[Dead after 3.0] Facetanker Frost Blades Berserker - Budget, Beginner Friendly [Detailed Guide]

I've been slowly leveling this build with my wife and been having a bunch of fun. Thanks for the awesome guide!

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Vastor wrote:

I've been slowly leveling this build with my wife and been having a bunch of fun. Thanks for the awesome guide!

I'm glad you're liking it :) Thanks for the kind word.

how do you have mana if the build requires 100 % reserve. i know im missing something

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hatepunx wrote:

how do you have mana if the build requires 100 % reserve. i know im missing something

It doesn't. I've stated on the guide that you should use Arctic Armour OR Hatred:

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Arctic Armour would be our other aura option. Please note that we use one OR the other here, as getting both would result in 100% of our mana being reserved.

Couple Qs, I'm sitting at level 87, not doing too badly, probably time to spend a few chaos though!

I'm probably missing something here but I don't quite grasp vengence / COH / enfeeble. Particularly the Enfeeble... if you can only have one curse active at once, won't the enfeeble keep getting overwritten with our Assassin's mark?

Another Q, Is Onslaught on option for the 6th gem in the Frost Blades setup, rather than increased crit / cold dam? Or possibly as the 4th gem in the Herald of Ice setup?

Finally, is Rallying Cry an option? It says the increase is to %damage (not melee, physical, or elem, just 'damage').

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Erelyes wrote:

Couple Qs, I'm sitting at level 87, not doing too badly, probably time to spend a few chaos though!

I'm probably missing something here but I don't quite grasp vengence / COH / enfeeble. Particularly the Enfeeble... if you can only have one curse active at once, won't the enfeeble keep getting overwritten with our Assassin's mark?

Another Q, Is Onslaught on option for the 6th gem in the Frost Blades setup, rather than increased crit / cold dam? Or possibly as the 4th gem in the Herald of Ice setup?

Finally, is Rallying Cry an option? It says the increase is to %damage (not melee, physical, or elem, just 'damage').

The Vengeance/COH/Enfeeble is there to curse bosses. You're right that our curses can end up overwriting each other, if they both get applied. But we do not curse with Assassin's Mark all the time - we need to kill one nearby enemy, so that the Herald of Ice does it's icy explosion effect, and this then hits other enemies, cursing them.

On boss fights, I find that adds usually die pretty quickly, and then we're left alone with the boss. In this situation we can't curse him with Assassin's Mark + Herald of Ice, so we use the Vengeance + Enfeeble to curse him.

As for Onslaught on the 6th gem link, it is an option, yes. But the damage will be lower than with Increased Crit/Cold Damage, and quite significantly so. Unless you really want the increased movement speed, I don't think it's a good idea.

As for getting it on Herald of Ice, I've never tried that myself, so I'm not entirely sure. But it seems to me that it wouldn't work. The Onslaught support gem does not guarantee the buff on hit (like Fortify does), but on dealing a killing blow. This means you'd have to consistently be killing enemies with the Herald of Ice explosion part for it to be applied. I have my doubts if this is feasible. But as I said, it's something I have never tried, so I guess the best answer is to just go and test it in-game and see if it works.

As for Rallying Cry, it works, yes. But the damage increase of it is rather suboptimal. I don't think you'd get enough out of it to justify the use of a gem slot and the time needed for casting it.

This is a really well-written guide. I wish I'd seen it at the start of this league. If it is still current at the start of the next league I will try it out.

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0sync0 wrote:

This is a really well-written guide. I wish I'd seen it at the start of this league. If it is still current at the start of the next league I will try it out.

I'm glad you liked it :)

I plan to keep updating the guide until next league. It still has some small things that need to be polished, so I want to do these during the rest of this league, to get it all set up for the next one. Then we'll have to wait and hope that GGG doesn't bring the nerf hammer upon us.

Your post is so well organised and easy to understand.

I went into this game at September and your build is my second try.

My first character is blade flurry Berserker. I followed the lead of another 'Budget' post and end up with out the 6-L Belly of the beast.
(I have fused it about 200 times and it seems like impossible). So I go with the bringer of rain helmet.(for it is pseudo 6L) Besides that, all the jewels, flasks, boots(Death's Door Crusader Boots) are actually very budget unfriendly. Now that character is lv 87, straggling with Tire.10 maps. I haven't done the uber lab yet. And I don't think I will. I know that build is great and almost can do any thing. I was so disappointed since I can't recreate it. It was my fault because as a beginner I didn't know how much those unique gears cost at all.

Now I just began my second character with your build '冰霜剑士' and hopefully I could work this out.
I was touched by your effort of writing all those details and explanation. Thank you for sharing this great build.

非常感谢~ 让我重新拾起打这款游戏的兴趣~

This is my 4th build this league. Starter was a ancestral totem build, then a FB raider, and then a whispering ice berserker.

The raider clears very fast (despite sub optimal gear), and dies regularly to bosses. The whispering ice laughs at bosses, but plods through the rest of the map. So far (at 55) this guy seems like the best of both worlds.

Thanks for the build.