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

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RDeschain wrote:

First of all: I never criticize any builds here, and it might have sounded more negatively than it was supposed to be, so please don't be offended by what I wrote.

The only reason I did criticize was just because it was such an indepth guide, and a good one for everyone getting into the game fore sure, I highly respect that!

It was just that it looked from the stats seen on the first page (I didn't see the 8 K life you mentioned now etc) that the build doesnt do as good as the quality of the guide makes it look.

So I might be wrong about it, and as I said, i didn't want to trash this build or anything, really.

It indeed sounded quite aggressive on your first message.

That being said, I recon you made some good points. I kind of had forgotten about the stats image, I guess I should put a new one there/make it clear that this isn't what one can achieve going further up.

I might also need to be a bit more clear about what to expect from this build (a build that can do almost all content on really shitty gear and can do everything except shaper comfortably with a bit more currency invested) and what not to expect from it (a build that will make your rich by running hundreds of maps per hour), as well as what kind of upgrades people should look for when they actually start hoarding some currency.

I've focused much more on the starting gear, since most good gear was really expensive and out of reach for those to whom this build was directed at that point. But given that the league is quite advanced already, I guess it makes sense to try to write a bit more about this.

PS: I've put a new PoB stats image on the build guide, as the other one was really not great. I think the one now shows a bit better what this build can and can't do.

I've recently (finally) gotten PoB. Here's a link to my save file at level 85. I'm hoping to make my first Atziri (not uber) run. Do I have the goods? Any suggestions? I believe the only nodes I have left on the tree are Life nodes, and I'm already up to 6k life. I notice the PoB doesn't activate Onslaught when I tell it to activate Rotgut, so I often tell it I have Onslaught in the Configuration, but even without that, I'm just under 62kdps.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Tnknw-8qa_Wnl3TEFBdWJ2V0k/view?usp=sharing

Let me start by saying this build has been pretty good; a lot of fun and only a few issues for me.

1. Low levels you will be spamming mana pots until at least level 33 or whatever when you can complete the first lab.
2. Do not under any circumstances level the INT gems at all for any reason; unless and until you get luckier than I have been or something and get some gear that has a ton of stats.
3. The insane balancing act of stats needed to play this build and have any survivability is perhaps one of the worse parts of the build or you have to somehow have a ton of currency to buy really really good gear. For this build, especially 57 and lower (where I am currently) it is nearly impossible for you to find gear that has INT/DEX/STR AND resists or any combination of two of the stats plus resists. This results in a ton of getting your ass handed to you by certain bosses. The only way this can be avoided is by not leveling your int gems at all.

Generally, the build does what it says it does; the caveat is to not level your int gems for a long time to avoid the precarious position of trying to get gear that is simply very rare. Also, you need a minimum of 1 6L item to get this build to fully work from 38 on; that is at worst costly and at best you hit the lottery level of luck.

PS. Culling Strike on Leap Slam is the big old yes, do that.

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AzUther wrote:

I've recently (finally) gotten PoB. Here's a link to my save file at level 85. I'm hoping to make my first Atziri (not uber) run. Do I have the goods? Any suggestions? I believe the only nodes I have left on the tree are Life nodes, and I'm already up to 6k life. I notice the PoB doesn't activate Onslaught when I tell it to activate Rotgut, so I often tell it I have Onslaught in the Configuration, but even without that, I'm just under 62kdps.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Tnknw-8qa_Wnl3TEFBdWJ2V0k/view?usp=sharing

You should be able to do Atziri without too much hassle, yes. However, Frost Blades is not the best skill to use on that fight, because of one of the fights mechanics - atziri spawns 4 clones of herself, one of them holding a mirror. That clone reflects damage, which can kill you (it almost surely will). So you have to avoid hitting it at all costs.

To be able to do the fight you must swap out multistrike. Multistrike chooses targets automatically, this will kill you on that fight. Use Melee Physical Damage instead. Also swap Cold Penetration for Faster Attacks (just because without Multistrike your attacks are pretty low, so Faster Attacks ends up being needed). By the Atziri fight, be sure to position yourself correctly at all times. When the clones spawn, you must keep the one with the mirror out of reach of your attack (ideally behind you).

I hope this made it clear enough. I recommend watching a video about the fight, as it has some special mechanics. If you still don't understand it, just tell me and I'll try to do a video of me fighting atziri.

As for Damage, you haven't picked up the 3 passives leading to Heartseeker. Those will increase your damage. Doing Uber Lab is also a huge damage boost, so I'd try doing it in near future if I were you. Then you can get improvements through a 6-link or better gear (although your gear in general is fine from what i saw).

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Maverick494 wrote:

Let me start by saying this build has been pretty good; a lot of fun and only a few issues for me.

1. Low levels you will be spamming mana pots until at least level 33 or whatever when you can complete the first lab.
2. Do not under any circumstances level the INT gems at all for any reason; unless and until you get luckier than I have been or something and get some gear that has a ton of stats.
3. The insane balancing act of stats needed to play this build and have any survivability is perhaps one of the worse parts of the build or you have to somehow have a ton of currency to buy really really good gear. For this build, especially 57 and lower (where I am currently) it is nearly impossible for you to find gear that has INT/DEX/STR AND resists or any combination of two of the stats plus resists. This results in a ton of getting your ass handed to you by certain bosses. The only way this can be avoided is by not leveling your int gems at all.

Generally, the build does what it says it does; the caveat is to not level your int gems for a long time to avoid the precarious position of trying to get gear that is simply very rare. Also, you need a minimum of 1 6L item to get this build to fully work from 38 on; that is at worst costly and at best you hit the lottery level of luck.

PS. Culling Strike on Leap Slam is the big old yes, do that.

You're right about 1. It's quite annoying, unfortunately. Some rings can help with that, but you'll probably still need the mana flask quite often. Not much to do about that, unfortunately (you could use another skill instead, but I find it more fun to start with the skill I'll use later).

About 2 and 3, I find it interesting that you mention it. I had no problem at all finding gear to help my stats. Have you picked up any of the intelligence notables? Cause for me it was really not that hard to find the rest of the needed intelligence on leveling gear - sure, I've hit a wall on leveling my INT gems once or twice, but then a couple levels later I was able to keep leveling them again.

As for the 6-link, I don't think this is true. In fact, I've played up to tier 8 or so maps on a 5-link, and have been able to play higher maps later on (already had a 6-link but dropped one gem just for the sake of testing). Yes, the last levels before 51 are a bit harder than the rest, but nothing too bad. And then you really should get a Terminus sword - from what I see in your profile, you're using another sword, so this might be your problem.

I am at level 42, but I am dual wielding and I ran blasphemy with warlords for the leech up until recently when I finished labs. Now its about time to bering in the hatred aura, and the build kicks ass. I took diamond skin and some of the damage nodes from the marauder start instead of life and right now Im heading towards the cold conversion damage nodes. I will probably needd to respec to actually get the terminus sword butdual wield is doing the trick just fine for now :). Build is bomb.

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DanutMS wrote:

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AzUther wrote:

I've recently (finally) gotten PoB. Here's a link to my save file at level 85. I'm hoping to make my first Atziri (not uber) run. Do I have the goods? Any suggestions? I believe the only nodes I have left on the tree are Life nodes, and I'm already up to 6k life. I notice the PoB doesn't activate Onslaught when I tell it to activate Rotgut, so I often tell it I have Onslaught in the Configuration, but even without that, I'm just under 62kdps.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5Tnknw-8qa_Wnl3TEFBdWJ2V0k/view?usp=sharing

You should be able to do Atziri without too much hassle, yes. However, Frost Blades is not the best skill to use on that fight, because of one of the fights mechanics - atziri spawns 4 clones of herself, one of them holding a mirror. That clone reflects damage, which can kill you (it almost surely will). So you have to avoid hitting it at all costs.

To be able to do the fight you must swap out multistrike. Multistrike chooses targets automatically, this will kill you on that fight. Use Melee Physical Damage instead. Also swap Cold Penetration for Faster Attacks (just because without Multistrike your attacks are pretty low, so Faster Attacks ends up being needed). By the Atziri fight, be sure to position yourself correctly at all times. When the clones spawn, you must keep the one with the mirror out of reach of your attack (ideally behind you).

I hope this made it clear enough. I recommend watching a video about the fight, as it has some special mechanics. If you still don't understand it, just tell me and I'll try to do a video of me fighting atziri.

As for Damage, you haven't picked up the 3 passives leading to Heartseeker. Those will increase your damage. Doing Uber Lab is also a huge damage boost, so I'd try doing it in near future if I were you. Then you can get improvements through a 6-link or better gear (although your gear in general is fine from what i saw).

Crystal clear.

Let's see... I can use my lvl 19 Faster Attacks from Leap Slam (and put a lvl 16 gem back in its place), but I hadn't used an MPD gem. Looks like my DPS drops from 74.5kdps to 70.8kdps. I should be good with that.

Oh! I didn't see Heartseeker. Nice. I may respec to grab those nodes. I would lose 390 life to gain 9.1kdps (and I'd gain that life back eventually). I think that's worth it.

What about Chaos Resist? I've not stacked any, so I'm at -60%.

I'm off to watch an Atziri video to get a better feel for what I'm facing.

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FamousWarrior wrote:

I am at level 42, but I am dual wielding and I ran blasphemy with warlords for the leech up until recently when I finished labs. Now its about time to bering in the hatred aura, and the build kicks ass. I took diamond skin and some of the damage nodes from the marauder start instead of life and right now Im heading towards the cold conversion damage nodes. I will probably needd to respec to actually get the terminus sword butdual wield is doing the trick just fine for now :). Build is bomb.

Hmm, I hadn't thought about using warlords until finishing lab. It's an interesting idea. As for Dual-Wielding, it works quite well. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's possible to make a good end-game version of this build with it. If you feel like experimenting, you could see if that works.

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AzUther wrote:

Crystal clear.

Let's see... I can use my lvl 19 Faster Attacks from Leap Slam (and put a lvl 16 gem back in its place), but I hadn't used an MPD gem. Looks like my DPS drops from 74.5kdps to 70.8kdps. I should be good with that.

Oh! I didn't see Heartseeker. Nice. I may respec to grab those nodes. I would lose 390 life to gain 9.1kdps (and I'd gain that life back eventually). I think that's worth it.

What about Chaos Resist? I've not stacked any, so I'm at -60%.

I'm off to watch an Atziri video to get a better feel for what I'm facing.

Yeah, you should be fine. Atziri is not that bad. And yes, you can respec the life points for now, if you feel like you have enough life. Honestly, this build ends up with more life than needed if you have good gear - I'm even considering changing the passive tree a little bit on the last levels because of that.

Chaos resist isn't needed at all at the fight. Just be wary of the mechanics. If you're not playing HC, I wouldn't worry much. You might die because of some tricky mechanics (don't try to tank atziri's flameblast, it's not supposed to be facetanked), but then you'll learn with the mistake and do better next time. Of course, this changes if you're on HC - then I really advise learning the fight well before jumping in.

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DanutMS wrote:

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AzUther wrote:

Crystal clear.

Let's see... I can use my lvl 19 Faster Attacks from Leap Slam (and put a lvl 16 gem back in its place), but I hadn't used an MPD gem. Looks like my DPS drops from 74.5kdps to 70.8kdps. I should be good with that.

Oh! I didn't see Heartseeker. Nice. I may respec to grab those nodes. I would lose 390 life to gain 9.1kdps (and I'd gain that life back eventually). I think that's worth it.

What about Chaos Resist? I've not stacked any, so I'm at -60%.

I'm off to watch an Atziri video to get a better feel for what I'm facing.

Yeah, you should be fine. Atziri is not that bad. And yes, you can respec the life points for now, if you feel like you have enough life. Honestly, this build ends up with more life than needed if you have good gear - I'm even considering changing the passive tree a little bit on the last levels because of that.

Chaos resist isn't needed at all at the fight. Just be wary of the mechanics. If you're not playing HC, I wouldn't worry much. You might die because of some tricky mechanics (don't try to tank atziri's flameblast, it's not supposed to be facetanked), but then you'll learn with the mistake and do better next time. Of course, this changes if you're on HC - then I really advise learning the fight well before jumping in.

I think I might have given incorrect numbers, but not off by much. Ok, I swwapped around and dropped a little bit of life to get Heartseeker.

For Chaos, I'm concerned about The Trio on the way to the Queen. But, I now have a second (and third) Midnight, so if I bomb the first run too badly, at least I have a backup. I'm gonna level up once more so that I'm just over the level, so that if I do die, I won't lose much for xp. (Oh yeah, and no, definitely not HC!)

Edit: Ok, I shouldn't have been worried. The Trio was a snap. The queen is dead, long live the queen.

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AzUther wrote:

I think I might have given incorrect numbers, but not off by much. Ok, I swwapped around and dropped a little bit of life to get Heartseeker.

For Chaos, I'm concerned about The Trio on the way to the Queen. But, I now have a second (and third) Midnight, so if I bomb the first run too badly, at least I have a backup. I'm gonna level up once more so that I'm just over the level, so that if I do die, I won't lose much for xp. (Oh yeah, and no, definitely not HC!)

Edit: Ok, I shouldn't have been worried. The Trio was a snap. The queen is dead, long live the queen.

lol, yeah, at your level you really shouldn't have that much trouble with that fight. Still, good to hear you made it.

My advice for you would be that you try to do the Uber Lab in near future. It shouldn't be much harder (although Izaro does hit hard sometimes, so don't try to just facetank all his attacks, some of them might be too much to handle). And it'll be a great boost for your damage. Makes the build feel better.

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DanutMS wrote:

lol, yeah, at your level you really shouldn't have that much trouble with that fight. Still, good to hear you made it.

My advice for you would be that you try to do the Uber Lab in near future. It shouldn't be much harder (although Izaro does hit hard sometimes, so don't try to just facetank all his attacks, some of them might be too much to handle). And it'll be a great boost for your damage. Makes the build feel better.

Yeah, I finally got my 5th trial. Need the 6th now....