[2.6 Viable] Crit Ice Nova/ Flame Surge Inquisitor
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**** [2.6] ****
Rolling my favorite creation of mine again in Legacy, currently lv 89 and going swimmingly. Guide to be updated, plan on recording some new videos. Character name: IceFS Reborn https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Genjek/characters Most significant alterations to the build from patches in 2.6: Buffed: -Flame Surge mana cost lowered by ~40% at all levels. Allows us to more easily leave The Vertex helm out of the build. -Ice Nova damage has been increased by 3% at level 1, scaling up to 24% increased damage by level 20. Straight up damage buff. -Gifts From Above (consecrated ground ring) buffed, 50% inc dmg and 5% additional block on consecrated ground, perfect for this build Nerfed: -PCoC + Blade Vortex doesnt generate charges as easily against bosses as before with the mechanic change to hit only every 0.6 seconds. (still generates easily against packs) Questionable: -General AoE change nerfs (decreasing returns with greater AoE % investment), though I'm not convinced it's really much of a nerf in the end for us. I wasn't going for the absolute highest AoE through stacking anyways; moving fast and casting fast is better at increasing clear speed. **** [2.4] Update **** Important note: I have this broken down into three-ish different versions of the build that have their own strengths and weaknesses, all tested in SC temp leagues (if wanting to try a HC version, the CI version is the one closest to viable for you to adapt to HC, also check out LiftingNerdBro's HC adaptation for ideas, pretty sure it was inspired by my original guide that's after this update section of the post). In general, the main tradeoffs are survivability and expense--note that all versions are able to reach lv 90 rather easily in SC. For starting a league with little resources, I recommend the old version as it is life based and takes virtually no currency to get off the ground with. For players starting with more resources, I recommend starting the block/hybrid life-ES version and respeccing into the CI version late game to better avoid deaths lv90+. CI version easily hit 10-13k ES (albeit in the heyday of Essences, when high ES gear from un-nerfed essence of woe was easy to get) depending on gear and discipline aura use, but loses some dps. A worthy tradeoff for tanking late game hits, but it's nice to clear faster with the other variation up until lv90. ** Achievements in EssenceSC playing this build: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Genjek/challenges/essence ** Image documents high Atlas completion and viability for end game bosses from entirely solo play, including deathless, albeit a tad slow, killing of Guardians. This represent accomplishments of the hybrid life/ES+block build through lv 90 and then the respecced to CI version for 90-->92, while fleshing out a bit of additional T15 Atlas challenge completion as well as Guardians with the higher survivability. Was able to attempt Shaper once, but unfamiliarity with the fight led to some dumb portal losses and damage was a bit low to speedily get beyond stage 2. I also didn't do the thing I was planning to do to buff my dmg, which was switch my Flame Surge to my 6l setup for the Shaper fight. That would definitely help, especially if you have a leveled Empower to use in place of Ice Nova's Cold to Fire red socket (a leveled Empower would even do wonders in the 4L with Flame Surge, particularly in The Vertex with +1 all gems). If I were to try again I would swing things back a bit towards offensive investment from defense. If I can still get one shot making mistakes dodging his TP-blast with 13k ES I might as well take a bit off the defensive nodes and apply them to kill faster. It's worth noting that Guardians and Shaper were the only enemies with enough HP to make me feel this way. Other bosses were just cake, and you couldn't really die to them unless you played really dumb. ## Block + Life/ES version of Crit Ice Nova/ Flame Surge Inquisitor-- EssenceSC ## (See below the update section for the more detailed but slightly out of date version of the build) This version of the build was a nice improvement on the old Acrobatics Perandus version. Realizing that defenses needed to be upped and after getting a +1 curse corruption on a Stone of Lazwhar, I decided to make block work with the build instead of acrobatics.
Defense Overview
This version of the build features 45ish block/ 75 spell block, achieved through Stone of Lazwhar+ Rathpith Globe + Sanctuary block cluster along with 3 Reckless Defense jewels and your occasional cast of Tempest Shield. As a block build instead of acrobatics, we have our normal amount of ES for the items we have, amounting to about 1.8k ES on top of our 4.4k health at level 90. Spell block also means your random reflect mob is very unlikely to kill you as your reflected hits are blocked 75% of the time (reflect maps are still a bit rough though without purposefully lowering your dps). We still blaspheme curses as well, both Warlord's mark for leech and Enfeeble because it's just plain good and also reduces the drawbacks from the Reckless Defense jewels. Another defensive boon we use is Decoy Totem, which with the exception of some of the end game bosses is an excellent tool for taking aggro off you briefly to get hits with Flame Surge in.
Offense Overview
In regards to offense, clear speeds are as fast as ever, you obliterate packs and map bosses alike in no time. I cruised all the way up through to T15 maps and level 90 without much trouble at all (100/126 Atlas progress before respeccing). As far as non-meta quick map clear and leveling builds go, this is about the best you can get-- extremely well suited for solo play and a whole lot of fun to run. See old section of guide for more details of how our offenses synergize.
Great league starting build-- if you're less experienced with making money in the game, you can still go Acrobatics instead of block and pick up the +1 curse node to save on the costs of Reckless Defense jewels and +1 curse jewelry (see the original guide below). Atziri is super easy and Uber lab is not too bad for this version of the build. Guardian and Shaper competency of the build is unknown, but it is likely quite challenging (for this Life/ES hybrid version), especially with the totem aggro nerf against those bosses. I did test Uber Atziri and it is a bit too much for the build in this state-- couldn't make it past the trio, partly cuz I'm not great at that fight and partly cuz I didn't have the chaos/physical resistance to deal with the degens they drop. I bet someone more experienced with Uber runs could make it work somehow. Notable gear inclusions are +1 curse corrupted Stone of Lazwhar, Rathpith globe, 5/6L Carcass Jack, The Vertex helmet w/ Flame Surge enchantment, a dagger (w/ roughly 180ish total spell crit chance, crit multi, 50-60ish % spell dmg, and flat fire to spells), crit rings, and round out with life/str/resists on other gear. ## Block + CI (Energy Shield) version of Crit Ice Nova/ Flame Surge Inquisitor ## Respecced recently to CI to try to make the build more viable for the end game bosses. More details coming soon(tm). See current character in the meantime if curious, it's working out well https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Genjek/characters/CastsWithMyThighs. My main internal debate is whether to invest more in ES regen (DyNess tank style) or raw ES nodes, as well as balancing defense with offense optimally. I feel like I've hit a pretty good balance as is however. CI Advantages: --Way more EHP + ES regen mechanics --In effect immune to elemental status ailments with Sanctify/Pious path ascendancy, and have ES regen synergy from cons. ground (we use a Sorrow of the Divine flask to ensure this in a pinch and as an "on" switch for Zealot's Oath without taking the nodes) --Enough HP buffer to do Elemental Reflect maps (highest was helping a guy with ele reflect Overgrown Ruin bosses-- he said it was phys but was WRONG lol, still did fine though a bit slower) CI Disadvantages: --Much more expensive to gear --Blood Magic insta kills you --A bit slower clearing without Instruments of Virtue helping you move around and buffing you ******************* ## Old Version of the build-- Life + Acrobatics Crit Ice Nova/ Flame Surge Inquisitor ## After reaching lvl 91 on a similar build in TaliSC and coming back to try it again with newer and better things in PerandusSC, I finally decided to share this build, as it's been progressively getting stronger with each major patch and has been much improved by the release of Ascendancy. It is a lvl 91 Templar Inquisitor in PSC as of writing this guide. In general, if you want fast clear speed without much expense, while being able to absolutely obliterate map bosses, this is a build for you. It's proven to be an extremely strong map clearing build and is very fun to play. Plus it uses a rarely used skill that's been buffed recently and has actually become really good- Flame Surge- and can completely destroy Atziri with it. Before we get much further, here's my assessment of pro's and cons, and a bit of background:
Pros and Cons
Pros: -Fast clear speed for maps -Huge single target dps through the mechanics of Flame Surge, well-picked support gems, and the Inquisitor Ascendancy -Can run Atziri deathless (assuming you know the fight) -Doesn't require much currency to be successful (and doesn't require a 6l)- Great for starting out leagues/self-found -Pretty easy to execute- most things are set up to benefit you automatically, part of what makes it fast Cons: -Not very HC viable -Weaknesses are Curse Immune, Blood magic, and Ele Reflect maps (Curse Immune can be done without too much trouble, just isn't as fun/safe/fast) -Can't do Uber Atziri well with defenses as they are
Background -- Why Flame Surge?
I've always been a fan of AoE casters in this game. Back when I was less experienced with the game, Glacial Cascade was my go-to skill, but before 2.0 changes it was really clunky to use- then 2.0 hit and I gave it a shot again. It certainly has its benefits, notably being able to sit back a bit and still hit things at a moderate distance while being both phys and ele for partial effective penetration of ele resistance, and was decent for single target. However I found Ice Nova to be a much stronger clearing skill, so in Talisman SC league I made an Ice Nova/Glacial Cascade clear/single target build. I reached Lv91 with it but GC started to feel more and more lacking in single target dps compared to other builds I'd see. So the real question became, what can I use instead? The real answer didn't come until the most recent patch changes to Flame Surge and new support gems. Searching for a stronger single target spell and looking through spells on the Wiki, Flame Surge has one of the highest, if not the highest, base damages. And it also has this cool mechanic that gives it 50% MORE damage against burning targets (while it itself cannot ignite). Well, since we cant ignite with it anyways, pair it with the new elemental focus support gem (another 50% MORE damage at level 20, drawback of not inflicting status ailments). Add in the old standard for single target aoe, Concentrated Effect, for an additional near 60% MORE area damage at level 20. That's ~ 110% MORE dmg without ignite, 160% MORE damage with it, on one of the highest base damage spells. While this already sounds insane, lets go a bit further and throw in these parts of the Templar Inquisitor Ascendancy--> +45% Crit Multi to enemies affected by status ailments AND Critical Strikes Ignore elemental resistances. To quote my man Sven from DotA 2 when he picks up crit, "This is going to be absurd." Now, I've tried Flame surge before recent changes and it was extremely underwhelming. In the past it had a stupid long base cast time that just felt sooooo slow, and it has a very narrow channel of aoe that hardly changed with Increased AoE investment. There wasn't really any redeeming factor, as running the extra skills to make the 50% more dmg on burn was a pain and the damage wasn't enough to make up for the crappy mechanics of the skill. However, with recent patches this has changed. Base cast speed was improved, width was increased by 20%, and damage was buffed. If you've tried Flame Surge before and were turned off by the mechanics (I agree, it was unbearable before), try it again- it's actually pretty fun to use now, and damn good for single target. General Build Premise- Dual blasphemed curse for charge generation and recovering HP and mana (Warlord's Mark + Assassin's Mark (leveling) OR Enfeeble (late game), Flame Surge for single target and Cold-to-fire Ice Nova for general clearing. We generate burn to enhance Flame Surge dps a variety of ways. We use Fire Trap for generating continued burn on bosses even if they're immune to ignite, Ice Nova with Cold-to-Fire can generate us ignites on its frequent crits, as well as Blade Vortex (if you have +added fire dmg to spells on a dagger). The advent of Blasphemy allows us to reliably crit much earlier than pre-2.1 by giving us a means to generate power charges easily w/ Assassin's Mark as early as Act 3 Normal. There is extra synergy in using a character-centered AoE skill like Ice Nova with blasphemed curses, as they also center on your character in an AoE. We get acceptable defense from Acrobatics nodes and Whirling Blades + Fortify--extra defense when whirling into packs and freezing/killing them all with Ice Nova.
Offense
Note: these screenshots represent current damage in this build, are not quite the highest they will be. Most gems are currently Lv 19 20q, no 6L, and this character can certainly make it higher than the current level 91, so there is definitely room to grow still. Will post updates in future.
When determining damage also factor in the curses, which I talk more about later, that give improved offense in terms of crit chance/dmg and stun chance, and Power and Endurance charge generation. As they are applied on enemies they do not show up in tooltip (besides the power charge crit/dps increase, which is a buff on you) *****UPDATE: dps has risen above whats shown in the pictures, added in some strong jewels for the build, now get 214k dps flame surge, 57k dps Ice Nova Flame Surge-~200k dps tooltip- 4L w/ 6 PWR 3 FR Charges (standard situation mapping)- more on enemies with burn/ignite  Ice Nova-~53k dps 5L w/ 6 PWR 3 FR 
Defense:
~4.3k Life/300ES, Fortify on Whirling Blades, Endurance Charges with CWDT+IC+ID, Acrobatics and Phase Acro (40% Attack Dodge, 30% Spell Dodge), High Freeze chance with Crit+Ice Bite on Ice Nova to keep packs from whacking you too much. Some small amounts of Evasion on top of that for 18% Eva with current gear-->45% with %Ev Jade Flask.
Warlord's and Assassin's Marks (blasphemed) provide 2% Life and Mana leech and Life/Mana Gain on Kill which are important defensive boons; for tougher situations you can swap out AssMark for Enfeeble and use Blade Vortex+PCoC for Power charge generation instead for safer mapping. With Vaal Pact, the Warlord's leech lets you (most of the time) avoid instagibbing yourself on reflect, and keeps your HP and Mana full so long as you are attacking or killing enough non-curse immune mobs. On tooltip this build may not be the absolute strongest on defense, but with the aspects of defense described above and playing smart you can have minimal deaths in Softcore. For the sake of completeness, here's tooltip defenses in a Merciless zone: Note: With %Ev Jade flask active, Evasion goes to 45% 
Gem Links
Most Important: 4L Single target: Flame Surge + Spell Echo + Elemental Focus + Conc. Effect 5L AoE Clearing : Ice Nova + Increased Critical Strikes + Spell Echo + Cold to Fire + Ice Bite/Faster Casting (6L+IncCritDmg) 3L Curses: Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark + Assassin's Mark OR Enfeeble (Optional 4L: + Enlighten) Note: Assassin's mark is quite helpful while leveling for pwr charges, but late game Enfeeble becomes much more valuable and I run it exclusively, using our PCoC setup for Pwr Charges Mobility and Defense: 3L Movement and Mitigation: Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks + Fortify 3L Phys survival: CWDT + Immortal Call + Increased Duration (endurance charges from Warlords Mark) Misc.: 1L Summon Ice Golem (for extra crit) 1L Fire Trap (burning for flame surge bonus dmg, NOT the same as ignite so ignite-immune bosses are still are affected) 1L Decoy Totem - nice with Inc Duration in the CWDT setup (totems dont CWDT; attracts boss aggro for you to apply safer dps) 2L PCoC + Blade Vortex (for jump starting and continued generation of power charges) Note: If you have flat added fire damage to spells of any amount on one of your weapons, blade vortex itself will apply ignites. Unlike other status ailments, ignite duration is consistent and not scaled on damage of the hit so even if it's not a high flat fire roll it will still apply useful ignites. Charges Explained: We use Ice Bite (for the cheap version of chroming Carcass Jack at least) with with Ice Nova and Assassins/Warlords marks blasphemed for our main source of charges. Typically have 6 Pwr, 3 Frenzy, 3 Endurance charges up (End charges are used for CWDT+IC so always being lost and regained). In more difficult maps I prefer swapping out Assassins Mark for Enfeeble for improved safety and using Blade Vortex + PCoC instead for power charge generation instead.
Passive Tree - 112pts
http://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUCJ02SI_aNfdn8wJoJqh0UEQ85UlgHGGrDOo_6g9tVxjpYIuosnCcvGjiQVVF0GoGmmQVCrrNBljB8YeJVSyaV0PWFfRZAa7ePRgSzogApT4w296aOZLb6LR-VIF3yidNwUioLm6EqOFFHOtjsOGZUJKo26RZv42r31w-r215QMCBuwfOio-98n988Be081abr9fIdZJ07fA_EuMr53Y2_i4wWv4KbmjuFe1JTl5UFtUyz_94k_edU1CPo1pUuSVHw1QcerJgwcUt43agkiw5If8b60hGWZp49XzpCwGbQH-_r0nwMUpJuqLkClrxW7WGcew==
We use these jewels in the jewel sockets. Life + crit multi and other beneficial mods  
Leveling
With leveling you can use whatever you want really, though I recommend AoE based to match the tree. I tried out the new lightning ball spell with Lighning Tendrils to start this league, ended up using mostly Flame Surge and Flame Totem not long after that, and put in Ice Nova once I had a bearable amount of cast speed to run it.
The start of the tree is pretty linear, just take the nice side nodes as you go, though hold off on the Dual Curse branch until you get Blasphemy Act 3 Normal. Rushing some nodes with Dex to help with item requirements and some more life Rush Acrobatics/Phase Acro for survivability, pick up Vaal Pact for reflect (Warlord's leech),some extra crit
87 pts
http://www.poeplanner.com/AAAABAUBJ9n8wJoJqh0UEQ85UlgHGGpVxjpYLJwFQq6zQZbQ9Y9GBLOiAClP96aOZLb6m6EWb-Nq99fbXlAwIG7vfJ_fPAVXlO081ab53YuMgpuaO1JTl5VMs6yY-tJmnj1fwGYtH5UgwfOio3_GEZYHHpUu8NVJUQ5IXfIqC3BSidOMNlVLYeImlRa_a7eFfRZAD6ski8M6Kjgi6ujWBbWNv9QjMHHdqEt4OkKP-uv1ZJ3yHdJ8DFKSbqi5Apa8Vg==
Filling in all the life you can get easy, more crit nodes Lvl 91 Build
112 pts
http://www.poeplanner.com/AAAABAUBJ02SI_aNfdn8wJoJqh0UEQ85UlgHGGrDOo_6g9tVxjpYIuosnCcvGjiQVVF0GoGmmQVCrrNBljB8YeJVSyaV0PWFfRZAa7ePRgSzogApT4w296aOZLb6LR-VIF3yidNwUioLm6EqOFFHOtjsOGZUJKo26RZv42r31w-r215QMCBuwfOio-98n988Be081abr9fIdZJ07fA_EuMr53Y2_i4wWv4KbmjuFe1JTl5UFtUyz_94k_edU1CPo1pUuSVHw1QcerJgwcUt43agkiw5If8b60hGWZp49XzpCwGbQH-_r0nwMUpJuqLkClrxW
Alternate PoE site link, figure I should have at least one official site tree link on this guide http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUBJ02SI_aNfdn8wJoJqh0UEQ85UlgHGGrDOo_6g9tVxjpYIuosnCcvGjiQVVF0GoGmmQVCrrNBljB8YeJVSyaV0PWFfRZAa7ePRgSzogApT4w296aOZLb6LR-VIF3yidNwUioLm6EqOFFHOtjsOGZUJKo26RZv42r31w-r215QMCBuwfOio-98n988Be081abr9fIdZJ07fA_EuMr53Y2_i4wWv4KbmjuFe1JTl5UFtUyz_94k_edU1CPo1pUuSVHw1QcerJgwcUt43agkiw5If8b60hGWZp49XzpCwGbQH-_r0nwMUpJuqLkClrxW Will likely add an extra jewel socket upon hitting lv92 or 93. To add an extra Jewel I would spec out of the 5% life node to add one point to the one from leveling, to get a jewel with 6+% life, Crit Multi, and at least one other relevant offensive mod. Or just level up more. Future tree progression will likely involve either hunting for more defenses or adding jewels. Might go for the extra frenzy charge near Ranger, or the extra power charge near Shadow (that one's expensive though-3 skill tree points when defense should be the main priority for the build at the moment). Also if I were to acquire an Intuitive Leap jewel, I might consider speccing out of some other nodes and using it on the right side of the Shadow start to acquire +1 Pwr and Frenzy charges as well as some extra life nodes with optimal investment.
Ascendancy
For Ascendancy we choose Inquisitor, the reason we picked Templar. We go Righteous Providence first for 100% increased crit chance against enemies without status ailment and +45% to Crit Multi against enemies with status ailments. Then we add Inevitable Judgement, so our crits ignore elemental resistances and non-crits still penetrate more. Next, we go Instruments of Virtue, providing various spell dmg/cast speed/ attack speed benefits depending on whether you've used spells/attacks recently, which are basically always active in maps as we alternate between Whirling Blades (attack) and Ice Nova/Flame Surge/Blade Vortex+PCoC (spells). Lastly with out Uber lab points, we add Augury of Penitence, a valuable tool for both defense and offence. Bandits: Normal: Help Oak- +40 life Cruel: Kill All- Skill Point Merciless: Help Alira- +1 Max Power charge Gearing: For the defensive gear you want life, resists to get you up to cap, standard stuff. For jewelry Diamond Ring crit base is obviously preferred, and for the amulet I like looking for Cast Speed and Crit Multi in addition to the defensive stats (primarily life). We also run Maligaro's Virtuosity for the Global Crit benefits. While leveling and playing this character you need a fair amount of strength and some dex to run everything, so keep those attributes in mind when gearing (and remember that every 2 strength is and extra +1 to max life, which we want a lot of on our gear- nice way to max out life in addition to pure +life mods). We run dual crit daggers to use Whirling Blades and have more crit benefits. Look for Spell damage, Global/Spell Crit chance, Crit Multi, flat ele dmg to spells. For faster movement you can probably sacrifice some global/spell crit chance for higher attack speed daggers to whirling blades faster through maps and still be fine in the crit department.
Current Perandus Gear:
My gear is not really anything amazing. All in all, omitting the 5L Carcass Jack (~2 ex when I got it earlier in the league, ~1 ex now), I acquired everything for less than 1 Exalt equivalent by keeping an eye out for nice deals on poe.trade. The Carcass Jack is very nice but not absolutely required, I think I picked up the Carcass at ~lvl 82 and had been fine before with a crappy 5l chest. Pretty cheap, great for starting out new leagues or playing self-found. 6L is not necessary, though it would of course improve Ice Nova clearspeed (not really a big deal given the 5L clearspeed is already great. Depending on socket colors you could also swap in Flame Surge to a 6L before bosses to add in life leech. I considered adding in the new curse helm Heretic's Veil for improved cursing, however it gives no life/resists and would require acquiring +additional curses on gear to be worth it which typically means sacrificing defenses there as well. Could get the additional +1 curses through a Cospri's Will, with the added benefit that your curses are still effective against Hexproof. If I were to go Tri-Curse I would use Warlords/Enfeeble/Temporal Chains + Enlighten in Heretic's Veil. Video Build Intro + Atziri Run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=323FjFHWJWY This has been my first build guide, and I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know if I missed anything important and GL HF out there in Wraeclast! Last edited by Genjek#0453 on Mar 27, 2017, 2:07:24 PM Last bumped on Jul 7, 2017, 6:26:40 PM
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Hello! This build is very unique.
What inspired you to make this build? Do you think you can do Atziri? I think this build has potential to be meta. I love that you play Dota 2, I play Dota 2. Get it? xD |
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Very nice build. Trying this out in the current Essence League.
>Well Played! |
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Nice build so far. Currently lvl 54 and i love it.Thank you very much for sharing your build^^
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" Thanks, glad to hear people are giving it a shot and I'm glad you've enjoyed it! |
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