[2.6] LowRes' Elemental Machine Gun Frost Blades Raider [Cheap]

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lowres83 wrote:

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jtuck523 wrote:

Can you explain which passives you take first and which ones to save for later? I am really enjoying frost blades so far and can't wait to get to end game with this build!

Sure, here's the order I went in:

1: Heart of Oak and Primal Spirit (refund later) for the Int and Str.
2: Essence Sap for leveling. If you have Elreon rings, you don't need Essence Sap.
3: Duelist area for Art of the Gladiator, Master of the Arena and Life nodes.
4: Forces of Nature, Fatal Blade, and Frenzy charges after picking up Raider Ascendancy.
5: Shadow area, grabbing Heartseeker and Acrobatics on the way.
6: Around level 65 refund Essence Sap and get Duelist leech.
6: Charisma
7: Scion Life Wheel
8: 2-point Jewels

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Carlovski wrote:

After a fail first build (CI trapper with no leech is not a good mix with Breach mechanics) I have switched to a frost blade raider - was pleased to find someone else going a similar way to compare ideas with.

Only just started, hopefully will get some time for levelling this weekend.

I was going in a pretty similar direction to you - had considered trying to scale auras more, but it's too much of a stretch, that's one for inquisitor version I think.

Couple of queries/thoughts though

- I was thinking Avatar of the Veil instead of Chase. Phasing + dodge seems particularly nice for Breach. We can always trigger onslaught with a silver flask if we want and/or grab the onslaught node, although won't be as powerful obviously.

I actually made this change last night. The onslaught on kill doesn't really help with Breach Lord fights. I have 64% dodge and 46% spell dodge now

- You say single target is a struggle, have you tried running a warchief or a dual strike setup for single target? Or maybe even frenzy? Not sure what will be the best DPS. Would have to drop some utility links though.

I bought a pair of 350 EDPS foils on swap to improve my single target (Around 150k DPS in breaches).

- I might play with some alternative off hands, +1 proj seems a lot less useful than the free chain.

Keep in mind that frost blades can use any weapon type

- Guildmate suggested buying a bunch of Ewars and corrupting for culling strike. Might be an idea, but a shame to lose the crit multi. Maybe one for very lategame...

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Casia wrote:

I keep posting in FB threads, seeing people seemingly make the same,(incorrect imho)choices over and over.

Hi! thanks for the critique of my build. I'm having a bit of a hard time following everything that you wrote, but I'll try to address some of your points.

Frostblades has a huge base attack range. The projectles spawn from the TARGET, and do not hit the main target.
It functions like a reverse molten strike. Which spams a ton of projectles in melee range, giving it massive single target dps, with horrible aoe clear.
Frostblades, has massive aoe clear, without any investment in aoe clear. Its like investing in chain for Tornado shot. TS clears everything on screen without it. what is the point? The same is true with frostblades. FB MELEE hit will hit nearly everything on screen from one spot. Do NOT invest in projectiles or chain. Focus on the melee hit. In most cases as a ranger this is actually even better, since you can just do general attacks. Crit, faster attacks. Will do both. awesome. But at the same time, when it comes to weapons. Prioritize that direct hit, over chaining, etc.
Everyone builds FB for aoe chain, then complains about poor single target. STOP building it for aoe clear. Build it for melee dps, and let its passive aoe clear, do the work for you.

I personally think Frost Blades is more like Lightning Arrow than Tornado shot. Chaining will double the amount of enemies you can kill with 1 hit in ideal circumstances, resulting in more exp/hr.

Op's build is relatively sound. I am not a huge fan of the Ewars, in the same way not a huge fan of Touch of Anquish. Both are "ok". decent leveling weapons. neither is top end. Toa has solid crit, solid pdps, and solid AS. But is a claw, not a foil for sweet sweet sword passives.
But both get outclassed by a solid EDPS foil. or PDPs. Both work. one or the other.you can run either to help the leveling process though.

The point of using Ewar's is that they are cheap (see the title of this thread) and can clear end game maps. For reference, I have a pair of 350 EDPS jeweled foils with attack speed and crit. the dps increase over Ewar's is only about 15%

But take dervish, not fury bolts. Id either drop down, or come left for charisma, if you really want it.

I don't know about taking Dervish, but I do agree that Fury Bolts is not needed. I respeced out of Fury Bolts last night

I chose Edps. Dual heralds+blasphemy/enfeeble.
IF pdps. hatre+blash/enfeeble.

Forget AA. I do like it. But, enfeeble+fortify will be safer. (the perfect form I would call tied with belly as BIS. gg)

I only used AA while I was leveling. Enfeeble is great defense, it's like a better Grace for less reserve. Definitely recommended for HC play.


Ancient protector.
FB+MS+fortify+WED+addcold+inccrit
CWDT+frostbomb+ic+Incduration.

your single target dps will be respectable, and you will still one shot aoe trash. Aoe trash has low hp compared to single target bosses... focusing your dps on stuff that will die to one shot, at half that value is foolish.

But what if you're killing twice as many enemies with 1 shot? Is that foolish?

Yes, put fortify in frostblades itself. FB's huge range, means you will rarely/never be actually in melee range of a target to get Fort from WB. And more importantly, half the reason FB's is undervalued, is tooltip might read low, but mechanically your dps is higher due to not having to WB into melee range to attack in the first place.

This is good advice for HC

My pathfinder has 100k single target dps with 5l, and pretty average selffound foils.
cold pen and protector dps itself not included.

I'm sitting at 95k dps with Ewar's


A couple other points.
I would choose veil over chase far and away if taking raider. Elem damage. dodge/phasing.elem immunity is huge.

I agree with this. I made this change last night actually. I feel a lot tankier and I'm not dependent on Onslaught for DPS.

Pyre would be bad. you can get Fangs of frost for 54% cold damage with weapons, and 8% cold pen.
you have no reason to convert to fire. no advantage for a ranger. no fire nodes, no additional fire pen.

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lowres83 wrote:

I personally think Frost Blades is more like Lightning Arrow than Tornado shot. Chaining will double the amount of enemies you can kill with 1 hit in ideal circumstances, resulting in more exp/hr.

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But what if you're killing twice as many enemies with 1 shot? Is that foolish?

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I only used AA while I was leveling. Enfeeble is great defense, it's like a better Grace for less reserve. Definitely recommended for HC play.

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Yes, put fortify in frostblades itself. FB's huge range, means you will rarely/never be actually in melee range of a target to get Fort from WB. And more importantly, half the reason FB's is undervalued, is tooltip might read low, but mechanically your dps is higher due to not having to WB into melee range to attack in the first place

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This is good advice for HC

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My pathfinder has 100k single target dps with 5l, and pretty average selffound foils.
cold pen and protector dps itself not included.

I'm sitting at 95k dps with Ewar's

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Moridin79 wrote:

Loving the build so far. Only through normal in BHC but I was surprised with how comfortable the leveling is so far.

Maybe I'm missing something here but what about taking Twin Terrors? Also, maybe a bit of a stretch but how about Fangs of Frost?

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Casia wrote:

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Moridin79 wrote:

Loving the build so far. Only through normal in BHC but I was surprised with how comfortable the leveling is so far.

Maybe I'm missing something here but what about taking Twin Terrors? Also, maybe a bit of a stretch but how about Fangs of Frost?

his current max build does have twin terrors. and he is pathed down next to fangs of frost.

I would suspect, as a raider the just prioritized the scion hp over them. its fairly easy to add damage later.

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LA procs on every hit. FB only procs on first hit. LA's procs do not chain at all.
FB and LA are not remotely comparable.

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Fair enough. "only 15%" is an odd thing to say, though..

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But you aren't. Range and conal spread of FB clears offscreen regardless.

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yes this is all kindof related. I'm a pathfinder. your dps will be tooltip higher due to frenzycharges, and possily if this was avatar of the chase, that 40% ad. you have a belly, which will single handedly boost defense greatly. While, my pathfinder has stacked defense. and much higher flask uptime/power. Nigh unkillable as is. With Belly, gg. My build is defense, defense, defense, first. Damage second. Efficient damage via crit/as, and the stated focus on bosskilling.
Fortify, which I run, adds very little to damage with its melee physical. (Path of building says fortify is giving me 1% dps.. fort, and mphys means more with Touch of anguish and a solid pdps weapon. but we are both running dual heralds and edps foils) If I swap to inc crit, estimated 130k dps, for example. FA,120k.
So, Im saying 100k dps with a 4l essentially, you are saying 95k dps with a 5l.
Additionally, there is of course overall general gear variance. you have some nice rings, and neither of my edps foils are 300dps. I did hesitate in trying to claim values, because of this. its hard to compare like to like.

For ref, checking in path of building, swapping to raider with slaughter/veil. 5frenzy. krait, raider+base 3.
est 113k dps, and 140k dps with inc crit instead of fortify. 170k with those 3 extra frenzy, you would take in tree as a raider.

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I considered graceful assault more then once. and with YOUR build, I would consider it even more strongly. Esp after swapping out of avatar of the chase.

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ps, said in breaches so, maybe rings adding that much... but, 150k dps is 60% more dps then 95k, not 15%...