[3.6] Subzero Spider Winter Orb Elementalist - [USES FULL FENUMUS UNIQUE SET!] - From Meme to Viable
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Introduction
 _______ Updates 02/04/19 – Posted up the character build guide. [UPDATE LOG] - They did a slight nerf on Winter Orb as in at level 1, it does more damage, but at level 20, it does less damage than what it was from before. Even with this, Winter Orb stll wrecks shop and does a crap ton of damage. All of the other items and uniques for the build are untouched so you should still be good to go. If anything, we have more energy leech nodes applied for us now so we can have a more reliable way to leech energy shield if need be. Ghost Reaver also doubles our maximum energy life leech rate which is also a huge bonus. Skilltrees have been updated to accommodate some of the changes on the tree. We are a bit more defensive now because we are able to grab the Arcane Guarding cluster, which gives us more energy shield based on our shield, also some extra spell block which is simply quality of life to the build. _______ This will be my sixth guide that I have created and officially posted on the forums. My last guide I just finished was my Infinite Blazing Flicker Strike Slayer. This build honestly got created originally as kind of a meme or a random idea of just wanting to use the whole Fenumus unique item set. I noticed that I had the whole set so I just thought to make a build around it. I also wanted to try out some of the newer skills in the game so I thought to try out Winter Orb which I never used before. Coming from an old Diablo background, I have always liked unique item sets. My favorite set back then was Sigon’s set growing up. It obviously was not the best set or anything of that sort, but when I first started Diablo when I was younger and saw people in a blinding all white armor set, I was instantly hooked. I also loved it because it was great for a ‘new character’ to use with. So, going off of this set idea, I was going through my stash and noticed that I had a full Fenumus set. Fenumus is a unique boss who is one of the four spirit beasts in the game. I just thought to use the whole set as a bit of a meme at first, but then I got a little more serious and tried to actually make a build out of it to fight end-game content. I also wanted to use a skill that I have never used and what do you know, Winter Orb is a new released skill and one that I have never touched. So put two in two together, this is a build utilizing the whole Fenumus set along with Winter Orb. Unlike Diablo, there are not exactly ‘unique item sets’ in this game. They might have some uniques pertaining to a character or boss, but it is not like Diablo how there is a piece of gear for every item slot or how you get extra bonuses from using the whole set. Fenumus’ unique set only has 4 pieces of gear to it. A body armor, a helmet, a pair of gloves and a pair of boots. Though there are no real item sets in this game, you do get some bonuses if you use some of the pieces together. Fenumus' Weave, which are the gloves of the set grants us Aspect of the Spider. AotS is a skill which reserves 25% of your mana that applies a Spider’s Web debuff to all nearby enemies every second. With each spider web inflicted in this manner, it hinders them which reduces their movement speed and increases the damage they take. You can stack up to 3 webs to an enemy, but Fenumus' Spinnerets, the boots of the set allows you to apply another web making the maximum spider webs you can inflict count to 4. Fenumus' Shroud, which is the body armor of the set grants us some extra mods if we are utilizing AotS. Enemies affected by our spider webs deal 10% reduced damage and also have -10% to all resistances. This gives us more penetration for our build which boosts our damage. The whole set works pretty well together and it works pretty will in conjunction with Winter Orb. The set is more focused on energy shield so this build is going an energy shield Chaos Inoculation route. CI is one of my favorite things in the game too so this build just kind of met all of ideas that I wanted to utilize. It obviously is not the fastest map clearer or boss killer, but it can do both at a respectable speed being the fact that I wanted to use the whole set. Though the build is a bit meme-ish, it has gotten me through most end-game content. I have not tackled some bosses yet just because I am still in the early stages of the build and will update it as I go. I know that I could possibly get more energy shield and whatnot, but do remember that I am using 4 unique items of the Fenumus set. This means that I am potentially missing out on other areas I could improve on, but I just wanted to use the whole set knowing this. Do take note of that. I usually focus more on budget style of builds, but since this build utilizes a full set, the budget is going to be different than normal. Long story short, we are a Witch/Elementalist utilizing the full Fenumus set along with Winter Orb. An Elementalist synergizes very well with elemental spells and their passives greatly boost up the damage and survivability of the build. The starting point of a Witch’s skill tree is also near a lot of energy shield nodes so grabbing energy shield becomes very easy for us. We also get energy shield regeneration and energy shield on hit from the Fenumus set which gives us even more survivability and sustain. Pros & Cons + Respectable clear speed (not the fastest, but still respectable for using the full Fenumus set) + Permanent Frenzy Charges/uptime + Permanent Power Charge sustain/generation uptime + Energy shield regen/energy shield gained on hit naturally from Fenumus set + Aspect of the Spider for more damage/survivability (alongside the Fenumus set) + Can do all content in the game (some content may be more difficult just because we only deal elemental damage or may take longer since this is not some billion damage build) + Constantly on the move so surviving is a lot higher + Elementalist passives can guarantee us shocks, chills and ignites and also just boosts our damage in general + Chaos Inoculation makes us 100% immune to chaos damage + Easily break 6K+ energy shield with your items and skill tree + A 2-3 mana on spell hit ring is enough to sustain mana (Warlord’s Mark is better but more expensive) + Possible to do no leech/no regen maps (need a mana on spell hit ring if so) + Great to Delve and do Incursions with + Handles syndicate encounters very well (cast Winter Orb and runaway to let Winter Orb finish them off) + Does not require an expensive stat stick - NOT a league starter but possible (Fenumus' Shroud can only be equipped at level 67 and energy shield gear with higher energy shield values usually have higher level requirements) - Need to manage Winter Orb uptime while constantly moving around (could be difficult for players not used to these kinds of builds) - Cannot do elemental reflect mods (unless you take Paragon of Calamity, then you have to either drop Beacon of Ruin or Mastermind of Discord which I would not really recommend) - Mana management can be difficult to those not experienced managing their mana or using these kinds of builds - Having a lot of awareness while constantly moving and casting Winter Orb can be difficult for some Requirements Required Attributes
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Strength: 92 Dexterity: 111 Intelligence: 212 These are based off of if you are using level 20 gems. Do note, if you use skill gems over level 20, these requirements could slightly change and increase. This is more so for the min/maxing and players who have currency to use for level 21 gems and 20+ quality gems. We also get a lot of these stats just by following the tree so we do not have to worry too much about grabbing attributes to meet item/gem requirements. You just need some dexterity on your items and gear and you should be covered. Required Items/Uniques
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Needed so we get 100% Frenzy Charge uptime and also another outlet for Power Charge generation. Gives us more cold damage per Frenzy Charge as well. Needed for extra AotS mods that benefit us and also 1st of the 4 pieces for the Fenumus set. Needed so our AotS inflicts spider webs and hinder every 0.5 seconds instead of 1 second and also gives us a 10% chance to gain a Power Charge on hit from enemies affected by our spider webs. Also 2nd of the 4 pieces of the Fenumus set. Needed for some extra damage which scales off of how many webs an enemy is inflicted with. This is the 3rd of the 4 pieces of the Fenumus set. Needed so we can inflict an additional spider web on our enemies. Also grants us 20 energy shield on hit for each enemy hit which is affected by a spider web. This is the final 4th piece of the Fenumus set. Optional/Recommended Uniques and Items
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Gear-wise, I honestly do not really have any recommendations being that this build is specifically using the whole Fenumus set. This set already takes up 4 of our gear slots so I understand that grabbing resistances may be a bit on the more difficult side. You will be grabbing most of your resistances on your jewelry, belt and shield. One thing to note, you obviously will want to grab as much energy shield on your gear too. The Fenumus set leans more towards energy shield, and because we are using this set, the energy shield values that each piece of the set has is not too high. You need to make up for this by grabbing more energy shield on your other open slots, and also from the skill tree. As mentioned from before, I understand that we can easily get way more energy shield grabbing a chest with like 600+ energy shield and whatnot, but that is not the point of this build. The point is to use the whole Fenumus set so I know there will be some setbacks and improvements that I am throwing out the window by doing so. Even though this is the case, the build is still really fun and as long as you grab as much energy shield as you can through different sources, it honestly is not too shabby. So the main things I would recommend are to get as much resistances as you can get along with as much energy shield values you can get on your other open slots. Another thing to note is to watch your resistances if you plan to use a Dying Sun flask. Since we use The Wise Oak and are focused towards piercing with cold damage, Dying Sun could potentially raise your fire resistances over your cold resistance which would render The Wise Oak as useless. Make sure you have enough cold resist that even if you pop Dying Sun (Dying Sun gives you 50% to fire resistance), you still have more cold resistance than fire resistance. This shouldn’t be too difficult to do and will be explained more later. If this is too difficult to do, you could just use an Onslaught utility flask too. Alternatives?
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This build utilizes the full Fenumus set alongside Tulfall, so I would not say that there are really any alternates to the build since this build specifically is aiming to use the full set and abuse Tulfall. I already explained a bit on what to look for gear above in the optional/recommended section. Just get energy shield+resists on your other gear and jewelry and you should be ok. Any other uniques you want to utilize are of your own choice. Just remember that capping your resistances may prove even more difficult since this build already utilizes 5 uniques. Your choice though. Build Budget This section will let you know how much the required items of the build costs. This can give people an idea on how much currency is needed for the required uniques/items/gear, and to see if you have the amount of currency to purchase the core parts. This is more so for the unique items and required items. The prices can obviously fluctuate, but I am going to use the prices that they were currently at, at this specific time of the league when I found or bought them. This build uses the full Fenumus set so by default we are already looking at a midrange budget by default. I understand with this kind of budget, we could make a potentially stronger build and for cheaper, but that was not the main focus of this build. It was just to use the whole Fenumus set alongside Winter Orb. Though this is the case, the build still holds itself up pretty well and surprisingly has downed a ton of bosses on my end deathless.
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You can get Tulfall for 5 chaos or less. You can even find it for 1 chaos if you are lucky. You can get Fenumus’ Shroud for 100 chaos-1.5 exalts. You can sometimes find it under 100 chaos if you are lucky but they usually get bought pretty quickly. You can get Fenumus’ Toxins for 5 chaos or less. You will usually see it for 3 chaos though. You can get Fenumus’ Weave for 25 chaos or less. You will usually see it for 20 chaos though. You can get Fenemus’ Spinnerets for 20 chaos or less. You will usually see it for 15 or less chaos though. As mentioned from before, since we utilize the whole Fenumus set, you are looking at a midrange budget. This budget might seem miniscule for those that have more currency, but looking in as newer player with not much currency, this is a bit more in the midrange budget. The set alone will go for less than 2 exalted orbs which can be a bit pricier for some, but remember, using the whole set was the goal of this build. Tulfall in general is pretty cheap and works perfect in this build. Gear This section is what I am currently using for my build. This build utilizes the whole Fenumus set so most of your gear is going to look similar to mine. The main things you are looking for your other gear/items is energy shield+resists. The Fenumus items do not give too much energy shield so we need to try to get as much energy shield as we can through other items. As long as you do, the build should have a decent amount of energy shield along with following the skill tree. My Current Gear
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Main Hand/Weapon Slot #1
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The main weapon for our build. I honestly only used this because I wanted to utilize some more underused unique items and Tulfall fit into this slot perfectly. The mods it gives us actually works perfect for this build as it grants us flat cold damage per Power Charge and increased cold damage per Frenzy Charge. Crit is not too important for our build as we are using Elemental Overload which gives us 40% increased elemental damage for 8 seconds on a critical strike. Because of this, we are not too worried about losing all of our Power Charges when we get to its maximum amount of charges. If anything, this works great because we get a Frenzy Charge when this happens. Fenumus’ Toxins gives us a 10% chance to gain a Power Charge on hit if an enemy is inflicted by a Power Charge, so we can sustain Power Charge generation alongside Frenzy Charge generation. With the set alongside Tulfall, we have permanent Power Charge/Frenzy Charge generation and sustain which works great with our Elemental Overload. You could use a stat stick or something of that kind here, but like I said, I wanted to use some more underutilized uniques and Tulfall fit this position perfectly with how the build is focused towards cold damage. Since Tulfall is relatively cheap, I bought about 5 of them and corrupted a few and I hit elemental damage penetration which is probably the best corrupt you can get for the item. The corrupt is not needed, but since I had to currency to buy a few to try and get the corrupt, I went for it. Just using an uncorrupted Tulfall will suffice here. Offhand/Weapon Slot #2
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This is just a rare shield that I self-spammed for and then I just crafted increased energy shield. Try to get as much energy shield on this as you can. As we use the full Fenumus set, the shield slot is actually where we can get the most energy shield we can get followed by our belt slot. My shield has 389 energy shield. Just try to get 200 or more energy shield on your shield since it is hard to get a lot of energy shield on your other pieces of gear. Energy shield+resists is what you are looking for. If you are only looking for a single resistance+high energy shield, it is actually quite cheap. Body Armor Slot
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This is the body armor for that I am using for this build and also the body armor of the Fenumus set. This gives us some decent flat energy shield along with some extra mods that help us defensively and offensively. We get 80-100 energy shield regeneration which is actually really helpful in the survival department. Along with this, if any enemies are inflicted with any spider webs, they deal 10% less damage to us and also have -10% to all of their resistances. As you can see, this armor brings some incredible bonuses to the table. Helmet Slot
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This is the unique helmet of the Fenumus set. The poison mods that Fenumus’ Toxins gives us are not really important or useful to us. The main mods that help us are the 10% chance to gain a Power Charge when we hit an enemy affected by a spider web and the faster rate of inflicting spider webs and hinder. Instead of it inflicting every 1 second, it now inflicts it at 0.5 seconds instead which is even better for us. Since we use Winter Orb, we can avoid enemies and inflict spider webs at the same time while Winter Orb takes care of everything for us. The best helmet enchant would easily be ‘Winter Orb has +2 Maximum Stages’ but because we are using the whole Fenumus set, getting this enchant is going to be difficult. Gloves Slot
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The unique gloves of the Fenumus set. These gloves is what grants us Aspect of the Spider. AotS inflicts a spider web and hinders nearby enemies every 1 second. With Fenumus’ Toxins, the rate is 0.5 seconds instead. The gloves give us extra chaos damage for every spider web inflicted on the enemy so these gloves really just give a boost in our damage. Boots Slot
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The unique boots of the Fenumus set. The boots gives us some lightning and chaos resistance along with 25% increased movement speed which is not too shabby. We also are able to inflict an additional web on enemies raising the max from 3 to 4 webs that can be inflicted. Another great mod we get with these pair of boots is that we gain 15-20 energy shield on hit if we hit an enemy which is affected by a spider web. This potentially allows us to run no leech maps but if this is the case, you would need to have a mana on spell hit ring in this case. Having this alongside Warlord’s Mark, you can sustain your leech and energy shield very well. With this energy shield gained on hit, we do not even need to grab Ghost Reaver to convert our leech to energy shield since we can just sustain off of this alone. If you decide to grab Ghost Reaver though, your survivability will be even better. Belt Slot
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This a crystal belt that I self-crafted and spammed. Crystal belts are the obvious route to go if you are trying to get the most energy shield you can for your belt. Try to get a crystal belt with at least 100 flat energy shield with resistances. You can actually find these for pretty cheap. Just start by searching for a crystal belt with a minimum of 100 maximum energy shield and go from there. It should start at around 1 chaos which is actually extremely affordable. I just crafted some more energy shield onto the belt since I had an open affix. The small armor helps a bit too. Nothing wrong with some free physical damage reduction. Ring #1 Slot
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Just a random rare Warlord’s Mark on hit ring that I alt spammed. I was lucky enough to get a decent flat energy shield roll onto it as well. I crafted damage taken as mana for 4 seconds just for another source of mana sustain. You can craft whatever you want if you have an open affix slot. I was originally using this alongside a mana gain on spell hit to run no leech maps. We already get energy shield gain on hit with Fenumus’ Spinnerets so it is possible to run no leech mods in this manner. Obviously you can simply reroll these map mods if they are too annoying for you though. I would recommend a Warlord’s Mark on hit ring just for the mana leech, but like I said, you can get by with a mana gain on spell hit ring too but it will be a bit more difficult to manage mana if you are not used to it since channeling Winter Orb drains your mana so fast. Just grab as much energy shield+resist as you can but also remember, be on the lookout for your resistances since we are using The Wise Oak. We want our cold uncapped resistances to be the highest. Along with this, if you use Dying Sun, you need to make sure that even if you get the 50% fire resistance from Dying Sun that your cold resistance is still higher than it so you can get The Wise Oak cold pierce. Ring #2 Slot
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This is just another rare ring with energy shield+resists. But the difference here is since we are not focusing on finding mana gained on spell hit or Warlord’s Mark on hit, we can just focus strictly on resists and flat energy shield. Any extra mods you get are just a bonus. For example, for this ring, I just crafted increased damage from the crafting bench for some more damage. A rare with energy shield+resists should get you by just fine. Just remember about the resistances as mentioned above for Dying Sun and The Wise Oak. Amulet Slot
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Just a random rare amulet that I am using. It does give me some dexterity which is needed for the build so that helps. The energy shield mods on it give me some decent energy shield as well. I have some minor resistances on the amulet too so that helps too. Just get an amulet with energy shield mods+resists and you should be good to go. These are not too expensive either but the more energy shield mods you look for, the more expensive it will get. Just choose what works for your budget. Jewels
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This is just a random jewel that I had corrupted from a while back that just kind of fit into the build. The main thing I was aiming for was just to have corrupted blood immunity. Corrupted blood can get pretty annoying during mapping and especially since we are always moving. Just get a random jewel that has corrupted blood cannot be inflicted and try to get any mods on it that will be beneficial to the build such as increased energy shield. Mine luckily also had resistances on it which actually helps me have my cold resist be higher than my fire resistance. If you want to use Dying Sun and The Wise Oak together, using this jewel socket to get some extra resistances to make sure your cold resist is higher than your fire resist is helpful. Flasks
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This is the current flask setup I use for this build. Atziri’s Promise is pretty standard for some extra DPS and leech. The Sorrow of the Divine gives us an extra 40% increased damage and also creates consecrated ground which gives us some extra energy shield generation. The reason why we use this one instead of The Overflowing Chalice is because it also gives us Zealot’s Oath making it so our regeneration is applied to energy shield instead. It also lasts longer than The Overflowing Chalice which means we can keep it up a lot longer. The Wise Oak is pretty self-explanatory. It gives us some extra penetration to a specific element depending on which one of our uncapped resistance is highest. For us, cold should be our highest uncapped resistance so we can get some extra cold penetration further increasing our damage. The Dying Sun makes it so our Winter Orb fires an additional 2 projectiles greatly increasing our potential damage we can deal. It also does give us more survivability to fire damage which is also helpful. Just make sure to get a Dying Sun with a high enough reduced charges used mod so you can at least pop it twice at max charges. If you do not want to run a Dying Sun flask, you can just use a Silver flask for Onslaught instead if balancing resistances gets too annoying. The last flask is just a generic Quicksilver flask with freeze/chill immunity. It just helps you move around easier and helps with clear speed. Skill Gems This is the current skill gem setups that I use. The gems are prioritized in each of the skill gem setups so you know what gems to get first and to prioritize. This can be due to importance of a specific gem to the build, or by what gems give you more DPS.
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6 Link - Main Attack – Winter Orb Setup
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Winter Orb > Greater Multiple Projectiles > Concentrated Effect > Controlled Destruction > Hypothermia > Added Cold Damage This is the current Winter Orb setup we are using for this build. As mentioned earlier, the gems are currently listed as in what priority you should prioritize your skill gems. They are also put in the order of highest damage to lowest. So if you cannot use a 6 link yet, just use the first 4 gems and then once you get a 5th or 6th link, then add the other skill gems. Greater Multiple Projectiles is really just there to make our Winter Orb shoot an additional 4 projectiles. All of the other gems are just to boost the damage of our Winter Orb. As long as you use these 4 gems, the build should run fine until you can get a 5 link or a 6 link. The 2 other links do make a huge difference though so if you can get them, I would highly suggest you do. Just do what works for your budget. 3 Link – Movement – Movement/Arcane Surge Setup
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Flame Dash > Faster Casting > Arcane Surge (level 7) This is your main movement spell that we will also use to pop our Arcane Surge. Flame Dash is pretty much the standard movement spell for caster builds and just great to use in general. We also abuse Arcane Surge with it so make sure you keep your Arcane Surge at level 7 and do not level any higher. The reason being is that when we use Flame Dash, we want to get the Arcane Surge buff every time we use it. We want to keep Arcane Surge up as much as we can so our Winter Orb gets as much damage as it can get. 3 Link – Auras – Auras/Utility Setup
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Herald of Ice > Onslaught > Vaal Discipline/Discipline This is a pretty standard aura setup consisting of Herald of Ice and Vaal Discipline/Discipline. Herald of Ice is linked to Onslaught just so we can get some free Onslaught while mapping. It makes our clearing a whole lot smoother. Herald of Ice along with being an Elementalist and their passive Mastermind of Discord makes it so that so we penetrate 25% cold resistance when we are affected by Herald of Ice. This gives us a huge boost in damage and makes our clearing smoother with all of the shattering. Definitely a must have for a cold build and for clear speed. I would also recommend you use Vaal Discipline instead of a regular Discipline. Reason being is because the Vaal version of Discipline makes it so our energy shield recharge is not delayed by damage. This gives us an emergency way to recover our energy shield back up if we are taking too much damage. It provides the build with serious survivability. It basically keeps recovering our energy shield for 3 seconds which is usually enough time to get ourselves out of trouble. You can use the Vaal version alongside the regular version too which is why it is recommended to use Vaal Discipline. 4 Link – Frost Bomb – Frost Bomb/Utility Setup
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Frost Bomb > Arcane Surge (level 6) > Efficacy > Vaal Righteous Fire We use Frost Bomb as a utility to lower our enemies cold resistance by -25%. It also makes them have 75% reduced life generation/energy shield regeneration and 25% energy shield recharge rate. As you can see, Frost Bomb brings us a lot of utility. Along with this, we attach it to Arcane Surge (level 6) so that we get the Arcane Surge every time we use Frost Bomb. This gives us even more chances to always keep our Arcane Surge buff active. Efficacy is attached to make our Frost Bomb last longer, but also our Vaal Righteous Fire. Vaal Righteous Fire is used during boss fights to give us a huge boost in spell power, increasing our overall damage. I would pop it during a boss fight. If you decide to pop it while mapping, just make sure that you will be able to build it back up before a boss fight. Vaal Righteous Fire also gets extended from Efficacy which is why it is attached to this setup. You will not be utilizing Righteous Fire, as this is not what it is used for. We are only using the Vaal version of the skill. Watch your life when you do pop it though because it will consume 35% of our energy shield. One more thing to note, remember to keep the Arcane Surge in this setup at level 6. We want to gain the buff every time we use Frost Bomb. 4 Link – CWDT Setup #1 – Cast when Damage Taken Setup #1
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OR Cast when Damage Taken (level 2) > Immortal Call (level 4) > Summon Chaos Golem (level 4) > Enfeeble (level 6) OR Blind This is our first CWDT setup that we utilize. This has your standard CWDT with Immortal Call. As mentioned earlier, keep the gems at the said levels listed here so that they proc correctly with Cast when Damage Taken. Now, you have the option to either use Enfeeble (level 6) OR Blind here. If you do not use Warlord’s Mark, and would rather just sustain with the energy shield on hit from Fenumus set and use mana gained on spell hit, then you can use Enfeeble here for another defensive layer. If you are already using a Warlord’s Mark on hit ring, then you will be overriding Enfeeble which in that case it would be better if we you just swap it for another Blind setup. This will make it so our chaos golem has a chance to inflict blind with his normal attacks, giving us another source of blind potential. It really is on your choice though. Summon Chaos Golem is really just there for some extra physical damage reduction. We have the space to fit it in and there is nothing wrong with having another source of defense. It also gets casted from our CWDT setup so we do not ever have to worry about casting it ourselves. 4 Link – CWDT Setup #2 – Cast when Damage Taken Setup #2
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Cast when Damage Taken (level 2) > Molten Shell (level 11) > Tempest Shield (level 8) > Blind This is our second CWDT setup. One thing to note is that you need to keep the skill gems at the levels that I listed above or they will not activate correctly with Cast when Damage Taken. Molten Shell (level 11) and Tempest Shield (level 8) just gives us a little more defensive options. We link these spells with Blind to make it so we can inflict blind when these spells activate and hit enemies. It just gives us an extra source of defensive layers for this build. Bandits
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Kill all of them! We need the extra 2 skill points for the build.
Passive Tree I actually just followed the skill tree as is while I was leveling up. The leveling up section will have a bit more information on this. Depending on how you level the build, you may have to respec the tree because our starting points are most likely going to differ. For me, I already had some items ready to level up with so following the skill trees did not really pose any problems. I would ignore the energy shield nodes until you actually swap over to CI and are able to use better energy shield items. This will be around level 60-70 depending on where you are currently at.
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Level 70 Level 100 I would suggest focusing heavily on the energy shield nodes when you swap over to CI. The damage is already pretty decent if you have been following the skill tree. Since our energy shield is a bit on the lower side, we need to focus on grabbing the energy shield nodes before the damage nodes when we convert over to CI. One thing to note is that once you also swap to CI, I would start using the Level 100 tree to spec your points. You will notice that once we go CI and go to the level 100 tree, I respec the two intelligence points at the top of our tree, and connect the tree from ‘Practical Application’ instead. This is because we now want to grab energy shield nodes. We also get 2 free points from this once you have enough points to respec the tree in this way. *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu#6072 on Mar 12, 2019, 10:35:56 AM Last bumped on Apr 17, 2019, 10:23:35 AM
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Ascendancies and Pantheons
Ascendancies
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 1st Lab: Pendulum of Destruction 2nd Lab: Mastermind of Discord 3rd Lab: Shaper of Desolation 4th Lab: Beacon of Ruin This is the order that I grabbed these nodes in as I leveled. You might prefer to grab them a bit differently, but this is how I grabbed my labs as I leveled this character. Pendulum of Destruction gives us more elemental damage and increased AoE every 5 seconds which alternates between the two. If you use Winter Orb earlier on, this passive work pretty well for it. I grabbed Mastermind of Discord afterwards since I was leveling with Herald of Ice. MoD makes it so we pierce 25% cold resistance while we are affected by Herald of Ice. This makes clearing that much better. After those two passives, I went with Shaper of Desolation and then Beacon of Ruin. These passives basically guarantees us shocks, chills and ignites at different intervals. During a boss fight, we are guaranteed to inflict them with some ailments which can further increase our damage such as having all of our attacks being able to shock. This is great for fights that last a bit longer since that means we can get more of the confluxes rotating through. Pantheons
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 Soul of Solaris as your Major God. Since we clear trash very well as it already is, we want some extra defensive layers in a boss fight. Soul of Solaris gives us just the defensive tools we are looking for in a boss fight. We also have a chance to avoid area damage which is also a plus. Any of the captured souls are also benefit to us and just provides us with extra layers of defense. You can see why this Major God would work so well in our favor.  Soul of Gruthkul as your Minor God. Soul of Gruthkul will be your Minor God for this build. As mentioned earlier along with our Major God Solaris, we want to have more defensive layers because we are going to be maneuvering a lot. Soul of Gruthkul gives us 1% physical damage reduction when we take a hit up to a maximum of 5%. Though it might not seem like much, these small percentages could sometimes determine if you die in a hit or not. We have some other physical damage reduction already so having some extra physical damage reduction will never hurt. Capturing Erebix slows our enemies attack speed by 8% as well, further increasing the layers of our defense. Playstyle This build is actually pretty simple to run, but it can be a bit of disaster to run in the management department if you are not used to running something like this. We reserve a decent amount of our mana for Herald of Ice and Discipline and with how much mana is used to channel Winter Orb, you have to be really careful on how you use it. This build is all about mana management and also constantly being on the move. I would not channel more Winter Orb charges unless you are doing it front of a pack so you leech some mana back so you can sustain the channeling. Do not just randomly channel Winter Orb to as much stages as you can if there is no enemies nearby. You will just drop to 0 mana and then have to wait for your mana to regenerate. Channel Winter Orb in bursts and keep moving and use Flame Dash to maneuver around and to keep Arcane Surge active. Arcane Surge also grants us more mana regeneration so we want to keep the buff up as much as we can. Flame Dash is also great to use to get out of sticky situations. This is especially great against large and telegraphed attacks. Make sure you cast Frost Bolt at various intervals to keep the boss you are fighting at a lower cold resistance. You can kind of just run circles around bosses while channeling here and there and using Flame Dash to maneuver around. If you are not used to playing a build like this, the mana management may be a bit difficult at first. Once you get the hang of it though, it becomes a whole lot easier. Boss fights in general get really easy too since you can stay out of range from a lot of attacks while Winter Orb does all of the work. Just manage your mana carefully, and constantly be on the move while channeling Winter Orb when you can. Keep your stages as high as you can, but be smart about it as our mana is on the lower side. Pop your flasks when you can to get a large damage boost whenever you can too. During mapping, you should almost always have flask charges since you can just run through a whole map while Winter Orb finishes off all of the enemies for you. Just cast it here and there while on the move and you will be able to self-sustain until you reach the boss. Media Here are some sample gameplay videos so you can see the build in action. Videos
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Conclusion Now that I have tackled some of the end-game content with this build, I am happy that it was actually more viable than I thought. It started out as a bit of meme, but when playing more with it and once I got the build to higher levels, it was actually sustaining and downing bosses quite well. I just think the ‘constantly on the move’ type of gameplay really helps the survivability of the build. We are able to always be on the move so that means we are able to dictate the damage we take by avoiding whatever comes at us. We rarely ever get hit by large scaled attacks because of this. The only thing is, you need to have a lot of awareness and you have to be really careful of your mana management. I personally have not played a build like this in a long time, so I had to adjust and manage my mana bit earlier on with the build. It did not take too long though. You might be on the lower end of energy shield once you first swap over to CI, but honestly, I did not have a problem killing bosses and doing red maps since we were so mobile. Since we are constantly on the run, we could avoid attacks and just let Winter Orb do everything for us. I would not worry too much about energy shield values as long as you have at least 5K at 80s levels. Once you convert to CI, you can start really prioritizing in grabbing the energy shield nodes which works great in our favor since there are so many energy shield nodes from where we start our skill tree. The damage is pretty stupid since the orb shards can overlap from one another. This is why I opted to use a Dying Sun to fire an additional 2 projectiles. With Greater Multiple Projectiles support and Dying Sun, we are shooting 7 projectiles that can overlap with one another. You are basically able to get about a million damage or more if they overlap which can deal some serious damage. This is why we can focus on grabbing energy shield nodes a lot more since the damage itself is already respectable. Even on Shaper, we getting 150,000 or more damage per projectile. Even with only 5 projectiles fired, we are still netting nearly a million damage on Shaper which is not too shabby being that this build is utilizing a the whole Fenumus set along with Tulfall. In the end, I am happy with the build turned out and surprised that it downed as many bosses as it did. I even did a lot of these fights deathless. I will get more videos posted when I can, but the whole hit and run nature of the build really increases the overall survivability of the build. You basically let Winter Orb do everything while you sit back and run around. If you have not experienced playing a build like this, I highly recommend it. This is probably one of the most fun builds I had creating and playing this league. Overview of Current Gear (all together)
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Path of Building/Pastebin Code
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https://pastebin.com/NULgcxdu
Leveling/Tips
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My starting point is going to differ from yours so I am going to kind of generalize the leveling section. I am not going to be specifically listing what gem links you should be utilizing because our starting points will most likely differ. We are basically going to using Winter Orb as soon as we can use it, which is level 28. We will be using Freezing Pulse until we can use Winter Orb. Level 1-28
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Since we are going to be a cold based spell caster, we will just start with the commonly used cold spell, Freezing Pulse. Freezing Pulse is great to use since we can get it at the start of the game and the fact that it was natural piercing, it makes it a great clear and leveling spell. We will be using this until we can use Winter Orb at level 28. Just use any skill gems that can link with Freezing Pulse to increase its damage or the general utility of the skill. One thing to also note, is to level up the gems that you will be using for your Winter Orb setup and just build in general in the other open sockets that you have. Try to do this as early as you can so you can have some of your skill gems leveled up to use when you swap over to Winter Orb. The 6 main skill gems for Winter Orb are: Winter Orb (requires level 28), Greater Multiple Projectiles (requires level 38), Concentrated Effect (requires level 18), Controlled Destruction (requires level 18), Hypothermia (requires level 31) and Added Cold Damage (requires level 8). I understand that some of these skill gems cannot be used from the get go, for the ones that can, level them as much as you can so they have some levels when you swap to Winter Orb at level 28. Suggested gems to use with Freezing Pulse: Arcane Surge Support: No Level Requirement – Acquired by completing the quest “Mercy Mission” in Act 1 and purchased in Act 1 from Nessa after the quest completion. [Your Freezing Pulse does more damage and is able to be casted faster. You also have increased mana regeneration.] Volley Support: Level Requirement (4) – Acquired by completing the quest “Mercy Mission” in Act 1. Can also be bought from Nessa in Act 1 after completing the said quest. [Your Freezing Pulse will shoot an additional 2 projectiles that shoot out from each side of you but does slightly less damage.] Added Cold Damage Support: Level Requirement (8) - Acquired by completing the quest “The Caged Brute” in Act 1 or buying it from Nessa in Act 1, Siosa in Act 3 and Lilly Roth in Act 6. [You will gain some flat cold damage to your Freezing Pulse making it deal more damage.] Lesser Multiple Projectiles Support: Level Requirement (8) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “The Caged Brute” in Act 1. Can also be bought from Nessa in Act 1 after completing the said quest. [Your Freezing Pulse will shoot an additional 2 projectiles but does slightly less damage.] Added Lightning Damage Support: Level Requirement (8) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “The Caged Brute” in Act 1. Can also be bought from Nessa in Act 1 after completing the said quest. [You will gain some flat lightning damage to your Freezing Pulse making it deal more damage. If you perform a critical strike, you will inflict shock which further increases your damage.] Increased Critical Strike Support: Level Requirement (8) – Acquired by completing the quest “The Caged Brute” in Act 1 and available to be purchased in Act 1 from Nessa. [Your Freezing Pulse has an increased critical strike chance which effectively increases your damage.] Culling Strike: Level Requirement (18) – Acquired by completing the quest “Sharp and Cruel” in Act 2 and also able to be purchased in Act 2 from Yeena after the quest completion. [Your Freezing Pulse will instantly kill any enemy hit by your Freezing Pulse if they have 10% of life or lower. You get a slight damage boost as well.] Faster Casting Support: Level Requirement (18) – Given as a quest reward for completing the quest “Sharp and Cruel” in Act 2. Can also be bought from Yeena in Act 2 after completing the said quest. [Your Freezing Pulse will be able to be casted faster which effectively increases your damage.] Power Charge on Critical Support: Level Requirement (18) – Acquired by completing the quest “Sharp and Cruel” in Act 2 and available to be purchased in Act 2 from Yeena. [Your Freezing Pulse has a chance to gain a power charge on critical strike. Power charges grant you more critical strike chance effectively increasing your damage.] These are some of the best skill gems to use with Freezing Pulse that are under level 28. In general, just use any skill gems that will make your Freezing Pulse stronger and have more utility. What is helpful now is that when you hover over a skill gem, it will show you if it can link and work with your current skills that you are using. Using any combination of these with other skill gems will carry you to level 28 easily for when you can actually start using Winter Orb. Recommended leveling items Here are some recommended leveling items for the build until you hit the higher levels. Pretty much your basic leveling gear. Switch over to Axiom Perpetuum when you can as the critical strikes for spells really makes your Freezing Pulse that much better. This alone can carry you until level 28 when you can swap over to Winter Orb.
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Level 28-67
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When I hit level 28, I dropped my Freezing Pulse setup and started to utilize my Winter Orb setup. If you have a Tabula Rasa, then you will get the most damage you can from your Winter Orb as you can. If not, then you can just run a 4 or 5 link until you have a 6 link to utilize. Since Greater Multiple Projectiles was not able to be used until level 38, I just used Lesser Multiple Projectiles for the additional 2 projectiles until then. Since you have had the other gems for your Winter Orb leveling up while you were using Freezing Pulse, they should have some levels when you swap over to Winter Orb. The only two gems that you probably could not have leveled since they were too high of level would be Hypothermia and Greater Multiple Projectiles. Just use other gems as I mentioned as subs until you can use those two gems for your final Winter Orb setup. This should easily carry you through to level 67, when you will finally be able to swap over to your whole Fenumus set. I personally went CI at level 67 when I was able to equip Fenumus’ Shroud. I know that we are fairly squishy since we do not grab any life nodes, but as long as you just use rare gear with at least 100 life on them, it should carry you. Since we are always on the move and just rely on Winter Orb to do everything for us, we rarely die. Just do not go waltzing blindly into attacks and the boss and you should be able to avoid being hit in general. I think I only died 2 or 3 times while leveling as a life based character from level 1 to level 67. Let Winter Orb do all of the work for you and just keep running around and you should be good. Getting to level 67 and swapping to CI should be safe around this time. Try to have all of your other energy shield items ready to swap to at level 67 or whenever you decide to swap to CI. You should be able to equip everything successfully at level 67 including all of the other unique items required for the build. I suggest saving some skill points to grab certain nodes on the skill tree for when you swap. For example, I saved at least 2 or 3 skill points for when I made the swap to CI so I knew I had enough skill points to swap at level 67. Once you get the whole set equipped and swapped over to CI, you should feel a huge difference in power and survivability. From there on, you should be able to level to 80+ easily. This is the sixth guide that I have finished and officially have posted on the forums. I was quite happy at the end result of the build. It started a bit as a meme but slowly became viable as I put more time into the build. I just wanted to utilize the whole Fenumus set since I had it, and I wanted to use one of the new skills that came out. Winter Orb just fit the bill so perfectly. I was worried that Winter Orb would not work too well with the Fenumus set, bit it actually turned out better than I thought. I wanted to utilize underused unique items so I also brought Tulfall to use along with the build. Everything actually just melded all together pretty well and I am happy with the end result. The only end-game content I did not do so far is Uber Elder, Vaal Temple and Hall of Grandmasters with this build. I am confident in doing Uber Elder since we just let Winter Orb do all of the work while we run around. The build does not do as much damage as other Winter Orb builds or just damage in general, but it is still able to down bosses with patience. The constant maneuverability of the build just further increases the survivability. Having energy shield gained on hit with energy shield regen keeps you nice and healthy. All in all, I had a fun time bringing this build to life. It is honestly one of the most fun builds that I have played and I hope that it is the same for you. Good luck to you all, exiles! If you have any questions or concerns, leave them here and I will get to them as soon as I can. I usually get to questions pretty quick, but I would say I will get to a post at least within a day. Good luck and enjoy! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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Updated the skill trees to 3.6.
Build is even stronger with the skilltree updates with all of the boosting of energy shield related mods. Whoooo! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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I have one question, can I swap Hypothermia and Controlled Destruction into Cold to Fire and do some changes to the tree to make this a crit build while also using the set, is this possible or their will be problems if I do this? Thank you!
Last edited by LINNBO#5011 on Apr 2, 2019, 9:45:16 AM
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" It is definitely possible to swap out Hypothermia for Cold to Fire and going for Elemental Equilibrium. If you do go this route, obviously you want to trigger your EE with a lightning attack. The only thing I would have to say is to really watch out for any items/gear/jewels that will give you flat lightning damage to your spells to ensure that your Winter Orb is only dealing cold and fire damage. Just curious, but how do you plan to activate EE via your lightning damage for your version of the build? I am just curious. Cool take though. It is definitely possible and with this Synthesis league, the boosts of energy shield and its leech just make this build even stronger. You have regular energy shield leech along with energy shield gain on hit which is super strong for survivability. Good luck and let me know if you got any other questions or concerns. *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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" Thank you for your information, it is very helpful, I afk after the legacy league and just get back to the game this league, so I'm kinda overwhelming about all the new stuff. Anyway, I am also trying to get some flat lightning damage on my gear so I can trigger EE cause I only want to run two heralds so just a little bit of lightning damage is enough. I will try this see if it works well, the AotS skill seems fun and your build guide is very helpful for me to understand this game once again! And English is not my first language so if anything I wrote confused you, I'm sorry about that. |
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" Nothing wrong with English not being your first language. I understood just fine and even if I didn't, I would work with you until I knew what you needed. :) You may want to watch out with getting lightning damage on your gear like I said though, because it would add lightning damage to your Winter Orb, which means that you will get no benefit from EE since you are hitting with all three elements. This is why I was interested in how you were going to activate your EE. There aren't too many great ways to apply EE depending on the style of build you go for so that is why I am worried for your situation. My other CoC build used Malachai's Artifice to proc EE with a flame golem to apply fire damage which then lowered the enemie's cold and lightning resistances. Good luck on your adventures, exile! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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" I my wondering if I can get a lab glove or boot enchant with lightning damage so I can activate EE, before that I'm just gonna follow your build guide. The skill is so much fun for me with all the new herald MTX lol. And I just get a six link in chest piece with only 30 fuse, the luckiest thing ever happened to me in this game. So I guess this will be the build I use to take down Shaper this league. I will see what changes I can make to this build after more play time and better understanding with winter orb. :) And also I'm trying to get more cast speed cause I found that the increase of cast speed not only shorten the time I stack up but also increase the frequency of the projectile, seems like cast speed is very cost-effective for this skill. |
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" See, that is the problem. It doesn't matter where you get the lightning damage if it added to spells. If you do this, then your Winter Orb will deal lightning, fire and cold damage at the same which will make EE pointless and just make your enemy's have +25% resists to all three elements. This is obviously going to be terrible if you do this. At that point, you would just want to get rid of Cold to Fire and swap back to Hypothermia. You have to be really careful and understand how EE works before using it because you could end up wasting currency and resources. The 6 link in 30 fusings is definitely destiny for you to use this build. Haha. That's awesome though. I have done Shaper with this last league so it is definitely possible. Honestly, with this league, energy shield is even better now so Shaper would have been even easier with these new additions. Cast speed definitely helps the build too. It is super cost-effective for Winter Orb. The helmet enchant for extra stages is also best in slot, but even without it, Winter Orb still packs a HUGE punch and even more so if you know how to sustain and play the build. Good luck! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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" I mean lab enchant like something cast on hit, and the skill from it will deal lightning damage but not adding lightning damage on my winter orb. Because I remember there are enchant skill do fire damage so I assume there will be a lightning one? Then I can hit with winter orb then hit with the enchant skill which give mobs -50 res to fire and cold then I'll hit with winter orb again. Does this sound a way that can work? |
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