[1.2.0]<Theory> Meraxus' Freeze Pulser - 40% BUFF HYPE
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I've been interested in playing a freeze based character recently, but i found that AB was just painfull to use, and that other freeze spells were kinda bad. The only viable skill was freezing pulse, but even that skill wasn't that amazing compared to some of the other builds out there. However, today I learned something about the new skill balance in 1.2.0:
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Freezing pulse OLD 16 58 130 22 123–184 21,346,397 17 61 136 22 138–208 50,694,186 18 64 142 22 156–234 90,050,815 19 66 146 23 168–253 147,034,823 20 68 151 23 182–273 N/A NEW 16 58 130 18 172-258 21,346,397 17 61 136 18 194-291 50,694,186 18 64 142 18 218-327 90,050,815 19 66 146 18 236-354 147,034,823 20 68 151 18 255-382 +40% That's right, supposedly freezing pulse is getting a 40% buff. If this is actually legit I really want to give freezing pulse a shot in 1.2.0. And because of that i designed a build for 1.2.0 and decided to share it, so together we can optimize the build fully. I realize the changes aren't confirmed or final, but some theory crafting can never hurt. While designing the build I realized some things which actually affects a lot of builds. First of all I realized that with the nerfed life passives and increased HP per level that HP on gear is less important. This means that MoM scales even better defensively than before. This is especially true if you replace a HP rare chest with a Cloak of Defiance, which is what I plan to do. There are also plenty of amazing hp/mana and hp/mana-regen nodes, as well as easy to pick up mana/regen nodes. This means you can stack up regen so high that you can get over 400 regen, and that means you can run MoM + AA easily. Add a CoDT defensive link in top of that and you are golden. Crit also seems to be really strong, it still seems like the best way to scale damage. Using AA + MoM + CoDT/Immortal Call + Crit Freeze seems like it should be defensive enough to run only 2% leech from doryani's set instead of a life leech gem. The Build: Leveling:
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4L for leveling: Freezing Pulse - GMP/LMP - Spell Echo/Faster Casting - Added lightning/Added Chaos 45 Points ~ lvl 37 72 Points ~ lvl 60 89 points ~ lvl 70 103 points - lvl 85 118 points - lvl 100 Bandits:
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Normal: 40 life Cruel: Passive Merciless: Power Charge Links:
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6L: FP + GMP + Cold Pen + PCoC + Spell Echo + Faster Proj/Crit Multi/Add Chaos/Life Leech 4L: Reduced Mana + Clarity + Discipline + Purity of Ice 4L: CoDT + End Cry + Immortal call + Incr. duration 4L: Crit Weakness + Arctic Armour + Enfeeble + Empower 3L (Doryani's): Arc + Faster Casting + Spell Totem + Proliferation (From Doryani's) 3L: Lightning Warp + Faster Casting + Reduced Duration Itemization:
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Weapon: Doryani's Catalyst - An amazing item for the build. The stats overall are pretty decent, nice amount of damage, crit and cast speed. On top of that we get 1% life leech, which together with the belt should clear up a socket since we wont need life leech. On top of that we get proliferation. Since we are a crit based caster we can use Arc + Faster casting + Spell totem to make sure everything is shocked at all times, essentiallly a 50% damage boost. Shield: Rare - on a shield we need high ES and 80+ Spell Crit and life, after that we need mana regen, spell power and resistances. Helm: Alpha's Howl - Again an amazing item. Makes sure we cant freeze ourselves, increases mana pool for MoM and the +2 to level of gems is just amazing. It gives us more mana, more movement speed and cast speed, and with a level 21 purity of ice(!) our max frost resist goes up my 2% (1% from gem, which then enables aura nodes to give you another 1%). Chest: Cloak of Defiance - Amazing defensive item which got even better after life reballancing as explained before. Provides a 40% MoM, and a nice amount of mana and mana regen to make MoM + AA usable. Gloves: Maligaro's Virtuosity - Amazing crit gloves, big damage upgrade, especially when you use legacy ones. Belt: Doryani's Invitation (Cold) - Same core reason as before, the 1% cold leech together with that of doryani's catalyst should be enough to replace a life leech gem, freeing up a support slot for something else. on top of that you get a good amount of resists and cold damage. That makes it a prett good item, but to top it off you get some free armour as well and a 10% freeze chance when a pot is active (USE YOUR POTS!) Boots: Rare - Focus on movement speed, life and resists, try to get some strength or dex as well if possible. Jewelry (Ring*2 and amulet): All rare - Focus on life, resists and mana regen, next try to get the requires amount of strength and dex, finally focus on damage, like cast speed or crit chance/multiplier. Budget alternative:
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Since doryani set is not an option for a budget version you will be forced to use life leech. I made 2 different routes, one using PCoC, one without. The one without will be generating power charges via ice spear - gmp - pcoc. Option 1:
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5L: FP - GMP - Spell Echo - PCoC - Life leech
6L: FP - GMP - Spell Echo - PCoC - Life leech - Cold Pen/Added Lightning/Added Chaos Cold pen for longer freezes Added lightning for shocking Added chaos for easier time on reflect (also fairly effective vs high cold resist) Option 2:
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4L: FP - GMP - Spell Echo - Life leech
5L/6L: Cold Pen/Added Lightning/Added Chaos/Faster Projectiles Cold pen for longer freezes Added lightning for shocking Added chaos for easier time on reflect (also fairly effective vs high cold resist) Faster projectiles for more dmg vs ranged mobs, also helps vs bosses Additionally needed: 3L: Ice spear - GMP - PcoC Weapon: Wand/dagger with spelldamage, global/spell crit and mana regen Shield: Rare - on a shield we need high ES (200+) and 80+ Spell Crit and life, after that we need mana regen, spell power and resistances. Helm: Pref ES helmet, focus on life and resists. Replace with alphas howl asap, the reduced mana cost increases mana pool for MoM, the +2 to gems increases regen, and not being able to get frozen helps as well. Chest: Cloak of Defiance - Amazing defensive item which got even better after life reballancing as explained before. Provides a 40% MoM, and a nice amount of mana and mana regen to make MoM + AA usable. Get at least a 5L, Gloves: Maligaro's Virtuosity - Amazing crit gloves, big damage upgrade, especially when you use legacy ones. The dex helps as well. Non-legacy Maligaro's are pretty cheap. Can be replaced for rare gloves untill you are able to pick this up. Belt: Rare - Focus on hp and resists. Str/dex could also help for gem or item requirements. Boots: Rare - Focus on movement speed, life and resists, try to get some strength or dex as well if possible. Jewelry (Ring*2 and amulet): All rare - Focus on life, resists and mana regen, next try to get the requires amount of strength and dex, finally focus on damage, like cast speed or crit chance/multiplier. Flasks:
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1: Life flask (instant recovery + remove bleed) 2: Life flask (remove curse + charge on crit) 3: Granite Flask (Increased armour and charge on crit) 4: Remi's Concoction (Amazing defensively in any situation, melee, spells or reflect) 5: Atziri's Promise (Amazing as a damage boost, or when you need a bit more life leech) NOTE: You won't need a movement flask, use lightning warp to move around. In the worst case scenario you reach about the same effect as move speed pots, in the best case scenario you shock the enemy before you start pulsing and free up a flask slot. Dealing with reflect:
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Dealing with reflect can be done on two ways, both have their up and down side. In both cases you can also use rumi's concoction, which gives 26% spell block with flask nodes. Option 1: Get a level 21 Purity of Ice + Legacy Saffell's frame. A level 21 purity of ice + alphas + aura passives will give 6% max cold resist, and saffels added on top of that will push max cold resistance to 86, meaning reflect damage will be reduced by about 45%. Add 29% spell block on top of that (55% with rumi's flask), and you should be fine. The downside is that this is option is going to be pretty expensive. Option 2: Option two involves replacing one of your rings with a pyre ring. Pyre turns your cold damage into fire damage, meaning you lose your freeze potential, but fire damage received is reduced by about 200. This means you take almost no damage from reflect. This is also a lot cheaper. You need to gear one of your rings around pyre tho, so you keep all your resists capped when you swap it. Math behind pyre:
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Math for worst case scenario assuming: FP + GMP + Cold Pen + PCoC + Spell Echo + Added Lightning/Added Chaos 44% Spell damage (Passives) 16% Ele damage with spells (passives) 74% Ele damage (passives) 28% Cold damage (passives) 28% Projectile damage (passives) 50% Spell damage (Shield) 105% ele dmg (Doryani's sceptre) 30% cold dmg (doryani's belt) 10% cold dmg (Cold pen) 10% Spell damage (Echo) 38% Proj damage (GMP) 28% Spell damage (4 per power charge) ____ 132% Spell damage 195% Ele dmg 66% Projectile damage 68% Cold damage Modifier cold: 461% Modifier lightning: 393% ______ 210% flat crit multi from passives and gear (actual crit multi 403%) Damage reduction by AA (incl 5% buff from Athleticism) Lvl 20: 198 Lvl 22: 241 _______ Cold: Flat damage: 172 = (Max pulse damage) * 0.5(GMP) * 0.9(Echo) Damage per projectile on crit: 5250 = 172 * 5.61 * 4.03 * 1.35 (Cold pen) 5250 * 0.15 = 788 (15% reflect) 788 * 0.25 = 197 (75% resist) 788 * 0.21 = 166 (79% resist) (purity of fire) A level 20 AA absorbs 198 damage, you will get reflected back 197 damage in worst case scenario, this means you are immune to the cold part of reflect with pyre when the enemy is not shocked. You arent going to need purity of fire to handle with this. ________ Cold + Shock: Flat damage: 172 = (Max pulse damage) * 0.5(GMP) * 0.9(Echo) Damage per projectile on crit: 5250 = 172 * 5.61 * 4.03 * 1.35 (Cold pen) Damage per projectile on crit + shock: 7875 = 2126 (base dmg) * 1.5 (shock) 7875 * 0.15 = 1181 (15% reflect) 1181 * 0.25 = 296 (75% resist) 1181 * 0.21 = 248 (79% resist) (purity of fire) Damage per projectile with L20 AA + 75% fire resist: 98 Damage per projectile with L22 AA + 75% fire resist: 55 Damage per projectile with L20 AA + 79% fire resist: 50 Damage per projectile with L22 AA + 79% fire resist: 7 In a worst case scenario where you do the maximum potential cold damage the amount reflected is easily reduced to 55, or even 7 damage per projectile on shocked enemies. This should be a perfectly managable number. The real threat is the added lightning damage ________ Added Lightning Damage + Shock: Max damage Flat damage: 107 = 238 (Max added lightning damage) * 0.5(GMP) * 0.9(Echo) Damage per projectile on crit: 2126 = 107 * 4.93 * 4.03 Damage per projectile on crit + shock: 3189 = 2126 (base dmg) * 1.5 (shock) 3189 * 0.15 = 479 (15% reflect) 479 * 0.25 = 120 (75% resist) 479 * 0.21 = 101 (79% resist) (purity of lightning) Dealing with 55 damage from pulse + 101 from added lightning would add up to be a serious problem, especially since you will pump out 20 pulses a second which can all hit multiple enemies. ________ Added Lightning Damage + Shock: Avg damage Flat damage: 57 = 126 (Avg added lightning damage) * 0.5(GMP) * 0.9(Echo) Damage per projectile on crit: 1133 = 57 * 4.93 * 4.03 Damage per projectile on crit + shock: 1699 = 1133 (base dmg) * 1.5 (shock) 1699 * 0.15 = 255 (15% reflect) 255 * 0.25 = 64 (75% resist) 255 * 0.21 = 54 (79% resist) (purity of lightning) Even assuming avg damage of added lightning you still take 71 damage per projectile (7 + 64), assuming you have a 22 AA and purity of fire. If you consider 40% reduction from MoM this is 43 damage per hit. This is managable, but is a MASSIVE drain on your mana pool. Each hit will drain 28 mana. Assuming 4 casts per second, meaning 20 projectiles per second, each htting 3 enemies you will drain 1680 mana per second (28 * 20 * 3). ______________________ My final recommendations on dealing with reflect maps: Use pyre. get a lvl 20 AA + Lvl 3 Empower, and use a purity of fire. Next replace added lightning with added chaos. You will be immune to reflect if the enemy is not shocked. You can use arc totem to shock enemies. In a worst case scenario you will be reflected for 7 damage on a shocked enemy, but in most cases you will take no damage. That's essentially everything i'm planning to do with the build. Any feedback, help or anything else will be greatly appreciated. Last edited by Meraxas#4277 on Aug 20, 2014, 10:33:19 AM
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Im excited about the build as well. IF you're looking to run EB/MOm you could possibly back out of discipline and training and hit up inner force. With alpha's the buff effect becomes even more significant. Sure you lose HP but the added mana regen/ movement speed and cast speed from the could outweigh the loss. It also lands you 1 point from Shaper.
On poebuilder with your gear ideas (t3~ mods to be reasonable) and the current FP thats 10k GMP. Seems definitely possible. Only big issue i can see is the damage dropoff of FP that still exists. |
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I have this exact build which uses the same items to the same effect. With LMP I had 39k FP dps shotgunning. reflect limits this build greatly, I swapped out CoD for Lightning Coil later on when I got BBBBGG colours after a while and it worked much more effectively but this is pre-1.2.0 patch.
Reflect was a large issue until I got hold of acuity gloves, you die instantly if you aren't careful and the only real thing you could do in your situation is Pyre ring + AA to deal with it, something that wasn't released at the time when I played it. DPS is pretty insane without needing a life leech gem and using added lighting pre-40% buff for FP. You basically have another gem slot to play with in the update because you no longer need added lightning/cold/chaos. Reflect will kill you though without some mitigation, what do you plan to do? Also, FP with 110% faster projectile speed and GMP behaves a lot different to 60% GMP imo. I used LMP because at 110% projectile speed enemies will only get hit by 1-2 projectiles at range, with GMP I couldn't clear packs from as far away as I would like to and it causes you to have to move in closer, something that defeats the purpose of faster projectiles which should give more range. It's your choice but that's how I felt using it, good luck. IGN: SlightRedeye (GMT + 0:00) Last edited by SlightRedeye#1935 on Aug 15, 2014, 3:54:55 PM
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" Solid point about faster projectiles. I still think its the best option, but i would like to try it with added chaos and see the results. I considered added lightning (still am), but since a arc totem can provide the shock stack more reliably im not really sure whats better. On the other hand, arc totem does require an additonal cast, which is not amazing for white mobs. With that being said, arc totem is safer in reflect maps, since you control when mobs are getting shocked. It certainly is a trade off. Increased crit damage is also really good, but since we will have only about 60% crit i feel like more reliable dps is better. Also makes reflect maps a lot less spiky when critting. As for handling reflect, i intend to run purity of ice to deal with it. A level 21 gem + alphas gives you 5% max cold resist, and 20% increased aura effect from passives add another 1%, giving you a total of 81%... elemental adeptation would be so amazing right now. Additionally you could run (and i will) a (legacy) saffells frame in your offslot for reflect maps. If you run chaos damage instead of faster proj you can simply remove that gem on reflect maps and make damage a lot more controllable. Rumi's Concoction will give you 20% spell block for up to 10 seconds. Something you mentioned could be interesting, swapping a ring for pyre with AA for reflect maps could be interesting. Getting 230 reduced damage taken per reflect is kind of big, could make reflect maps a joke almost. |
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Updated main post about dealing with reflect
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" Ele reflect is a real obstacle to all the caster crit builds which atm seem so so potent :) Your suggestion on pyre is rly interesting since AA will mitigate each proj seperately but still criting would hurt. Think the way to deal with reflect atm is spell block, but its so hard to get a build that can pull it off. Tried with CI seems somewhat doable but so many points.. Build With a 60% ratpith and 25% rainbowstrides you get 69% spell dodge(with tempest shield), a lucky corruption and you are close to the cap. The points needed for this though are not realistic, you could try trimming the tree but still dont think you'll end up in a good spot. IGN: Asphyxir Last edited by Asphyxor#2473 on Aug 15, 2014, 11:05:16 PM
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heres my recommendation for your links
fp - spell echo ( obv bis ) - gmp - cold pen - increased critical damage - pcoc/life leech i would recommend just running an ice spear in your weapon or some slot if you can with gmp/pcoc also faster projectiles isnt worth it for gem easy to get on wand/skill tree just my input from playing it a long time ago ign: The_Gambler
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Just updated main post again with more info on how to deal with reflect, especially with math behind pyre + AA. Added chaos damage is great, because there is no reflect for chaos damage. I pretty much concluded that with pyre, a lvl 20 purity of fire and a level 22 AA (Empower) reflect deals no damage to you at all. If anyone can confirm the math behind the pyre calculations that would be amazing.
Last edited by Meraxas#4277 on Aug 16, 2014, 12:13:52 PM
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Forgot about the 35% damage cold damage indirectly adds. Updated main post with new calculations for pyre + AA vs reflect. If my calculations are correct you get 58-158 damage per projectile, depending on if you are using a purity of fire and a lvl 20 or 22 AA. Please note that 40% of that damage is removed from your mana as well instead of your life. Reflect is perfectly doable with the right setup.
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I am also going freeze pulse in the new patch but i am going at it from a different angle defensively and theoretically speaking i should be immune to reflect so long as i dont get incredibly unlucky. I will be playing in the HC 3month.
https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMA34rpAkuu2VsbJf6zbRlXKy2LH8cRUDW5pysdTy0fTLOus0GW0PVQMNteEQ-VIMHzoqMPxLjKO3x_xsHFLL-GrlZjFdfsGHC7j_rQ0EcG2-fy4WNDDkhd8nDVcFKJ00LD34QC_ow2X2qsmPfXhEhca8Ntm6GPRh0U-tIXL2TnVdaApGaecU2az7cxQ2OdxFj1FkCFfRzckye0DEZxgwlvnpykhxN3B8pKUUysR31bKk0_J0rIbqq18qluKjgVICzp3Q2QCjqzW69OKimlXyp0Vev1ZJ3yHeq6DXwpT-QijmT3prb6V8ko-oLH-ehb9A== Yes its a level 100 build but i like just doing the full build and then choosing the most important things at the time. I go CI. In this patch it appears that CI characters are getting buffed. There is now awesome efficient access to ES nodes and the + life per level will help with CC. My freeze pulse links would be: FP-GMP-Life Leech-Power charge on crit*-Echo-Cold Penetration *I have recently learnt that theres going to be a new curse called assassins mark which grants power charges on kill. In this case, I could swap out PCoC for Crit damage. I mean there are going to be the occasions in parties where someone wants to enfeeble everything etc so ill just let them and use a PCoC then, but solo or with people who'll let me curse ill change for crit damage. This is going to be awesome damage. REFLECT ISSUE: As for the reflect issue, as you can see i get Vaal Pact and use a life leech gem. However I will be using bereks grip solely for the reflect problem. With so much crit, it's heavily doubtful that targets will not be frozen within a few hits just incase i dont notice the reflect and dont saphire flask this should keep me from death on most occasions. Lets imagine i hit 10 enemies for 40k damage each. This is 20000 reflected damage to me. (math: 40000*10*0.2*0.25) If they do not get frozen, I will leech 40000*0.088*10*0.4 = 14080 This is pretty much worst case scenario and wont kill me with my levels of ES, but if i do hit for this much I WILL have critted. Then targets will be frozen. When targets are frozen, my leech increases to 13.8% 40000*0.138*10*0.4= 22080 which exceeds the reflected amount. Since reflect works by Reflect 1 mob, leech that mob, reflect next mob, leech that mob Then I shouldnt die to reflect. |
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