[2.4] Freezing pulse permafreeze inquisitor - 5800 life/2300 ES - 200K+ dps - 0 uniques - easy T15

Why Freezing Pulse (FP), how it work and why it's definitely good.

FP is very intereting spell for many reasons. It deals cold damage that can freeze on crit with a high base damage : 1034 cold dmg at lvl 20, 21% more than ice spear even with the recent 70% damage buff. FP also has a 100% pierce chance which is a fabulous advantage, it's like a free support gem. It also has a decent 6% base crit chance and a fast cast time of 0.65 sec (compared to the 0.85 sec cast time for ice spear/fireball etc...). another great thing about FP : mana cost is dirt cheap ! 18 mana at lvl 20 (27 for ice spear !!!) it gives you room to increase your cast speed without draining your passives/gear into mana regen points. i usually go with 4 cast/sec unbuffed on a 6 linked FP without draining my 180 mana left for casting !
It's POE so a great base skill can't come without some drawbacks : FP damages decrease drastically with distance which mean you have to get close to your foes to kill them, an area where caster are very fragile and exposed (stun, mutch less kite possibilities, harder to avoid area damage). this is a huge drawback ! Luckily, there is a way to mitigate this drawback and almost nullifie it.
FP is considered as a projectile with a fixed duration, loosing damage all long its course until it vanish. To increase range and damage at distance, the main lever you can play with is the projectile speed. A lvl 20, 20% quality FP gives you 59% increased projectile speed, a lvl 20 faster projectile gives you 69% so with only one support gem you have 128% increased projectile speed. This way, you FP range is more than doubled and it deals serious damage at a decent range (and still chatter white/blue mobs out of sight in t12 maps).
FP is dealing cold damage than freeze on crit, so going crit is a no-brainer. a lvl 90 character with increased crit chance support gem, good % spell crit chance on gear and 3 power charges, you easily reach 70-80% spell crit chance = you freeze and chatter EVERYTHING that has no huge life pool. Freesing enemies is at the same time a huge offensive and defensive bonus. Frozen ennemies can't attack you, thus it increase highly your survivability, they can't escape, it gives you time to attack or relocate to attack/flee if needed. HUGE HUGE HUGE advantage.
Dealing only elemental damage can be problematic with elemental resistant monsters and elemental resist mobs. But here's come the inquisitor ascendency that basically says "fuck off to elemental resist" with the ineviable judgement perk allowing you to ignore ellemental resistance on crit. It's starting to come along well isn't it ?
All in all, with FP you can reach 150 000+ cold damage per second WITH lesser multiple projectile. switch LMP to added cold damage for bosses and you can freeze lock almost every single map boss in the game !

Synergies

A crit bases FP built can take immense benefits from other skills. A chain that is working wonder with FP is : Curse on hit - Herald of ice - Assassin's mark - ice bite. Herald of ice add cold damage to your FP, a 20% quality one gives you an great 15% increase GLOBAL cold damages and help your clear speed by exploding frozen mobs. herald of ice applies assassin's mark very consistently, making you running with 3 power charges almost all the time, ennemies take 20% increased damages from crits, and have 9% more chances to take crits (adding to your already huge crit chances).
Ice bite gives you decent chances to get frenzy charges, it's less constitant than assassin's mark but i run with frenzy charges 40-50% of the time in maps, which is a nice addition. Not sure if the % increase damage against frozen ennemies on a 20% quality ice bite works with FP though. having a crit built is also very good to gain flask charges, 20% chances to gain a charge on crit on every flasks and you're good to go ! freeze chances has no purpose in this crit (you'll freeze on crit anyway) build so avoid freeze chance.
Inquisitor ascendency is a perfect match for this build, even small nodes are perfectly fit for FP crit build giving you life regen, elemental damage and crit multi. the inevitable judgement perks chain gives you 100% crit chances when the target has no status ailement (when you engage), when they do (usually after the first hit), you get 45% to crit multi... last point gives free elemental resist bypass on crit, which is what you are the most likely to lend. the Pious Path chain perks make you pop consecrated ground everywhere, giving you 4% life/mana/ES regen and 25% more cast speed.

Doedre's Scron

Doedre's Scorn is a unique helemet that i use and that benefit greatly to this build. It cost close to nothing (you can find an almost perfectly rolled one for 1 alch...) . It gives you 20% increased elemental damage, +1 to level of socketed curse gem, 50% increased curse duration and the most important stat : 20% increased damage per curse on enemy. Since i run with 2 curse on all foes (got +1 curse from passive Wispers of doom, use windscream boots before you get there), it gives you 60% increased damage which is nice ! No drawback outside of no life on the helmet, give it a try !

Uniques to consider

Gifts from above can be pretty good with this build, giving you around 60% increased crit chances and, most important, consecrated ground on crit. this is very powerfull with 60-80% crit chances when you benefit from the pious path ascendency perks (4% life/ES/mana regen, 25% increased cast speed). i tried it and finally got rid of it, you already pop consecrated ground everywhere so the benefits are smaller than exected.
Wind of change is a good match for FP too since it gives more projectile speed and projectile damage. it cost a bit, so i prefer nicely rolled fingerless silk gloves so far.
Rat's nest can be usefull, if you're lucky enought to drop it early give it a shot.
Maligaro virtuosity can be usefull too, but caster don't benefit a lot from it outside crit chance/multi.
Call of the Brotherhood, tried it to proc innervate's onslaugh on heral of ice explosions, it almost never proc so it's garbage.
Snakepit is awsome with this build, 1 extra projectile is great for clear speed and its's way easier to deal with add phase in boss fight with 2 projectiles instead of one. the increase cold damage is massive too.
Taryn's Shiver can be interesting, but lacks crit modifiers. i can still see this item used in a variant of this build.
pledge of hands can be interesting too, having spell echo in the weapon give one more socket for added cold damage/hypothermia or anything else you might want. so far i prefer crit chance/crit multi on weapon and crit chance/spell damage on shield.

Life/ES

having only 1 unique (or event 0 uniques with a rare helmet, do merciless lab with lvl 74 normal rarity hubris circlet and try your luck to get 40% FP increased damage enchant, it worked for me) gives you a lot of life/energy shield potential. At level 90, 4800 life is an absolute minimum and 6000 is possible to achieve without having to sacrify all you passives. with good gear and 0 invest in ES in passives, i have around 2300 ES, 3000+ is possible. while this is not the tankiest build, it certainly has enough life/Es pool to survive higher tier maps, especially if you freeze everything in your way (again huge bonus to your survivability) ! i have around 450 life regen/sec, which is OK, i'm currently trying to craft a good marble amulet to get close to 500/sec but it's not going my way so far.

Defense

First, i use a shield, so 23% block chance that saved my life a few times. my defense setup is based on cast when damage taken - immortal call - increased duration - ice golem. It helps you taking big hits even if the immortal call duration is minimal (no endurance charges). Having the golem on this chain prevent you to revive it every fucking minute (i hate it !). you can cast the golem manually and use vortex on the chain instead, work great on melee foes (scale with % increase elemental/spell damage and DOT from Death and decay passive). My escape/movement skill is lightning warp, very efficient when maxed out, but the delay can make you die at low level, be carefull !
Mind over matter take up to 30% of the damage you recieve in your mana pool, giving you a lot more survivability. But remember, you have to take a mana flask sip every time your immortal call proc, or you will be unable to cast FP/lightning warp. it comes easily with a little practice. I use Vaal haste with increased duration for panic situations/bosses/shrines/boxes, enjoy the rampage !
A level 21 temporal chain is great to lower your damage income from close range, thank to doedre's scorn !

Curses

my main curse is Temporal chains associated with blasphemy, since i kill powerfull foes from close-medium range, it works wonder and increase freeze duration. My second main curse is assassin's mark for the increased damage from crit and power charges generation. since getting assassin's mark on bosses is not always possible with curse on hit associated with herald of ice (you need adds close the the boss to proc the curse), i use projectile weakeness manually to get bigger "on hit" damage which mean more freeze chance. i use projectile weakness on blue packs to destroy them in a single attack.

Support in party

Support abilities of the FP crit build are huge, you share you clarity mana regen, you freeze mobs/bosses (harder to freeze bosses in party though), you still deal a decent chunk of the party damage (but of course you won't compete with some barrage or mine damage) and you generate patches of consecrated ground everywhere ! granting your friends 40% increase non spell damage and 4% life regen.

Movement

30% movement speed from boots, 2-5% from belt, 5% from Fangs of the viper passive. i'm running with 1 quicksilver flask that recharge on crit with 29% more movement speed modifier up almost all the time. speed is definitely good.

problems

Reflect elemental damage is very dangerous on a high elemental damage crit built, especially with spell echo (you control only 1/2 of your hits !). don't run elemental reflect mods and be carefull with elemental reflect mobs, immortal call and mind over matter make it more forgiving though, it's not that deadly. no life/mana regen are doable even without leech since flask recharge very fast on crits. i've done multiple T13+ map with this mod without problems. All shaper guardians are immune to freeze, so killing them is mutch more harder than it should be sadly... however, they can be killed if you take your time.

Gear (type, level required to craf)

chest (vaal regalia lvl74 or above) : go Life, energy shield, elemental resist, freeze duration if you can (crafted mod)
gloves (sorcerer gloves, fingerless silk gloves lvl74 or above) : crit chance (try loathing essences), life, elemental resist, energy shield
rings : life, crit multi (scorn essences), crit chance, cast speed, elemental resist
belt (leather) : Life, movement speed (crafted mod), elemental ressit, energy shield
amulet (jade or marble) : crit chance, crit multi, mana regen, speel damage, life
boots : movement speed, life, attribute (mainly dext), elemental resist
wand (opal): crit chance, crit multi, spell damage, add cold damage to spell, cold damage, cast speed
shield : crit chance, spell damage, life, cast speed (craft), ES, elemental resist
jewel : crit chance for spell, crit multi, cold/spell damage, cast speed with shield, freeze duration
helmet (hubris circlet lvl74 if very lucky in the merciless lab) : life, ES, elemental resist, mana

levelling

levelling with FP is very easy and fun, no hard times even with outdated gear. I highly recommend using windscream early on (easy to drop, got 3 of them this league), the 10% elemental damage and +1 curse are usefull. the 10% movement speed is easily compensated by quicksilver flasks. I play softcore and died only twice by mistake (open a box, mind over matter proc, drain my mana, can't escape with lightning warp) before merciless malachai (lets be honest, he destroyed me a few times straight), and as a softcore player i don't really paid mutch attention to not die before lvl 85.

hardcore viable ?

definitely, spend a few more points in life, don't rush merciless malachai like i did, and you'll survive without sweating too mutch.

endgame bosses

Uber izaro is not endgame IMO, very very easy boss with this build, you can farm it at level 90 for nice loot (4 keys runs are tricky though). Atziri is quite simple, just be carefull with one of her guardians that is immune to freeze and must be dealt with caution, rest of the fight is pretty mutch dodge flameblast, stay mobile and you'll be fine. T15 bosses don't cause major trouble (easy to freeze lock as long as you don't mod increase boss life on maps), just be aware that you'll might need to deal with multiple phases which can be annoying since vaal haste won't last long enought. shaper Guardians are a huge pain in the ass because they are all immune to freeze (totally unfair imo, it's the only status that get wrecked that mutch with all shaper guardians). they can still be deal with, but you'll need to be 100% focus to expect a kill on them.

Final impressions

very fun built to play, extra safe by freezing everything, fast and powerfull. you can play it tired or without being 100% focused and still farm effectively without risks, very VERY fiendly build for noobs like me. Amazing build to start a new league with very low invest and high returns, can easilly provide enought currency for a expensive meta build. It works as good or even better than 20+ exalts ice spear builds for a very small fraction of the price. sadly it's not the best build for shaper kill since guardians are freeze immune and thus hard to kill. But shaper kill is immo possible with the gear i currently own.

to go further

This built can still be optimised, i was thinking about going CI to get less travel in the passive tree, i've not tried all unique combinations possible and i'm still fairly new to the game (started on perandus league) so i might have missed a few important things. feel free to comment and share ideas to enhance the build !