[1.3] pabrt's Frost Wall Kinetic Blaster - Budget Friendly!

This build utilizes cast on crit frost walls to exponentially scale kinetic blast's damage, making it both a viable multi and single target skill.

Videos:
Spoiler

new:
77 Shrine:
double boss, vulnerability, exiles, endurance charges, desecrated, undead
http://youtu.be/fUMAVxCh86Y


old:
78 Palace - showing accuracy gem:
vuln, phys reflect, monster life, beyond, rare monsters
http://youtu.be/HzAjFP-Rt_M

74 Residence - using tabula rasa:
http://youtu.be/z-IrdkAKx4w

75 bazaar:
-max, added fire, smothering, exiles, chilled ground
http://youtu.be/cIWz9EREH3c

74 maze
http://youtu.be/SD7M2dwwO2I

Dominus testing
http://youtu.be/o4cx3WhfhWM
http://youtu.be/qO1dJSbza6k


What is going on:
Spoiler
Kinetic Blast is a projectile that creates 4 explosions upon colliding with an enemy or terrain. Usually this can only happen once before the projectile dissipates. Using pierce (as many have already noticed) you can proc multiple explosions off of one Kinetic Blast projectile by shooting it through multiple enemies.

This build takes advantage of a few mechanics:

1. Shooting a Frost Wall counts as hitting an enemy/terrain, and can be pierced.
2. 100% Pierce rate is attainable with the support + passive nodes.
3. Kinetic Blast can proc Cast on Crit frost walls because it is an attack.
4. Critical explosions generated from piercing frost walls can proc more frost walls when they hit enemies.

The end result is a massive increase in damage as you crit and generate more and more frost walls for your Kinetic Blast to explode on.

This is true exponential scaling; frost walls not only scale your damage, they also scale the rate of frost wall generation. In other words, not only is your damage increasing over time, but the rate of increase is also itself increasing.


Pros:
Spoiler
Fun and unique mechanics
Cheap gear requirements
Ridiculous DPS scaling
Permanent flask uptime
Can do all map mods
Reflect immune


Cons:
Spoiler
Limited party play
FPS killer
Can desynch monsters (not you, though)
High level requirement
High minimum link requirement (6l/Tabula or 5l Voll's)
Requires some awareness and game knowledge (not AFK)


Requirements & Recommendations :
Spoiler
Mandatory main 5L : Kinetic Blast + Cast on Crit + Frost Wall + GMP + Pierce
Without this 5L the build absolutely does not work.

6l: I recommend buying Tabula Rasa if you cannot afford a 6l chest and using Power charge on crit as your 6th support. Alternatively, you could buy a 5L Voll's if it is cheaper.

High crit: You need to cap crit at 95% by aiming for high local crit on your wand. Understand how crit is calculated before allocating/spending anything! Also, calculate your needed crit before buying new weapons/changing nodes.

Flasks: Get them to 20% quality as whites, then start rolling them. Quality matters!

Leveling: You can level as any generic good leveling spec (flameblast/tendrils/facebreaker/static strike etc.). If you want to level as wander, use a KB setup for aoe, and a power siphon setup for single target until you can transition.

Mana management: Since our mana recovery is based on hit, try not to waste mana attacking nothing. If you attack multiple times without hitting anything, you'll have to wait for your mana regen to let you attack again.


My current version of this build is elemental. Phys is also competitive (if you are rich phys is actually better), though it ends up dealing more than 50% elemental anyway due to conversion nodes & auras. The general theory is that elemental is better than phys for many small hits, which should apply to this build, unless you can afford a very strong phys wand.

Below are the details of my character:

Skill Tree:
Spoiler
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAAA5YEBwW1Bx4IsQmgDkgOXBGWFLAWvxzcJpUqCypbLR8wcTIJNZI2PTpCOlg64TsoP3M__EV-RnFJUUrIS1dLeEyzTeNQMFBCUuxVS1XGWW1ZvFpSXfJfmGBDYeJirGNDavpsRmyMbOduPW6qb55wUnDVcmx3B3gNf8aCHoJegwmD24cTidOMC4w2kyeVIJUummGbXZyknaqiLqKjpleomqlutAy0xbXyuXy-7sDjwfPC7MUox8rJRM5wzzLUI9i92wvdqOOE6GbssPDV8bPyl_Pq9lv-jw==

Important Node Explanations:
Pierce: We need the pierce nodes by Ranger to get 100% pierce

Crit/Power Charges: Needed to achieve 95% crit

Flasks: Flask nodes give us more max resist & duration gives us longer effects/immunities

Acrobatics: Best defensive option for a low number of points

Eldritch Battery: Needed for more mana for auras/regen

Skill Duration: Allows more concurrent frost walls (more dps/lgoh past 2.8 seconds of attacking)

Accuracy: Crit builds benefit from high accuracy

Life: You need life



Gear used:
Spoiler

6L Voll's is not required. The only needed unique is Thief's Torment simply due to how incredibly well it scales with this build. Though you could run this build without Thief's Torment, in my opinion it is the most efficient item to use because of how synergistic its effects are with many fast hits.

Chest:
Voll's is the highest DPS chest, but has less defense/health/mana/resist.
Choices: Voll's, Belly of the Beast, Daresso's Defiance, Any random 6L including Tabula Rasa or rares


Weapon:
Imbued is the ideal base (Prophecy is a slower but higher crit alternative). Best slot to invest currency in.
Stat importance: Local Crit > Damage > Attack Speed > Weapon Elemental > misc.


Ring:
Aim for a high Life on Hit roll. Core to regaining life and mana.


Boots:
Kaom's Roots is good for stun immunity and the high life. Since it makes your non-flask run speed painfully slow, I suggest only using it on content which is dangerous to you.
Choices: Kaom's Roots, Atziri's Step, Rares


Amulet:
Good stats are: life, global crit chance, resist, stats, elemental damage, accuracy


General Rares:
Used for life/resists. Belt/Shield can get weapon elemental, gloves can get elemental damage, helm can get accuracy. Energy Shield gear is good because it gives you more mana with Eldritch Battery.




Flasks:
Spoiler
Flasks are extremely important, as they allow you to have 100% uptime on max resist buffs (75% -> 88%) as well as other benefits such as move speed, immunity to curses/bleeds/shock/freeze/chill/ignite, and collision immunity.

I use these 5 flasks here for general clearing. For encounters with chaos damage you can swap Quicksilver -> Amethyst.



Bandits
Spoiler

Norm: life
Cruel: attack speed
Merc: Power charge


Links
Spoiler

Non Voll's 6L: Kinetic Blast + GMP + Pierce + Cast on Crit + Frost Wall + Power Charge on Crit

Voll's 6L: Kinetic Blast + GMP + Pierce + Cast on Crit + Frost Wall +
Green: Additional Accuracy/Faster Attacks
Red: Life Gain on Hit/Weapon Elemental
Blue: Added Chaos/Crit Multi/Concentrated Effect/Other Spells etc.

4L: CWDT + Immortal Call + Enduring Cry + Increased Duration

4L: Herald of thunder + Curse on hit + Assassin's Mark + Reduced mana

3L: (low level) CWDT + enduring cry + assassin's mark (this one is meant to build up endurance charges over time, as well as cursing when you have no weak mobs to curse from with HoT)

3L: Herald of Ice + Wrath + Reduced Mana


Character sheet:
Spoiler
TODO



If you want to develop your own build from this, it would be cool if you gave me a shoutout. Thanks!
Last edited by pabrt on May 30, 2015, 3:37:06 AM
Fantastic build concept. Exponential on top of CoC (which is already exponential due to crits) is just crazy.

Reminds me of the (now really old) Infractem/Pierce CoC Frostwall with Ice Shot, but this hits crit cap much more easily and does a lot more damage due to the explosions of Kinetic proccing CoC themselves.

Obvious and major con is that it makes party play impossible unless they also 100% pierce, and it will make fighting in hallways an exercise in patience (even with a LW mobility linkage)... but this has style, so that should make up for things. :)

EDIT:
Also is phys/ele agnostic. Would probably work better with an ele fast wand and the Heralds due to the number of hits and the added damage on Frost Wall (which will start to actually hurt things since you make so many).
Last edited by pneuma on Dec 15, 2014, 8:23:56 PM
"
pneuma wrote:
Fantastic build concept. Exponential on top of CoC (which is already exponential due to crits) is just crazy.

Reminds me of the (now really old) Infractem/Pierce CoC Frostwall with Ice Shot, but this hits crit cap much more easily and does a lot more damage due to the explosions of Kinetic proccing CoC themselves.

Obvious and major con is that it makes party play impossible unless they also 100% pierce, and it will make fighting in hallways an exercise in patience (even with a LW mobility linkage)... but this has style, so that should make up for things. :)

EDIT:
Also is phys/ele agnostic. Would probably work better with an ele fast wand and the Heralds due to the number of hits and the added damage on Frost Wall (which will start to actually hurt things since you make so many).


Oh man, imagine if everyone in the party was running this build. I believe you can benefit from the frost walls of others, so the DPS would be insane.

Also I think this build might actually be better as ele, would require fewer nodes, easier to gear for, better synergy with heralds etc. Only problem is you lose some of the free leech that phys gets (for mana mostly).

I have also done a few 70+ maps with herald of thunder and ice, it's very good as you predicted.
Last edited by pabrt on Dec 16, 2014, 11:11:08 PM
"
pabrt wrote:
Also I think this build might actually be better as ele, would require fewer nodes, easier to gear for, better synergy with heralds etc.

Do you have a skilltree in mind for that?
I'm curious what way I should go with my Kinetic Blast Scion, can't decide but your frostwall build looks so funny.
Make
Spectral Throw
great again
"
CommodoX wrote:
"
pabrt wrote:
Also I think this build might actually be better as ele, would require fewer nodes, easier to gear for, better synergy with heralds etc.

Do you have a skilltree in mind for that?
I'm curious what way I should go with my Kinetic Blast Scion, can't decide but your frostwall build looks so funny.



Im in the same situation as you. After i get killed on my Burn arrow trapper i want to try kinetic blast. And this buid looks very fun because it's weird. And i dont like normal builds :D.
Originally I thought Piscator's would be good, but I'm not sure this build could handle the mana requirements/aura node requirements. Then again I'm using voll's, which isn't really necessary and wrecks your mana.

Probably the easiest thing to do is drop the wand phys cluster, take the wand ele cluster and use an elemental wand. I'm not sure if that would be any better than phys, though, as I don't have much experience making an ele wander.
Maybe it's better to go elemental and use wrath and anger for more damage. Kinetic blaster hits alot. So more use from those auras
Ideally you would use herald of ice/thunder + wrath + anger by taking reduced reserve nodes and maybe an alpha's howl.


The only thing is mana, since you would reserve a lot of mana + lose your mana leech.

At the moment I am trying out thief's torment and it seems like a good answer for mana, but it loses a lot of life/res/dmg etc.
"
pabrt wrote:
Ideally you would use herald of ice/thunder + wrath + anger by taking reduced reserve nodes and maybe an alpha's howl.


The only thing is mana, since you would reserve a lot of mana + lose your mana leech.

At the moment I am trying out thief's torment and it seems like a good answer for mana, but it loses a lot of life/res/dmg etc.


well, with the thief's torment you can get crazy amounts of healt back from all the hits. and you don't need to use life leech.

My CoC molten strike scion uses gmp and can get around 1800 hp back each second from thief's torment. 72 hits and healt 26 each hit = 1872 health. This build can get alot more.
Last edited by DutchWarbandit on Dec 18, 2014, 5:44:13 AM
I will try without a life leech gem, if we could drop that gem there are a lot of good things to fill the slot (inc crit/crit dmg/conc effect/proj. phys/WED).

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