[2.6] CI FrostBlades Raider/Pathfinder [Permafreeze T15 bosses, 4:17 Shaper Run, 1:49 Chayula timer]

The effective DPS is on display in this shaper run video: https://youtu.be/OjQXKwgojxM

Take note also that the above DPS calculations do not yet take into account the extra elemental damage granted by the Veteran Bowyer ascendancy.

The ideal flask setup for the highest effective Shaper DPS is:

1. Wise Oak
2. Perpetual Diamond Flask of Staunching
3. Lion's Roar
4. Atziri's Amethyst Flask
5. Taste of Hate

If you want higher mobility to dodge his balls:

1. Silver Flask of Adrenaline
2. Perpetual Diamond Flask of Staunching
3. Lion's Roar
4. Atziri's Amethyst Flask
5. Taste of Hate

Here's the Path of Building code if you wish to verify it.

"

New Bisco's run! Bought some new rings, so I decided to give Chayula a spin. Got very lucky with layout, no dead end platforms. Actually hit 1:52, but since my computer can barely run PoE well (look at that FPS!) I can only rely on my own reflexes to hit print screen.

My gear:

Spoiler

I don't have any 2x Crit Multi jewels since I need the resistances badly.

"

https://youtu.be/Q3JQoKvABPk

"

Just got my first level 100 in LHC with this build, thanks Invalesco for the dank build.

A few notes on my gear progression: I picked up the rare claw I'm using now around 80, it's pretty shit compared to a lot of the claws in LSC but it has served me fine. I wanted to drop touch of anguish asap to pick up herald of ice curse on hit assassins mark, I think that this is the best mapping curse set up pre-skyforths, obviously if you want to kill bosses then it's not gonna be very relevant. Before I got my skyforths I used the 80% stun avoidance boot enchant with the heart of oak notable, again this is for mapping not for bosses. For mapping it worked perfectly and allowed me to use a rare amulet, although eventually I realized bisco's collar was too juicy to not use for making money.

I have some of the OP gear for this build now but for a huge chunk of time on this character I had really cheap gear, I used a skin of the loyal all the way to 97, and because I didn't want to lose too much ES I waited to get my vaal regalia before I used skyforth, so I used rare boots as well all the way to 97. To get my vaal regalia I bought a decent rolled, non 6-linked rare chest and used the vorici socket technique to get 5 off colors on it, cost me around 2500 jewellers which was way more desirable than 5k+ chromes. Unfortunately it took me thousands of fusings to link it so I didn't use it til 97. Late 98 / early 99 is when I got curse on hit shaper's touch gloves. I got pretty lucky, my 9th pair that I vaal'd hit ele weakness. Until then I used CWDT enfeeble which helped for map bosses. After 50% into 99 is when I picked up HH, because I thought why not.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that this build really is quite cheap to get running and I would even consider it a budget build as far as getting to mid 90s goes and even beyond that. It should also be noted that all the currency that I used to buy skyforth and HH with was farmed using this frost blades character, I had 400c start up cash (not that I spent all that right away necessarily) and that's it.

Penetration is nice to have but should not be taken blindly in excess at the expense of everything else, especially in the case of a physical to mono-elemental conversion build. As with almost everything in POE (except maybe crit), stacking too much of one thing will provide diminishing returns.

For penetration specifically, have a look at this graph:



As you can see, having high penetration is excellent when mobs have high resists. HOWEVER, as the resistance of the mobs goes towards negative (left-wards on the x-axis), you can see that the %damage increase per unit of -ve res goes down significantly.

Now, what does this have to do with builds in general? A lot of non-inevitable judgement builds that I see focus on taking a lot of penetration from the tree as well as using an elemental penetration gem. When you consider all the points spent to grab those nodes; points that could have been spent on jewel sockets or other nodes which give more %dmg per point, it becomes a waste, because having high penetration with low base damage is always going to give you lower effective damage compared to having sufficient but not excessive penetration and high base damage.

I’ll try to make this abit more straightforward. Assuming you have 1000 base damage and are up against a boss with 40% resists, i.e. Shaper. You have 50% cold resist reduction in the form of 2 x FB threshold jewels and -20% cold resists on frost bomb. Shaper thus has -10% cold resistance.

• Scenario 1 with Wise Oak: you gain an extra 20% cold res pen. Shaper now has -30% effective cold resistance. Your effective damage is thus 1000 x 1.3 = 1300.

• Scenario 2 with Lion’s Roar: you gain an extra 35% physical damage. Shaper still has -10% effective cold resistance. Your effective damage is thus 1000 x 1.1 x 1.35 = 1485.

Let’s use another example. This time I’ll use a level 20, 0q Cold penetration gem versus an Elemental focus gem. The former gives 37% cold penetration while the latter gives 49% more elemental damage.

• Scenario 1 with cold pen: you gain an extra 37% cold res pen. Shaper now has -47% effective cold resistance. Your effective damage is thus 1000 x 1.47 = 1470.

• Scenario 2 with Elemental Focus: you gain an extra 49% elemental damage. Shaper still has -10% effective cold resistance. Your effective damage is thus 1000 x 1.1 x 1.49 = 1639 damage.

It is precisely for this reason that I did not bother pathing for too many elemental resist pen nodes (except Primeval Force, and even that primarily for the reflect protection) and went to grab %phys damage nodes instead, as these nodes usually provide additional bonuses such as %attack speed or %crit chance and are hence stronger, point for point.

It is also for this reason that I usually have hypothermia linked (instead of cold pen), because hypothermia does more effective dps for me than cold pen does in general mapping (against bosses that can be chilled, that is). If you import my character on Path of Building and tick the options 40% extra cold resists and standard map boss (for another 30% resists for a total of 70% resists), you will see that I deal more damage with hypothermia than with cold penetration, especially when taking into account the 28% penetration I get from Wise Oak (I have 40% incr. flask effect).

TLDR; do not simply grab every penetration node you see and simply use an elemental pen gem to get as high an effective elemental penetration as you can if you are a damage conversion build. It is not worth it. Think carefully before you do so. Ensure that you have enough penetration but do not grab so much of it at the expense of other damage nodes that it ends up gimping your DPS.

Shaped Strand with Herald of Ice and basic CI gear (Raider)
Shaped Strand with Herald of Ash and some upgrades (Raider)

T16 Vaal Temple Run (Raider)
Deathless Guardians compilation (Raider)

Deathless Shaper Run (Pathfinder)
Deathless Shaper Run 2 (Pathfinder) - Cold Pen replaced by Ele Focus
4:17 Shaper Run (Pathfinder) - Silver Flask replaced by Wise Oak

1st Chayula Run (Pathfinder) - Timer: 1:09
2nd Chayula Run (Pathfinder) - Timer: 1:33

Uber Atziri (Pathfinder)

Defensive Stats Note: Identical tri-ele res for Wise Oak bonus

DPS Stats Note: DPS tooltip does not reflect bonus from Diamond Flasks or Veteran Bowyer

Useful early-mid game Uniques
Useful + Cheap CI Uniques
End-game uniques to aim for

Mandatory Flasks
1. Taste of Hate
2. Atziri's Amethyst Flask
3. Perpetual Diamond Flask of Staunching

Situational Flasks
1. Wise Oak - used in general mapping, benefits both the melee and projectile component of Frost Blades. The +all to res also comes in very handy in ele weakness maps. No real need to overcap res on gear for ele weakness now.
2. Lion's Roar - used for guardians/shaper and high HP bosses in general.

Ascendancy-specific Flasks
1. Rotgut --> I use this as Raider for both high MS and the onslaught bonus
2. Surgeon's Silver flask of Adrenaline --> I use this as Pathfinder
3. Overflowing Chalice --> Can be used in place of the silver flask of adrenaline if you're a pathfinder and wish to have higher flask recharge during boss fights.

Flask setup for highest Shaper DPS
1. Wise Oak
2. Perpetual Diamond Flask of Staunching
3. Lion's Roar
4. Atziri's Amethyst Flask
5. Taste of Hate

Flask setup for safer Shaper fight (more mobility for dodging)
1. Silver Flask of Adrenaline
2. Perpetual Diamond Flask of Staunching
3. Lion's Roar
4. Atziri's Amethyst Flask
5. Taste of Hate

Claw: Aim for a >330 PDPS claw with >7.6% crit and >1.7 APS

Chest options:
• Skin of the Loyal
You can break 8k ES quite easily with Skin of the Loyal but breaking 10k will be tough.
• Incandescent Heart
The required colours will also be very easy to roll on this chest. Extra leech, extra damage and extra elemental damage mitigation are a bonus. Keep in mind though that the base ES is low, so you will find it tough to break 8k ES
• Atziri's Splendour *ES VARIANT*
End-game tier ES, tri res and is easy to get the required colours on

If you want more ES, go for a high ES Vaal Regalia with at least dual res, but take note that the desired colours will be a huge pain to roll.

Helm:
• High ES and tri res if possible. Dual res and Int is also fine

Gloves:
• Shaper's Touch
Solves all your accuracy issues. Get a good corrupt on it. I will go for Temp Chains corrupt if in HC, Ele Weakness corrupt if in SC.

Boots:
• Brinerots/Rainbowstrides will be good early options. Skyforth will be the eventual goal.

Belt:
• High Strength and ES with dual res or flask mods

Amulet:
• +flat physical damage and crit multi are priorities, followed by WED

Rings:
• +flat physical damage and res are priorities, followed by WED

Shield:
• High ES and res

Jewels:
• poe.trade link
• Focus on at least 1 x attack speed and 2 x crit multi

Examples of my gear are in the post below.

Frost Blades
There are two different sets of colours which are pretty equal and have their own pros and cons, which I will detail below:

1. RRRRGG (Higher Map DPS, Lower Shaper/Guardian DPS)
This set of colours allows you to accommodate Hypothermia/Cold penetration in your set up: Hypothermia for general mapping and Cold Pen for Shaper/Guardians.

The links are as follows:
> WED - MPD - MDFL (Note: use MDFL only if you're CI) - Multistrike - Cold Pen/Hypothermia

2. RRRRGB (Lower Map DPS, Higher Shaper/Guardian DPS)
This set of colours allows you to accommodate Incr. Crit Strikes/Elemental Focus in your set up: Incr. Crit Strikes for general mapping for more reliable freezing and Elemental Focus for Shaper/Guardians.

The links are as follows:
> WED - MPD - MDFL (Note: use MDFL only if you're CI) - Multistrike - ICS/Ele Focus

Incr. Crit Strikes deals less damage than Hypothermia and may result in slower map clear speed. I say may, because at some point your DPS will be high enough to one-two shot mobs so it won't really matter anyway. In addition, having Incr. Crit Strikes will make for more reliable freezing and will make porcupines less deadly and necrovigil less annoying. Elemental Focus does more damage than cold pen so Shaper and Guardians will be much quicker fights.

This set of colours also allows you to use a Vaal Regalia for higher ES if you want (although you will have a very tough time rolling the colours you need, therefore I don't recommend this unless you're already happy with the rest of your gear). FYI it took me about 2400 chromes (Vorici 3R) to get the colours I needed. Another option besides using chromes is using jewellers.

Check out this video from puncayshun: https://youtu.be/79wOQQxXsu0

3. RRRGGB (Better AOE DPS, Lower Single Target DPS)
This set of colours are adequate and may not be worth rerolling on if you're using a Vaal Regalia because of the chromes that will have to be used. It has better AoE damage because we will be supporting the Projectile component with 4 gems instead of the usual 3 above. Single target DPS will however suffer as a result.

The links are as follows:
> WED - MPD - Multistrike - Cold Pen/Hypothermia - ICS/Ele Focus


Other possible setups for other colours:
> WED - MPD - Cold Pen/Hypothermia - Multistrike
> WED - Incr. Crit Strikes - Cold Pen/Hypothermia - Multistrike


For further detail on the different gems as well as their pros and cons, I would recommend reading Tanakeah's post here.

1. Elemental Reflect
You can run these if you replace weapon elemental damage with life leech and take out one of your melee specific gems. More often than not though its probably more trouble than its worth and you're better off just rerolling the map.

2. Cannot leech life/mana
You can actually run these maps if you really want to as you'll be perma freezing everything most of the time anyway. The inability to leech life/ES will however be a huge problem were you to encounter an elemental reflect rare.

Yes, there will come a time when your DPS is high enough such that elemental reflect becomes a problem.

The build already comes with a few options to mitigate elemental reflect, namely:

• Fortify - 20% reduced damage taken
• Nature's Boon (if Pathfinder) - 8% reduced elemental damage taken
• Primeval Force - 10% reduced reflected elemental damage taken

2nd layer of mitigation would be:

• Taste of Hate to bring your cold res up to 83% (if Raider) or 84% (if Pathfinder)

3rd layer of mitigation (and the toughest to achieve) would be:

• Wise Oak - 14% (if Raider) to 15% (if Pathfinder)
In order to achieve this, you would have to ensure that your cold res value is either your lowest elemental res value or at most on par with lightning and fire even with Taste of Hate up.

If you have all of the above and assuming you are Pathfinder, you should have a total of 84% cold resistance and 53% reduced reflected elemental damage taken.


If we do the maths:

Assuming we crit and deal a base of 400,000 physical damage per hit which then gets translated to 600,000 cold damage, which also then gets buffed for an extra (37.5% * 400,000 + 22.5% * 600,000 = 285,000) chaos damage. Assuming we encounter an elemental reflect rare which reflects 20% of elemental damage. The amount of damage that we received would be 0.2 * 600,000 * (1-0.84)[resistance] * (1-0.53)[reduced reflected damage taken] = 9,024 damage. The amount of damage we leech would be 1.2% * 885,000 + 3%[Atziri's Flask] * 285,000 = approx. 18,000. In other words, as long as we maintain more than 9,024 ES (which would make it impossible for us to be one shot), we will be relatively immune to reflect as the amount of damage we leech is more than the amount of damage we receive.

Note that my assumed figures of 600,000 cold damage per hit is already unrealistically high as that would translate to 5.4 million DPS (if you have 9 attacks per second) which is well beyond the upper limit of godlike.


If you still die to reflect/get one-shot by reflect, consider other options such as:

• Get more ES
• Drop Lion's Roar flask for a Silver flask
• Reduce your damage (drop DPS nodes) and invest into more ES nodes

or the really last resort options such as:

• Sibyl's Lament
• another defensive flask such as Rumi's or a well-rolled Jade Flask

1. Orb of Storms linked with PCoC and Assassin's Mark

2. Shaper's Touch corrupted with 'Grant Assassin's Mark'
i. Link Shield Charge - Fortify - Faster Attacks - Curse on hit within the corrupted gloves.
ii. Shield Charge into mobs = Fortify + Curse them with Assassin's Mark
iii. Kill cursed mobs = chance to gain power charges.

3. Shield charge linked to PCoC

4. Having the following shields on weapon swap and using the appropriate skills
i. Jaws of Agony
ii. Brinerot Flag

5. Herald of Ice - CoH - Assassin's Mark
- You will however have to sacrifice Herald of Ash

6. Utilising the Blue Dream

7. Skyforth

2 x

Rest were self found.

Budget:
Claw: 3-5c
Chest: 60-80c followed by 6L-ing
Helm: Bought as white with frost blades enchant and crafted with ~80 alts and 1 regal. Sold for 3 ex
Gloves: 2c
Shield: 1c
Pandemonius Amulet: 25c
Resist Ring: 1c
Valyrium: self found, but approx 1 alch to 1c
Boots: self found, but approx 1-2c
Belt: self found, but approx 1 alt

Atziri Flask: 1c
Taste of Hate: 135c
Other flasks: self-crafted

Price of gear (in SC):