Thoughts on [2.6] Glacial Hammer Berserker build
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Hello exiles!
Seeing the changes to Glacial Hammer (GH) coming in this league/patch, I thought I will give it another go. I think many of us tried it and failed in the past, since GH was a lackluster. Well, I dare say, it is at least viable right now! So what makes it viable? Especially the new threshold jewel - Winter Burial. You will likely want two of these to get 100% cold conversion plus the implicit splash damage. It is like having an extra Melee splash gem for free, but only dealing the cold part of your damage - that's why you want to have all damage converted. You will end up dealing more AoE damage than the actual splash gem does. So, here is the way I play it at the moment. Just for the record I am level 80+ doing maps of around T9 because I haven't been lucky enough to get anything higher yet.
Gear
Helm
Any rare helm will do. Get a decent HP and resists. Later on, you will want to try and enchant it if you like. There is no need to do it though.
Here is my current one:
Body armour
I went for a 5link rare Astral Plate. There might be some unique option, but this felt ok for me. Here is my current one:
Boots
Here you got two options. First, you can grab rare boots with nice movement speed and stuff you like. Anything will do, really. Or, you can buy a really cheap and effective legendary! Kaom's Roots will give you up to 200 health, free tree keystone and make you immune to knockback. Though note that you will lose sockets and extra movement speed. But it's very doable and I suggest you give it a go. Also they are extremely cheap even with +1 Frenzy charge corruption or +5% movement speed. Here are my Roots:
Gloves
You want attack speed. It is one difficult thing to get. And gloves can help a great deal here! So I went for rare ones with AS, HP resists: Also, you can use Hrimsorrow (or their upgraded version - Hrimburn) if you only have one jewel slot while levelling. Later on, I suggest you take gloves with AS instead.
Belt
Two options again - first is a rare belt with whatever stats you want and I suggest u craft ele weapon dmg on top of that Or you can pick Doryani's Invitation, but that will cost you some health but give you other profits. I won't post my rare belt here, since it is complete crap right now :)
Amulet
I chose Carnage Heart for the sake of increased Leech rate pet second. It also boosts your dmg while leeching and sorts out problems with stats. NOTE: the physical attack damage leech on this amulet is not important AT ALL. You don't deal physical damage. If you don't want this unique one, pick any rare you like. Phys dmg on amulet will give you the best DPS increase I guess. Here is my one:
Rings
Mine are just two Prismatic rings with HP/resists/stats I needed. To optimize this you will want some with phys damage, attack speed and ele dmg rolls. Again, not gonna post my ones here as they are worth like an alteration on so.
Shield
This one is set in stone. You will want Lycosidae. Why? Of course because you cannot miss your attacks with it and you can still use Elemental Overload. E.g. you can still crit.
Weapon
Later on, you want Doryani's Catalyst If you cannot afford it, or you are lower level, you can go for Cameria's maul which worked for me well enough.
Links
Glacial Hammer setup
Assuming you have the jewels for AoE, this is your GH setup: GH - Weapon Elemental Damage - Multistrike - Melee Phys Dmg - Cold Penetration For 6th link, pick Hypothermia/Faster attacks. Alternatively, you can make the 6th lick blue and go for Inc Aoe (will increase your splash area) and swap it for Elemental focus for bosses (though you won't freeze them then!).
For mobility I use:
Shield Charge - Fortify (+ CoH 9 curse of your choice, Frostbite/Enfeeble/Warlord Mark/...) OR Leap Slam - Fortify - Faster attacks NOTE: If you are using Kaom's Roots boots you will want to use shield charge as Leap Slam is painfully slow then!
Auras
Hatred is a must here, you want to be cooler than your freezer. Second option is either Herald of ash (which I put on my Doryani's Catalyst to gain proliferation) Or Arctic Armour for more defense. Whichever you prefer.
Other gems
Since we want to proc Ele Overload on bosses, you want to have Orb of Storms somewhere. Only cast it on bosses, otherwise you won't need that. Then traditional Blood rage - for the sake of attack speed and frenzy charges. Other than that, I use Ancestral Protector totem with two support gems. Not for damage, but rather for the MORE attack speed modifier.
Skill tree
Here is my current tree. Some more bordering life nodes are free to be taken as I level up further: https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAECAQHnBIcEswUtFCAUcRR1GNsaOBo-GlUhYCGQI9Mj9iQ3Jy8uUy_MMHwyTjLRNug62D38QKBFR0d-TZJQR1ZIVvpX4lhjWfNfP1_QYSFi7GVNZlRoZWjybydyqXTtdPF2rHfXd-V5OXrvfuJ_K4IHgpuE2YTvhXuMz419jbmPYI-ZkFWaap7NogCnCKcwrKqtjbF8toq9Nr6nvwjAZsC_wYLD5sbYyMzPftIh02_YJNl82sHfb-Fz5FHp1eoQ6hjr7uw47SDvDu-P8B_yQfPd9kj3Mvhf-Ov9bg==?accountName=Siliarus&characterName=LegacyHammerTime
Skill tree Keystones
Resolute technique - pick while levelling or until you have Lycosidae shield. Then drop it again. Elemental Overload - pick once you have Lycosidae and you don't have Resolute Technique anymore. Unwavering stance - cannot be stunned is too strong to miss out. Take it! If you wear Kaom's Roots boots, you can drop this.
Bandits
Normal - Oak (HP) Cruel - Kraityn (Attack speed) Merciless - Kraityn (Frenzy charge)
Ascendancy
Berserker class for sure. Non-crit build might be a lackluster in damage later on, so we want the 40% more damage modifier from this ascendancy. Also it provides us with enough leech (even from cold damage only!) to drop warlord mark and use other curse. On Normal I took - Crave the Slaughter On Cruel - Aspect of Carnage On Merc - Pain Reaver Uber lab - Cloaked in Savagery
Late game / Red tier maps
Later on, once you reach red tier maps, you might find your leech insufficient. At least I did. So I decided to make full use of Berserker ascendancy and go for Vaal Pact for instant 100% leech. This is what your tree will look like then: You won't really lose any health there, and you gain access to up to 3 additional socket slots if you so wish. Furthermore, you might notice that I dropped the Vitality Void noticeable passive. We no longer need it - Berserker ascendancy takes care of that. And you will also want to change your necklace, since we no longer need leech speed from Carnage Heart. Instead, we will take a very nice dmg increase - The Halcyon or if you have 6link with Hypothermia, take the upgraded version - The Pandemonius (the Blessing to upgrade it is almost for free). Here is my neck: Also, dmg-wise you eventually end up craving for 6link and once you get it I suggest you pick Hypothermia as support gem. There are of course many other options, but this one will prove likely the best. You will want to pick an Aquamarine Flask though! This will let you Chill ANYTHING which is not explicitly immune, all bosses included. Plus you can roll anything you like on it - bleed immunity, curse removal,... whatever you miss. Big thanks to finisterre and mezzer25 for sharing their thoughts here! Last edited by Siliarus on Mar 20, 2017, 1:20:04 PM Last bumped on Mar 16, 2017, 3:43:47 PM
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I've been working through a berserker with this as the basic build tree, I really think a glacial hammer build will work assuming the AOE doesn't suck.
Edit: Using new tree but it was coded improperly so not properly transferring over to official. Also I think that Hypothermia would the 6th link as it's another more damage multiplier and monsters should be perma chilled. Last edited by mezzer25 on Mar 4, 2017, 6:36:10 PM
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Could use Elemental Overlord with the Lycosidae (orb of storm and a bit of melee crits to sustain EO) or grab 8+5% cold penetration from passive tree (20-35% more damage after cold penetration gem) or maybe both :P
Kind of lacking attack speed but damage scaling should be decent. I'd drop Blood Magic and instead, green socket for 6th gem idealy for Hypothermia/Added cold/Faster Attacks or blue for phys to lightning/increased aoe/EP/added chaos or w/e. 300% increased physical and 400% increased cold damage (200% from tree and gem quality, 130% from sceptre and 70% from belt and accessories) if I'm counting correctly. 40%(Aspect of Carnage), 59%(WED), 40%(EO), 39%(Hypothermia) more cold damage and 50% cold penetration. 1% mana leech should be basically enough when without Faster Attacks gem as far as I tried similar tree with higher attack speed (dual wielding, Multistrike, Faster Attacks, Blood Rage, 25% attack speed from gears) @mezzer25 your skill tree seems outdated or not suit for official form. Stop Bombing Syria
/Flu_prevention_mode ON Moment Joon 【Passport & Garcon】https://bit.ly/2wXiUSj MonoNeon 【Put On Earth For You】https://bit.ly/3I22mru |
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I like your tree, I suspect elemental overload would be the best way to pull more damage out of this. The attack speed might be solvable with an investment into it on the tree, but I wonder how much you need.
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" Assuming that the splash area is not much large, we cannot really play like Ice Crash build. Multistrike helps for aiming issues on single target skills though 37% from tree with Multistrike is only 35% attack speed gained actually while we get 54% attack speed without less damage modifier with Faster Attacks support. Maybe 2 more jewel sockets instead of frenzy charge is better at this point (15-30% attack speed from 3 jewels, 30% from devoto's devotion and gloves). " New Carnage Heart maybe ? (50% leech rate, 30-40% damage while leeching and INT) Stop Bombing Syria
/Flu_prevention_mode ON Moment Joon 【Passport & Garcon】https://bit.ly/2wXiUSj MonoNeon 【Put On Earth For You】https://bit.ly/3I22mru |
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Since I was away, I only started with this build yesterday.
Some of you had really good points, here are my reactions: " The AoE does not suck. I was pleasantly surprised. Just pick 2 jewels and you are good to go - you have a 100% dmg melee splash for free. Obviously the area does not scale as it does with splash, but so far so good. " Yep, thought about it as well. On the other hand, you might be better off with more dmg auras and blood magic. And you probably won't chill bosses anyway. While hypothermia is a DPS gain, I would almost say utility will be stronger. " That's actually great idea! I didn't realize this shield exists. The only question is, whether you can realistically keep up Ele Overload with 5% crit chance? Plus you lose non-trivial defensive potential of a shield (loads of HP/armor/resists). For min-maxing I agree this is probably a go-to option. For starters, I would stick with defensive shield. Agreed? " Hmm yes, but the neck feels like u are only using half of its potential. Might be a way nevertheless. I am just trying to find a way to leech myself rapidly without vaal pact to compensate for higher dmg taken as berserker. " Hmm, I don't yet see these problems. How many attacks per second would u like? I mean multistrike helps a lot here and you have one handed weapon, so it is fast anyway. Plus you will ofc use blood rage because frenzy charges are too strong to miss out on those. That's another 15% from BR + another from frenzy charges. Also, I will update the first post later today with planned tree etc to make it more realistic and provide feedback. Thanks for your reactions guys! | |
" TBH, I wouldn't recommend 1 hand with shield for starters. You need cruel lab finished to reach Aspect of Carnage (or merciless if you went for Pain Reaver first.) Even then I'd stay as 2 hander till my cold damage scaling grows bigger enough, let's say to beat Atziri. ;) Stop Bombing Syria /Flu_prevention_mode ON Moment Joon 【Passport & Garcon】https://bit.ly/2wXiUSj MonoNeon 【Put On Earth For You】https://bit.ly/3I22mru Last edited by finisterre on Mar 6, 2017, 10:07:22 AM
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" Glancing at your tree, I see some investments into shield nodes. Dmg ones, that is. Why? I mean the dmg from wearing a shield is not going to be so huge. As for defensive shield nodes - half of it are a waste because increased defenses from the unique shield would be near zero. Or am I missing something? Going on, you chose to take AoE nodes. Not sure that would make difference with the implicit AoE we get with GH now. Here is my take at the tree if you mind taking a look. Beware, I am not really familiar with non crit builds though :)
Spoiler
https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAECAQHcAecEswUtC2ES4RQgFE0UcRiRGjgaVRzcI9MnLy3SLlMxnjLRNug64Ts7PC09_EMxRUdHfkz_TipQR1HmVbVWSFfiWGNZ81oaXz9f0GEhZKNlTWZUaGVo8m8ncYVyD3KpdO12rHdTd-V673y7ggeCm4Nfg8yE2YTvjM-PGpBVkc6Ub5pqnsWezZ8-n8uiAKLqplenCKcwrKqvbLFCtz677byfvTa-p8BmwQTDM8T2xq7G2M9-0iHTb9gk2L3ZfNrB4XPkUeoY6-7tIO8O8B_yQfJF8xHz3fZI9zL4X_jr_Ev-Cg==
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There are 2 shield clusters I picked.
One near Marauder starting nodes and those are 2 points more from your pathing for 10% armour, 6% block and 10% melee phys damage. Another is below duelist starting nodes. You can try finding 12% attack speed and 52% increased physical damage in 4 points somewhere else. Attack speed is prior on this decision. I'm not going to critique but seems you spent alot of points to pick Scion life nodes. Stop Bombing Syria
/Flu_prevention_mode ON Moment Joon 【Passport & Garcon】https://bit.ly/2wXiUSj MonoNeon 【Put On Earth For You】https://bit.ly/3I22mru |
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Go ahead and criticise, cause I just took a wild guess thinking I might need HP. Like a lot of them.
Suggestions are welcome. BTW you are right on the AS. I mean with ascendanyc proc and BR you have some nice, but its not reliable. Also I am occassionaly using Ancestral Protector to boost it. BTW I tried the Ele overload but I am, not sure how to proc it - Orb of Storms somehow works, but it has to be selfcast, making it a waste of time most of the time :-/ Any CWDT alternative? I was thinking about combining several things like Tempest Shield and blade vortex on cwdt? |
