© Piety's Ice Archer Form Scion Build (LMP Ice Shot and Arc Totem) v1.1.5 & 1.2

When I had few days left until new expansion came out including the remake of passive tree, I thought there's still enough time to put my gems I've collected into good use and make something cool. I've never thought I'll be that person, coming out with quite "unique" build. I mean, who has ever done Piety's ice form build? I did my best to find more about Ice Shot builds, but didn't find any.

How did I come up with this idea? I love ice in this game. And critical strike. And ranged attacks. And female characters. I love when monsters get frozen and shattered. I wanted to do some kind of Ice Witch build but I've done Freezing pulse and Ice Spear before and didn't want to do Glasical Cascade this time. I ran out of ideas, when suddenly it hit me.

I also wanted to put Arctic Weapon Effect and Ice Crown microtransaction into use. I just care about how things look and both of these are so awesome looking. Suddenly I realized Piety's ice form is kind of cool and strong and I imagined playing a build based on LMP Ice Shot. Then I imagined combination of that with Arc totem, Lightning Warp, Arctic Armour, EB, IR, and I had to give it a try!

Class: Scion
Why not Ranger? Too far from EB and mana regen nodes. In 1.1.5 there were 20% mana regen nodes everywhere close to Scion. I wanted to run AA so that's why.
Keystones: Eldrich Battery, Iron Reflexes

1) Ice Shot:

2) Survivability:


3) Mobility:

4) Totem:

As it's very uncomfortable to fight monsters at close range with bow, I'm using Spell totem - Arc - Faster Casting - Elemental Prolif to keep them busy and shoot them from the distance. Also Arc does pretty good damage and I like that Cold/Lightning combination. (Problem with totem is just that our Ice Shot won't get XP if you kill everything with totem I believe - Update: Not true). You can use any other attack on that totem e.g. Ice Spear works very well with LMP.

5) Curses:

I recommend Frostbite or Projectile Weakness and Enfeeble. Frostbite in my opinion does better job at chilling and freezing, ocassionally it helps with crits. Projectile weakness delivers better projectile damage, pierce and knockback, but since I want to freeze the hell, I go for Frostbite.

6) Auras:

7) Frenzy charges, Single target:

Going for EB and Discipline will give us enough mana to run Ice Shot and Arctic Armour.
That's why I chose Scion over Ranger as a starting point - Scion is closer to EB, IR, mana regen nodes, and to Shadow's crit chance / cold dmg nodes. Sure we don't get as much Phys dmg along the way we'd get from Ranger but I think it'll be alright.

Equip Ice Crown and Arctic Weapon Effect to look badass like Piety.

Gear level 20-50:
Don't take it seriously at this point - use whatever you find or buy it from others.



This unique bow is good at first, as it has lots of attack speed and crit chance, 110% of Bow Phys dmg and Extra dmg of an Element - That's a nice boost. What makes it even better is 60% mana regeneration rate, which we need for Arctic Armour but also helps running Ice Shot. But this bow isn't necessary at all and starts to be inefficient around lvl 40. All you need is the highest phys dmg bow (Sniper bow seems to have the highest phys dmg) with as much attack speed as you can get.

With Helmet, Body Armour, Gloves, and Boots you can go for any combination you want since we're going IR and EB, so Evasion will be converted to Armour and Energy Shield will help with Mana. It really depends on your preference and what colours of sockets you need for gems. On rings and amulet we as usually look for resistance, attack speed, added cold/phys dmg, an mana regen. Get life wherever you can.

Gear level 50+:


I bought Icetomb Ringmail with almost highest AR/ES and Cold Resistance roll, because of chill duration on enemies and immunity to chill (great against all kinds of arctic breath/freezing pulse/ice nova etc. casting monsters). It also helps with Ele reflect, looks good and it's cheap (2c). New gloves have necessary attack speed, life, and decent resistances (5c). Boots were 15c, Helmet 10c - bought both for its Fire and Lightning resistance and life. That bow tho - so good, for 10c. DPS jumped from ~500 to over 1200, having 6.55 crit chance and additional 9% attack speed.

Gear update at level 66+:

This weapon changes everything. Absolutely badass. First 5ex 16c ive ever spent at once. It's optional for this build but I couldn't find better and cheaper 5L.

Passive tree:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAAA5YIZxUgHpQi6ipNOyg_J0ZxSshWLVpSX-FgQ2skbj1vnoMJg9uTJ5Xpm12btZ97qJqsf7QMwzrKSs5x3Ffyl_xL

Ice Shot is very mana consuming and does zero dmg at the beginning so play with Split arrow or Spectral Throw and keep leveling Ice Shot and LMP. Brutus, Merveil, and Vaal are not that hard to fight with a bit of care. You should be able to switch from Split arrow to LMP Ice Shot in A3N, around lvl 25, and even run Arctic Armour for a while, which is helpful for farming Docks and getting through Lunaris Temple. At that point you should also be able to cast Arc Spell totem and be ready for Piety. You will probably do more cold damage then phys damage, so pick some 'Phys dmg for Bows' nodes in Ranger area in A2C.

Passive tree:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgABAv4DlgR-BfkIZxUgFfAYPBn-GwEc3B6UIXYi6iP2JDwmlSepKaUqTSzpLUcwfDH6OdQ6WDsoPydCw0ZxSVFKfUrITipQQlVLVi1W-loaWkhaUlptW69d8l_hYENnoGskbBZte249b55v8nBScNV0QXb3d9d4un8rf8aCHoMJg9uHGYd2jDaTJ5M6lQWV6Zsmm12btZ97oJ-io6OKp1yomqw_rH-0DLVItkG9J73mwFHB88M6ykrKqc5x2wvcV90N3uXfhOjW7g7v8PBC8pf5Y_no_Ev8xf7I

The plan was to be tanky and to crit, chill, freeze, and shock everything. The character does well in A3M but it's not as destructive as I thought it would be, could use more survivability and dps, but I guess more life nodes and 5L bow will fix that.
I almost never died against major bosses but when a there was a lot of bs going on I couldn't run away from, or my screen froze which I've already mentioned. I survived Weaver in Merciless with -60% chaos res so I guess that's something. Not as tanky as it could be. Take MoM keystone for extra survivability when reach endgame maps.

Update: Bought 5L Lioneye's Glare Unique bow, DPS jumped from 1741 to 3635, 3900 with 3 frenzy charges.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgAA2L01krXybqpKyFpSqJqbXfKX_gq3PvnoQYcIZ70nGDyTOoMJYENuPQOWOygppU4qW6_dDSzpFSAqTT8n2wuCHohCwcV_xhzckye0DEZxcaG1CLEwIuqbtcM6ykpvno9PyqldaJrxCImVBVFHjb8FtejWSn2Hdmeg_MWgn2_yOdR311b6Mfp29-NW5Os3gewYJT-r0tqNwTOGziF2TZIj9o19MHyMNlBCLUcC_t-EXfJCw1NSRZ2a4OvuKPqCxyaVYeJVS3BSidNw1Q==

You should have a huge amount of phys damage, crit chance, and mana regen with this. Also life.

Normal: Help Oak for Life
Cruel: Help Oak for Phys damage
Merciless: Kill all for passive point

+ Playing as Piety's strongest form.
+ Fun to play without fps drops.
+ Cheap, simple, and cool.
+ Does decent job at destroying mobs - chills, crits, freezes.
+ Ability to run Arctic Armour = Immunity to fire.
+ Immunity to everything that chills - Arctic breath, ice nova, cold snap, chilled ground.
+ Deals well with Phys and Elem reflect but maps with 18% Ele Reflect mod are pretty tough. I don't recommend playing those

- Requires lots of Attack speed and Mana regen.
- Single rare/magic targets took longer to kill until I bought Lioneye's Glare - Sometimes was necessary to take off LMP.
- Casting totem and curse slows down a bit.
- Arc doesn't do any damage (+ but it shocks and distracts monsters and makes life easier).
- Ice Shot's DPS grows only little with each level.