[3.0] Crit Freezing Pulse by Paige | All Bosses Down | Videos | Leveling | Budget Friendly

Q: Why Berserker?
A: We go Berserker for it's OP Life & Mana leech from Pain Reaver. This frees up a Curse & a support gem slot on our Freezing Pulse. It also lets us maintain MoM a LOT easier because we are constantly leeching mana back. Also, Aspect of Carnage gives us 40% more damage, which is quite literally 40% of your total damage, remember, "more" & "increased" are two completely different things, "more" is multiplicative, while "increased" is additive. Moral of the story is "more" is much stronger than "increased".

Q: Why Pledge of Hands?
A: We use Pledge of Hands for a few reasons. First reason being is for defensive purposes, between the staff itself & the staff nodes we pick up, we gain 30% chance to block (a "block" = 100% attack damage mitigation), 170% Critical Strike Chance & 65% Critical Strike Multiplier. On top of that we gain 100% Increased Maximum Mana which is insanely powerful to help us maintain MoM, it essentially allows us to completely skip ALL mana nodes. And finally, Pledge of Hands gives us another support gem option to link with Freezing Pulse.

Q: Why would should I switch from your Witch version of the build?
A: Good question, simply put, if you don't like playing a glass cannon build, and you enjoy a more laid back slaughtering monsters no matter what type of gameplay, Berserker is probably going to be for you. I think this build strikes the perfect balance between high enough damage to do all content, and an insane amount defensive layers to survive anything the game can throw at us, while Witch is extremely powerful in it's own right, it's limited a lot by its ascendancy's.

Q: Why do you stack so much cast speed?
A: For most builds you either use Spell Echo or Faster Casting, my build uses both. There's a few reasons for this. #1 Spell Echo locks you down in place for a good chunk of time, stacking Cast Speed makes that "lock down" almost non existent. #2 Unlike most other skills, we aren't casting just to deal damage, we're casting to make use of our Pandemonious, we're casting to chill & freeze, there's a lot of mechanics going on behind the scenes than just dealing pure damage, and all of this is synergizing together very nicely to lock down all of your enemies with chills & freezes while dealing insane amounts of damage. Also, who likes playing a slow character? Not me.

Gear

Gearing is pretty straightforward while leveling, craft a +1 Cold gem Wand for Freezing Pulse, prioritize Movement speed on boots, Resistances & Life, everything else is a bonus.
Leveling Uniques If you are able to get your hands on some leveling uniques, then I'd definitely recommend it. Things like a Lifesprig, Goldrim, Tabula Rasa & Wanderlust will make your life much easier.

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Flasks

Making sure you're using the highest level flasks available to you while leveling is very important, I usually run with 2 Life flasks, 1 or 2 Mana flasks & 1 or 2 Quicksilver Flasks.
While leveling this character I used 1 Life flasks, 3 Quicksilver flasks & 1 Mana flask.

Rolling your flasks are not worth the time or currency as you will be replacing them fairly quickly, it's really only until you reach Part 2 (Act 6+) where you may want to consider rolling a "of Staunching" mod, as bleeds will kill you fairly quickly.

Feel free to roll your Quicksilver flasks if you have extra currency, these you won't be replacing for awhile.

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Gems & Links

+1 Gem Weapon: Freezing Pulse > Cold Penetration Support > Onslaught Support (or Added Cold Damage Support)

Tabula Rasa: Freezing Pulse > Added Cold Damage Support (or Onslaught Support) > Cold Penetration Support > Increased Critical Strikes Support > Spell Echo Support > Faster Casting Support

Others: I personally used Purity of Elements to help with resistances, I also took Summon Ice Golem (Lightning is fine too), Flame Dash/Lightning Warp for movement. You can level multiple Freezing Pulses at a time so you can corrupt them later on for a possible 21/20. You can also use a CWDT setup (such as Frostwall, Frost Bomb or Immortal Call). I also ran Decoy Totem mostly for bosses. Clarity to support MoM is also recommended. Feel free to add other gem setups of your choice that you feel fit. You can't really go wrong here.

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Bandits

Kill All

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Skill Tree

10p

20p

30p

40p

50p

60p

70p

80p

Path of Building Link

https://pastebin.com/Sd83cBNJ

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Required Gear


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Gearing

Gearing up for this build beyond the uniques is very straightforward. You'll be looking for 2 rings, a belt & a helmet to cap your resists. The more life you can find on the gear, the better. Diamond rings are not too important, you can get away with Coral or Opal as well. Somewhere on your gear if you can find a nice Dex roll, you'll save yourself a point of two in your passive tree.

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My Current Gear
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Flasks

Atziri's Promise is a simple flask to use, spam it when you have charges, it gives a small amount of Life Leech and a small damage boost.

The Wise Oak Bismuth Flask is amazing if you can either line up your resistances perfectly even (100/100/100 for example) or just having your uncapped cold resistance higher than your other resistances, it'll provide us with Cold Damage Penetration which shoots our damage up through the roof, especially when used on bosses since they have high resistances to begin with.

Outside of those two flasks, you also have the option of running something like Taste of Haste for physical damage mitigation, but I don't feel it's really needed unless you're fighting a guardian like Chimera or something with very high physical damage spikes.

Now that we've gone over the unique flask choices, the other flasks are completely up to you. Keep in mind that we will require a "of Staunching" flask to remove bleeding. I personally would recommend taking a Basalt flask for physical mitigation as well.


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Jewels

x2 First Snow Cobalt Jewels Are REQUIRED.





The absolute best in slot jewels for us will be something like double cast speed, max life & crit multi or projectile damage.

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Gems & Links

6L Pledge of Hands: Freezing Pulse > Added Cold Damage (for bosses) & Onslaught (for map clearing) > Cold Penetration Support > Faster Casting Support > Increased Critical Strikes > Controlled Destruction Support

5L Pledge of Hands: Freezing Pulse > Cold Penetration Support > Faster Casting Support > Increased Critical Strikes > Controlled Destruction Support

Helmet: Clarity > Enlighten > Blasphemy Support > Projectile Weakness

Boots (x2 2 Links): Less Duration > Lightning Warp / Vaal Haste > Increased Duration

Gloves: Cast When Damage Taken > Immortal Call > Frost Bomb > Increased Duration

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Bandits

Kill All

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Skill Tree

90p

100p

110p

123p

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Ascendancy

For our Ascendancies we'll be going with the Berserker.

We'll be taking: Pain Reaver > Cloaked in Savagery > Crave the Slaughter and then Aspect of Carnage.

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Pantheon

Soul of Lunaris & Soul of Yugul.

Path of Building Link

https://pastebin.com/u7VAe5sN

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Required Gear


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Recommended Gear

Either of these amulets are fine, The Pandemonius being our best option if you can afford it.


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Gearing

Gearing up for this build is very straightforward, if you can't afford the unique choices we have for gear, you'll be looking for 2 rings, an amulet, a belt, a helmet, body armor, a pair of gloves & boots to cap your resists. The more life you can find on the gear, the better. Diamond rings are not too important, you can get away with Coral or Opal as well. Somewhere on your gear if you can find a nice Dex roll, you'll save yourself a point of two in your passive tree. As for an amulet you'll be looking for Spell DMG/Crit Strike Chance/Crit Multi/Life if you can't find all of those rolls on an amulet, just buy what you can afford, as long as it has some damage & life on it, you can't go wrong. If you can afford some/all of the unique choices, please read the section below. Eventually you'll be working towards obtaining all of these uniques mentioned to complete the build.

Beyond that, we have a few choices regarding gearing depending on what level of currency you have. If you can afford Maligaro's Virtuosity, wear those instead of rare gloves. If you can afford The Halcyon or The Pandemonius amulet (Pandemonious is best), wear either of those instead of a rare amulet. If you can afford Mutewind Whispersteps, wear those instead of rare boots.

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My Current Gear
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Flasks

Atziri's Promise is a simple flask to use, spam it when you have charges, it gives a small amount of Life Leech and a small damage boost.

The Wise Oak Bismuth Flask is amazing if you can either line up your resistances perfectly even (100/100/100 for example) or just having your uncapped cold resistance higher than your other resistances, it'll provide us with Cold Damage Penetration which shoots our damage up through the roof, especially when used on bosses since they have high resistances to begin with.

Outside of those two flasks, you also have the option of running something like Taste of Haste for physical damage mitigation, but I don't feel it's really needed unless you're fighting a guardian like Chimera or something with very high physical damage spikes.

Now that we've gone over the unique flask choices, the other flasks are completely up to you. Keep in mind that we will require a "of Staunching" flask to remove bleeding. I personally would recommend taking a Basalt flask for physical mitigation as well.


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Jewels

x2 First Snow Cobalt Jewels Are REQUIRED.





The absolute best in slot jewels for us will be something like double cast speed, max life & crit multi or projectile damage.

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Gems & Links

6L Pledge of Hands: Freezing Pulse > Added Cold Damage (for bosses) & Onslaught (for map clearing) > Cold Penetration Support > Faster Casting Support > Increased Critical Strikes > Controlled Destruction Support

5L Pledge of Hands: Freezing Pulse > Cold Penetration Support > Faster Casting Support > Increased Critical Strikes > Controlled Destruction Support

Helmet: Clarity > Enlighten > Blasphemy Support > Projectile Weakness

Boots (x2 2 Links): Less Duration > Lightning Warp / Vaal Haste > Increased Duration

Gloves: Cast When Damage Taken > Immortal Call > Frost Bomb > Increased Duration

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Bandits

Kill All

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Skill Tree

90p

100p

110p

123p

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Ascendancy

For our Ascendancies we'll be going with the Berserker.

We'll be taking: Pain Reaver > Cloaked in Savagery > Crave the Slaughter and then Aspect of Carnage.

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Pantheon

Soul of Lunaris & Soul of Yugul.