Don't know where to go from here... (Freezing Pulse Elementalist)

If you can see my character named 'IllHaveAPedobearSlushie', I tried building a witch around Taryn's Shiver. In my head I didn't have to use LMG or GMP, thought FP would be "wide enough" to somewhat handle packs, while being great at single target. I also wanted to go all out FREEZE, wanted everything to shatter.

But now that I'm level 67, it feels like I'm not going in the best direction. Physical damage hurts alot, that's why I went armour a bit, but I just don't have enough to be potent. For awhile I had a huge ES, as I slowly upgrade items, it lowers and lowers.

I think Elementalist is the proper ascendancy for it. This staff I won't be 6L'ing it for awhile, so 5L has to do for now.

I'm game to reroll and use tons of regrets for this, so if you could give me a hint where I should do, I'd appreciate very much!

(I asked in other threads, hours ago, hopefully I'll get help here)

Defenses:

Drop the lower half tree investment(everything below the scion life wheel). Finish the scion life wheel. You should also take the life/mana cluster if you can. If you can get some more armour gear(I'd recommend a strong AR helmet and gloves to get it going), you can take the ES cluster directly above deep wisdom and socket energized armour in the top jewel slot to get a ~100% increased armour. I generally aim for at least 3k to avoid getting murdered by lots of small hits from trash mobs so if you can hit 1.5k base armour with that you'll be in better shape. Also, all of your gear besides the staff, chest, and amulet is pretty bad, I'd upgrade in order of priority the helmet, the gloves, the boots, then the rings and target maybe 2-3c of value per slot.

Offense:
For 6 points(4 into crit, 3 to reach elemental overload, -1 to drop the now unnecessary int node) you could have a reliable 40% more damage. I'd pick that up if I were you. Your sockets don't make a lot of sense. You should be using the 6L for freezing pulse rather than frost bomb. Your six link should be something like freezing pulse, lmp, faster projectiles, cold penetration, spell echo, and faster casting(hypothermia is bad because 3x green on an AR/ES chest is already seriously pushing it for chrome cost). Freezing pulse loses damage as the projectiles reach max distance so faster projectiles is essentially a more multiplier because it makes them go farther. Going crit through gems with a basic 150% crit multiplier doesn't really do you any good, you're better off with elemental overload.

Other:
You have a random 10% fire node allocated, get rid of that.

I agree elementalist should be an awesome ascendancy for freezing pulse. Conflux alone is likely worth it.

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Your sockets don't make a lot of sense. You should be using the 6L for freezing pulse rather than frost bomb. Your six link should be something like freezing pulse, lmp, faster projectiles, cold penetration, spell echo, and faster casting...

I went with the 5L on the staff because of the +1 level to cold skills, thinking it would be even better than a "normal" 6L. Guess I'll have to try what you just told me.

I just changed belts, is it a good one, or should I come back to a life/es/res one?

A sixth link is going to be stronger than a single gem level if you can get a good chrome set up. Freezing pulse gains 10% more damage from level 20 to level 21. A good link should be giving you at least 25% more damage.

your main issue is FLASKS

your flask setup sucks and it is the flasks that save you from harm when your build is still maturing

build without a Granite/Basalt complaining about physical damage is.. well.. wanting.

at 67 your links etc should not matter - 5 link in any combo should sweep away everything without any issue. focus on your gear (some pieces are just junk): decide what kind of defences you stack (currently it is all over the place) and stack it. item with 20 life is junk unless it has EXCEPTIONAL other stats.

checked your other characters - ill repeat myself for the other chars too: your flasks setup is pretty ineffective and most likely doesnt do you much good when needed. less tooltip dps, more survivability (Atziri's flask is a nice paper tooltip boost but wont save you from danger - that leech takes time to apply and you are already halfway dead)

Okay I went to your char, and saw a lot of things that don't make sense like others said. I will give some recommendations here.

Dealing with Physical dmg:

You don't need armour to deal with Physical dmg. Ask yourself first whether basalt flask or granite flask solve your problems or not.
If not and you want to invest in armour nodes anyway, I suggest you grab "melding cluster" and "Faith and steel" cluster then convert es bonus from those nodes to armour via energised armour.

Here's what your tree should look like (read dealing with phy first before you go with this tree):

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMAAALjBAcEswceB6UI9A5IEQ8RLRFQEZYWvxdUGjgdTx_HIoEi9CaVJy8pTyt4LJwtHy2LMtE1uTpYOtg7DUVHRZ1JUUmxSbJMLUyzU1JUR1VLVcZWSl3yYeJmVGjyakNsC20ZfIN_xoIQgpuD24V7jDaMdo48kFWTJ5Uumjua4J48nqGexJ8BogCmvqcrtzG86sBUwGbQH9Hk1abXz9-w4XPr7uw47TzviO_r8B_w1fk3

Note that this tree destroy your chance to go crit completely. But, I think spell caster needs to invest a lot of passive points in order to raise crit chance to decent level. Hence, as spell caster, you go crit or you ignore it completely. There's nowhere between.

Gems:

Need to change a few things.

Added Cold --> Faster projectile : better. Freeze pulse has innate freeze chance that depreciate over distance, so projectile speed will keep that innate freeze chance longer. You also gain more aoe coverage as well.

*Faster casting --> Controlled destruction : If you can't maintain mana, take this recommendation. Otherwise, ignore this advice.

Drop frost bomb to four link as well. This skill doesn't operate really well with 6 link because it is utility spell, and use freeze pulse in 6 link instead (see gear section for explaination.)

Gear:

Freeze pulse scales well with projectile speed. You will waste its potential if you go with staff. So, dual wand or one wand with shield will be better because wand can roll projectile speed. Dual wand is best for offence, but you can use one wand with shield to increase your defense.

one point i do not agree on:

Taryn's Shiver is not bad choice for FP, on the contrary. the 20% MORE damage taken by frozen enemies + spell echo + sick dps output of FP carried me EASILY into 90s



+Inquisitor (for 'no resistances on crit') + shadow's projectile nodes is all that is needed to cover ENTIRE screen's length. the dps output is so sick that i use basically a 4 link - Ice Bite is just for lols as i have only 3 frenzy charges

however these are late game considerations, OP has a bit more basic issues with this character and damage output is not one of them

Ok, thanks for all your help. It's alot of information, and I'm trying to swim through it. I started noding out of lower portion and invested into top. As it stands right now, mana management is very tight (I noded out from the ones I was with, as the starting witch area I selected).

Went back to the 6L, and dps wise its even better than before. That in itself makes the staff a tad less effective/important, and so the idea of using dual wands or wand+shield could come back into action.

Let's buy some more regrets now... Oh and dilemma, I keep the scion life wheel or not?

you wont need 6link. 6th link on freezing pulse is mostly fluff. the spell has incredible dps from gem alone and you simply do not need 6 link.

if you want to make a survivable character IGNORE dps for a while and focus on defences, mana and ways of dealing with difficult map.mods (reflect, less regen, temp chains etc) as these will slow you down far more than dps. dps will come.

and why use 6 link if you have mana issues? solve these first and then pump the tooltip

my char has 4.5 life 3.5k es and 50k tooltip with lmp. i was doing just fine with 25k. but you cannot ignore defences as dead men do no damage

note: do not ignore non-tooltip dps modifiers. like 20% more from taryns. like inquisitors non-resisted damage on crit. and most importantly: movement speed matters more than you think

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sidtherat wrote:

you wont need 6link. 6th link on freezing pulse is mostly fluff

So... Freezing Pulse + Spell Echo + Faster Projectile + ... which last 2 should I use, for the 5L? :)