[3.1] Winter's Wrath - Poet's Pen GC Berserker
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Introduction
I started this league with a support build, and I knew I would need a solo build eventually. Poet's Pen was on my mind as a potential build item, and I love trigger builds (if you've seen my history with Mjolner, you'll know). So when a pen dropped for me while supporting some friends, I knew what my next build was going to be. I originally wanted to do some kind of crit discharge, and used Glacial Cascade while leveling. I tested Discharge and some other skills but none worked as well as Glacial Cascade, so I ended up sticking with it. My own character is currently at level 95 and has tackled all content I've thrown at him. I've done red tier elder and two of the guardians deathless. Still need to do shaper and the other two guardians (basically atlas RNG), but I'm confident that my character should be able to handle them. PoB Link
Note
Path of building does not correctly calculate the DPS of this build. It assumes we self cast it rather than trigger it with the Poet's Pen. It also does not account for glacial cascade overlap. In my case, the average damage is 67,305 x 3+ overlaps x 4.52 procs/s = 912,655.8+ DPS,
or 43,020 x 3+ x 4.52 = 583,351.2+ DPS vs shaper, in the current configuration. If we calculate for more overlaps, (I believe I may actually be getting 4 some of the time), the DPS of course is higher. Build Features -7k+ life -Single wield Pen (not as expensive, plus defensive properties of having a shield, or a strong offhand) -High life recovery via regen, high leech, and Arakali pantheon + Bloodrage + IC combo -Very solid DPS (~912.6k or more, ~583.3k shaper or more, see above) - oneshots white packs into t16s and crushes high level abyss monsters -Pure Cold damage and high AoE from Long Winter x 2 -Only needs a 4L (for your trigger skill), and can still do damage even if OOM. -Lots of options for gear for personalization/growth. Gear
Core Uniques
All you need is a pen. Try to get a high-ish APS roll, but it doesn't matter too much. The pen will trigger our glacial cascade up to 4x per second (unless you have CDR, read on). You can use it from level 12 on, but I found it most effective once you get to lvl 28 and can use GC. You'll also want 2 of The Long Winter eventually, but they can be a little expensive, so I recommend using a phys to light gem so you can get full elemental conversion until you can get both on.
Gear Upgrade Options
The biggest upgrade slots for you are your belt and your boots. An ilvl 75+ shaper belt can roll the cooldown recovery modifier, which reduces the internal cooldown of our Poet's Pen, which means we can increase our attack speed beyond 4 APS to get more DPS. You can also roll CDR on boots. I don't have a pair currently, but that's a certain option. In your chest slot, you can use a variety of items, from shaper or elder chests to Kaom's Heart or Belly of the Beast. Personally, I opted for: I've always liked this item, and the free AA and 30% spell dodge make you quite tanky. I've found Repentance to be a very solid option, as I don't need an extreme amount of attack speed. By qualitying my Frenzy and dropping my 10% APS gloves and getting a new ring, I've squeezed Repentance in. I've recently switched to a stat stick wand instead of a shield. Since poet's pen procs whenever we attack (even if the attack is not with Poet's Pen), a shaper wand with %phys added as lightning and %ele added as chaos is extremely powerful. This wand here boosted my DPS by ~40% versus the shield I was using before. If you can, try to squeeze the gain x% of phys as extra fire damage if you've crit in the last 4 seconds mod on a few abyss jewels; its very strong.
Sample Gear (shield)
What I was running up until recently can be seen here. You can use all kinds of things, even Kaom's Heart if you want, in the chest slot. I had 7.3k life with this gear at level 93.
My current gear (stat stick wand)
Skill Setups In your Poet's Pen: Glacial Cascade + Controlled Destruction + Cold Penetration -Use Phys to Light instead of Cold Pen until you have 2x The Long Winter Trigger Skill: Frenzy + GMP + Faster Attacks* + Inc Crit Strikes -I use PCoC as a 5th link. I'm still trying to figure out if there's a better option for it. The build uses EO, so PCs just help me crit more to keep it up. *This build requires precise APS tuning to keep your attack speed as close to the proc limit without exceeding it at all times. On my own character, I've dropped my FA support because of quality GMP, quality Culling Strike, and Bloodrage getting me exactly to the attack speed I need. Auras: Hatred, Frostbite* + Blasphemy, Arctic Armor** -Use Elemental Weakness until you have 2x The Long Winter. Only run AA if you use The Perfect Form. CWDT: CWDT + Inc Duration + Immortal Call + Frostbomb -Procs our Arakali pantheon when used with Bloodrage, and adds an additional cold debuff do deal more damage. Movement: Lightning Warp + Faster Casting + Less Duration + Swift Affliction* -You can use whatever move skill is comfortable for you. Probably either the above or flame dash, which would use less sockets. Utility: Decoy Totem, Chaos Golem, Bloodrage Only thing you really need here is Bloodrage once you have your attack speed optimized (see below) for comboing with the Arakali pantheon. Passive Tree My Tree at 92 Tree at 94 Keystones: Elemental Overload I originally went spell crit (as I was aiming for crit discharge), but soon did the math and saw that EO was not only more DPS but less passives, at least with Glacial Cascade. Bandits: I killed them all (help Eramir). Ascendancy order: Crave The Slaughter (for faster leveling) Pain Reaver (for life and mana leech) Aspect of Carnage (for more DPS as you move into maps) Cloaked in Savagery (for more leech as you move into the endgame)
Optimizing your attack speed with CDR
Poet's Pen can be a little tricky. Attack too fast (as in faster than the proc rate) and your DPS will be cut in half. The toughest part with Berserker is that we have up to 50% conditional attack speed, so we will need to make sure we do not exceed the limit when this condition occurs. To determine what your APS will be with the conditional modifiers: Take your APS with 3 frenzy charges (by pressing c) and add the base APS of your pen/2. This number should not exceed 4, if you don't have any CDR. Ideally, you want it to be about 3.9. You may need to adjust the level of your faster attacks gem and/or quality of your supports to get the APS right. If you have CDR, then things change. With my current gear, I have 15% CDR. To calculate your new procs/s with CDR: Multiply 0.25 x (1 - your CDR as a decimal). This is your new cooldown time. 1 / this number is your new procs/s limit. Calculate what your APS will be with your buffs per the above, and again tune your gem levels/quality appropriately. For my belt with 15% CDR, I can trigger 4.54 spells/s if only one spell is socketed. With my conditional APS, I proc 4.52 times/s, which works great. It should take some in combat fiddeling to make sure everything is tuned correctly, as the character sheet rounds a little bit.
Videos
Elder
Map Bosses
Note: Some videos are with my character with a shield. Red tier elder guardians and elder are with a stat stick wand offhand. I'll be adding more sections as needed and videos will be coming soon! This is the main build I play right now and I will probably be playing it on my stream. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, or ways you think of to improve the build! I welcome any and all feedback! -Savage Theorycrafter/Build Creator for PORTAL guild @BlightScourge -> guide @ view-thread/1382667 (Retired till Mjolner is fixed) Lvl 94 Crit Mjolner Marauder twitch.tv/savagewolves Last edited by zSavage#0846 on Jan 29, 2018, 1:06:29 PM Last bumped on Jan 29, 2018, 12:59:54 PM
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L89 atm, done a few builds.
added hinder movement of mobs with spells jewel. added ring gain life on hit with spells ring makes it a fun map experience usually. :) |
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Updated with video section, current gear at 94, and more stuff about upgrading including wand stat-sticking.
Theorycrafter/Build Creator for PORTAL guild
@BlightScourge -> guide @ view-thread/1382667 (Retired till Mjolner is fixed) Lvl 94 Crit Mjolner Marauder twitch.tv/savagewolves |
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Added Red Tier Elder & Elder Guardian vids.
Theorycrafter/Build Creator for PORTAL guild
@BlightScourge -> guide @ view-thread/1382667 (Retired till Mjolner is fixed) Lvl 94 Crit Mjolner Marauder twitch.tv/savagewolves |
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Added PoB link.
Theorycrafter/Build Creator for PORTAL guild
@BlightScourge -> guide @ view-thread/1382667 (Retired till Mjolner is fixed) Lvl 94 Crit Mjolner Marauder twitch.tv/savagewolves |
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