Need advice for a perm freeze NON solo character

Im 100% of the time playing with my wife and often 2 friends as well. I am looking to mix things up and do a perm freeze build but am still very "noob" when it comes to PoE. I dont care too much about min/max dps, I just want to freeze (and shock if able) as close to 100% of the time. Anyone out there have a decent recommendation on skills or items I should aim for?

well shucks, I was excited to get home from work and see what the community had to say about my request. Bummed to see no responses :(

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Harleus wrote:

I dont care too much about min/max dps, I just want to freeze (and shock if able) as close to 100% of the time.

The problem with this is that in order to Freeze close to 100% of the time, you need to min/max dps. So your request is kinda self-contradictory (in Path of Exile as she is currently coded). For Freeze and Shock, you can't inflict the status ailment unless you meet a minimum duration, and duration is based on Damage per Hit.

The best option should be Ice spear, stacking all kinds of crit and spell/cold damage. There are quite a few builds around it out there...

I've always liked passively freezing with Herald of Thunder.

The old way to do that was with The Three Dragons and a strong fire/ice skill to get those shocks started (ice can also be used with Pyre).

Since Ascendancy the Elementalist has allowed you to do this with two Call of the Brotherhood rings, converting all your lightning to cold and getting shocks from Shaper of Desolation. I haven't seen anybody try it since this method was nerfed, buy it still should be fine, especially if you have someone else shocking enemies or if you have a Vinktars eventually.

Both work really well, especially if you six-link your Herald instead of a main skill (it actually hits REALLY hard when given damage supports).

The first setup is a bit passive-intensive because you're either going to be chasing jewel sockets for freeze and shock chance or stretching thin in both cold and lightning clusters. A 30% chance is all you really need though.

The second option has the benefit of no mana multiplier on the herald and somewhat better passive efficiency since all you need are cold and freeze passives.

Maybe some combination of the two could work? I don't know, last time I did this setup was way back in Ambush. Back then it was super effective and I could run high-tier maps with only 3k life because nothing would ever touch me.

There are several main options for skills:

- Ice spear crit, supported by sources of pierce for map clearing.
- Cold snap if multiple players have conduit and are sharing power charges with you. Has the AoE swap for bosses vs map clear.
- Advise against arctic breath for practical purposes.
- Glacial Cascade + Phys To Lightning would be a hipster choice, but expect not to perform very well.
- Converted lightning to cold via 1-2 Call of the Brotherhood rings. There's a video up using storm call, but you can probably use Arc, etc.

Either case, you should be able to pick up The Halcyon amulet in the new leagues for ~12c atm. Freeze duration is very important i you want to try freezing bosses - there's also Catarina level's 6 chest armour enchant for another 10-20% (Divine orbs aren't cheap - only use that one a rare you intend to keep using).

At about 400%+ crit multi, a lone herald of thunder or Added Lightning support should start shocking standard mobs on crit. You should still take Vaal Lightning Trap for bosses.

Since you're playing non-solo, I'd advise against inquisitor's ignore crit. Multiple curses should bring risists down past 0 anyway. EE would be useful, but isn't compatible with the Anger aura specifically - you'd also have to gear yourself to deal only cold damage and skip the 100%-shocks, but the up side is EE makes it much easier to freeze bosses.

First of all, you should know the two most common sources of freezing. Chance to Freeze, and critically hitting with Cold damage. Succeeding with one of these two enables freezing to occur, but there's more.

Secondly, you need to inflict enough Cold damage in relation to the monster's % maximum life for the freeze effect to occur. For every 1% damage you inflict on a potentially freezing hit, the enemy is frozen for 0.06 seconds. However, the minimum requirements for freezing is 0.3 seconds, so you need to inflict 5% of their maximum life to freeze a monster at minimum. This makes freezing bosses and certain rare enemies difficult.

If your intention is to only freeze common enemies, then picking a Cold skill with a base Chance to Freeze, like Freezing Pulse or Cold Snap should satisfy you. If you want to freeze bosses however, then it's imperative that you build maximum damage with a Critical Strike build.

If you want to freeze everything in sight including bosses, I suggest playing Crit Shadow and picking Assassin as your Ascendancy. Use Freezing Pulse, or whichever high-damaging Cold skill you're most comfortable with. Focus on maximizing your per-hit damage through a combination of Increased Damage and Increased Critical Multiplier. Also consider using jewels that increase Freeze Duration, as that will help you nail freezes, even if can't shave off 5% of a monster's life.

This is merely from my own experience playing a perma-freeze build, others might have better suggestions.

Edit: When I mention % monster life, I mean its base life. Increased monster life from party members will not affect your chances of freezing monsters.

Even if you score a crit, you can't freeze unless the damage is above a certain threshold of monster life. At most, you can only chill unique bosses.

You could try to make vortex trapper because traps can deal huge burst damage and vortex has decent radius.

I haven't tried frostbolt buolds but it does appear to have high damage scaling.

Thank you all very much for the info! I will play around with your recommendations. I am quickly falling in love with this community and your input is greatly appreciated!