[2.6] Ricks FrostBlades Budget Raider || 120k DPS on a 5link + Acro/PhaseAcro/AA

1. Introduction

Welcome to my guide for my Frostblades Raider, who is currently level 91 in the Legacy league Softcore League. I've been interested to attempt a frostblades build since the announcement of the new threshold jewel, together with the change in requirements to activate those, made this build very appealing to me. I was looking for a build, but nothing I came across seemed tanky enough for my personal taste. So I decided to create my own version of this build specificly tailored to my own needs. I wanted to approach this league fairly casual, so I intended to keep my league start as cheap as possible.


2. Pros and Cons

You might be wondering what the advantages of this build are, so let me tell you:





3. Stats









4. Passives

Ascendancy

Try to get Way of the Poacher and Avatar of Slaughter as soon as possible, follow it up with Quartz Infusion and lastly Avatar of the Veil.

Bandits

Oak Normal, Kraityn Cruel, Kraityn Merciless

Passive Tree
This tree is setup for a level 90 character. It requires you to have 1 piece of gear with Intelligence on it, if you manage to work in 2 pieces you can remove the 30 int node near the duelist. If you don't have access to any gear with int, you can even pick a 2nd 30int node above the ranger to balance your stats.



5. Gear

Required Items:


Simply amazing jewel, get them asap they are incredibly cheap. You want to run both, 1 right to the ranger above the frenzy charge and the other below the duelist. With the change to threshold jewels they don't require the dex to be alocated, the 40 dex only has to be available within the jewels radius.



And as your body armor:


The Perfect Form can be obtained for 4-6chaos, while the Touch of Anguish claws can be obtained as cheaply as 1-3 chaos at the point im writing this guide at.

Rares:

Helmet: Aim for high life, resists and int (if needed), with high evasion and if possible an open prefix to master craft 12 Wed.

Gloves: Aim for high life, a good attack speed roll (or atleast an open suffix for IAS craft), resists.

Boots: Aim for High life, atleast 20 movespeed (30 prefered), resists and possible open prefix to master craft 12 Wed.

Rings and Amulet: Try your best to get a good WED and Life roll on those pieces, followed by resists and int if you havent balanced your stats yet. If your ring or amulet has a phys roll on top of it or an open prefix to craft one, it's a big bonus.




As you can tell, this is very budget and took around 1 exalt to complete the entire set.





Balance your resistences to be able to use The Wise Oak flask, it's very cheap and simply amazing. If you can't manage to obtain the correct resistances, a Diamond flask will do. As an upgrade I'd recommend using a taste of hate, I would simply replace the quicksilver flask which isn't needed that much due to whirling blades being available to us.

Links:
How you intend to set this up is your choice.

First 4 link: Ice golem, Minion life, Artic armor, with 1 free slot for anything you'd like to add.

Second 4 link: Hatred, Herald of Ice, Curse on Hit, Assassins mark.

Third 4 link: This one is basicly free, I personally run a Vengeance setup with melee phys, wed and life gain on hit. But it's also viable to run an ancestral warchief setup to assist with single target dps.

Weapon links: Vaal Grace + Vaal haste + Inc Duration, with Whirling blades + faster attack + fortify for your second weapon.

Chest:

- 4 link Frostblades, added cold, cold pen, WED.

- 5 link Frostblades, added cold, cold pen, WED, Multistrike.

- 6 link Frostblades, added cold, cold pen, WED, Multistrike, with 6th link being open for preference.

The Choice would be between Melee phys for single target damage, Increased critical strike chance or Fortify for even more survivability.


6. Videos

A shaped strand map with beyond, onslaught and breach.


T15 courtyard with breach, 90% status resist, minus max and double beyond.


I will record some tier 13-15's when my map luck isn't awful and I'm getting them to drop again :<


If I forgot anything I will be adding it later, but I believe I adressed everything for now.

And how it differs from that one?
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1848749

Do you think you could actually reach a higher DPS with Lycosidae instead of DW, since you're sitting at 82% chance to hit?

"

Ramierl wrote:

And how it differs from that one?
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1848749

Mine is a dual wield build, with a lot more defenses and more life aswell. You can take my version into hardcore, since my only 2 deaths past leveling were at lvl 90 and 91 (was a misplay on my part, not even build related).

I didn't read deeply into that guide and just looked over it quickly, so if you got any specific question feel free to ask.

"

bkn wrote:

Do you think you could actually reach a higher DPS with Lycosidae instead of DW, since you're sitting at 82% chance to hit?

I don't think I could, mainly because my gear is pretty trash atm. I'm actually aiming to fix my resists with a belt upgrade and buy a new glove with accuracy, ias and 1 resist. That will put you at a very comfy hit chance. You could even grab accuracy on helmet quite easily, if you want to push it even further. It was early in the league when I bought my gear, better pieces weren't available at the time, but I'm sure you can get a lot better pieces at this point in time.

TL:DR; You can quite easily push your accuracy higher, you just need better then I do (which is quite easy to achieve). So overall I do not think it's worth giving up the dual wield bonus damage.

Added a shaped strand to showcase the build in action, ill do higher tier maps again when i get them to drop. My map luck has been quite awful, as seen in the video :<

Hey thank you for posting this. I'm very curious to try this out in LHC. Can we get kind of a leveling tree run down? Perhaps just where to head 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.?

Thank you

"

sinfonia11 wrote:

Hey thank you for posting this. I'm very curious to try this out in LHC. Can we get kind of a leveling tree run down? Perhaps just where to head 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.?

Thank you

Sure, I'll try to add it in when I get a bit of free time. But for the time being, I'd recommend just leaving the ranger start, grabbing the cold conversion nodes, the life nodes above and then make your way to the scion life while grabbing all the life you can, afterwards just start making your way towards the shadow.

whoops double posted by accident lol

I totally love it for now, so much fun, but how do u deal with mana?
Im at 15k dps with charges but i had to put mana leech because im running our of mana so fast.
Cheers

"

Piotruuu wrote:

I totally love it for now, so much fun, but how do u deal with mana?
Im at 15k dps with charges but i had to put mana leech because im running our of mana so fast.
Cheers

I'm gonna guess and say you didn't grab the claw crit cluster next to shadow yet, it offers 0.8% mana and 1.2% life leech and covers all your mana needs entirely, even in slow regen maps.