[1.3] Glaciator - still viable - sharing my thoughts/help me improve

Work in progress

Those who played back in 1.2 probably remember Skyforth's Glaciator. Those of you who don't, I highly recommend checking out the thread, it has some very nice concepts. I assume you know what the glaciator is about in the following.

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Skyforth wrote:

As of 12/12/14 (1.3 patch) I will no longer be updating this build. You are all free to do whatever you want with the work i've done so far, but i have given up hope in GGG's balancing team.

It was the best build I have played in 1.2, and the most fun I ever had with a melee, so I didn't want to give up. After hours of looking at the skilltree, I think I have come up with a solution that I'd like to share. I'll gradually update this thread, giving some general advice. I hope you guys can help me improve this more, so the Glaciator will return eventually.





Crafting the tree

poebuilder
official

So, the main problem at first was that the tree got nerfed hard, very hard on the left side. All those sweet crit nodes disappeared, and only disemboweling is left. It seemed impossible to grab enough crit nodes and still do a lot of damage. Attempts to go for acrobatics and into the ranger tree weren't very appealing to me, you'll lose alot of strength there and damage and crit chance won't be enough. I also dont think going into the templar area is useful, it takes alot of traveling points to go into there and the crit numbers aren't high enough to be worth it imho.

The original build was heavily design around crit, supported by leech from bloodrage. I tried to copy the old build 1:1, so the requirements are ( i recommmend downloading a 1.2 skilltree offline planner and check out the old tree from the original post as comparison!):
-enough life (140%+)
-as much crit as possible
-around 3.5% life regenerated, so that with vitality, you can run bloodrage
-about 250%increased phys damage
-attackspeed, 60%+
-mana, manaleech and mana regen

the last point often is overlooked, but groundslam is a mana intensive skill, and its hard to get it running on mana. the original build invested some points into mana leech from the shadow area and mana flows from the duelist to get enough int. So you would end up with 600-700mana, which was just enough to sustain everything with some regen and leech.

My tree grabs all possible crit nodes, even eagle eye, to get as much as possible. instead of passing through the life wheel, to reach disemboweling from above, I go through the OP marauder area, which gives lots of life, strength, life regen, attack speed and melee damage. that's basicly the trick to make the build work, the right side of the tree still is the same basicly.

But wait, crit chance is now way lower, so the build sucks?
Hmm. Yes, crit chance is lower. You'll end up with a chance to crit in the 80s with a 8% sceptre, and possibly in the 90s with a 9% crit sceptre, and while using a doryanis was very much viable in 1.2, it has become more questionable now, but it's still usable.
But, but! If you look at the old tree, there was hardly and %accuracy, so you had to have high rolls on rings/gloves to get to about 1800 accuracy.
But now we have 118% increased accuracy (and even more to grab), which makes it easy, very easy to reach 2700accuracy and more. This translates into 91% chance to hit! Whith very good gear, even 92% chance is reachable. Since accuracy is checked twice for a crit roll, this results in similar, if not more acutal chance to crit.
Very short math:
[1.2] 1800 accuracy, thats about 86% chance to hit, capped crit at 95%:
0.86*0.86*0.95 = 0.7 actual chance to crit
[1.3] 2700 accuracy, 91%chance to hit, 84% chance to crit with a 8.25%sceptre and some crit on gear:
0.91*0.91*0.84 = 0.69 actual chance to crit

So nothing really has changed, if you have a 9.21% sceptre, your actual crit chance is even higher than before !


Gems&Gearing

Gems: Exactly as before.
Gearing: Basicly the same as before. Abyssus, Lightning coil (or any other chest you like), a high dps high crit sceptre, ungils offhand, the rest to fill resists, life, crit chance and crit multi. With my tree and even the worst rolled abyssus, you dont need a single attribute on gear, intelligence is right enough to use inc aoe and all the other blue gems, so that gearing is really easy. You also have slightly higher resists on the tree, which now makes it possible to use maligaros. I'll post some more thoughts on gearing later.


problems&upcoming

The main problem for me atm is the loss of defense. Yeah, we've gained some armor, but lightning coil was nerfed, and block was nerfed hard. You have to position yourself wisely, not just leaping into the middle of everything, because that will kill you. Jade and/or granite flasks will boost armor up to 10k/30k with both, but abyssus can hurt. The new unique flask seems perfect for this build, but i dont have one atm.
The main defense against dangerous enemies still is glacial hammer. Any but the two dominus bosses can be permafrozen, and with leapslam/lightningfast-whirling blades, all you need is survive 1 second of getting into melee range, then you permafreeze, so there is no thread. same goes with rogue exiles, rares, etc. This works in parties as well.
So is the build squishy ? Yes, if you don't play carefully. Its not tanky, positioning is the key now, and using glacial hammer effectively. I'll post more on that later.
I'll post example gear, screenshots and more thoughts on gearing soon, also on possible gem changes.


Has anyone tried playing glaciator in 1.3 too? What are your experiences? Feel free to comment your thoughts and ideas here!
Ghudda and Mathil both showed that 1h groundslam is still viable. The use of soul taker definetely should be considered, as it saves up some points that go into mana, but i tried to revive the old build first before going into changes/improvements, which is what I want to do with you guys now!



[changelog]
17.03. first thoughts

I too enjoyed playing Skyforth's build in 1.2. I only got that char up to the low 70s though. I still would like to revive it, currently on Standard with legacy Lightning Coil and Ungil's. I also followed Mathil's build as a Marauder with Soul Taker off hand on Torment, but again haven't had the time to level beyond 70.

I'd very much be interested in reviving this build. I'm not sure about using an Ungil's in new leagues - it's only 12% additional block (compared to the 18% that it used to be). The 90% global crit chance is still nice but wouldn't a (red or green) Prismatic Edge be more DPS? Soul Taker is lovely for its removal of mana as any kind of concern and consequently allowing you to squeeze in an extra aura/herald. I still like the combination of Abyssus and Lightning Coil, even with the nerf to Coil.

How about the now popular Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit to automatically spread Frostbite? With the need to check/change position, having one less thing to do before starting attacking would be helpful.

Thanks for the guide!

Is this build new league friendly? Should I get currency in the one month with a seperate build and then start leveling this one?

I also have been playing around with Acro/Phase as a substitute for the massive block losses (using non legacy gear).

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgQAFey5HelGivCbLb02R36E2cqQvqdlTWNwYEEABhX2Ynlbr90NLOnK0xm01op_K3fXVvr8xf_eJP3nVFFHMHxNkiP2jX06Qkt43agwcdQjBbWNv7l8jAvssDY9bWzndOjWnapirGyMcFIqC_PqtUjtQaZ_Fr9VS2HiJpWMNrGzeA2-igHc2L01krXyqW5sRjIJcmwIsT_86GZfP8EEeWgLYVBH7w4UIORRi08oKpd5z36tjdlhhVKbaphv3COSffcy6hh2rOXPcNWJ00p945-HdmegxFj2SA==

"

EatSleepSaget wrote:

Thanks for the guide!

Is this build new league friendly? Should I get currency in the one month with a seperate build and then start leveling this one?

I also have been playing around with Acro/Phase as a substitute for the massive block losses (using non legacy gear).

Spoiler

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgQAFey5HelGivCbLb02R36E2cqQvqdlTWNwYEEABhX2Ynlbr90NLOnK0xm01op_K3fXVvr8xf_eJP3nVFFHMHxNkiP2jX06Qkt43agwcdQjBbWNv7l8jAvssDY9bWzndOjWnapirGyMcFIqC_PqtUjtQaZ_Fr9VS2HiJpWMNrGzeA2-igHc2L01krXyqW5sRjIJcmwIsT_86GZfP8EEeWgLYVBH7w4UIORRi08oKpd5z36tjdlhhVKbaphv3COSffcy6hh2rOXPcNWJ00p945-HdmegxFj2SA==

looks really good. I dont know how it feels without having some armor though. Acro is RNG, so you could get oneshot a lot in the beginning when you dont have lots of life.
bare in mind that you will have mana problems if you dont get enough mana leech and enough unreserved mana though, Groundslam is mana intensive and you won't have lots of mana.

actually your tree looks really similar to Vulcan's Exemplar Build from wraithe_au which is a bit more expensive than this. you could later respec into his build and use this as a starter until you can effort binos and a doryanis.


I think it is new league friendly. I did it in the beginning of Torment as my second character (my first one stopped at level 50) so within the first month. All you need is a brightbeak, ungil's, a leapslam and a dual strike gem. Elreon's jewlry helps alot, then you leap until act3 cruel. Buy a decent rare sceptre, probably still use leapslam, counterattack skills and dualstrike for bosses. Change over to groundslam when you feel like you need more damage. Once you reach level 60, get an abyssus, roll doesnt matter, i got a 50%increased damage for 5 chaos. You will be squishy, but that doesnt matter for a softcore league. You will melt through everything at that point, especially if you got a tabula. Then try to get a 5L Coil, and the rest is pretty obvious. A 200dps sceptre will carry you through maps. Crit multi on your amulet is most important for DPS, no other stat can give you more.

In terms of pathing efficiency, the duelist area isn't ideal. It simply takes too many points to exit the duelist area for it to make sense from a min-max perspective.

Scion start allows for much greater pathing efficiency.

99 point base tree:
https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgAAOyiDCWBDbj0Dlm-edweHE5ykFr8Pq1M1m7XDOspKYeImlYw2VUvtQbGzbWy5fIwL7LA2PZ2qYqxsjHBSKgvz6rVIMZ411kUK9Ma-vP4K8kU64aZX2L2Yb9wjkn33MnKpxPY8Lcautz7lz2jyr2xM_4Y7NI5r2aIA8B_AZgSz73yf3zwFgpuaO5BVJy_sOBo4hX0pT-zLT_MTzGn-5CLPfnas6hiexTs7d1NR5igqi0-baoVS2WGtjeRRl3nvDlBHQT8hNLQv

If you fill the tree out to the same 109 points as your duelist tree, it ends up being significantly stronger both in terms of life and damage.

I have played Skyforth's glaciator too and I tryed to rebuild it in 1.3
Still playing as Duelist but as Languidness said it's probably ineffiecient. Inspired by Mathil GS (http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1192603) this is what I'm playing:




Some considerations:
- At lvl 90 I will have all crit nodes (terror and shadow start)
- I picked 1 PC at Templar side because I haven't Alira reward, otherwise I probably wouldn't pick it
- I don't feel the need to use AoE gem
- If I would have an high crit mace I would use Soul Taker and replace BM gem with AoE/Conc effect/PCoC
- Because of "low" crit chance of Doryani (65% base, 79% with PC at lvl 90) I prefer CoH + ass. mark instead of PCoC (+9% on cursed enemy)
- If possible I will use Maligaro's Virtuosity gloves
- No room for Glacial Hammer :(

Hi guys,

Here for an update. I am currently level 76 on the 1 month SC torment/bloodlines league running this build with Acro/Phase Acro as a Duelist.


I have died a few times, but now I've gotten used to the new mods. At 76 with 4 power charges I have 24k Groundslam and 44k Glacial Hammer dps. Oneshotting most maps but I havent gotten into the upper tiers yet. Im now saving up for a 5l to add increased aoe to the setup.

I'm actually doing a similar build, except I'm using a Rapier/Gauche with Infernal Blow as my attack. I'm using Bleeds to get a multiplied damage bonus. My Rapier's base crit is sorta low, but oh well.


Tree:

http://poeurl.com/zj5OIhj

Rapier: