[2.5] Freezing Pulse Inquisitor. Perma-Freeze everything including Tier 15 bosses. 250K DPS.
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This guide is based on the Freezing Pulse Inquisitor build I played on Essence League totally updated for Breach League. Check the following highlights to see if you're interested in:
- Perma-freeze everything including T15 Core Malacai, T15 Colosseum Daresso, T15 Abyss Kaom. - Up to 250K Freezing Pulse DPS for single target and 170K using LMP for great clear speed. - Crit based build, your hits are almost always critical strikes. - Thanks to Inevitable Judgement and because you always crit, enemies resistances are set to 0%. - Incredibly safe build thanks to perma-freeze and CI with almost 10K Energy Shield life pool with instant replenish thanks to Vaal Pact & Warlord's Mark. - Medium budget build (around 3-4 Exalted). You could start on low budget and improve your gear progressively while you earn currency. - Easy deathless Normal Atziri If you want to see this build in action, check out the following video: Perma-freeze on all bosses from Tier 11 to Tier 15: https://youtu.be/0rxxFHhIv4o If you have any questions or improvements for this build, please feel free to leave a comment, I will really appreciate it. UPDATE! Incredible new unique for this build on 2.5 release!  What's new? (30/11/2016)
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30/11/2016: Update after patch notes for 2.5 version. 23/10/2016: Full changes on guide after being able to complete all maps from atlas up to Tier 15. Perma-freeze on all T15 bosses achieved. 30/08/2016: First version of this guide. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Build explanation: General Concepts: - This build is created exclusively based on Freezing Pulse skill gem: Critical Strike Chance and Freeze capabilities were the main concerns when deciding everything else around this build. - With only 4 Power Charges we crit all the time. If PC are not available in any case (solo boss fights) a Diamond Flask will do the job. - Your damage is 100% cold elemental damage and enemies resistances should be consider 0% thanks to "Inevitable Judgement" ascendancy point because you always crit. - I choose dagger as main weapon instead of a wand for several reasons: 1. Great Crit Chance implicit and all required affixes are available. 2. Whirling Blades for mobility, best movement skill imo. 3. Most important, you can take full advantage of "Instruments of Virtue" ascendancy point thanks to Whirling Blades: 30% inc. Cast Speed for 4 seconds after each use. - About defences, most important thing is that you perma-freeze everything. - We rely on CI with a 9.5-10K Energy Shield pool. Plus Vaal Pact with Warlord's Mark for instant ES replenish. - Elemental reflect mobs are not a problem thanks to high ES pool and a Sapphire Flask used when needed. No workaround mechanism are necessary. - CWDT + Frost Wall gives the necessary time and space to avoid damage and synergies perfect with the build. FP allow us to attack from behind the wall and Whirling Blades can moves through them. Why Ascendancy INQUISITOR is perfect for Freezing Pulse? - Inevitable Judgment: all enemies resistances are set to 0% because you always crit. - Instruments of Virtue: because we use daggers w/ Whirling Blades, a constant +30% inc. Spell Damage plus +30% inc. Cast Speed is applied. - Righteous Providence: +100% inc. Crit Chance for first hit (no elemental status ailments) and +45% inc. Crit Multiplier after first hit (against frozen/chilled enemies). - Augury of Penitence: nearby enemies deal 8% LESS elemental damage plus taking 16% inc. elemental damage. This means a final multiplier after hit and should be consider x1.16 damage from our DPS tooltip because mob resistances are set to 0%. Mandatory Gear: - Dagger: We use one high Crit implicit daggers with the following affixes: [prefix] Adds # - # Cold Damage to Spells [suffix] #% increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells [prefix] #% increased Spell Damage [suffix] #% increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier First two are completely mandatory, next two are really important for getting a great DPS output. - Gloves: I choose Maligaro's Virtuosity for the extra Crit Chance/Multi. Maybe this unique should not be consider mandatory, but helps me a lot reaching the desired DPS output. Just consider that Crit Chance plus damage dealt defines our Freezing capabilities. - Ring: Valyrium Moonstone Ring is mandatory to deal with Stuns. Making Stun Threshold based on our high Energy Shield pool, allows us to be safe from stunning hits in most cases. - Body Armour: a 6L with BBBBBG is needed. Ideally a high Energy Shield armour will be the best. Any 6L chest will be the most expensive item in our gear, and if you try to keep your budget low, I suggest you look for corrupted ones, with already 6L color combination BBBBBG, and then choose the best ES you can get with your budget. Truly important considerations about Freezing Pulse mechanics: Freezing Pulse mechanics have some special considerations that you will need to keep in mind making this build:
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- CHANCE TO FREEZE: main objective for this build is that almost all hits deal critical strikes. This is mandatory because a critical strike has an inherent 100% chance to freeze. But, dealing a critical strike doesn't mean you will freeze the enemy. It will depends on this: "Base freeze duration is 60 milliseconds for every 1% of the target's maximum life (before party scaling) dealt by Cold damage, up to a maximum of 50%. If the duration would be below 0.3 seconds, the freeze effect is not applied". So, the amount of damage dealt is extremely important for achieving perma-freeze on enemies. - FREEZE DURATION: any freeze duration modifier applies BEFORE Freeze Threshold is calculated. So, this is maybe the most important modifier after Crit Chance. You can't scale your damage after certain point, so this modifier allows you to multiply your damage for freeze threshold considerations easily without compromising anything else. The keystone here is using 5 jewels sockets with freeze duration increase in all jewels. A final freeze duration increase around +85% means a x1.85 damage increase for freeze threshold considerations. - PROJECTILE SPEED: Freezing Pulse damage is reduced while the projectile travels away from the caster. So, projectile speed not only defines how fast the projectile travels, it also determinate how far it will travel and how much damage it will do as it travels. A Q20 Freezing Pulse gem is totally mandatory for getting the projectile speed needed for effective clear speed. - AMOUNT OF PROJECTILES: the projectile quantity determinate the radius of the FP skill. Thanks to Lesser Multiple Projectiles support gem, the angle of the skill will be enough for achieving a great clear speed. But LMP will decrease DPS output, so, when dealing with particularly high life bosses, is strongly recommended to hot swap with Slower Projectiles support gem. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skill gems: Main Attack: - FREEZING PULSE + Increased Critical Strikes + Increased Critical Damage + Spell Echo + Controlled Destruction + Lesser Multiple Projectiles. When dealing with high life bosses, is recommended to hot swap LMP with Slower Projectile support gem for huge damage boost. In case of dealing with "Cannot be frozen" bosses, you should exchange Increased Critical Damage with Elemental Focus for another huge damage boost (drawback from EF is not a problem then because you can't freeze them anyway). Movement skill: - WHIRLING BLADES, Faster Attacks. Auras: - CLARITY: level this gem according to your mana needs, Level 15 in my case. - DISCIPLINE: for higher ES pool - HERALD OF ICE + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark + Warlord's Mark: dual curse spread setup for getting our 4 Power Charges and constant ES instant replenish thanks to WM. When dealing with high life bosses, is recommended to swap HoI setup for instant ES replenish with BLASPHEMY + Warlord's Mark. Others: - SUMMON ICE GOLEM. - CWDT (Level 1) + Frost Wall (Level 10) + Enfeeble (Level 5) + Warlord's Mark (Level 5). - Vaal Discipline + Vaal Lightning Trap + Vaal Clarity + Increased Duration. Vaal setup is focused on boss fights: Vaal Discipline for huge ES boost, Vaal Clarity for no mana cost on skills when needed (if you use Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark then you will not need it) and most important, Vaal Lightning Trap to create shocking ground for an extra 50% increased damage taken on enemies. This is a huge improvement for damage and most important, perma-freeze capabilities. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Skill Tree & Ascendancy class: Ascendancy Class: INQUISITOR. Ascendancy Points: Righteous Providence (normal), Inevitable Judgement (cruel), Instruments of Virtue (merciless), Augury of Penitence (endgame lab). Level 90 Skill Tree: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gear: Current Gear: Flasks: - Diamond Flask is mandatory to sustain Crit Chance on boss fights (you can't rely on Power Charges). - Sapphire Flask is mandatory to deal with elemental reflect mobs. - Mandatory Affixes: Remove Bleeding, Remove Freeze & Remove Burning (burning ground map mod could be dangerous because prevent ES replenish). - I don't consider the other choices as mandatory, so I just indicate why I choose them: Silver Flask (Cast Speed boost), Granite Flask of Iron Skin (great Physical Damage Reduction) and Stibnite Flask (Blind effect with 50% chance to hit reduction). Last utility flask is not mandatory at all, and should be exchange with other utility flasks based on different situations: Ruby/Topaz/Sapphire, etc. Important stats: - All Mandatory gear explained at the beginning of this guide. - Cap elemental resistances. - +25/30% Movement speed from boots. - Best ES you can get from each piece of gear: helmet and shield are the most important ones and inc. ES from amulet. - +100% Crit Chance to spells from shield. Ideally, Spell Damage and/or Cast Speed, but not mandatory. - Critical Strike Chance from ring and amulet. - Some Mana Regeneration from gear, I pick new Blue Pearl Amulet for implicit +50% inc. Mana Regen. Jewel stats: - Freeze Duration from all jewels: huge multiplier boost for Freeze Threshold, totally mandatory to sustain perma-freeze capabilities on hardest bosses. - Any damage boost like Cold Damage, Crit Multi and/or Spell Damage. - Cast Speed could be useful too, but any of the previous one are preferred because affects directly Freeze Threshold. Enchantments: I strongly suggest to pick a normal iLvl +81 Hubris Circlet enchanted with 40% increased Freezing Pulse Damage and then craft best ES you could get. Any other enchant doesn't affects directly Freeze Threshold and should be consider poor choices. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maps from Tier 1 to Tier 15 & Boss fights Tips: This section describes general considerations and specific tips after dealing with all map bosses from all tiers T1-T15. General Considerations while mapping:
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* I didn't play any map on party, so all bosses fights were solo. * When mapping and mostly on high tiers, a good flask management is completely mandatory. You can't just run any map without taking special considerations on which flasks to use and when. * If you run -x% resistances or elemental weakness mod, you need Bismuth flask as one of your utility flask. Cap elemental resistances is always mandatory. * If you run extra damage as fire/cold/lightning mod, you need the particular flask to deal with Ruby/Sapphire/Topaz. * Some particular bosses require specific flasks, I assume some previous knowledge on bosses from 2.3 and explain here changes related with new bosses from 2.4 or changes from this expansion. If a boss have fire damage (like new Colonnade) carry a Ruby with you, and so on. * If you can, try to record your first fight with new bosses and if things go wrong, try to figure it out what happened. This helps me a lot to learn how to deal with it on next fight. Try to learn which attacks should be avoided from particular bosses. * Take into consideration that some map mods could reduce your freeze capabilities: enfeeble (because damage reduction), any modifier to boss life (because freeze threshold calculation), "cannot inflict elemental status alignment" and new one, "cannot be slowed below base speed" (because freeze is basically set speed to zero). General Rules against bosses:
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* Swap to Slower Projectiles will always increase your damage a lot, improving your Freeze capabilities too. When you're not sure you can freeze a boss with LMP, make the swap. * HoI setup is useless against bosses, so is strongly recommended you switch to Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark for instant ES replenish that will increase your survivability a lot. * If you deal with bosses that "Cannot be frozen" exchange Increased Critical Damage with Elemental Focus for damage boost, drawback from EF is not a problem here because you can't freeze them anyway. Particular considerations for specific maps: TIER 1 TO 12:
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Everything is really easy here, all bosses can be perma-freeze and damage output is really high for quick fights. Warlord's Mark will be great too for ES replenish when you feel you need it. * Orchard: only boss that "Cannot be Frozen". Death Ray is activated when you're near, so you can go with Faster Projectiles instead of LMP for keeping the fight away from you. Elemental Focus swap is welcome for extra damage. * Ivory Temple: at least some of the spawn cannot be frozen, and the arena is crowded with mobs, I suggest you go with LMP + Elemental Focus. And consider Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark mandatory. TIER 13:
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Same rules apply, two bosses are freeze immune, the rest are just straight-forward fights. * Plaza: maybe the worst boss to deal with using this build. Cannot be Frozen and Death Ray when you try to reach her. There's no truly safe approach here, so I choose to swap Slower Projectiles + Elemental Focus and use Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark. Deathless cannot be assured using this strategy. * Gorge: boss "Cannot be Slowed". This is practically the same as frozen, because freeze is just another way to say that speed on enemies are set to zero. Same rules apply: SP + EF and Blasphemy + WM. TIER 14:
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Really easy tier. No problem at all to perma-freeze all bosses. Don't see any particular consideration to take into account. TIER 15:
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Just can't believe it. I write the new version of this guide after dealing with all T15 bosses, but I can't imagine that will be viable to perma-freeze Kaom, Daresso and Malacai. * Abyss: really easy one, perma-freeze and that's it. * Colosseum: another strange case here. You can perma-freeze him, but then he reach certain life thresholds and becomes immune for quite some time until you can hit him again. Can't assure why. In any case, you perma-freeze, then move around for some seconds and repeat. * Core: All guardians can be perma-freeze, they're plain easy to deal with. Then, you perma-freeze Malacai (again, can't believe it). When he reach his life thresholds, you have to allow him to loose freeze so he becomes immune and you perma-freeze Piety. Then again, you perma-freeze Malacai. Second stage is just the same as usual, easiest part is when you can hit him because you perma-freeze and you don't have to avoid attacks. * Overgrown Ruin: spawn change here and I only run it once. In that case I manage to freeze and kill warband leader with no problem at all, but can't assure that some spawns could be immune to freeze or some combinations could be hard to deal with. * Dark Forest: another easy one, perma-freeze and kill boss avoiding wolf stage. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leveling Tips: Just a few tips, I will try to improve this section later on: - Go all the way with Freezing Pulse, is truly great for levelling. Nice damage plus freeze capabilities. - At level 10, use Axiom Perpetuum Bronze Sceptre. - At level 32, switch to Bitterdream Shadow Sceptre for huge improvement thanks to all implicit support gems on sceptre. - I found useful these three levelling uniques: Lochtonial Caress Iron Gauntlets, Asenath's Mark Iron Circlet and Mutewind Whispersteps Serpentscale Boots. - First focus on life and rely on hybrid Life/ES pool. Later on move to CI and full ES. While going hybrid, you will need some workaround against elemental reflect mobs in addition to Sapphire Flask, I used: ICE TRAP + Concentrated Effect + Added Cold Damage + Trap and Mine Damage. Bandits: - Normal: Kill All. - Cruel: Kill All. - Merciless: Alira for +1 Max Power Charges (at the cost of just 1 skill point). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other important stuff: Videos: Perma-freeze on all bosses from Tier 11 to Tier 15: https://youtu.be/0rxxFHhIv4o The Apex of Sacrifice: https://youtu.be/4cWP_b87NTc Old videos:
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Screenshots: Freezing Pulse (w/ Slower Projectiles) DPS Tooltip with Charges and/or Diamond Flask and both Instruments of Virtue effects:  Freezing Pulse (w/ LMP) DPS Tooltip with Charges and flasks and both Instruments of Virtue effects:  Normal Atziri tips: This build is great for deathless Normal Atziri: - For all boss fights, switch to Slower Projectiles + Elemental Focus because none of them could be frozen and use Blasphemy + Warlord's Mark. - For trio, go first for Q'ura, after that, A'alai and finally Y'ara'az. You have to avoid hitting Y'ara'az during his reflect fire-stage. - Atziri is really straight-forward, I prefer to throw a Vaal Lightning Trap on each mirror stage for a fast clean kill. Other builds: My intention is to make a new build every league. In general, I wanted to make budget league starter builds that allows to play almost the entire content of the game and complete all the challenges in league. Here's the link to the other ones: Unstoppable Gladiator 78% Max Block/Spells: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1647240 "The Kärcher" Lightning Strike Deadeye: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1666464 Please, send me your thoughts, questions, opinions and ideas and I will try to improve this guide based on that. Thanks a lot for reading this and hope you find this build so rewarding as it was for me. Odradek. Last edited by mas_mariano#3542 on Dec 6, 2016, 12:54:24 AM Last bumped on Dec 7, 2017, 12:01:28 PM
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hey man ..nice work!!
what skill do you suggest for leveling? i guess im gonna start a freezepulser on friday !! but whats the best way to level him ... thx |
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Thanks a lot!
For making this char I respec an old templar I got in Standard league. So I'm not entirely sure about which skill use to level him and to be honest, I really don't like at all the levelling process. So, initially I will try Lightning Tendrils. While levelling your char, if you got any suggestions I will really appreciate it. |
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hm okay ..im not dat pro in poe.. i mean you could level with the freezepulse ..but in a freshstart league it depends on the spelldmg stuff you find , otherwise you have not enough damage.
So i guess i try to level with freezepule or maybe just the flametotems oder tendrils.. maybe someone got a better suggestion..? edit : im just trying out tomorrow ..maybe i just use fp all the time... hope you build is good :) hf gl cu all Last edited by Cajun82#2884 on Sep 1, 2016, 3:39:50 PM
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Freezing pulse is great for leveling !
Socketed in any +cold gem item or with tabula rasa oh boy it deals alot of dmg. Whats the advantage of self casting freezing pulse compared to FP totems ? I dont get this. |
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Thanks for confirmation on using FP while levelling.
About FP totems, I can't say this build has any advantage in comparison. I simply don't like totem game style and I didn't make this build thinking on them. |
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Seems great, but squishy... 4.6k life not much.
Do you think it's Uber viable? |
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Well, I got 4.6K life with a completely unoptimized gear. I respec a templar on Standard for testing viability of the build and now will make the right one on AoW league.
I guess with right gear, 5K life is completely possible. And don't forget an additional 1.5/2K ES pool increased to 4K with Vaal Discipline. Additionally, perma-freeze capabilities really makes a difference for survivability against hard bosses. About Uber Atziri, never did it and not interested on even trying. |
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Did read the guide again and I must say very solid and good work.
Think I will respec my templar for this build. Frostwall for blocking hefty attacks looks very good thats why I asked about totems^^ But there can be risky situations I guess..get into fight takes a short time with no freeze effect. BUT whirling blades should fix this ? Also gameplay is more active thats a + point compared to totems. And freezing pulse is such a awesome spell. what could be better then freeze alot AND do alot dmg ? |
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How do you want to use MOM if I see no EB in tree? You want to use HERALD OF ICE + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark i don't understand from where are u trying to take your mana and using MOM as well... please explain if u can
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