[1.2.0]<Theory> Meraxus' Freeze Pulser - 40% BUFF HYPE

"Critical Weakness: Life and mana on kill have been added. There's now a chance to gain a power charge when you kill an enemy. This curse has also been renamed to Assassin's Mark."

"Freezing Pulse: We hav increased its projectile speed. Damage increased by 50% at level 1 (to 40% at level 20)."

"Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence skill: Herald of Ice: Channel ice through your hands, adding cold damage to spells and attacks. If you shatter an enemy, they explode and deal cold damage to enemies near them."

These are amazing changes. I'm going to replace PCoC with something else, possibly life leech. The increased projectile speed sounds amazing, we aren't going to need the faster projectiles support anymore.

I'm still thinking about what the best way to gain power charges would be. I was thinking about ice spear/ball lighning + gmp + pcoc + curse on hit + assassins mark, which would be awesome if it wasnt a 5L... Ball lightning + GMP + PCoC could also work. The damage doesn't matter, its all about the crits. Since ball lightning hits so often and now has a 5% base crit you insta get max power charges if you use it on even a small pack, you probably could get away with not using assassins mark. Assassin's mark can still be a decent way to sustain charges.

This is the gem setup i plan on using as of right now:
FP + Echo + GMP + Cold Pen + Added Lightning/Added Chaos + Life leech/faster projectile/PCoC

A lot of these gems i still need to test, what performs the best, whats the best vs reflect, if i do need life leech etc.

Herald of Ice is also a great addition. Increased damage, when you kill enemies with a crit you deal additional AoE damage, you can't really go wrong with it.

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Meraxas wrote:

Since ball lightning hits so often and now has a 5% base crit you insta get max power charges if you use it on even a small pack, you probably could get away with not using assassins mark. Assassin's mark can still be a decent way to sustain charges.

The PCoC gem does not grant power charges per critical by the way, Voll's Protector does that. It is one power charge per cast depending on whether that cast crits anything, so the 5% from AssMark only causes the spell to roll a crit with a 5% additional chance for every cursed mob. Still works per crit so Ice Spear is still more effective for PCoC.

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SlightRedeye wrote:

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Meraxas wrote:

Since ball lightning hits so often and now has a 5% base crit you insta get max power charges if you use it on even a small pack, you probably could get away with not using assassins mark. Assassin's mark can still be a decent way to sustain charges.

The PCoC gem does not grant power charges per critical by the way, Voll's Protector does that. It is one power charge per cast depending on whether that cast crits anything, so the 5% from AssMark only causes the spell to roll a crit with a 5% additional chance for every cursed mob. Still works per crit so Ice Spear is still more effective for PCoC.

I came here to say just that. I actually considered doing this before, but i realized quickly that that wasn't possible... i brain farted for a little out of exitement :P

Requesting information added for people who won't have access to those uniques (which will be common in leagues for at least the first little while), please.

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shinino wrote:

Requesting information added for people who won't have access to those uniques (which will be common in leagues for at least the first little while), please.

This is not a full guide (yet). Once I get into the late 80's and I know how everything works and what the best gem setups are etc I will eventually turn this into a guide, but for now it's mostly intended for theory crafting.

For people who are interested, i added a section about how to level this build.

Leveling is pretty straight forward, get flat damage up to level 60, between lvl 60 and 70 transition into crit, and then round of the build.

I am hoping to add a budget version of this build as well before the release of 1.2, with a 5L cloak of defiance being the most expensive item. A Q20 freezing pulse is also going to be mandatory, the projectile speed is a big deal. Quality on other gems arent build making/breaking. I'm not sure about the rest yet.

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Meraxas wrote:

For people who are interested, i added a section about how to level this build.

Leveling is pretty straight forward, get flat damage up to level 60, between lvl 60 and 70 transition into crit, and then round of the build.

I am hoping to add a budget version of this build as well before the release of 1.2, with a 5L cloak of defiance being the most expensive item. A Q20 freezing pulse is also going to be mandatory, the projectile speed is a big deal. Quality on other gems arent build making/breaking. I'm not sure about the rest yet.

Any idea what you are doing for bandits? Thanks for theory crafting this btw.

Interesting build layout. It seems like with the changes you've made since originally posting your tree is getting really similar to what i was planning on so i thought i would throw in my two cents. You can use two wasted weapon elemental nodes to get into the Templar area and skip the inefficient templar node up above the life wheel. With the points saved i pick up the heart of ice cluster with its damage and inherent cold penetration as well as dual curse. I think running both frostbite and assasins mark will be great on this build. I am curious if will be able to drop power charge on crit with the new assasins mark power charge generation, still need to see once the patch hits. Either way running frostbite as well will really help until you get a 6 link up and running as atleast my plan would be to add cold penetration into my links last. I think frostbite and increased Crit damage may outdamage cold pent.



https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAAuMHpYIQ37AsnEmy0PVBlgVCr5sQWEyzrrMigZ6hVkqOPBdUTC0RD9teUDBq-g5cRX4Yangvm6H316yYWAd85YhCgh4UsNsLL2_ZE3C77BjBxUlR8NWP-rmTwwnr9fIdBx6VLhGWXfIOSAL-34RCw8u9B2OMNmHiVUsmlRa_H0EDHnBSidNw1WND5CIabJ2upwiPRtrdKU-Cm4V9Fm_jajbpJKq2-vemjmQaOOw4kFWnhASzMolX4qIAFE3wHwJxXyp0VVXGOliD2x_HK3htGS2LakPAVAj0vOo=

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MordisB wrote:

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Meraxas wrote:

For people who are interested, i added a section about how to level this build.

Leveling is pretty straight forward, get flat damage up to level 60, between lvl 60 and 70 transition into crit, and then round of the build.

I am hoping to add a budget version of this build as well before the release of 1.2, with a 5L cloak of defiance being the most expensive item. A Q20 freezing pulse is also going to be mandatory, the projectile speed is a big deal. Quality on other gems arent build making/breaking. I'm not sure about the rest yet.

Any idea what you are doing for bandits? Thanks for theory crafting this btw.

Bandits are pretty straightforward: 40 life - passive - power charge, i'll add it to the op

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bubba42124 wrote:

Interesting build layout. It seems like with the changes you've made since originally posting your tree is getting really similar to what i was planning on so i thought i would throw in my two cents. You can use two wasted weapon elemental nodes to get into the Templar area and skip the inefficient templar node up above the life wheel. With the points saved i pick up the heart of ice cluster with its damage and inherent cold penetration as well as dual curse. I think running both frostbite and assasins mark will be great on this build. I am curious if will be able to drop power charge on crit with the new assasins mark power charge generation, still need to see once the patch hits. Either way running frostbite as well will really help until you get a 6 link up and running as atleast my plan would be to add cold penetration into my links last. I think frostbite and increased Crit damage may outdamage cold pent.


https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAAuMHpYIQ37AsnEmy0PVBlgVCr5sQWEyzrrMigZ6hVkqOPBdUTC0RD9teUDBq-g5cRX4Yangvm6H316yYWAd85YhCgh4UsNsLL2_ZE3C77BjBxUlR8NWP-rmTwwnr9fIdBx6VLhGWXfIOSAL-34RCw8u9B2OMNmHiVUsmlRa_H0EDHnBSidNw1WND5CIabJ2upwiPRtrdKU-Cm4V9Fm_jajbpJKq2-vemjmQaOOw4kFWnhASzMolX4qIAFE3wHwJxXyp0VVXGOliD2x_HK3htGS2LakPAVAj0vOo=

I notice a massive flaw in your build. You hardly have any mana regen. Unless you got regen on every piece of gear possible you wont be able to support either AA or MoM, let alone both. You call the templar start inefficient, i call it extremely mana efficient. I also don't like dual curse, especially now you wont have permanent curses anymore. Normally you dont waste time cursing a pack of mobs, let alone double cursing, it just slows down clear speeds to much.

I also doubt assassin's mark will be good, it only grands a charge on kill without a 100% guarantee, using ice spear + pcoc would be more reliable, and allows you to generate charges while fighting. When you have to rely on kills your charges are also likely to expire during bossfights. Forget about assassins mark for charges, either use power charge on crit in your main link, or have a secondary link with ice spear to generate them.

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Meraxas wrote:

I notice a massive flaw in your build. You hardly have any mana regen. Unless you got regen on every piece of gear possible you wont be able to support either AA or MoM, let alone both. You call the templar start inefficient, i call it extremely mana efficient. I also don't like dual curse, especially now you wont have permanent curses anymore. Normally you dont waste time cursing a pack of mobs, let alone double cursing, it just slows down clear speeds to much.

I also doubt assassin's mark will be good, it only grands a charge on kill without a 100% guarantee, using ice spear + pcoc would be more reliable, and allows you to generate charges while fighting. When you have to rely on kills your charges are also likely to expire during bossfights. Forget about assassins mark for charges, either use power charge on crit in your main link, or have a secondary link with ice spear to generate them.

Valid on the Arctic Armour point for mana regen. As a side note my plan is not to run MoM. I'm just going to run Grace, AA with smoke mine when I need to face tank something. That combine with two charge on crit Granites which i should have decent up time on usually can carry my ranged crit Characters. currently I am low with only 40% mana regen. Most likely i will grab the available 40% node at witch start until i get my gear up but i am really only going to try to run a lvl 20 arctic armour. I'm not going to bother to push it into the high 20's this league.

As for Assasin's mark I am curious to see it. Mainly I am planning on using it for the Crit weakness functionality as it sounds like it is maintaining the crit chance and multi. With the nerfings to Crit multi on the tree i feel i need to squeeze in what i can where i can.

As for the double curse for frostbite i probably only will throw it up for heavy cold resist mobs which you are right if I end up not using will not be worth the points.