30%) = DPS * (2.13) * (1.3) = 2.77 X DPS


Skills:

Spoiler
Main spell: Freezing pulse (quality) + Lesser Multiple Projectiles + Faster casting + Life leech + 5L(Added lightning damage) + 6L(Cold penetration/Mana leech/Added cold damage). Quality is essential on freezing pulse because projectile speed increases both range and damage of FP. Added lightning damage will be explained in the shock stacking analysis section. LMP is taken because it’s amazing with Freezing pulse; I chose this over GMP because GMP both increases mana cost too much and the further reduced lightning damage will make it too difficult to get shocks, meaning that GMP may actually decrease your effective DPS.

Totem: Ice Spear + LMP + Faster casting + Spell totem: Your standard freezing totem. Actually does pretty significant damage in this build and can kill many mobs by itself.

Purity + Vitality + Haste + Reduced mana: Your first set of auras. These three 40% auras are used in combination with Blood Magic from the Covenant Robe in order to have them all reserve life. This reserves about 85-90% of your life, putting you into the low life (below 35% max hp) state. Purity increases your max resistance even further provides a bonus to all resistances; Vitality grants you a respectable %max life regen boost. Both of these are required in order to maintain Righteous fire. Haste is just a useful aura to run; a substantial move speed and cast speed boost when amplified by inner force.

Discipline + Grace + Clarity + Reduced mana: Your second set of auras. These are fixed mana cost auras that will be run using your mana (so take off Covenant robe after casting the first 3 auras, and then cast these three). Discipline provides a huge ES boost of about 1k. Grace provides a moderate amount of evasion that will let you reach 20-30% dodge after taking the nullification clusters, which isn’t amazing but still overall a big survivability boost that is multiplicative with shield block chance and armor damage reduction. Clarity is used to help with mana problems.

Righteous fire (no linked support): Sticking Righteous fire in a weapon/shield with +2 Fire gems level is actually a huge bonus since every +1 level adds about 4% More spell damage (with Inner force). Remember this More spell damage is a multiplicative modifier.

Frostbite: This is your main curse and absolutely essential. Reduces resistance to help you deal with cold resistant mobs, but also importantly provides a large chance to freeze with every cold damage hit. Combined with high crit you end up nearly permafreezing certain mobs.

Summon skeletons + minion life/faster casting: Sometimes it’s useful just to have some skeletons to tank for you or distract mobs. Particularly useful when dealing with beefy map bosses that can do ridiculous amounts of physical single target damage.

Molten shell+increased duration, Enduring cry: Just useful to have to improve survivability.

Elemental weakness: A good second curse if grabbing Whispers of Doom for even more damage.


Added lightning damage and shock analysis:
Spoiler
Work in progress, more to come. My shock stacking profile with current stats is: Now this is a graph of average shock stacks over a long period of time for monster hp and so doesn't necessarily reflect what is seen in game- but it does show that the shocking will be almost always effectual except on perhaps very high life unique mobs with lightning resist.


Gear:
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Weapon: Redbeak unique sword. These give a huge 100% damage boost on low life for really cheap on low life. Eventually endgame this will want to be replaced by a better wand; your standard ideal stats apply (in order of importance: high spell damage, crit multiplier, critical strike, casting speed, +2 fire gem level, mana regeneration)

Shield: Springleaf unique shield- Gives huge 6% hp regen on low life. This is used mostly during leveling and allows you to start using RF earlier when you don’t have 4k es yet. Once you reach around 3.5k es you can switch this into a Spirit shield. Stat priority: High energy shield, spell damage/spell crit chance, mana regeneration, chaos resistance, elemental resistances

Chest: There is only one option here: Shavronne’s wrappings . Without this chest you will get immediately oneshot by chaos damage. If you stack hp and chaos resist you can survive a few hits, but it is still a huge hassle. I played this build for a month before Shavronne was released, and deal with chaos damage was extremely frustrating. Don’t put yourself through that.

Boots: Wondertrap- 100% increased rarity. One of the main reasons I wanted to make a low life build in the first place.

Amulet: Eye of Chayula. This is another required unique for this build. Without it you will simply die. Stuns are based upon what percentage of your max hp is dealt in damage, and with this build you will be at a very low max hp, meaning basically everything will stun you without this amulet. There’s also a nifty bonus since the 20% reduced hp actually benefits us because it reduces RF’s damage.

Ring: Dream Fragments: good ring as it solves a lot of mana problems and prevents you from being frozen, which is the main vulnerability of this build. However, at its several exalted price tag I do not feel it is necessary; you can instead use a sapphire flask and get 96-98% cold resistance with inner force/purity/elemental adaptation. You won’t get frozen very much when you are taking only 2% cold damage.

Other: The Covenant unique robe. This chest gives you blood magic without an increased cost multiplier, which allows you to run three 40% auras reserved with your life. Put this chest on, cast Vitality+Purity+Haste, and then leave it in your stash and cast the rest of your auras.


Rest of slots you can just use rares: Stats in order of importance are: High energy shield, enough elemental resistances to max your resists, chaos resistance at least enough to become positive, and +Dex/+Strength in order to use your Vitality/Grace/Haste gems.


Leveling guide:
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Stage 1: The suck it up stage, Lvl 1 to Lvl ~40-50ish .
Playiing in this phase will essentially be the same as playing any other standard caster templar, except this build sucks at this point. You basically get little support from the passive tree- a large fraction of your skill points will be stats as you attempt to make skillgrimages all over the tree. You can choose to take some HP nodes that you will respec out of as soon as you convert to righteous fire. Thankfully this part of the game is relatively easy and having a suboptimal skill tree shouldn't prevent you from progressing. As for abilities, just going immediately into Freezing pulse+LMP and Ice spear totems are good. Make sure to level up Purity, Vitality, Reduced mana x2, life leech and blood magic with you as you will want to use them levelled asap when you make the transition.


Stage 2: Initial Righteous Fire/Low life conversion, ~lvl 45+
Once you reach around Act 2/Act 3 cruel you can convert your build into Righteous Fire/Low Life. There are several things you will need:

Passives: You must take all the core passives of the build before you can switch. This means Zealot's Oath, Elemental Adaptation, Life regen, Ghost reaver, and pain Attunement- Inner force is also helpful. Your passive tree thus should look something like this: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBAnEEBwSzBVsMfRB_HRQfAiftKU8tHzLRNsU62DvhRUdG10cGTLNN2FnzXcZfamaebRl714Fvgh6Cm4hCi4yMdo9Gj_qePKcIpyusqrUEuJPAGsHFwfPDbcae2CTb5-Fz4vfkIuwY7DjtIPId8933wfrS

Gear: Redbeak, Springleaf, and Eye of Chayula are essential for this transition. If you are not going freezing pulse and instead using a safer skill like Dual totems or spark then it is okay to switch without having Eye of Chayula. Just know that you must eventually pick it up.

Energy shield: There is a minimum energy shield requirement for this transition. In order to counteract RF at this point, where you have about 81% fire resist since purity is still low level, you must have at least:

(0.19*MAXHP/sec)*(1.3 from inner force)/(.07 regen per second from Springleaf+passive) = 3.5 * MAXHP

So your energy shield after Discipline must be at least 3.5x your max hp. Once it is and you feel like you can survive with just your ES pool, then you can switch an aura to blood magic(or two to covenant), equip Redbeak and Springleaf, go on low life, turn on Righteous Fire, and profit from the massive damage boost. From this point on, you will crush non-chaos mobs, but still die extremely easily to chaos so I would recommend using totem + summons or playing in parties to progress through those areas.


Stage 3: Endgame lvl 62+; gear switches

Lvl 62 is when you can finally equip Shavronne's wrappings and finally become immune to chaos 1-2 shots. This is also when you can finally start taking passives in entirely energy shield/damage/crit. The next big point is when you can switch out Springleaf for an ES shield. Springleaf's regen is nice, but once it is no longer needed to maintain righteous fire the extra ES and affixes on a real high level shield are too good to pass on. In order to achieve this your energy shield needs to be high enough so that Vitality and the 1% regen passive is enough. As calculated in the earlier math section, this threshold value is around 3.8k-4k ES (including that gained from your shield). Actual thresholds vary depending on your hp values and any flat +life regen from your gear.


My character’s gear:
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IGN: Argonaute or Argohuskar
Last edited by argonaute on Mar 14, 2013, 11:13:41 PM
Cyclone Evasion 2H Axe Duelist


So this is an Evasion based melee duelist build.

The only key stone you'll be picking up is Arrow Dodging, can't have pesky projectile attacks while you're cycloning the melee enemies!

The build mostly relies on stacking as much evasion and health as you can and getting as high damage ax as you can.

The beauty of this build is cyclone provides stun immunity allowing you to go evasion and pick up arrow dodging.

Other skills include:Grace, Hatred, Dual Strike, Leap Slam, and Decoy totem.

What makes this build really stand out is its emphasis on an evasion melee duelist. I play solo and am clearing act 2 merciless no problem, I dont suspect act 3 to be much of a problem either.

Here is my tree at level 61: skill tree


and my items if anyone is interested

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S L O W E R
Last edited by ampdecay on Mar 15, 2013, 6:41:24 PM

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