[3.12] Secrets of Suffering GLACIAL CASCADE miner | boss killer | works in budget / League starter |




Update :
Spoiler

17/09/2020 : updated the base version and cluster version of the PoB and 3 trees for level 60, 80 and 100 for both.
added some item variant and important mods.
The idea behind the change are : having a lot more area of effect. We aim for our last cascade to hit the boss, we know that this last cascade will have "Final Burst has 100% more Area of Effect". By that, theoretically, the last spike will be big enough to hit monsters when you place your mine at the correct distance (need to be proven but should be good enough) if you have a good inc AoE. Don't hesitate to comment if you have any idea that could improve the build ! Thanks to everyone who asked questions.
20/09/2020 : Please, note that because it is the start of the league, The interrogation is pretty expensive. You can buy this base type to have Secret of Suffering :

21/09/2020 : changed the tree for level 60 where you can grab the inc cold ailment effect on the tree.
24/09/2020 : removed Ming's heart. Added in rings: "look for chaos res"

3.12 update for now :
The first idea I had to make our last cascade deal 200% MORE damage was to decrease enough our AoE to have the detonation radius to be equal to the length of GC. But they removed that mechanic.
They specified that "larger areas overlap with each other more", wich mean that we will now want to have more AoE than before to do a lot more damage (we will be taking Inc AoE support instead of reduced and will be looking for AoE from other sources). Now for the problem of the last spike, I need to check in-game, when the patch will be live, if we need to find a trick to make our last cascade hit the boss or if just by placing our mines further from the boss is enough.

"
Added
¤ Knocks Enemies Back on Hit
¤ Cannot Knockback Unique Enemies more than once per second
¤ Final Burst Deals 200% more Damage
¤ Final Burst has 100% more Area of Effect
¤ Final Burst cannot Knockback
¤ Causes 4 Bursts

Removed:
¤ +2 to radius

Modified:
¤ Mana Cost 20
¤ Cast Time 0.60 sec
¤ Effectiveness of Added Damage 45%
¤ Deals 207 to 311 Physical Damage
¤ 100% of Physical Damage Converted to Cold Damage


Icicles emerge from the ground in a series of small bursts, each damaging enemies caught in the area and knocking them back in the direction of the next burst.



☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵ - Introduction - ☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵

This build is based on

, a unique Small Cluster jewel that gives us the Keystone Secrets Of Suffering. This keystone gives us almost 100% crit chance without big investment in critical strike chance (more info in the jewels section in the gear section).
You can start the league with this build and do the shaper with almost no investment but you will need some knowledge to find your stuff and not dying, so this guide is not meant to be played by a very new player because it is not tanky (if you invest a lot it can be pretty tanky) and will need some investment to be pleasant to play.

☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵ - Path of Building - ☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵

PoB

Please use PoB fork to have more precise informations.

Basic version : https://pastebin.com/GdAaF8Wf
Cluster Jewel: https://pastebin.com/jZVutKV5
Low Life version (mid-tier budget) : https://pastebin.com/0gV2Dxsd (not 3.12 updated)


☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵ - Ascendancy - ☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵

Spoiler

The order can be changed but it is the best one for levelling up.
1st : "Pyromaniac" because reduced mana reserved and life regeneration are nice to have will leveling.
2nd : "Born in the Shadows" gives us a lot of defence (monster have 1/2 chance to hit and if they hit us, we take 10% reduced damage).
3rd : "Bomb Specialist" gives us enough AoE for the whole build, increased damage and Detonation speed wich is very good against bosses. It grants also some throwing speed.
4th: : "Explosives Expert" AoE, defence, and very nice damage.

☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵ - Gear - ☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵
(please look at the "Gem" section of the guide to look at the actual support gems to use)
Spoiler

helmet:
Spoiler

Budget:
Spoiler

A bit more expensive :
Spoiler


so this helmet is pretty cheap and works fine for us because we play life/es. A good enchant would be easy to find (glacial cascade conversion to cold ta save a jewel socket and a mod in our gloves or inc gc damage)

body armour:
Spoiler

Budget:
Spoiler

if you got a little bit of currency:
Spoiler
Carcass Jack for the (big) Area of effect and the life

Expensive:
Spoiler


I play with this but can be a bit expensive and the +#% to critical strike chance is not worth its price because we got a very good base crit chance thanks to brittle but can really help to Brittle the ennemy in the first place. A body armour with life and es would works fine. Remember to craft gain #% of maximum life as extra maximum energy shield. If you have "you can apply an additionnal curse like the second chest, you can chose from the "life as extra es" or just base life.

boots:
Spoiler

Budget
Spoiler

quite expensive:
Spoiler

The important mod here is "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" because Brittle is a non-damaging ailment and we need to increased its effect in order to reach 100% crit chance when Brittle is applied. You can craft it but it wont be above 30% increased. A luxury mod would be the "gain #% of phys damage as extra cold" but can be quite expensive with the movement speed and life. Life and movement speed are obviously needed

gloves:
Spoiler

Budget (don't look for the conversion):
Spoiler

Expensive :
Spoiler

So, here we need life and resistances. An expensive upgrade would be "#% chance to unnerve ennemies on hit". Unnerve is a debuff that causes affected targets to take 10% increased spell damage. Culling strike is obviously very good too. I crafted the good gloves thanks to harvest craft but it is not mandatory.

rings:
Spoiler

Budget:
Spoiler
x2
just some life and resistances (look for chaos res too)


Some exalts to spend:
Spoiler
(look for chaos res too)


Expensive: (The ring with ele weakness is not done yet)
Spoiler


The second ring would be a rare ring with life and resistance. You can have the mod "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" (need redeemer influence) try to take this mod if you don't have a t1 "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" on your boots. "curse ennemies with level # frostbite (or elemental weakness) on hit" (requires hunter influence for ele weakness and redeemer for frostbite). look for a curse on hit if you got an insane amulet with reduced mana reserved and the mods needed that you annoint with whispers of doom or if you can corrupt a good amulet (with a reduced mana reserved annointment) to have a "can apply an additional curse" implicit, I don't recommend it. The best way is to have "You can apply an additional curse" on your chest, will cost an awakener's orb and some craft to get resistance life..
You can look for area of effect on both ring. For min-maxing the build

Amulet:
Spoiler

Budget one:
Spoiler



Expensive one:
Spoiler




The modifiers you are looking for are : "phys damage as extra cold" (redeemer influence) cold is the best because we got some increased cold damage so, if it's as fire, it would not benefit from the inc cold damage. And "level of all cold skill gems" (redeemer influence). An amulet with those two mods can only be redeemer influenced so, pretty cheap if you are not looking for an additional high tier life mod (can be "easy?" to add with harvest crafting).
The BiS would be an influenced with Redeemer, as prefix : T1 Physical as extra Cold, T1 Cold Penetration and +1 to level of all cold skill gems. As suffix : T1 Critical strike multiplier and Hatred has #% reduced mana reservation. The last suffix would be +1 to minimum frenzy charge or increased global physical damage.
You can also have the "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" as a redeemer suffix if you cannot have it on your boots.
Also, critical strike multiplier is always nice to have if you can afford an expensive amulet.
Cold Penetration is always nice with the high damage we got.
A little bit of Area of Effect is always good.
Anoint : Efficient Explosives < Sovereignty < Charisma
How i crafted my amulet (with harvest crafting):
Spoiler

1st step : Buy an amulet with T1 critical strike multiplier and Hatred has #% reduced mana reservation.
2nd step : remove other modifiers that you don't want.
3rd step : craft "Cannot roll attack mods" so we got our suffixes filled and can't have attacks mods that we don't care about.
4th step : Augment cold modifier then remove / add cold until we have T1 cold penetration (if you got leech as life you can remove life then aug cold and if you got leech as energy shield you can remove defence then augment cold)
5th step : augment physical then remove / add physical until T1 physical damage as extra cold
6th step : augment cold, if you got leech as life --> remove life and augment cold again, if you got leech as energy shield --> remove defence and augment cold. Do it until you got +1 to level of all cold skill gems.

List of modifiers and Tags: https://poedb.tw/us/mod.php?cn=Amulet


Belt:
Spoiler

Budget:
Spoiler

Expensive:
Spoiler


So you will need a belt with high life and resistances. A very nice mod but can be expensive is "reduced flask charges used", it will allow you to use your mana flask more often. Chaos resistance is nice, always nice.

shield:
Spoiler

Budget :
Spoiler

Expensive:
Spoiler

So on the shield, there are not many solution, you are looking for "to level of all cold spell skill gems" or "to level of all physical spell skill gems" And "increased critical strike chance with spells" because we need some and you can have a lot on the shield easily. Look for high tier life for defensive purpose.
"+to maximum res" are nice mods to look for but can be really expensive.
You can aswell have "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" on the shield
You are really looking for defences on the shield (life and es).
+2 to minimum frenzy charge gives you 8% MORE damage.
The second shield is almost the BiS, if you could have a level of gems instead of to max cold resistance, it would be insane.

Weapon:
Spoiler

Very budget :
Spoiler

Budget :
Spoiler
A rare wand with at least T1 physical damage as extra, Level of all cold gem and the craft "increased spell damage, gain #% of non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage".

Quite expensive :
Spoiler

Expensive :
Spoiler

There are a lot of good mods that you can have on your weapon. Nice mods are "phys as extra cold", "level of all (cold spell, phys spell, spell) skill gems", "to critical strike multiplier", "hatred has #% increased effect", "damage penetrate #% cold res" And, if you doesn't have a curse on hit on your ring, you will need the craft "trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill". We use frost bomb to apply a better cold exposure (-25% cold res) and frostbite both linked with spell cascade for more AoE. You can also find the mod "chance to inflict cold exposure" or "curse ennemies with frostbite on hit" wich will give nice damage with medium budget.

Flasks:
Spoiler


divine Life flask with remove bleed and instant healing because we dont have that much life.
Atziri's promise because it gives a lot of "as extra"
Taste of hate because it gives "as extra cold" and it's nice against shaper thanks to the base of the flask wich gives us "20% less cold damage taken" aswell
Quick silver flask with remove freeze
Mana flask with +# to max charges
Sin's rebirth can be used because it grants "Unholy Might" wich grants 30% of phys as extra chaos, but I think it is not the best.

Jewels:
Spoiler


On the watcher's eye you want cold penetration while affected by hatred and if you can have a second hatred mod, you want increased cold damage.

You will want to place the Glorious vanity at the jewel socket at the most left of the tree, to take the keystone granted by it. You need "sacrificied in the name of doryani". On your Glorious vanity, you can search for "Commanding Presence", "Ritual of Might" or "Ritual of Stillness". Those are the Notable that the Glorious vanity can change from "Arcanist's Dominion" that you take in order to go to the jewel socket.

for the rares, you want inc max life and at least two mods of damage. (trade link : https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/KYK0jJnh5)
Then, The Intterogation Small Cluster Jewel grants Secrets of Suffering, a Keystone that make YOU unable to chill, ignite or shock but don't prevent your skitterbots to do so. You will not lose the effect of your ascendancy that grant 80% inc crit chance against shocked ennemies, 10% ele pen against chilled. If you have enough mana reserved to put infernal legion support on your skitterbots, you will also have the crit multi against ignited ennemies. (from Explosives Expert). Secrets of Suffering make your critical strikes inflict Brittle, Scorch and Sapped. We can only inflict Brittle because we only deal cold damage. Brittle do : "Hits have up to +15% Base Critical Strike Chance against Brittle Enemies, based on the cold damage of the hit. The base duration is 4 seconds." It is not always the max effect because it depend on the damage of the hit. The base critical strike chance that Brittle gives us is increased by the mods "increased effect of non-damaging ailments" from our gear. The idea is to have a good increased critical strike chance to inflict Brittle as soon as possible, then brittle will give us an insane base critical strike chance that we increase and then we have easily 100% crit chance against brittle ennemies. That's why with very little investment in crit chance and even while using controlled destruction, we can always crit. It is optimised for boss killing because we one shot almost every other mobs and then, can't inflict Brittle on them.
Expensive version (cluster jewels):
Spoiler

Large Cluster :

To craft this one, I alt spam until i got Blaketed Snow, then augment fire and remove / add fire until I got vengeful Commander. Then I added Doryani's Lesson by removing all suffix and 2x augment life.
Medium Clusters:

those are really easy to make and the best we can have to deal damage more quickly.
The interrogation and a damage jewel:

Jewels in basic jewel sockets:

On the watcher's eye you want cold penetration while affected by hatred and if you can have a second hatred mod, you want increased cold damage




TL;DR of gear:
Spoiler

A Budget stuff should look like:
Spoiler



Expensive stuff :
Spoiler





☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵ - Gems - ☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵
Spoiler

Main Skill (Body Armour):

Order of importance is : Glacial Cascade > Blastchain mine > Minefield > Increased Area of Effect > Trap and Mine damage > Controlled Destruction
We are using Blastchain mines because we got good detonation speed and we really got time to activate all of our mines. Blast chain mine support make our Glacial Cascade into a mine skill, and grant 5% MORE damage for each prior mine in detonation sequence. For example: if we consider that we've threw the maximum number of mines (23), the last mine will do 23 * 5 = 115% MORE damage. The 10th mine to detonate will do 10 * 5= 50% MORE damage. The other support gem that transform a skill into a mine skill is :

wich makes our mines apply to nearby ennemies 2% percent chance to take double damage up to 100% chance. You can apply up to 100% percent chance thanks to "increased effect of non-curse auras" because mines are considered as auras but we'll need to have more aura effect. 2 reasons why we don't use it:
1st: we would need to invest more in increased aura effect, so lose of damage 2nd: the fact that we have chance to deal double damage as a mod in our wand. You can use this support if you prefer it.
Spoiler

Frost bomb & righteous fire :

Link Frost bomb and Vaal righteous fire with Increased duration support
We take Vaal Righteous fire because it grant us 28% MORE spell damage and Frost bomb to apply a cold exposure that reduce ennemies elemental resistance by 25%. We want both of them to have increased duration.
Withering step :

We want to use Withering step because it grant elusive and wither ennemies in range (we want ennemies to have the "wither" debuff in range to apply the elemental penetration from the new enchant on the belts : "Enemies Withered by you have -6% to all Resistances". Sadly, I don't have it on mine but it would be nice to have it). Link it with Inc AoE support to apply more easily wither and Second Wind support to increase its cooldown recovery speed.
Steel skin:

We use steelskin linked with increased duration and we bind it on our move key to have it the most of the time. It is only for defensive purposes.
CoDT :

Because we got Steeskin in our move key, we use immortal call in our "Cast on Damage Taken" setup.
Summon Skitterbots:

We link Summon skitterbots with Enlighten (to reserve less mana) and Infernal Legion and Bonechill support. Infernal legion makes our skitterbots inflict "ignite" to ennemies near them. Thanks to that, our ascendancy "Explosives Expert" makes us have +30% to critical strike multiplier against Burning ennemies. Bone chill make enemies take increased cold damage. If you are using the cluster jewel version, you will have trouble using Infernal legion and Bonechill support, you should only use Bonechill support. Note that Secrets of Suffering doesn't affect player's minions, skitterbots are considered as minions. So, they inflict chill, ignite and shock. It is the mandatory aura for every miner.
Flame dash:

We obviously link our flame dash with Arcane surge support because it grants us 13% MORE damage for 4 seconds after using flame dash. Remember to have it to level 7 max (depend on the mana cost of flame dash, read what does Arcane Surge Support) to proc it at every flame dash. We use Second wind support to use flame dash more often.
Clarity :
Spoiler

/!\ Use clarity only if you got a mod on your watcher's eye that grant a bonus while affected by clarity. /!\



☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵ - Bandits - ☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵☵
Spoiler

Kill all because none of them grants us anything better than 2 points. (You can save alira for league start because it helps us to cap our resistance)
Last edited by mortpoilu on Sep 27, 2020, 7:24:18 AM
Last bumped on Jan 13, 2021, 4:17:27 PM
Very interesting! I see in the POB that you marked Secret of suffering as add 12.5% crit chance. I think brittle ailement is dependent on the amount of cold damage the monster took though? How is that math done?
"
Chubbypuppy wrote:
Very interesting! I see in the POB that you marked Secret of suffering as add 12.5% crit chance. I think brittle ailement is dependent on the amount of cold damage the monster took though? How is that math done?

Hello, thanks :D, so I did put 12,5% crit chance on the PoB but it is a mistake ^^'. I wanted to try to calculate the exact base crit chance that Brittle gives us by taking the damage I deal with a critical strike (because Brittle is inflicted to enemies only on critical strikes) and using it on the formula for calculating shock effect. But it is very complicated and we don't have enough informations to calculate the elemental ailments effects (especially Brittle, Scorch and Sap). I added a note to both PoB to advert that some sources of damage are not shown. I can link you this reddit post :

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/fbkzx0/ggg_why_cant_we_get_the_numbers_needed_to/.

It is where I found most of the informations I have now about ailments effect calculation. But the problem is that in the 3.9.0 patch note, you can read :
"
The alternate ailments Sap, Scorch and Brittle have a slightly different calculation as they have lower caps on their magnitudes.

Source: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Brittle

So we really don't have the exact formula to calculate the Brittle effect. I then tested it against real mobs. I just took Glacial Cascade without any support gems, went to a map with a metamorh scarab and tried to attack the metamorph. I activated the screen shake when you deal a critical strike (so I will know when I deal a crit) and, after the first time I dealt a critical strike (and then inflicted Brittle), every other hits where critical strikes. I can't make any real conclusions here but I know that Brittle is effective.

TL;DR: We can't calculate the exact value of base crit chance that Brittle gives us but we know that it gives us a lot of damage.
Keep in mind I'm a noob and never killed Sirius or whatever, but a few comments/questions on your new POB:

1) I assume the skitterbot's infernal legion support is to trigger the +30% multipler on the ascendancy (since its damage is too low to trigger scorched), but I think bonechill support would be better. It would make the mob take 10%-15% more cold hit damage.

2) You have frenzy charges checked, where are they from?

3) You notes say you didn't check shocked because POB makes it 50%. If you use the Fork version of POB you can specify the shock%. Fork version is so much better, try it! google "pob localidentity fork"

4) Playing with the build in (forked) POB just a little brittle, like 5%, can cap crit hit chance. Brittle is so powerful! Wonder what if we used phys to lightning so we get Sap too for mobs dealing less damage...

I love the looks of glacial cascade (not the MTX) but the only way to make it work seems to be mines or totems. I tried a COC version with GC but the traditional frost bolt/nova is just way better.
Last edited by Chubbypuppy on Aug 19, 2020, 1:50:17 AM
"
Chubbypuppy wrote:
Keep in mind I'm a noob and never killed Sirius or whatever, but a few comments/questions on your new POB:

1) I assume the skitterbot's infernal legion support is to trigger the +30% multipler on the ascendancy (since its damage is too low to trigger scorched), but I think bonechill support would be better. It would make the mob take 10%-15% more cold hit damage.

2) You have frenzy charges checked, where are they from?

3) You notes say you didn't check shocked because POB makes it 50%. If you use the Fork version of POB you can specify the shock%. Fork version is so much better, try it! google "pob localidentity fork"

4) Playing with the build in (forked) POB just a little brittle, like 5%, can cap crit hit chance. Brittle is so powerful! Wonder what if we used phys to lightning so we get Sap too for mobs dealing less damage...

I love the looks of glacial cascade (not the MTX) but the only way to make it work seems to be mines or totems. I tried a COC version with GC but the traditional frost bolt/nova is just way better.

1) Yeah, the infernal legion is to take advantage of the ascendancy. I didn't know the bonechill support could support skitterbots and it is better than infernal legion. I currently have not enough reduced mana reservation on my cluster jewel version to have both but without cluster jewel you can grab some more reduced mana reseervation nodes and you can use both support. But if we had to chose between them, bonechill would be better. Thank you very much for sharing this knowledge ! I'm using it now :)

2)The frenzy charges comes from the shield "+2 to minimum frenzy charges" and the craft on the amulet "+1 to minimum frenzy charges".

3)Thanks! I use it now and updated the PoB. I'll add a section on how to download PoB fork.

4) Unfortunately, ailments works on the damage of the hits so if you convert our damage to lightning it will no longer inflict Brittle. If we convert 50% of our damage to lightning, Brittle will be divided by two and significantly reduce our damage.

I wanted to do this build because I loved playing a GC miner in delve league, really satisfying to play thanks to the nice animation and model it has.
Thanks to asking questions hope it will help you!
I'm glad my suggestions worked out! I'm 99% sure bonechill works, I researched it when I did a GC totems a few weeks ago. You can double check :)

You are right about splitting the damage, so best not to use phys to lightning. Just a thought.

I am really altoholic so my toons usually don't even hit 90, but I love to plan builds and see them work out. Your gear is really good and accounts for a lot of the damage, so as usually I try to take someone else's builds and make it a "poor man" version out of it. I have 2 variants so far but either the life or damage is a bit low.

I also try to be a bit more tanky so both versions have acrobatics/phase. I like your life/ES combo better which I assume is why you don't have these, but again I'm not sure I can get this kind of gear :P

More damage: https://pastebin.com/chuxxHwN

More life and wind dancer: https://pastebin.com/up7sy4pk


BTW it seems like POB (even forked) don't include chilled and shocked calculations if you allocate Secrets of Suffering, even with skitterbots and chill/shocked checked, so the #s are a bit off in POB...
Last edited by Chubbypuppy on Aug 19, 2020, 11:16:27 AM
I was thinking to play GC miner for starter or Toxic rain miner?, what do u think? GC will be really expensive i think
"
I was thinking to play GC miner for starter or Toxic rain miner?, what do u think? GC will be really expensive i think

Hi, I personnaly think GC miner is very nice for a starter, but toxic rain too, so it depends on your likes (damage over time for toxic rain or basic damage for GC). GC will still be better to invest on, so if you want to do only one character, GC will be better. We can't really know right now if a lot of people will play GC, maybe the prices will be a little more expensive than last league for the 21/23 gem for exemple or the good weapon/amulet that we want. But for exemple, you will not need the Threshold jewel nor the helmet enchantment, that's a sure buff for us (because GC will have 100% for his damage converted to cold instead of 60% before).

So your choice depends on what skill you prefer and if you want to invest on it.
any leveling tips for starter?
Last edited by JinszkieletoczikiN on Sep 15, 2020, 9:13:15 AM
For this League I will be using the Visual starter guide linked below that was created by the YouTuber Badger to help me get to end game on the first day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNsu2MJQ77g&t=1s&ab_channel=ThisisBadger

My goal at end game is to use Glacial Cascade with Totems to quickly clear out most trash mobs and slow down any that survive the initial cast.

I am also going to use the new Frost Shield spell as I think it will have good synergy with this build.

For maps and bosses where removing dead mobs is important I will swap frost shield for Void Sphere, or I might just have void sphere by itself on a gear setup that only needs 3 of the 4 slots linked.

Last edited by askjosh on Sep 15, 2020, 3:45:01 PM

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info