Build of the Week Season 2 Episode 11: Glacial Hammer/Elemental Proliferation Duelist

Pretty cool. GGG you should check out this Grenadier build if you haven't already. This deserves to be BotW. Simple, effective , user friendly and very deadly.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/952848

lol not even this build uses "Ice Bite" passive for 30% increased cold damage
although it is using almost only cold damage and the passive is just 2 points away
that's just how bad this note is :D

and i thought i'm the only one who never takes that note xD

I created this build last league, never got to late game because of an unfortunate crash + rip. But in theory it's safe for HC.

The OP's skill tree is a bit ineffective and lasts damage. The real key here is to stack AoE. A Carcass Jack for instance.

OP should focus less on 1% cold leech, and more on AoE + damage.

The clear speed is a bit weak. I like his idea of sword offhand though. Mine had a shield in mind.

Also, you want to grab Resolute Technique. GH has 25% chance to freeze. With Multistrike, and "good enougH" AS, you should have no problem. The idea is to have consistency with your freeze chances. And always hitting + one in four hits freezing, that's about as consistent as you can get.

Life Leech as the 5th ( + GH, Splash, Multi, Ele Prolif) is adequate. Ignore all of the physical converted to cold and stack a lot of phys dmg nodes on way from duelist +2 range through rauder tree. Scoop a bunch of HP nodes, and bleed into the Temp tree most likely for HP nodes + ele dmg and AoE.

Was thinking of running something like this.

Good stuff! I found a prismatic eclipse early in invasion and still haven't used it yet, this has given me some stuff to think about.

this is unfortunately NOT the way perma-freezer should be built

Multistrike SHOULD NOT be used! Freeze duration comes from HIT DAMAGE, not DPS. Multistrike reduces the former and by a lot.

my take on GH perma freezer is here: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/936159

few twists:
- atziri flask. obvious. ~18% MORE dmg + leech
- Temporal Chains (i had a luck corrupting gloves, that gave me 'on hit' TChains). not so obvious. freeze duration is increased by 50%.
- using 2h, not so fast, weapon. again, against common (mis)conception that attack speed is the kind. not for all builds. freeze duration is linear function of HIT, not DPS
- WED replacing Multistrike
- Static Blows + weapon with lightning damage + wrath + ele prolif for entire screens of not only frozen but also shocked enemies. for even longer freezes.

this setup pretty much trivializes content. sadly my defensive gear is not up to the task..

shameless plug: 5L Dominating Blow on Mana that works:

addressing some of the party related comments, i would have thought this would work best in party situations.

if i recall right, status ailments (incl. stun) are calculated off monsters' health pre-party scaling. given the lower dps of this build, the perma freeze would allow the other more dps focused builds to do their stuff undisturbed?

"

sidtherat wrote:

this is unfortunately NOT the way perma-freezer should be built

Multistrike SHOULD NOT be used! Freeze duration comes from HIT DAMAGE, not DPS. Multistrike reduces the former and by a lot.

This is right and wrong at the same time

If you take out the 350ms threshold limit in consideration, more cold DPS IS ALWAYS more freeze, doesn't matter if it's Ten 1sec freezes or One 10sec freeze, it's the same.

Now there are a lot of reasons why you would want to spread your damage in more hits

First, the attack speed ensures you will freeze the mob faster, that may save your life a lot of times.
Second, reflect, the arch-nemesis of every crit build.
Third, multistrike is almost as good as melee physical damage in terms of augmenting physical DPS, but multiplies also non converted damage, so it's better in general sense (Flat damage from auras for example) and it's undoubtedly better than WED in terms of DPS.
Fourth, since this is a crit build, having more hits it's always good, more chances to crit and to hit(Better entropy, not talking about multistrike here though. In this regard is actually worse, you roll the crit dice less times per sec, don't recall exactly how evasion works though).
Fifth, Life gain on hit (Not used in this build, but in general sense)
Sixth, With elemental proliferation having more hits means you will freeze mobs you didn't freeze before faster, you freeze "constantly" instead of big chunks of long freezes.

Also focusing in DPS may result in better clear speed.

Now, you have a point in "You may not freeze big guys" which is obvious, because of the 350ms threshold, but I don't believe being able to freeze maybe half a second some boss will actually outperform everything I said before.

It's also funny you said: "Sadly my defensive gear is not up to the task", maybe it's not a gear thing after all.

So yeah, there are a lot of ways to build a perma freezer, what you said doesn't make THIS ONE wrong.

"

NoiTaTuM wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

this is unfortunately NOT the way perma-freezer should be built

Multistrike SHOULD NOT be used! Freeze duration comes from HIT DAMAGE, not DPS. Multistrike reduces the former and by a lot.

This is right and wrong at the same time

If you take out the 350ms threshold limit in consideration, more cold DPS IS ALWAYS more freeze, doesn't matter if it's Ten 1sec freezes or One 10sec freeze, it's the same.

(...)

but one cannot forget about this limit. and the higher you go the more important it is. esp with bosses/rares that have curse resistance and mostly laugh at ele weakness or frostbite (8% effectiveness on map bosses curses have iirc)

for me - as i combine both freeze and shock - i cannot forget about this limit. thats why - less but more powerful hits

as for my gear - i have 3800 life and run highest maps i have without any issues. however i had to waste passives on resists because my gear couldnt provide me with them, and have to wear blood dance boots (that are very good boots in their own regard) because otherwise i cannot meet dex requirements of cold penetration. i manage ok, dont worry :) but with better (that is 'bought' gear, as this is stuff i dropped) i could reach 5k and drop resists from the tree.

Glacial Hammer' clear speed comes from its Culling Strike. if one ignores this aspec - better replace GH with any other gem as one is wasting its potential. GH clear speed is VERY 'paper dps resistant'

I don't agree with all Sid points, but this tree and gems/gear used seems not to be optimized to full potential. Dropping fancy corrupted/gimmick gear for something more solid would result with more survivability without decreasing it's performance.

For example, leech problems. I for one, have not much problems to fuel 6L Molten Strike using 2% phys mana leech on gear, and conversion in those both skills are similar. I also don't have problems with life leech using just Carnage Heart. But of course, I use proper supplementary skill and don't gimmick to force use 2 the same damage source skills.