[2.0] WHACK-A-MAUL Tanky 2H Mace RT Ice Crash (Designed for Hardcore. New Player Friendly!)

A few words before we get started.


This build is designed for hardcore and played extensively in hardcore. There will be no "I played this in softcore a lot, but it kinda seems HC viable if we grab a few life nodes or something" in this guide. I am currently level 93 as this build in Tempest and enjoying the hell out of it.


You can play this build extremely cheaply, but you can also make it expensive and it will scale well. I played up to 82 entirely self found, since buying things the first few days of the league is equivalent to setting your money on fire.

There is not a lot of technical skill and game knowledge required for this build, so this makes a pretty decent option for a first time player.

Special thanks and credit to Hegemony for creating a working ice crash build in early beta, which I referenced extensively to help solve problems when they arose with mine.


1. Videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqHwr20i0Zs - Level 79 Christmas in Wraeclast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpsNGc3T8Ow - Zana Sea Witch / Beyond shenanigans. I stood in the desecrated ground a bit too much here. (Done with a Marohi Erqi)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAD6L80jPxg - Carnage (Map version of Kole) tickles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNeRsTwPxeA - Gorge Map with Enlarging Tempest (Done with a Marohi Erqi)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olUpm-El4Nk - Arid Lake with EE, Vuln, Unwavering (Done with a Marohi Erqi)




2. Playstyle.

- Summon Chaos Golem and use Bloodrage
- Pop granite flask
- Leap into monsters
- Ice Crash until monsters are dead
- Repeat steps 2-4
- Forget to use your Rallying/Enduring cry or resummon golem when it dies




3. Skills.

Budget Links:

Ice Crash - Added Fire Damage - Melee Physical Damage - Weapon Elemental Damage (Put this in a decently rolled Marohi Erqi at level 57 for a pseudo 5 link)

This is the main damage ability. This should be fairly self explanatory. Use until things are dead.



Leap Slam - Fortify - Curse on Hit - Warlord's Mark - (Faster Attacks if you have a cheap 5 link available)

This is for mobility as well as applying fortify without using a valuable gem slot which is linked with ice crash. In addition, you curse monsters with Warlord's Mark to gain valuable life and mana leech.

Make sure to keep up Fortify and Warlord's Mark



Rallying Cry - Blood Rage - Increased Duration

Don't use Blood Rage until you have the skill Golem's Blood (Somewhere around A4 Cruel) to sustain it.

Use Blood Rage before the fight starts. It will remain up as long as you are killing monsters. Rallying cry increases damage as well as boosting mana regen which will become more necessary late game.

Feel free to swap to enduring cry for boss fights to keep your endurance charges up.



Cast When Damage Taken - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Arctic Breath - Molten Shell

Arctic Breath will slow down monsters movement and attack speed. A good number of builds use temporal chains here, but we need Warlord's Mark to stay up, so it's not an option. Molten Shell will increase armor by a little and is not as necessary as the others.



Chaos Golem

Damage reduction is good. Feel free to use Flame golem while leveling in normal and cruel difficulties.



Herald of Ash

Extra damage, and will kill enemies on the outer portion of the crash.


Determination

Extra Armor is always great. You may use Hatred for leveling in normal and cruel difficulties.


Expensive Option






4. Offense/Defense.



Offense (4 frenzy charges and blood rage)


____

Defense (No flask)


____

Defense (Granite Flask + 5 endurance charges)



5. Leveling.

Levels 1-26: Level however you want. Ground slam, molten strike, sweep, cleave, whatever.

Level 27: Buy a Geofri's Baptism at level 27. 4 Link it if you have the currency. Also buy a cheap granite flask.

Level 28: Get Ice Crash as a reward for killing Grav. Do the library quest after piety to get the Fortify gem.

Level 38: Get Curse on Hit as a reward for killing Kaom and Daresso. You will probably no longer need a mana flask.

Level 40-46: Consider buying a new two handed mace around this time.

Level 57: Buy a Marohi Erqi and 4 link it. You can now kill everything. I used my Marohi Erqi until level 93, when I finally made a new weapon.



For the following trees, if you have decent jewels, take the jewel nodes that require only 2 skill points (1 travel node, and the jewel node itself).

23 points




44 points



65 points



91 points



103 points



112 points




Bandits: Oak/Kraityn/Kraityn (Oak/Kraityn/Oak is also acceptable. A bit more tank with a little damage lost)

6. Gear

Be resist capped for fire/cold/lightning. Then grab as much life and armor as possible. Chaos resist is nice, but not necessary.


Helm - Life / Armor / Resists. +2 Minion Gems is pretty decent as well, since level 22 chaos golem is a 5% reduction.

Chest - Life / Armor / Resists

Gloves - Life / Attack Speed / Resists

Belt - Life / Resists / Weapon Elemental Damage / Armor (You can get HUGE life here with a leather belt)

Jewelry - Life / Missing Attributes / Resists / Weapon Elemental Damage / Attack Speed / Armor %

Boots - Life / Resists / Movement Speed (If you have mana problems and/or do not have faster attacks in leap slam)


Weapon - Max physical dps


Flasks - 2 Instant Life Flasks, 1 Life regen flask (Or Atziri's), 1 Granite Flask of Iron Skin, 1 Quicksilver or Elemental resist flask of heat.


My current gear




My previous mace which was finally replaced at level 93




7. Map Mods to avoid

Elemental Reflect - Don't even THINK about it. You will die.

Blood Magic - If you do run it, turn off skills that reserve mana. This is doable, but not worth the effort

Minus regen WITH curse immune. - You can have one or the other, but not both. No regen is pretty sketchy by itself though if you don't have blood magic on leap slam.

Reserved

So, sad story, my Dual Flame Totemer died.



Cool, now what? I've got some currency, I'm looking for something not as boring, and I just hooked up with some friends from another game in POE.

Danktor (The OP) suggests that I try Ice Crash, so I do. He says he's writing a guide about it, so I'm going to share some thoughts about my experience following his advice.

First off, Ice Crash is an awesome ability. It hits very hard for an omnidirectional skill. It hit so hard, in fact, that from level 28 to level 72 (Current as of writing this, and still going) I have one-hit almost every white mob, two-hit almost every blue mob, and three-hit almost every rare mob I've encountered for almost 50 levels.

There's a rhythm to this build, and I've got to say that it's fun to play to music. Put on some dubstep, get into the rhythm, and crash your way to victory.

Because this build is so far off the radar of what most people are working with (Not a fire mage, not a cyclone build, not a summoner, not a poison arrow archer), the gear that's available for it is exceptionally inexpensive. Great for me, since I'm a poor.

The power curve isn't really a curve as much as it's felt like a plateau for 70 levels. There are readily available, cheap unique maces that will carry you to Geofri's, and Geofri's will carry you to Marohi Erqi, which has carried me into maps. There's never a point where I felt like I was struggling for damage, and there's never a point where I felt like I needed that super-expensive, popular unique to make the build work. Armor, resists, and a good ol'-fashioned smashin' stick were enough to get me by happily.

Sometime near the end of each difficulty, I spent some time hunting POE.trade for upgrades to carry me into the next difficulty. I spent about 2 chaos at the end of normal to carry me through Cruel, then another 6 or so to carry me into Merciless at the end of cruel. Now that I'm in merciless, I've started mapping for less than an exalt, and I probably overkilled a bit. This includes the cost of my Marohi Erqi, a nearly-perfect roll that I bought for 5 chaos and 4-linked quite easily.

So far, I've been enjoying the build. It benefits most from running hard and fast, the mechanics in play encourage you to keep moving quickly and smoothly. Rallying Cry, Leap, Crash, Leap, Crash, Leap, Crash, Rallying cry. Perhaps two crashes when you find a rare.

As a newer player I've gotten a different experience here than I'd gotten from other 'new player' builds. This is aggressive, a violent-feeling build. Taking the fight to the enemy, and that's always fun. I've become more aquainted with the use of granite flasks, which is going to serve me well later. And all along, that endless feeling of being a bomb. Air drop in and explode, watch the loot fly.

Good luck with this if you decide to give it a shot. It's more fun than it's got a right to be, and it certainly makes me feel like I'm pretty awesome.

Cheers!

I've started a character on Tempest with this build. Can you wait until later to take weapon spec nodes?

"

Dethklok06 wrote:

I've started a character on Tempest with this build. Can you wait until later to take weapon spec nodes?

I'm not sure if I understand. Are you asking so that you can use a generic two handed weapon instead of a mace? If so, note that this type of build works for two handed maces and only two handed maces. Axes, swords, and staves are full of useless stuff we don't want since we take RT. Their specialization nodes are also too far away from the rest of the tree.

At your passive tree, you take one 16% melee phys damage node. Is this really worth it? Seems kinda out of place.

"

thomasroorda wrote:

At your passive tree, you take one 16% melee phys damage node. Is this really worth it? Seems kinda out of place.

It's really good at early levels for a one point investment, since you don't have too many other damage nodes. Once skill points get tight, respec out of it.

There are other situations when I've taken it, especially late levels. Say you need 2 points to get to your next target, and there is a travel node in between. I'd take the 16% with my first point, and then use a regret when I got my second point.

Why don't linked Blood Magic
So that can do Hatred AA HoA

Pretty solid skill tree you have there. Helped me to figure out how to get inc curse effect in to my build. Running ice crash with triple curse and invested heavily to stun. Those inc curse nodes gives 50% incriese to curse effect against map boss.
Edit. forgot to link tree im planning to test http://cb.poedb.tw/us/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwEAAecEswUtB3ULYQ0fDc0OPBLhFCAUTRRxGJEcziFVJyArUCz7NI41kjpSOuE7OzwFPCg8LT38QKBBP0GHR35N41BHUeZYY14TXz9gkWFSZU1nWGebaGVo8mvZcql07Xasd1N673zZggeDX4PMhNmE74Y7hmCHaooijM-QbJHOktCUh5gKnL6exZ_LogCi6qZXpzCpJ6mUrj6vbK-ntqS3PrvtvJ-9Nr6nwGbApsT2xq7G2M9-2L3ZfNw93pbfsuRR5K3qGO8O707vfPAf8kXz3fZI9zL46_xL_gr-VP6P

Really like this build, I'm going to give it a try.

How are you generating endurance charges?