[Dead after 3.0] Facetanker Frost Blades Berserker - Budget, Beginner Friendly [Detailed Guide]
" I somehow never manage to remember at which level I can comfortably do Uber Lab. Every league I play I end up having the same doubt about how it compares against maps, and every league I forget about it. So I can't tell you for sure, but I think you can do Uber Lab with relative ease already. Do try to avoid his attacks and to position yourself so that you don't get surrounded (try to hit izaro so that the projectiles from frost blades hit the other mobs, as getting surrounded might be deadly), but you can probably absorb some hits. Sometimes he can hit pretty hard though, so your best bet is to avoid as many attacks as possible. As for the extra damage taken, it's not that bad. The extra damage dealt outweights that downside by quite a lot. One thing you could consider, since you mentioned you're still being one-shot, is to use the enfeeble setup (vengeance - curse on hit - enfeeble). It helps a lot for survival, since it diminishes the damage cursed enemies deal. You can probably slot that into your new sword when you buy it. Also, around tier 9/10 is where the game starts to throw some harder stuff at you. Beware of map mods - if there's any extra damage mod, it'll be harder to facetank stuff. The same applies to elemental weakness/vulnerability. So you have to be extra careful on those. And some things from there on are not meant to be facetanked, so you'll have to learn how to play around them (the Orchard's boss beam, for example). Chris Wilson took my soul
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What are your thoughts on Darkray Vectors Dragonscale Boots?
No +life, but they do have lightning resist, and (I think potentially most interesting) they add +1 to frenzy charge capacity, though they reduce the overall duration of the frenzy charges. The +movement and +dodge per frenzy charge is gravy; I haven't noticed myself running out of charges in combat. Yet. I am loving this build; super fun, super tanky. Leveling was enjoyable and not at all a chore. Thank you also for this excellently put together guide! | |
" They are a decent choice. However, as it happens with most uniques, the lack of life ends up being a quite big drawback. Even so, using them is not a bad choice. The extra dodge is quite good, but I'm not entirely sold on it - I think the over 200 life a decent rare would give you ends up being worth more than the 8% dodge chance. Still, it's a good option. As for the extra frenzy charge, it's a nice boost to damage, but also not a game changer. We don't get that much out of frenzy charges (a Raider, for example, would get more out of that +1), which is why we also don't pick up extra charges on the skill tree. It's still a nice damage boost, however, so that is a point for using it. And the lower duration isn't really a problem for us, since Terminus generates charge real quick. As you mentioned, you should never have trouble of being without charges (even if you did because of map backtracking, they'd be up again in a second). All things considered, I'd say they're a solid option. These boots are a fairly balanced unique. They give some damage, they give some dodge chance, they give a bit of resists. The only problem is really the lack of life. Given that, there will probably be a point where you can get better results out of rare boots. But since you already have a big amount of life from your chest, it's not something you have to worry about at this moment. So I'd stick with them for a while. After you upgraded other more important things (like getting at least a 5-link in your weapon), then you might look for a pair of well-rolled rares. And thanks for the kind words :) I'm really happy to hear that. PS: Nothing to do with the rest, but I noticed you have a portal gem on a Red-Blue socket combination. You probably should 5-link your terminus asap, but while you don't do it, you could put your portal gem on the red slot and get a faster casting on the blue. It's a small quality of life, but I find the base speed of portal just annoyingly slow. Faster casting helps a bit. Chris Wilson took my soul Last edited by DanutMS on Oct 2, 2017, 10:17:09 PM
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I am having huge mana issues, especially at my low level. Is that typical? I am a complete noob and this guide looked like a good way to get into the game and play something which can solo up some.
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" Mana is a bit short on the first levels, yes. Your problems should go away after you complete the first lab, but until then don't use Hatred. You can't sustain mana while reserving so much of it. If this doesn't solve your problem, consider buying a Doedre's Damning Ring or a Thief's Torment (the second would be the best option, but it costs a bit more). But really, without Hatred it should be doable. Just keep two mana flasks with you until you complete the normal lab. Chris Wilson took my soul
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I have played lots of different Frost Blade Characters over the past year.
From Raider, pathfinder, Beserker Juggernaut to Champion even. This seems to be the most indepth guide for one of the worst versions of Frost Blades I've seen so far. It has very low Life (5.5k Life), Really low damage (88% Hit Chance is also not good at all) and on top of that is extremely slow due to Leap slamming. It's not about cheating with PoB for the top Damage Numbers. Its just that your choices of gear are pretty poor and the gear itself just not good. In short: Any Raider double Touch of Anguish Frost Blader will move faster, do more damage, clear faster due to chain and will also easily get more life. I'm not here to trash your build at all. But seeing that you've put that much effort into the guide and then seeing such a poor result is just really confusing to me. Frost Blades is supposed to be one of the fastest clearing Melee Skills in the Game. Seeing your 6 1/2 Minutes T15 Map clear was pretty painfull to watch. Last edited by RDeschain on Oct 4, 2017, 10:01:18 AM
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" Do you have a guide that let's someone like me (only second character) play to some higher map levels without an insane investment in things I don't quite understand fully yet? if so, can you link it? I prefer a 2H sword class with the ability to mostly solo (though not solo self found), what can you suggest. |
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" Well, if you want to limit yourself to a 2 handed Sword build that doesnt cost much... I suggest you to stick to this guide I guess. You can always play Flicker Strike with Terminus Est or Oros, but anything else will most likely require a Starforge (which only costs 2 ex right now) to feel good. 2 Handed Swords are just not that great for melee (Except for Starforge ofc), especially if you don't want to invest into it. Seeing that you seem to be very new to the game, I suggest to stick to this guide as it provides lots of good information. Last edited by RDeschain on Oct 4, 2017, 11:08:53 AM
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" Well, there we go. First of all, no, this build doesn't have very low life. The 5.5k shown in the picture were my current stats at the time I wrote the guide. I'm now sitting at 7.9k life. Could get to 8.3k if I bothered grinding the last two levels and changing one of my jewels. The same holds true for hit chance: getting a bit of accuracy on gear already gets it up to 93-94%. As for damage, yes, this build isn't top tier. I never said it is. It was designed to be something that newer players can enjoy. So my top priorities were getting enough survivability and making it viable even with bad gear. If you already know what you're doing and have mildly decent gear, you can easily spec out of a couple life nodes, move fortify somewhere else instead of main attack, get yourself some half-decent rings and damage will already get up to 450k on Shaper/Guardians (no flasks active), while still having around 7k life. That won't make this build one that melts content down, of course. But it's more than enough to do everything in the game. As for clearspeed, yes, a Raider will be faster. Can't do much about the Leap Slam, it's just worse than Whirling Blades. Still, it can clear decently fast. I just timed myself playing a T14 Coves map (have no t15 now), with no Power Charges (hexproof monsters), extra boss life and 3 perandus chests. Took me 3:30. Would be less if I had swapped Fortify for something else (which I really should at this point, since I have way more life than needed). Sure, Raider can still get much faster than that. I can't do much about this. If someone values clearspeed so much and want to be able to chain maps as fast as possible, then this isn't the build for that person. If someone wants a build that can help them go through all game content without the need for any kind of big investment (shaper might be out of range without some more sizeable investment, but all the rest isn't), then this can be the build. Also, Touch of Anguish claws were around 70c at the start of this league. Getting two of them would be 140c at that point. This would've been more than all my gear on that t15 map clear you mention. As a league starter and newbie friendly build, this has to be taken into consideration. Chris Wilson took my soul Last edited by DanutMS on Oct 4, 2017, 2:44:58 PM
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" First of all: I never criticize any builds here, and it might have sounded more negatively than it was supposed to be, so please don't be offended by what I wrote. The only reason I did criticize was just because it was such an indepth guide, and a good one for everyone getting into the game fore sure, I highly respect that! It was just that it looked from the stats seen on the first page (I didn't see the 8 K life you mentioned now etc) that the build doesnt do as good as the quality of the guide makes it look. So I might be wrong about it, and as I said, i didn't want to trash this build or anything, really. Last edited by RDeschain on Oct 4, 2017, 1:16:06 PM
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