[2.4] Apathae's Arctic Shotgun

Character Name using this build is CatsCradle currently in Essence League.

Character Profile:
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Apathae/characters

My Current Skill Tree (Level 90):
http://poeplanner.com/AAMAAUhBQU1GQVJRQWRfbmRpNHpBbWdtcTJmekFaandGNzN5ZjM1bzdncHZ0UE5XbVJVY3kwZXZ1SE55UEdueURFUzBzbkFWQ1FaYXVzOUQxVExQUUgtX3JsNVZTVXoxZmxfUnRHU0wwYkF1VEotLUktVGZYejBteHZvcWhMM19HRVpZSEhwVXU4TlZKVVE1SVhmSXFDM0JTS3dvUkx3TWVIMEdKMDR3Mko2bVAtdERRWDJyclk3VkliV3dQcXlTTHd6b3FPTmxiR3lWTHJ1a0NFVkExdWFjckZyX3I5ZklkbTdXRXhVVi1EbHhxLWxLeU40SGs2LU5Xb3FOUmRJN3BwcGtQeER0OHVNb1FXSy1id3dtNWs2Y0lqMGFib1JocU9WSllCLXdZTEw4VjE0YXVWbVBmaWdLVzBueVNicnhXN1dHY2U2aTVERkk9ABBBQUFDQUFmUUFRSDBBUUFBAAA=

Demonstration of using Vaal Glacial Hammer to Shotgun a boss (In this case Lair map Rigwald)
https://www.twitch.tv/apathae/v/94705542

I also saved a past broadcast with about 6 hours of various gameplay.
https://www.twitch.tv/apathae/v/94887307

This is an Inquisitor build, so you should pick this one.


Notables are listed in order of importance.

1. Righteous Providence - The 100% crit chance will allow you to get the jump on mobs initially to freeze them; once they're chilled by the chilled ground you get 45% crit multiplier all the time, pretty nice.

2. Inevitable Judgement - Critical strikes ignore enemy elemental resistances. This node as any inquisitor knows is absolutely ridiculous. When you land a critical strike against an enemy, the damage you inflict upon them is "true" as they have 0 resistance to it. This allows a character to focus on scaling other things either through their links or curse selection without having to focus so heavily on resistance penetration. In the off chance that you do not land a critical you get the secondary bonus of having 10% elemental penetration, pretty nifty!

3. Augury of Penitence - This notable says that nearby enemies deal 8% less elemental damage and take 16% increased elemental damage. The range of it is also much more impressive than I thought allowing casters and not just elemental melee builds to utilize this passive. When you're near an enemy a small ring will appear at the enemy's feet indicating it's active. Because it's worded as such the 16% damage taken by the enemy is in fact a multiplier to your own damage making this passive incredibly powerful.

4.Instruments of Virtue - While the least important of the 4 for this build it still adds quite a bit of additional power. The most important nodes we want to utilize from this is the additional spell damage and cast speed. The spell damage will always be up from casting a spell (which is what this build does) but the cast speed will require you to attack to get the benefit. This build does do an attack one of two ways; by either using whirling blades for its mobility in clearing or when using Vaal Glacial Hammer to set up on a boss, it will activate the cast speed bonus as well.

Regarding other ascendancies. You could potentially do this build starting witch, shadow, scion, or even ranger.

Elementalist would help with one of the major issues this character has which is elemental reflect, vaal pact can only counter so much sometimes but it's mostly an issue most characters have to deal with from just doing too much damage.

Ascendant would allow you to grab an additional projectile from deadeye and then take templar start through inquisitor. You'd also have direct access to the other 10% AoE at scion start.

Assassin would send your crit capability through the roof and trickster would give you a lot of extra cast speed and the ability to gain frenzy charges as well.

I even tried leveling this as a ranger, while the projectile and AoE is nice, the +1 chain (or 2 with touch of anguish) is pretty underwhelming as most of this damage comes from the AoE and the overlap. In addition to that, the Far Shot notable is wasted as it only applies to attacks.

Pathfinder is another option as it would make Dying Sun even more ridiculous (assuming you have one).

All in all I feel like for raw power, inquisitor is unrivaled as of this time.

Allan, please add an intro.

Shotgunning refers to a skill that has area of effect components that can overlap and affect the same target. With regards to Arctic Breath, with enough AoE scaling any target near a wall, an obstacle or in our case confined by Vaal Glacial Hammer, will have every projectile explode and overlap, scaling your damage immensely.

Recently, a patch came out to "fix" frost wall to prevent projectile based builds like lightning arrow from stacking walls on an enemy and layering the AoE component of their skill on single targets. This change however has not affected Vaal Glacial Hammer. Any enemy (usually a boss) you confine within the ring of ice will be at the mercy of all of your projectiles exploding and overlapping, taking them down very quickly.

My secret goal for this build is to try this out with a Sire of Shards to see how effective shotgunning 15 total projectiles would be from within the ring of ice.

Is this fair? I think so. As a vaal skill it requires souls to use, and only stores one use. If you're unable to defeat a boss while it's up you then have to go toe to toe normally. You're also putting yourself in danger by confining yourself with the boss, some of which are incredibly dangerous.

So, I swap between two weapons for this build a dagger and a sceptre, while it doesn't require a unique, there are a few that supplement what you're doing quite well so I will add them as recommendations.

For the sceptre, you have a couple options when it comes to uniques. For general elemental scaling, some leech and cast speed, it's hard to beat Doryani's Catalyst. http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doryani%27s_Catalyst

If you plan to avoid using a dagger at all for clearing, this sceptre is ideal as the damage scaling it provides is unconditional.

For a budget option and might potentially be better (at least for what we're using it for) you may also consider a Singularity http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Singularity

Singularity is great both offensively and defensively as it gives a lot of cast speed, and hinders nearby enemies slowing them down which then grants you additional damage against them. The range is very short and won't be as good as doryani's for clearing but if you only use the sceptre to shotgun bosses, hindering them is a nice bonus in making the process a bit safer. Another cool tidbit is that if you have the lab enchant on gloves that creates a copy of your weapon, singularity copies will have their own aura and will hinder enemies that they fly next to, pretty cool.

Beyond that, any rare sceptre that has caster mods, elemental damage mods, anything beneficial to spells, cast speed etc will suffice.

Regarding daggers, I switch to a Divinarius while clearing maps. http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Divinarius

This dagger gives you spell damage, spell crit, global crit and on top of all that an additional 10% area of effect, all of that is useful for this build.

For a budget option pick up a Heartbreaker http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Heartbreaker

I cannot promote this dagger enough, for what it does and the fact that you can get one every league for as low as 1 alteration. This thing has spell damage, mana, es, and gives your spells culling strike. For something that simply enables you to use whirling blades, this thing is incredible for its price and is very much useful for the lifespan of any character.

As for a rare dagger, same rules as the sceptre, spell damage, spell crit, etc. Local mods on the dagger don't really matter unless you want to get attack speed too to speed up your mobility. Mana regeration also adds quite a bit of quality of life.

Normal - Skill Point
Cruel - 5% Cast Speed or Skill Point
Merciless - +1 Power Charge

Because I'm a reckless scrubcore player, I tend to skimp out on defenses while leveling and just accepting the occasional death for the sake of just blitzing through the content. That being said I'll try to provide leveling trees that pick up a bit of defense that will later need to be respecced.

For this section I'll give a run down of how I currently have my links set up, however things can definitely be moved around or adjusted to suit your needs.

In my chest armor I have my Arctic Breath setup, the links are as follows:

-4-Link (Colors: B,B,B,G)
Arctic Breath + Spell Echo + Increased Area of Effect + Greater Multiple Projectiles

-5-Link (Colors: B,B,B,G,G)
Add Hypothermia

-6-Link (Colors: B,B,B,B,G,G
Add Increased Critical Strikes

I should note that I've played around with a lot of variations, like if you get enough AoE scaling through the tree, the radius lab enchant or have a Dying Sun flask you may replace Increased Area of Effect with Faster Casting. I do not recommend using Concentrated Effect with this, while the mutliplier is very high (and not reflected on Arctic Breath's tooltip), the loss of AoE slows clearing and makes shotgunning much more difficult to do.

I've also tested with LMP, GMP for the hilarity of having 11 projectiles and in the future want to test shotgunning a boss by using vaal glacial hammer with a sire of shards and fire 15 total projectiles from within the ring of ice to see how effective it is.

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For my first four link (currently in my boots) I have Decoy Totem linked to Increased Duration, Vaal Lightning Trap, and Vaal Discipline.
The links are as follows:

-4-Link (Colors: R,R,B,B)
This is mostly for utility and enemy control, Decoy Totem will distract or help lure bosses near walls or obstacles allowing you to shotgun them. It also reduces their damage by taunting them which is awesome. Vaal Lightning Trap creates shocked ground, greatly increasing your damage against bosses, and Vaal Discpline acts like a healing potion for energy shield builds. Increased duration simply prolongs the effect of these skills.

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My second four link (currently in my gloves) is what I use to manually curse things (if needed) I have Orb of Storms + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark + Warlord's Mark

-4-Link (Colors: B,B,B,R)
Simply place an orb that applies these two curses to enemies caught within it. Assassin's Mark improves our crit chance while Warlord's provides additional leech we need due to running Vaal Pact.

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For my last four link (currently in my helm) I have a second cursing set up linked to Herald of Ice. Herald of Ice + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark + Warlord's Mark.

-4-Link (Colors: B,B,G,R)
Why two curse setups? Herald of Ice adds some additional cold damage, and defeating frozen enemies causes a nova that will apply the curse automatically to nearby enemies. This greatly improves map clear speed as this build is very capable of off screen clearing. So the Orb of Storms setup is mostly for solitary targets or bosses that herald of ice doesn't already take care of while flying through maps.

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For my first weapon three link it will change depending on which weapon you have equipped, I carry my other weapon in my inventory and swap accordingly so I'll list the links for each weapon. In my sceptre I have Vaal Glacial Hammer + Increased Duration + Concentrated Effect for a bit more safety you could possibly replace increased duration with Fortify.

-3-Link (Colors: R,R,B)
When you gather enough souls this will allow you to drop a ring of ice on any solitary target and shotgun them, I generally will fill the gem with souls at the start of a map and swap to my dagger until the boss swapping back to be able to trap them.

In my dagger I have the token mobility setup, Whirling Blades + Fortify + Faster Attacks.

-3-Link (Colors: G,R,G)
This lets you zip around, proc your ascendancy buff for extra cast speed and grants you fortify when you hit a target. Standard stuff.

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For my last three link (currently in my shield) I have my Discipline Aura, Flame Dash, and Summon Lightning Golem.

-3-Link (Colors: B,B,B)
Discipline gives you a lot of extra energy shield, Flame Dash is to have a gap clearing teleport skill, and Lightning Golem is there to provide additional cast speed (if it stays alive that is).

So the process is as follows:

1. Enter Area
2. Make sure your auras are running.
3. Gather Souls for Vaal Glacial Hammer
4. Swap to your dagger.
5. Use Whirling Blades to zoom around and cast Arctic Breath to shatter all of your enemies.
6. Be wary of elemental reflect rare enemies, Vaal Pact won't always save you if you're being reckless.

For bosses/single target.

1. Switch back to your sceptre.
2. Walk up to boss and drop a decoy totem so they have something to play with.
3. Place your Orb of Storms to curse them.
4. Throw a lightning trap at them to shock them.
5. If boss is still busy with the totem, use Vaal Glacial Hammer to trap them in the ring of ice.
6. Pop Dying Sun or any other flasks you may want to use.
7. Start casting spells like mad like a ghetto discharger.
8. Collect treasure.

*If for whatever reason you weren't able to defeat the boss or it has forced phases or something, you're up for a slightly more fair fight (at least for them). Try to use the decoy totem to lure them next to a wall and then cast spells at the wall next to them.

In regards to Izaro in the labyrinth, because he is in his own room, you will not have any souls for vaal skills and the wall method will be required. Or better yet, the corner of the room.

So for leveling at the start, as embarassing as it is to say, I actually used that quest reward dexterity gem in the first jewel socket and leveled with Blade Vortex. Alternatively if you want to stick with elemental magic, Firestorm is very strong.

I've run a lot of other mods and they're definitely still doable with some adjustments.

-Hexproof
I'd honestly try to avoid this mod too if you can it's still doable if you have the leech enchant from the labyrinth on your boots but it's still pretty dangerous.

-Reduced Regeneration
You'll either have to use flasks more often, or possibly run clarity.

-Vulnerability/Extra Damage
If you're confident in your potential, you can make no change and try to play carefully. If you're too concerned, replace Assassin's Mark with Enfeeble as your second curse.

-Elemental Weakness
You may want to avoid this one unless your resistances are overcapped and it doesn't affect you at all.

-Temporal Chains
I swear 80% of my maps roll Temporal Chains, it's annoying at best. The maps will go a little slower, but with Whirling Blades and your high cast speed it isn't too bad.

-Minus Max Resistances
This one can be pretty dangerous, play with extreme caution.

-Blood Magic
-Avoid this one too.

-Beyond
Depending on how much you spawn this can get a little scary. Watch out for Bameth.

-Two Additional Exiles
Two additional trash mobs.

-Elemental Equilibrium
A mild inconvenience but if you crit you ignore resistance anyway.