[2.1] 2-Player Build: Icebreaker - Aurasupport
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___[ Introduction ]___
This build is a result of mine and Ramses303's ideas of fine-tuning an aura support character for the purpose of buffing one specific character and build. One character deals with the violent bit while the other provides support. This two-sided build requires lots of items for both characters to function; mostly uniques. We both play standard exclusively and thus we don't build characters with permadeath in mind. This guide's sections: * Introduction * Basic idea of the build * The setup * Synergy * Gameplay  Smile for the camera! ___[ Basic idea of the build ]___ Player 1 The plan is to utilize the Facebreaker for unarmed, Aegis Aurora for the ES gain on blocking, and Abyssus for damage. Ice Crash as main attack for its high base damage and AoE. Herald of Ash with various support gems for increased aoe capabilities. Build highlights: Ridiculous damage. Some might even say it is ludicrous. Bosses that don't die immediately are very likely to get stunlocked. Laughs at all monsters attacking them. Enemy spellcasters laugh at you. Player 2 The second player (P2) assumes the role of a full-time support Build highlights: Lots of auras and stuff. Super-powered Vaal Haste and Grace. Quad curse Elemental Equilibrium together with Arc + CoH Elemental Weakness. Has defense equal to a wet piece of toilet paper **slight exaggeration ___[ The Setup ]___
P1: The Icebreaker
 Here it comes! Here comes the night train! The Icebreaker on their own is still rather powerful, but not nearly as powerful when P2 is around. Stay away from reflect maps. They are managable but one ill-placed Ice crash will instantly send P1 back to town. Expected maximum life around 5000, give or take a few hundred depending on rares.
Passive tree
My current skill tree, level 92, 113 points: 170% max life 220% increased armour 4.9% life regen +190% defence from shields +23% block chance (55% with aegis) +339% increased melee physical damage (65% of that from 322str) 4 end charges 5 frenzy charges 3 jewel slots Iron Reflexes Resolute Technique Unwavering Stance Bandit Rewards: Oak (life) Eramir/Oak (skillpoint/16% physical dmg) Kraityn (frenzy charge) Skill point or physical damage. Both are good. Jewels: Getting a jewel with something like +0.X% mana leech from physical attacks is _VERY_ important because otherwise there is no way P1 will be able to sustain their mana. Other than that, any combination of % to max life and physical damage/pure damage mods is desirable. "
Equipment
The amount of armour on the equipment matters, but only to a small degree. Why is explained in the "Synergy" section. What is desired is simply +maximum life, enough resistances, and added stats to meet all requirements to use everything. Some extra ES on jewellery won't hurt. The best way (only way) to really scale Facebreaker damage is with items that add flat physical damage to attacks. It is needed on the rings and amulet - it will make an enormous difference for P1's damage output. Movement speed on boots will stack nicely as it combined with the super-powered Haste and Vaal Haste from P2 will make them ridiculously fast. Not even with a double movement speed Quicksilver will P2 be able to keep up with P1. Other than that P1 needs to make sure they have enough stats, resists and life from the non-unique items to cover everything. Items that are mandatory are: Aegis Aurora (shield) Facebreaker (gloves) Abyssus (helmet) Meginord's Girdle (belt) Rumi's Concoction (flask) (These two are maybe not 'mandatory' but provide crazy damage boosts.) Lion's Roar (flask) Atziri's Promise (flask) After finally get my hands on a Taste of Hate I can say that it's sort of better than Lion's Roar due to consuming 30 charges and having two uses. It syncs with Promise and Rumi's as they all use 30 charges. Having P2 use Poacher's Mark lets you spam flasks on pretty much every pack. Lion's Roar scales the other two flasks greatly (along with everything else) so it's definitely a powerful combo. Concerning Ascendancy: Lion's Roar will get buffed in number of uses per full flask. This is a massive buff for Icebreaker. This is what I currently have myself:
Spoiler
A possible upgrade would be to have boots with ES instead of armour, so try and get that instead.
Skillgems
I would say that for this character, the damage differences between a 4, 5 and 6 link chest are pretty significant. Chest: (RRRBGR) Ice Crash -> Melee Phys Dmg -> M.Dmg on Full Life -> Conc.Eff/Inc Aoe -> Hypothermia -> Added Fire Dmg The main attack. Using Increased AoE for dealing with everything that is not a boss is recommended as it greatly ups the clear speed. Hypothermia because pretty much everything P1 hits will get chilled. If attacks won't chill then Arctic armour will. Helmet: (GRRR) Riposte -> Reckoning -> Melee phys dmg -> Added fire dmg Don't underestimate the power of trigger gems with facebreaker. The damage is high enough to kill things and cause proliferated burn to kill entire packs. All without you having to do anything! Convenience! Boots: (RBRB) Herald of Ash -> Inc. Aoe -> Inc. Burn Dmg -> Elemental Proliferation It's going to reserve 58% with all those supports but that's no problem. Increased AoE for both the actual Herald explosion and the proliferation as a huge QoL thing. Gloves: (RGRG) Frenzy -> Fortify -> End. Charge on Melee Stun -> Faster Attacks Frenzy to get charges and fortify. It's possible to switch out Faster Attacks for Poacher's Mark when playing solo so you can keep chaining flasks. Shield: (RG?) Rallying Cry -> Hatred/Arctic Armour -> Blue socket for storing Inc Aoe and Conc. Effect. Or it can just kept it in the inventory. Rallying cry because of increased damage. Arctic Armor for Hypothermia and more defenses.
P2: Aurasupport
 Carrier has arrived. This character's gameplay revolves around positioning yourself everywhere but in the face of stuff that wants to eat your hard earned xp. Due to using many uniques and not having a lot of passives allocated for hp/es it is rather fragile.
Equipment
The list of mandatory uniques is as follows: Victario's Influence Alpha's Howl Doedre's Damning Windscream Prism Guardian Ephemeral Edge For all other slots P2 will want rares that has all the things for good overall defense to help upgrade the "wet piece of toilet paper" defense to something more like "cardboard box". Maximum life, preferably an ES base item, resistances, attributes, and maybe even increased maximum energy shield on amulet. Scroll down to the first post after this one and look in the spoiler for Ramses' current gear.
Skillgems
Chest: (RG--BBBG) Hatred -> Determination ---- Blasphemy -> Enfeeble -> Temporal Chains -> Frostbite Only a 6s4-2L is needed on Victarios. Helm: (GGRR) Vaal Haste -> Vaal Grace -> Generosity -> Increased duration One of P2's main skills. P1 will only indirectly notice the effect of Vaal Haste when everyone else will go in to overdrive. As long as you keep Grace charged, to save for emergencies or bosses, Haste will fill up pretty quickly. Gloves: (BBBB) Arc -> Curse on Hit -> Elemental weakness -> Faster Casting Mostly used on bosses and some rare monsters. Shield: (GGB) Grace -> Haste -> Discipline Boots: (RG??) Poacher's Mark -> Reduced mana(/blood magic) -> Whatever -> Whatever Weapon: (RRB) Rejuvenating Totem -> Vitality -> Summon Chaos Golem
Passive tree
One point could be spent in Conduit so that P2 could buff others with charges from using a Doedre's Elixir. It is not needed for playing with the icebreaker as he gains charges on his own (power charges do nothing due to RT) but if partying with other characters and builds it can definitely be beneficial for everyone. 38% reduced mana reserved 4 Jewel sockets 90% increased skill duration 66% increased effect of non-curse auras 40% increased effect of curses " " Bandit Rewards: Oak (life) Eramir (skillpoint) Eramir (skillpoint) Jewels: Conqueror's Efficiency Conqueror's Potency Player 2's auras in Victario's Influence have a total effectiveness of (with 15% victario's) 66% + 10~15% + 3% + 20% = 2.04 (passives) (victarios) (conquerors efficiency) (generosity) Auras outside of victario's have a multiplier of 1.84 Vaal Haste and Grace's multiplier with a level 20 generosity is 2.25 And here are the auras and their reservation in mikelat's aura calculator. https://poe.mikelat.com/#FJetVfKd/kUnTiShz/WF3Wcl3/HsSAQsh Here's the full list of auras and curses that P2 makes use of. Calculated with level 20 gems or higher and no quality. Determination, Hatred, and the two vaal skills are on Generosity so they do not affect the caster themselves. Hatred: Nearby allies gain 72% of physical damage added as extra cold damage Determination: Nearby allies gain 104% more armour Grace: You and nearby allies gain 5216 additional evasion rating Discipline: You and nearby allies gain 607 additional energy shield Haste: You and nearby allies gain 16% movement speed, 31% attack speed, 31% cast speed Vitality: You and nearby allies regenerate 3% life per second Vaal Haste: Nearby allies gain 47% movement speed, 83% attack speed, 81% cast speed Vaal Grace: Nearby allies gain 75% chance to dodge attacks and spells Temporal Chains: Enemies are 44% slower (60% with a 20/20 temp chains) Enfeeble: Enemies deal 46% less damage. 56% reduced accuracy rating Frostbite: Enemies lose 66% cold resistance. 21% freeze chance. Elemental Weakness: Enemies lose 56% elemental resistances Rejuvenation Totem: 298 life regenerated per second Punishment: Grants 53% more physical melee damage. 29% increased attack speed ___[ Synergy ]___ P2's Grace gives 5216 evasion rating and P1 has taken Iron Reflexes, then all of that is converted to Armour rating. With P1's 220% increased armour it ends up being an addition of roughly 17.000 armor. Then P2's Determination kicks in, which grants 104% more armour, and it all just skyrockets. At 50.000 armour (which P1 will easily surpass) Aegis restores 1000 ES on every block. P2's Discipline gives a well-needed boost in total ES. Either way, P1 will find themselves rather invincible against lots of attacking enemies.  P2's vitality and rejuvenation totem coupled with P1's life regen from passives will give P1 around 600~800 life regen per second.  It can be argued that Temporal Chains is counter-intuitive when using it together with Punishment, which requires the monster to hit the player and deal damage, because of how slow they become. Punishment is the strongest damage/dps buff available for Icebreaker, but when it comes down to it the only situtation where its full potential can be used is for enemies that don't die in one hit and are not casting spells. Even in tier 11 maps with two players and increased monster life mod whites and blues mostly die in one ice crash, so punishment is perhaps less obligatory; the damage is already sufficient enough without the curse buff. Enfeeble really helps reduce incoming damage by a great margin (even more so now when it's coupled with temporal chains!). Problem is it is also counter-intuitive with Punishment because it reduces enemy accuracy rating by a great deal. Thus I think that Frostbite is better to use than Punishment. This also allows P1 to stack up a considerable amount of Chance to Freeze. Frostbite (21%) + Celestial Judgement (5%) + Hypothermia (10%) = 36% P2 has Elemental Equilibrium and triggers it with Arc together with curse on hit Elemental Weakness on the same link, all while Frostbite is on blasphemy, enemies lose a grand total of 173% fire and cold resistances. Bosses and their curse multiplier puts that number at 99%. ___[ Gameplay ]___ 3½ minute video of some bosses and Atziri. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e63JJA_0k3s P1: See group of enemies -> rallying cry and all flasks -> onehit everything -> continue to next pack -> repeat ad infinitum For bosses just switch out Inc.Aoe for Conc.Eff and watch the damage go wild. What might kill P1 the most are flame/frost/thunder-bearer enemies as the mine/bomb effects might be difficult to spot with all the ice crash going on. Reflect is bad. Reflect will kill you. ------- P2: Wait for Vaal skills to build up auras, activate Haste, drink quicksilver, and just hope you'll be able to keep up with P1. Cast Poacher's mark whenever you can to let P1 spam their potions. Watch out for desecrated ground and heavy chaos damage enemies. *** The Result *** Ice Crash damage:
Solo with only Hatred and Herald of ash
Increased AoE  Conc. Effect 
Solo with hatred, HoA, Frenzy charges and flasks
Increased AoE  Concentrated Effect 
Frenzy, HoA, Flasks, and Player 2 nearby. No vaal haste
Increased AoE  Concentrated Effect 
Riposte with frenzy, flask, HoA and Player 2 auras
 Frenzy charges, R.cry, Atziri's promise, Lion's roar, Punishment, Vaal haste, Taste of hate Damage is in truth exponentionally higher because of P2's Arc with EE and EleWeakness. Tooltip dps would be lower, but damage could be even higher if P1 were using Hypothermia.
Spoiler
 Granite flask with increased armour % Jade flask with increased evasion %  Last edited by Angerelic#4587 on Feb 6, 2016, 9:02:45 AM Last bumped on Jun 5, 2016, 8:10:01 AM
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Ramses' Aurasupport's current gear
Spoiler
You also want to get a Quicksilver with increased movement speed, otherwise your P1 will run away when boosted with Vaal Haste, as it is on generosity. Last edited by Ramses303#1765 on Feb 5, 2016, 6:10:17 PM
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Very interesting duo synergy, got any vids to demo it in action?
For POE Devs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea6UuRTjkKs
Died like this in HC before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVsgFUiD-Y8 u_u |
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I don't think you understand the concept of synergy. P2 is more like a slave than anything.
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" In this case, I suppose so yeah, though P2 is dependant on P1 (or just about any character) and P1 only reaches its intended potential with the |
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It looks good but there's ONE big problem holding you guys back, and it can possibly be fixed :
Its the phys/elemental damage split : There's a LOT of physical damage on the three, and nearly no elem damage. WED on jewelry (if possible, cause it makes the build more expensive) would help a lot, and add Weapon elemental damage gem instead of added fire. Especially with the EE/Cursing for elem efficiency If you want some details on why WED>AF, read below
Spoiler
Because Added fire is just plain out bad compared to WED :
If you roughly estimate it, - Hatred is 35% cold from your base phys - HoA is 15% fire from your base phys - Added fire is 35% fire from your base phys - WED multiplies your base elem by 1.5 So 50%*1.5 or 85%. Sure 85% (added fire) > 75% (wed) if you look at those only, but that's not counting the BIGGEST part, the cold damage converted from Ice crash, which is damage boosted by all your passives, by MPD and MDonFullLife, and then yet again by WED. All in all, that part alone should be more added damage then added fire, and then it also boosts your other auras as a bonus ______________________ On another note, what about the Enfeeble curse? I know theres good synergy between freezing/chilling and temp chains, but theres also good synergy between enfeeble and armor/charges to not get OS by big bosses and further down reduce abyssus's penalty Lastly, you could add endurance charge on melee stun in the riposte/reckoning (wich would be more efficient as a reckoning/vengeance i think) links instead of added fire. it's very good because it generates charges passively and AT A DISTANCE (a monster shoots at you, procs reckoning wich gives you charges) so its good for running into shooting packs Last edited by neyhoumi#1933 on Feb 5, 2016, 9:06:05 PM
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" WED doesn't work without a weapon... |
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" Weapon Elemental Damage, and unarmed is not carrying any weapon at all. If it did work with facebreaker then yes it'd be better than Added fire. The two elemental damage nodes leading to Celestial Punishment (14% total) increased the cold damage on Conc.Eff Ice Crash by around 800 maximum damage. Picking nodes with an equal amount of physical damage would mean thousands in damage increase. It's simply not worth it going for elemental damage with facebreaker in this setup. We're already using Enfeeble and Temporal Chains. Vengeance doesn't work with unarmed; they nerfed it long ago. Last edited by Angerelic#4587 on Feb 6, 2016, 9:03:32 AM
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xixi
Last edited by Dazoul#5456 on Feb 6, 2016, 6:25:45 AM
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Really nice! :)
IGN: Scordalia_
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