[2.0] The Party Crasher - Ice Crashing maps on a 10 Chaos budget (Hardcore viable)

The basic theory behind the build is to do a large 360 AOE enabling you to jump right into combat, do damage, and not die (seriously, not that easy with Path of Exile.) I looked at the skills in Beta, and landed on Ice Crash as a fun way to accomplish this goal.

The gem itself looks interesting; the drawbacks are that it can't be linked with Multistrike, and it has an inherent speed penalty. I decided that if the devs wanted it to be slow, I'd try and speed it up to the maximum I could feasibly manage, while maintaining a tanky-type toon (my damn dog loves smash keys and mess with me while I play, so having this be able to survive for 5-10s 1-handed while I wrestle away ropes and toys to throw is a must!) This toon is designed for survivability first and foremost; when in doubt, I went defense. Other than Malachai, I can count my deaths on 1 hand, and those were 99% due to my stupidity.

You can do this build either with or without blood magic; the BM version will have either less DPS or less overall health, but there are zero issues spamming attacks. I hate mana potting, so I went the BM route, and reserve either AA or Hatred, depending on the content faced; more on that in the video description.

PRO: You won't die, unless you do foolhardy things.
PRO: Cheap to build, cheap to upgrade, cheap to play. Great first toon, can play self-found (except Anvil.)
PRO: Duelist has great hair, and solid lines.
PRO: Minimal attention to detail needed, making it excellent to play if you like to drink, or have small children that want to show you things they drew.

CON: DPS won't win you any Gorge speed-run titles.
CON: Run speed is terrible, though you can leapslam everywhere.
CON: You'll be short on INT, and possibly DEX. Fix through passives or stats on gear.
CON: Starts slow, you'll end up respec'ing out of 2H nodes, should you choose to level up with them (I encourage this, because leveling with a shield is slooooooooooow.)

http://i.imgur.com/Vt2NGAQ.png

Mana version:

Blood Magic:

Will have leveling trees up soon!

REQUIRED: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Blood_DanceThis is our primary method to gain frenzy charges; it's invaluable to speeding up our build attack.

"The Anvil", http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Anvil a 1 chaos unique...and it's not even totally required, just that the build works a lot better with it on. Since it's so cheap, try to corrupt one for an extra frenzy charge or additional block chance (mine has cold leech, which is ok, but not top tier corruption for this build.)

I also recommend getting a Daresso's Defiance http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Daresso%27s_Defiance chest piece; this is great for speeding up attacks via the Onslaught buff (which you get from cursing with Warlords Mark for both leeches, if mana driven.) We generate endurance charges either with ECoMS, through Warlords mark, or rallying cry. You can also opt to work with a rare chest, if you're short on resists and want a higher life coefficient (or are playing self found.)

The rest of the gearing decisions are easy; most of our defensive points are armour or armour/evasion. Split your gear up to be sure to capitalize on this; in other words, no ES, no straight EVA pieces, just make sure everything has SOME armour on it. You will find it helpful to have Elreon jewelry early on (but what build doesn't?); you can probably start to remove pieces around level 45 when you get Anvil, and completely be done at level 60, if you flip to blood magic.

NEW THOUGHTS ON GEARING:



These are really neat. They're a big increase for our clear speed, as you ramp up damage pretty quickly, as we get both END and Frenzy charges quite quickly. In addition, because I'm running with and we're getting frenzy charges which seriously boost regen, I've started running Blood Rage (we can have blood rage running with zero charges, and our natural regen covers the degen.) Blood rage just ramps up the acquisition of frenzy charges, so moving fast between packs isn't as big of a deal, as we've now added another method of getting frenzy charges.

I've also picked up a 5L for higher level mapping, and adding in Concentrated Effect is a large DPS, and clear speed, buff. Tooltip is now at 15k with full frenzy and END charges, and running hatred (note, this does NOT include any additional buff from Onslaught.)

Oak - Kraityn - Kraityn

Body Armour: Ice crash - Melee Phys - Inc AOE - Faster attacks - Conc Effect

Head: Leap slam - faster attacks - CoH - Frostbite (debating changing this to Punishment.)

Hands: Tempest Shield - Item Rarity - Inc Duration - Culling Strike. (taunt bosses at 10%, let a block fire off TShield, collect bonus loot!)

Feet: Vaal Cyclone - Inc AOE (cause fuck it) - Melee Phys - LGOH

Wep: Frenzy - Fortify - LGOH

Shield: Hatred (or haste if you're in a party with someone else running hatred) + CWDT + Blood Rage (cause I like being lazy.) I leveled up my CWDT up to level 6, just because that seemed to be a good place to ensure BR will keep running.

***I've been using Abyssal cry lately, and it's just great for this build. My clear speed XP went up by 20% when using it. I would strongly suggest using it with this build.

For curses; if you're on a mana train, use Warlords. For BM, I like Frostbite.

Intro video and quick clear of Daresso's arenas. https://youtu.be/RYZ-3cUyOuY

71 Promenade map with Rogues and +frenzy charges. https://youtu.be/ZeSCAJTQIEc

73 Arachnid map https://youtu.be/PEVOWGrFsSE

73 Strand map with phys reflect, EE, and a supercharged boss. http://youtu.be/uiXYZHL24ZM