MFin America

Objective

Create a magic finding melee build that does not sacrifice much damage or survivability, while not relying on summons. The build focuses on crits and freezing enemies leaving nothing but frozen body parts in his path and solutes America while doing so.



What's more American than a hammer shaped like a bald eagle?

2 of em and one whose sockets are of course red white and blue. It's an obvious choice that the build must be centered around dual weilding these guys.

Why the Templar?

Yes, he may not be American himself and he bleeds red just like all of the other exiles but he does look the most like Uncle Sam, so that gives him bonus points.



My friend Uncle Sam likes money and so do I. Thats why we build him with MF gear cus this is MFin America.

Bandits you ask?

Normal- Oak
Cruel- Kraityn
Merciless- Alira

As you can see I could not just pick one bandit as an ally cus here in America we get involved in everybody's business.

Main Skill
Glacial Hammer + Melee Splash + Increased Critical Strike Chance + Increased Critical Strike damage + Weapon Elemental Damage* + Increased Physical damage*

(Switch out Crit damage and phys damage for quantity and rarity jewels while mfing)
*These skills not required. 4L works just fine but who doesn't like 2 extra support gems.

Movement
Leap Slam + Fortify + increased attack speed + endurance charge on melee stun

"Auras"
Herald of Ice + Ice bite
Assassins Mark + Blasphemy

Other Skills
Frost Bomb + Ice bite
Vengeance + Ice bite
Enduring Cry
Vaal Cold Snap + Iron Will + Cold Penetration
Summon Frost Golem + Fortify + Minion & Totem Resistance
Ancestral Protector + Fortify + Minion & Totem Resistance

Many of these skills share support gems, so that I have room for all of them. For example.

3 skills share 1 ice bite support gem. Since Southbound gloves require an enemy to be frozen in order to die I wanted these skills to have a greater chance to freeze them if I needed it. It is especially nice since 2 of these skills are automatic, keeping the enemy frozen and granting me extra frenzy charges if it kills them.

-poe.trade = 35c. Did not farm the enchant myself but it was easy to find one with good stats on poetrade. Only thing I would like different is some rarity on it.


-easy to find even these top rolled versions for 1-2c each. Most of our MF will come from killing frozen enemies. Glacial Hammer is great for this because of its innate 15% freeze chance. We will get that up a lot from crit chance and freeze chance on other gear and the passive skill tree.


-every stat good and beneficial here, especially the crit. Self found


-I did save up for the 6L but 4 and 5 work just well. Leveling up I had a single target glacial hammer and the aoe one. The aoe GH surpassed the single target damage with a 5L. It is not BIS but I made the most of it with what I could afford. The increased freeze duration puts me just over 100% with GH


-Decent ring but there is room for improvement, attack speed is nice since leap slam is the main source of movement in and out of combat.


-Another way we can get a lot of MF from our crits. Obviously does not work every time but it gets us to over 200% MF with a good hit.



-poe.trade = 10c. Great gloves that ensure that our hits kill enemies from crits or freezing to get the most out of our MF. They give good great cold damage, good life, and lots of cold resistance, so you don't miss out on much with these gloves. Only downfall is bosses with a lot of life are hard to finish because they don't freeze well, so sometimes my golem will finish them or you can change out gloves for certain bosses but many of the map bosses will freeze well. Vaal cold snap always freezes and works great against big groups.


-Self found. All good stats here. Get your resis and life on belts, damage is always good, and stun threshold will help get those endurance charges from leap slam.


-poetrade ~ 5-10c movement, life, resis, more MF. The cold damage when hit recently is a great enchant for this build since it is almost a permanent buff. I do not evade attacks and since I am melee I am always getting hit. I may avoid attacks with the dodge flask but since the buff lasts 4 seconds it is almost always up and will help keep things frozen longer.


-I like having a duration heal and the MS is nice.


-Instant heals for dangerous encounters


-Everyone likes a damage boost


-Many might use a granite flask since this build is mostly armour based. I like this flask because it offers mitigation no matter what the damage source is, so its good for almost every situation.


-This is a charge heavy build. Assassin's Mark gives me up to 6 power charges. Leap slam + Enduring Cry gives 3 endurance charges. Vengeance, Herald of Ice, and frost bomb all produce frenzy charges with ice bite. So many times I have 12 charges (with more endurance charges available on the skill tree if you want the achievement or extra phys damage reduction). I think this flask helps only a little to keep them up but I actually really like having a 2nd instant heal flask for tough situations and I needed something with with mana for boss fights too. (Mana is good everywhere else because of mana on kill from Assassin's Mark)

Passive Tree Notes

Unwavering Stance- This is the only keystone I use. I started noticing my most troubling encounters in maps was when I would leap slam into a group if I did not freeze or stun them I could get stun locked pretty hard. After getting this keystone all was well.


I'm rocking 2 of these. You can of course run more but it will cost some flexibility in the skill tree. They are very cheap on poe.trade even to get the right corrupted mods you want. I have one with 7% increased charge duration and 14% cold damage for only 4c.

The tree and gear allow me to get max resistance. I spend 4 points to go out of the way to get max resis. 2 towards the top of the tree to get the Jewel and 2 for the Faith and Steel notable. If you get max resis on gear then you can spend these 4 other points in other places. (The jewel does also help me get the dexterity I need for skills)

I did not get all of the cold damage nodes in the Witch area because the physical damage for maces was a bigger increased to damage for the main skill Glacial Hammer.

Ascendancy: Inquisitor

Originally I wanted to get the bonus to Consecrated ground since I knew I'd be using the unique "Gifts From Above". I decided that the benefits were greater getting Instruments of Virtue and Augury of Penitence.

Instruments of Virtue was helpful since I do use 2 spells on occasion Vaal Cold Snap for big groups and Ice Bomb against tough bosses. This allowed me to control when I would be getting the increased damage as opposed to Pious Path, which will only randomly benefit you if you are standing in the right spot. The bonus to damage is greater with IoV anyways. As for the other benefits of PP, well I do not need any help with mana and status ailments do not present too much of a problem to me.

Augury of Penitence is nice because if offers a little bit of survivability and damage. Along the way you pick up another 10 to all resis to help cap them.

As for Righteous Providence, well this node was pretty much made for this build. 100% increased critical strike chance against enemies not effected by a status ailment ensures that if something is not frozen it soon will be. And for bosses that cannot be frozen easily they will get crit more often. 45% increased critical multiplier to enemies effected by a status ailment means that if it is frozen it will be dead soon. This choice pairs very well with the "negative effect" from Southbound gloves.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUBAAKWBAcEswxSEQ8TzBZvF1QYXRo4GmwfAiE0JKonLykuKU8wlzbFNuk5ijpYOw07OzzvQT9G10qYTC1P81AwUeZT1FWpVcZXDVnzZlRo8mn-agFrt3GFcg9yqXasd1N99YIHgpuD24V7hX2LjIx2jYKQVZJ9lFyUb5e0mG-aO5x7na6ePJ7Fns2fAZ_Ln9-iAKcIpzCouayYrKqtja3xsUK0L8BmxPbMZs9-0eTSIdJ82CTZYdl82t3bXtwj4XPjauQi5c_qGOw47MvtYe987-vwH_Gs8kHzEfOb9zL53Q==?accountName=godsmackfan1002&characterName=MfinMurica

Other Options

Currently I am level 88 and I can see that there are still many paths I could take or other paths I could have taken. There are so many interesting choices within close range that I wish I could get another 20 points to spend.

If you wanted to invest more into crit and you use the Ancestral Protector skill more often there is a good totem notable called Shaman's Dominion that would give you a 100% crit chance buff for 4 seconds.

There is room for 2 more Shattered Chains Jewels nearby for more MF. There are some aoe points, accuracy rating and crit chance, life nodes, endurance charges, armour, dexterity, attack speed, aura, melee damage, and stun threshold. I plan on using another rare Jewel by getting to 91 but you definitely have options.

DPS:
Standing still 18.5k, but I'm never doing just that except for the very first hit. After that I quickly produce power and frenzy charges, I get buffed from from Instruments of Virtue, my boot enchant, sulfur flask, I can use frost bomb, and ancestral protector buffing my damage to almost 3 times that at 46k. Plus whatever damage is not showing up by using Augury of Penance and Assassin's Mark. All in all things die, things die fast, and when things die, they go boom.

Health:
4K+ There is much room for health improvement nearby on the tree. I play on scrubcore so I am not too worried about getting much more health.

Reistance:
Max from gear, passive tree, and ascendancy. More than max with endurance charges, so I could probably afford to lose some.

Armor:
~39% reduced physical damage at level 87. 51% with endurance charges and room for 2 more endurance charges and another 4% reduced phys damage node available on the tree nearby.

Magic find:
~Since most of my magic find requires an enemy to be crit or frozen it varies. I can get up to 233% MF. This number is without using a rarity gem. Not bad for a fun build to play. The bonus loot is noticeable and nice. There is plenty of room for more if you want to run with more unique items and sacrifice other stats it is totally up to you.

Crit Chance
~73% with max power charges, not including the effects from Assassin's Mark linked with Blasphemy.

Freeze Chance
=45% with Glacial Hammer and 101% increased freeze duration. 35% with Vengeance, Frost Bomb, and Herald of Ice. 100% with Vaal Cold Snap.

Charges
6 power
3 endurance
3 frenzy
Max charges are obtainable for normal play power being the easiest to get and frenzy the hardest but it is not uncommon to find myself with all 12 charges.

Pros
-Shows Patriotism
-A strong and viable way to go melee and have a good amount of magic find.
-Fun gameplay. (ex: utilizes many different unique items, all corpses explode and drop nice loot, gain lots of charges, use of multiple skills and links, rapidly gain buffs and damage watching dps rise)
-All necessary items are cheap.

Cons
-Not great at getting the most mf from bosses with a lot of life
-Projectiles and chaos can hurt if you are lacking in gear.
-Not the best melee build nor the best mf build just a balance of both.

This build is a balancing act. How far you want to go one way is completely up to you. Up until this point I've described the way I balanced it but there are other options. You may find it challenging to survive or want to push to a higher level by doing higher level maps. Or you might want to stick to easier maps and maximize the MF on your character. If you chose one of these things though you have to sacrifice the other but here are some options for you if you wish to explore.