Astykon - The Great Freeze Pulse Build [ 1.3 ]

---- 29/03/2015. ----

Welcome visitor, you have just entered in my first full explained build that I made in previous Ambush league.

NEW UPDATED! - Changed all the forum pictures.

Hello, guys if you're looking strong build in both meanings Offensively and Defensively, thats the place.

Character:

I'm level 95 Shadow Freeze Pulse back in Ambush league (2 leagues ago from now), started to play in the very first day of the league and made it trough the end. Played many builds but that's the one that kept my fun going.

Why Freeze Pulse?
- Since everyone started to play some really strong and even sometimes overpowered builds, I've chosen to be different back in Ambush Freeze Pule was not yet buffed and not many people wanted to play it maybe I've seen like 3-4 people playing it on high levels. so I choose to create Shadow, Freeze Pulse build on my own. Which had to be cheap, flexible to go from cheap to expensive and to be fun to play.

Bandit Quest Rewards :
Normal - Kill all;
Cruel - Kill all or Help Allira for +4% cast speed;
Merciless - Help Allira for +1 Power Charge;



Here are some Plus and Cons of the build:

Plus:
- Playable by new players;
- Cheap -> Not Chaos Inoculation [CI] build;
- Non-gear dependent -> You can make it work with just random rares with decent stats;
- None expensive gear required -> None expensive unique items required;
- Effective;
- Safe -> Long range, freezing everything;
- Strong -> Easily melting the content of game;
- Fun to play -> Freezing and Shocking stuff is great;
- Really, really strong for PvP -> But only if only you PvP vs someone who can be frozen;
- Viable for late game -> Doing 77-78-79 maps like nothing;
- You can make it work with minimum amount of sockets -> 5 or 6 Link Body Armour is just going to make the build stronger;
- You can do half regeneration maps but without using Arctic Amour;

Cons:
- Cant do no life regeneration maps;
- Cant do elemental reflect maps;




Leveling Guide:
After Freeze Pulse has been buffed it's possible to go straight forward with it, but personally I recommend using some Fire skills from the start then respec when you are a bit higher level something like Flameblast, Fire Trap, Searing bond. But also keep in mind to have your gems leveling all the time in your 2nd slot of weapons.





NOTE: Highly recommended the use of Herald of Ice or Thunder.










Items are pretty questionable for some of you but I'll try to explain most of them.

Weapons:

Rare dagger - Using this one because it has high critical chance, spell power and most important +2 to cold skills, there you can see that I'm using my arctic Armour which I can sustain at level 22 and if I'm lucky enough to Vaal orb it I may use level 23.

Divinarius - Because of his High critical chance, spell power.

Seffel's - You can use 1 dagger and use this shield for offhand because first of all its cheap, and 2nd you COULD reach 81 to all resists while using it and when we HAD passive +max resist nodes, which is making you to deal little less damage, but to be way more safer, using this for hard maps or when I'm playing with really strong party which can't feel the difference of my DPS if it gets lower by 1000-1500 or so.

You can also instead of using dual dagger (my personal preference) and be more defensive you can use some dagger on main hand and for offhand you can use some spirit shield with high mana regeneration and critical chance.




Armour and Jewellery:

- From Armour - You need to look for HP, Resists and to use base of items which will make you to get the Colours you need way easier, for example don't ever try to get 4 RED SOCKETS on INT base boots it may take forever to get them which is bad and will definitely make you progress in game slower and make you broke.

- From Amulet - One of the most important Unique items to use for this build for me is Karui Ward, because it gives faster projectile and its really really cheap you can spam lots of Vaal Orbs on them and get that 1% Cold damage leech, I made it from 7-8 Karui Amuelts. Also I tested to use double curse which is amazing Karui Ward +1 Curse using Assassin's Mark Mark + Elemental Weakness.

- From Rings - You really need to have dexterity on one of the rings, mine has 30 dexterity and the other stats that you'll need are also HP, Resists and high mana regeneration roll on the other one.

The reason I have so much Chaos resist (Capped at +75) is on 1st place I really like having it and 2nd I'm using Blood Rage for 15% more cast speed.







NOTE: Back in Ambush Freeze Pulse Projectile speed was not as high it is now, you can use amulet depending on your personal needs, maybe some Rare amulet with high critical chance's or something like that.





NOTE: Flasks are not the best ones but you can get the main idea of the flask rolls.

I advise you to have surgeon flask ( recharge on critical strike ) to have potions all the time since the build is dealing critical strikes all the time, you can use Seething potion on the place of my panicked one, I'm using double granites because I have all the time lots of armour while using them.






NOTE: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THE USE OF HERALD OF THUNDER or ICE, there was no Herald of Thunder back then.






Freeze Pulse Combo - 6 Linked item (or less) - - Freeze Pulse + Faster Casting + Added Lightning + Power Charges on Critical (Optional, you can get your Charges by Assasin's Mark Curse easily ) + Faster Projectiles + Greater Multiple Projectiles ( or LMP if you cant sustain it ).

- Your goal for this build is to be able to sustain Greater Multiple Projectiles and to have 6 Linked item for maximum power. I've tested many and sometimes strange things with freeze pulse but I finally stopped on this combination. I don't have problem with survivability I may have a bit lower overall damage but in matter of survivability there's nothing that can stop this build. Since I have Arctic Armour level 22 soon 23. Plus 2 Cast When Damage Taken combination so I can survive almost everything without the need to use Life Leech or Mana Leech.

- ADD - Because I'm big fan of having CHAOS resist which is capped, you can see my gear has lots of it. I'm able to use Blood Rage, and since new Masters update it's even easier now with that HP increase. Having some extra cast speed is always good.

Test some skills variations on your own, you may be really surprised of results in most cases.




Solo or Party play it does not matter Freeze Pulse is the one that will keep you safe and alive. Freezing or one Shooting things is a great fun. Just curse or double curse - using curse variations hard area - Frostbite. Easy area just go for Assassin's Mark + Elemental Weakness or one of them and kill them all.


I hope you like the build, you can post your questions below and I'll have them answered.




My other build's you might like:







Trying to make guilds more popular in Path of Exile for more information:




Sarn Run.


Academy Map.


Shrine Map



NEW VIDEOS for 1.3 Coming soon!

solid guide

Could u do a section on gems/links etc aswell? And maybe explain powercharges for a n00b (me).
Will ele reflect packs be doable or will i just rape myself on those. Got an arc witch but she leeches fine through the reflect.

Thank you for posting comment olseneslo, I'll do section about links and you can also see how to deal with ele reflect in the video that I'll upload today, but in most of the situation's you can survive doing couple hits but you must be careful, I highly recommend having level 20 fire trap and just do Elemental Weakness curse + Fire trap to make the pack little less then you can 1-2 shot the rest of them.

About Power charges - it's a must have to be with maximum amount of power charges, because the build is critical based - you recieve 50% critical chance and 4% spell power ( bonus from passive tree you can see there ) per power charge, which really makes you stronger than without them.

tyvm for info, very informative, back to levelling :)

Skill Links uploaded.

Mind answering a couple of questions?
-What's the point of AB on 2nd CWDT? It accomplishes the same objective as Frost Wall. I would put Decoy here, and add Empower to the AA links.
-Watching your video, you run out of mana.. a LOT. Ever becomes a major problem? I would have dropped Determination - with high AA, small/medium hits still don't bother you as much.
-Why no Cold penetration? I've played several caster builds and couldn't imagine playing any of them without a Penetration support.
-Is 10% to shock enough? Static blows cluster is 3 pts away which would raise it to 30%.
-You're giving up a lottttttttttttt of things by using Karui. Is it really BiS, or a part of the low-cost appeal?

Love the formatting , organization and a non-cookie cutter build. Gj :)

Hello, j0zef. Thank you for commenting.

- Well it works just fine with me that Arctic Breath it slows enemies that wont be stopped by Frost wall
- If you've watched the video closely you must've seen that I'm running out of mana because my casting speed becomes insanely huge because my partner on maps has HASTE aura + my Blood Rage mana cost becomes outstanding
- I never felt like it's necessary to use Cold Penetratition, tested many things for my Freeze Pulse combo and I just found that this suits me best, as I said you dont have to follow the complete guide, you can always be creative and make some changes that suits you best.
- Well about the shock.. For me I look at it this way - with or without little higher % shock chance they will still die really fast.
- Well about Karui, I really like to have Faster Projectiles since I cant reach the Ranger passive node because its too far away, you can choose between having greater range or just more critical or something like that, I even bought Corrupted Karui ward which has +1 Curse on target I'll do something interesting with it to see what will happen.

Feel free to experiment with the build let me know what will come out in the end.

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