New player, need advice on a build

Relatively new player here. Have a build in mind, but want to hear someone's opinion about it before investing time and effort.

Here's the build:


The plan is to use Ice Shot and every "Chance to Freeze" node, amounting to 25% Chance to freeze and having as fast attack speed as possible to guarantee that freezing occurs as often as possible. This will require a fast APS bow too. For support skills I would use the usual physical projectile damage supports, maybe ele prolif. The way Chance to freeze works (as far as I understand) is that there is no need for crit damage, as any cold damage will have a chance to freeze. Well, it sounds great to me, can't wait for someone to tell me why this won't work though.

I realize the damage will be kinda low, but by late-game I imagine with good gear it should be possible to consistently freeze at least magic and rare mobs.

First glance : Needs more damage mitigation. Dodge, evasion, something.

Second Glance : Eldritch battery maybe, could be useful since you're not running ES as defense. Can use that to do MoM using CoD for more defenses. Or Ondar's Guile.

Third Glance : Cruel Preparation is probably better than Hired Killer. That node kinda sucks imo. Else take Written in Blood to combine with 2nd point. Profane Chemistry could also be good.

1st Suggestion : Leather and Steel is awesome if you're close-by.

1st Thought : Duelist Life nodes could be better than looking for random nodes. Plus you get that 1% Regen and 20 Strength from Master of the Arena.


Now how are you going to scale your ice damage into late game? Ice Shot will probably scale best with Physical Damage, so it would be okay to take physical damage nodes. And you might want to get Finesse through Quickstep to gain some fast Agility. Overall I don't like your build because I don't know how you want to scale your damage until it's decent. Lightning can be done with Added Lightning Damage + Wrath + Herald of Thunder, while Fire focuses on Physical Damage then Added Fire + Herald of Ash (with maybe Anger). Cold is weird, because it gets less damage than Lightning, but maybe Herald of Ice + Added Cold Damage? Or Hatred.


Also, random dual-wield node you clicked near the area below Scion and maybe Armour and Life at Marauder.

Yeah I haven't played much POE lately and haven't tested that skill yet, but Herald of Ice seems like it could work, and yeah Hatred kinda works too. I was thinking of something like Ice Shot + Faster Attacks + Physical Projectile Attack Damage + Weapon Ele Damage + Added Cold Damage + Pierce (+ Hatred, Herald of Ice, Herald of Ash)

With the same gem setup (except for Herald of Ice) on my lvl 70 Ranger (no damage nodes, all-in crit) with lvl 16 gems, I get 5,7k tool-tip DPS on the Ice Shot with crap gear and Chin Sol. It's bad I know, but it seems to be enough to almost one shot mobs in 66 maps. The good thing about Herald of Ash, is it serves as an AOE skill replacing LMP and freeing up a slot in the Ice Shot chain.

And yeah, it seems I will have to try to include some phys damage nodes.

Thanks for the feedback.

I really dont like you build since you avoid some of the most effective nodes for iceshot while you travel very very far for other nodes that are much inferior.

The biggest thing is to keep in mind that iceshot is physical damage converted to colddamage (100% for the secondary targets in the cone behind), this means you can take physical damage instead of colddamage nodes. These clusters in the general ranger area are much stronger and dont require you to travel that far.

I also dont like to get "chance to freeze" with a bow. A good harbinger bow has about 8-9% base critchance. So a critcluster like "King of the Hill" wich gives you 100% critchance for 3 skillpoints with bows gives you 8-9% chance to freeze on top of a good damage increase. And the other bowcrit and general crit clusters in the shadow area are not much worse.

So while i like the idea of a noncrit bow build to freeze, it just doesnt seem viable at all.

Edit: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAAdEDHgW1BiMIiRUgFr8Z_hsBH0EhdiP2JP0lPyaVJyEqCyo4Kk0qWyzpMHEwfDGeMfoyCTKUNZI2PTnUOkI6sz8nSn1KyEt4TZJN41FHUdlS7FVLVvpbr11oYeJirGegbEZsjG1sbqpv8nBScNVybHb3d9d_An8rgl6Gzod2idOMNo19jb-QCpUFlcia8Z2qoJ-i2aOKplem4KfUqW6r0q_rsJKw2LTFtUi18sEzwuzEosqp1CPWiti92cbajdwV3Q3dqOHb51Tz6vlj_MX-Cf6P_sj_k__e

Is what i would build for an iceshot build like you want it. (I just quickly modified my own ranger so its not really perfect and has to go to the ranger start)

Just go crit. Bows nowadays can roll really high crit chance, and in that case even just picking up 250% crit from the tree (ez mode) you get as much freeze, moreover, more crit is ez and will enhance your damage at the same time

I guess you're both right. The only real advantage anyway would be safer mapping with ele reflect.