[NEED HELP]Frost Blades

Hi everyone,
I have a lv 55 ranger that primarily uses frost blades. The character was created a while ago so I have the ability to reset my skill tree. I don't exactly know how to best make use of this.
Any tips and pieces of advice are very welcome!

The problem:
My character does decent damage and has good clear speed (to my standards). But is very squishy.
I need more defensive options. I rely mostly on evasion but get 1 or 2 shotted frequently. So I aimed for more life in my new skill tree below.
I'd like to be survivable without compromising too much on offense. The best defense is a good offense after all.

current gear:

I bet I can use some new gear. I tried looking for new gloves but can't find better ones that are not very expensive. the attack speed, phys damage and cold damage work really well. But it is a low level item and I feel I can get better before spending currency on it to 4-link it.

Current skilltree:


a potential new tree:


stats:


I recently changed some of the gems in the tabula rasa. I took out a lmp, 7 or 9 projectiles doesn't make that much difference. It made more difference on lower level. Put in fortify. Put in poison (changed this one once in a while. I think poison is a good fit since it stacks.)

Any advice is very welcome.
Thanks!

Hey hey, i suggest you to take a look here

https://4x.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/5uo0g3/a_new_beginners_guide_series/

Your gear is very bad beside the tabula - your gems show you are not used to game mechanics ( using poison with elemental gems ) and the tree obviously doesn't work. Sadly poe isn't so easy to learn but take your time, and for a frost blades build check this

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1782840

Thanks a lot for your reply!
Sadly I've already played 500 hours (never high level, I always start over on new leagues)

What's wrong with using poison? I already used elemental a lot, wanted to try damage over time. I started out with bleeding but decided on using poison. I recently switched from puncture to viper strike (based my decision on this thread https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/148046. poison stacks, bleed doesn't and is scaled from initial hit)


My favourite characters are the ones that start out as troll characters ( "hey I'll play a ranger with a sword and see what will come from that"). All the gear I had lying around or found, I didn't purchase any specifically for this character.
Now looks like a good moment to get some better gear :)
Those gloves and rings make a lot of difference in damage though. But they lack in defense.

I checked out that machine gun build. It's not exactly what I want but I bet there are many things I can learn from it.

Do you have some specific advice about gear, gems or skill tree?

Thanks and I'll watch the videos tomorrow! It's good to see all the new stuff.
All advice is welcome!

It's nothing wrong with poison even if i dont think will work with frost blades, the point is your 6l has no sense, because you're mixing poison which goes with chaos/phys damage with elemental. Even blind and fortify aren't need!

Thanks for your advice!

According to this page http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Poison poison damage also scales with projectile damage. And every hit stacks another poison right?
I kinda like my poison but if you have better suggestions fire away!
I didn't scale elemental damage, I scaled projectile damage.
So you're saying that is my mistake and I should focus on elemental damage?
Isn't it good to have different sources of damage?
I currently have no problem with offense. It's defense that's the problem.
My rings have some physical and elemental damage. They make a lot of difference in attack but that means I'm severely lacking in resistances.
Do you think I should change my added lightning damage with added chaos damage?
Ah I just checked added chaos damage only applies on hits, not on damage over time.

Maybe blind and fortify are not needed in the optimal setup but they help keep my current crappy character alive a bit longer.

If you know any specific things I could change, I'd love to hear it :)
Thanks!

yeah, your gear and gems are a bit slapshot.

you CAN run poison frostblades. but must gear/passive/support it to do so.

The poison from a frostblades hit, deals damage based on the actual physical and chaos damage dealt.
Frostblades converts 40% of physical to cold. (thus reducing potential poison damage.)
But 40% is not all, not 60% nor any chaos damage.Touch of anguish has a high flat phys damage for example.
To be clear, I do not actually recommend it. Im just saying its possible.

you need alot more life in your passive tree. Life is usually the #1 priority for any build not going CI.
heres a link to my frostblades thread. Defense is a priority.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1747645

A pathfinder tree.
http://poeplanner.com/AAQAAPMyIwB3m40ILu2DGY4AXtN-fXX-uiSdYloDh5VmDHOxs6OKI_ZNko19_MVxsMjwDY2HduOfSn0V9mJ5W69OKiPTj2BM_0Mx2sF07QUtvqdlTb02R34ABjB8VvrdRmOnEYEUdcjM74_fb1FHPs8bredUJP3_3o2_BbVirGyMnao2PetjES8rCl3yKgtwUonTjDZVS2HiJpUWvwSxexTC7LTFLlPTb3rvhNk31O0_sKvEgorw6UY6s974pHjB1ZAKd9d0oFh1BiC3F4Dh4l5_K9aKveYM8qXLnsSmvmqTGbRgQWNwf4D_EJ638W03TMedjZL3PQAAAAAA

If you take anything, focus on those life nodes I show. Also, you want life on pretty much each piece of armor.
Tabula with that total lack of life passives is very bad news.

A focus on projectile damage is generally a mistake with frostblades. it will slaughter aoe packs with almost no investment in projectiles. Attack speed, general attack damage,and crit will do that. SINGLE TARGET BOSS killing is Frostblades weakness. so gearing, and passive focus on its primary hit, which is NOT effected by projectile damage, is most important.

Fortify is quite good slotted with Frostblades actually. Due to frostblades range, trying to use Whirling blades to keep it up is not ideal. you won't. Since with FB you actually attack from outside Whirling blade range.

quality up your weapons and armor.

6l FB
Frostblades-multistrike-WED-Fortify-added cold-inc crit chance.

MS will be a huge dps gain, as well as functionality with its auto-targeting 360.
(it can kill you versus atziri, so will chain.)


for poison Frostblades, you want chaos damage. and solid physical. "gain as chaos" again pathfinder poison on hit is solid.
Atziri's promise.
bino's/doubting knight
The retch.

the green dream and the green nightmare are obvious as well.
so yeah, definitely possible, but will cost you, and will need some specific items.


http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Mark_of_the_Doubting_Knight
would probably be the best go to.
knockback is very strong on frostblades. It will keep targets out of volatile range, as well as increase damage efficiency with the conal blades.
so, you can then doubleup the bleed damage over time and knockback with the poison.

Check out ewars frostblade build. It's cheap and all you need to start. Then you can try the pathfinder version of it I did

Thanks a lot for your really useful feedback Casia!
I didn't think about the convert phys to cold from frostblades. That would indeed make poison a less than ideal choice.
I do use poison also for my bow in my secondary weapon slot. I use it at bosses I cant come close to without dieing.

"

Everyone seems to build Frostblades totally wrong. They see that +projectiles and jump on that.

This part from your thread sums up my initial reaction. It looked like a good idea to me :)
I don't have any problem with single target damage though. Just with defense.

This Touch of Anguish looks pretty great! I'm only level 56 though, so I won't be able to use it yet until lv 68.

Mark of the doubting knight looks good indeed.
What do you think about Arakaali's Fang instead? It has higher phys damage and chaos damage.
I don't really need the poison but maybe I can use that instead of my poison gem. (That is, If I keep the poison)

Thanks a lot for the help, I'll check it out more later!

yeah. some changes for frostblades coming in 2.6 in a few days.
first is the change from 40% conversion to 60%. Putting the nail in the coffin on poison. Inefficient before, downright poor now imho, even with green dream, etc.

larges buffs to damage incoming it seems. base weapons. swords particularly. Touch of anguish might get a large damage buff due to its base imperial claw. ewars is low tier base, so might not get as much.

fang is good for a poison build. not so much elemental. A good elemental foil is best for Frostblades.
Cospri's malice of course is also a very viable frostblades item. But should be built for from the ground up. (gmp+articbreath)

I'll mostly play in the new legacy leaugue once it hits but I'll definitely fix my character so at least I can play some endgame content once in a while :)

I did reset my skill tree a couple days ago (with a reset I still had. there's another one later today anyway). I used the "potential skill tree" I linked in the first post.
This pretty much fixes my character. It's not perfect but I can easily play in merciless. Even with the old gear linked above.

I also did the labyrinth on normal and am now ascended to Raider (the first two points that add phase). Believe it or not but I actually had trouble with that with my first build because I can't continue when killed. With the second build it was a piece of cake (it should be, I was like 20 levels higher)

I did notice my poison damage is negligible though. I'll remove it completely on my next build. My raised zombies I put in my empty blue slot do more damage than poison.
The burning damage from the herald of fire is quite useful though. Especially on bosses surrounded by small fry. I might buff that a little bit... maybe.

With the Ascendancy to Raider I can now remove the points on the bottom of the tree for onslaught as well as the points with the jewel. I can place the jewel somewhere else and expand more in that direction. (scion life wheel?)

Casia, thanks for the great help. Appreciate it a lot! :)