SSF viable Trickster Freeze pulse/Frostbolt [3.0]

INTRODUCTION

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This build has a rather fast playstyle and is probably mostly interesting to people who plan on playing the solo selffound versions of the new harbinger league.


VIDEO

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lskmuNgH4o8

The video shows some gameplay and explains how to craft your 5L staff with very little investment in a way that is viable for a SSF playthrough.


OVERVIEW

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Pros:

+ No required uniques
+ relatively fast playstyle
+ viable league starter
+ SSF and Hardcore viable
+ can switch between skills easily

Cons:

- doesn't scale well with huge investment
- slow in high-tier maps


SKILL TREE

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The build can be played as:
-Trickster, for a balance between damage and survivability
-Hierophant, for a focus on survivability and less damage, or
-Elementalist, for the highest damage and lowest survivability

Passives

Ascendancy Points:

Ghost Dance - Shade Form - Weave the Arcane - (Swift Killer)

If you got this character to the point at which you can get the final two points from the uber lab, please strongly consider respeccing into a more expensive build. If you really want to continue with this build however, Swift Killer is the only real choice here even though the boost you get is negligible.

Bandits:
if you're playing regular harbinger, go for Kraityn
for SSF strongly consider Alira, as she makes leveling and endgame gearing much easier.


SKILL TREE EXPLANATION

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Beginning in 3.0 we no longer need to take damage from hits to trigger MoM, this is a buff.
the combination of a decent amount of ES on top of our life combined with MoM means that we:

-Have a lot of mana, therefore resource management isn't a huge problem
-We can survive some really big hits
-Traps in the lab are kind of a joke

the build also boasts a pretty huge amount of increased life with 221%. Additionally, even if there is no ES on our gear, we still get a flat amount of 282 ES and a percentage increase of 91%, providing over 500ES on a naked character.

JEWELS

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it's pretty self-explanatory, two of these will provide you with a free GMP (minus the damage penalty) for your main skill, if you chose to go for the frostbolt variant just switch this one out for https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Frozen_Trail .

As of 3.0, you will get one of these as a quest reward in mid act 5, for the second one you can either purchase the jewel from another player or level a second character and grab it as a quest reward again.

SCREENSHOTS

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SKILL DPS



this is with no buffs and very very mediocre gear.


DEFENSE




GEAR

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This is the current setup i have on the character in Harbinger League, all of the gear is selffound/crafted.



GEAR EXPLANATION

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LINKS AND GEMS

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Main DPS Setup

Frostbolt/freeze pulse - added cold - controlled destruction - faster casting - hypothermia/spell echo/cold pen

this build functions with both freeze pulse and frostbolt, if you want to switch between the two, all you have to change is your threshhold jewels and the gem of the main skill.
thanks to the jewels we have no need for GMP, this lets us fill up all the sockets with damage increases. added cold is a must, as it received a pretty huge buff in 3.0, faster casting and controlled destruction are also no-brainers, increasing damage and clear speed even more. the 5th link is left up to you to decide, i have given 3 options here, pick one you like, if you get access to a 6-link, pick a second one from those 3.

CWDT Setup

CWDT(lvl 10) - Immortal call(lvl 12) - Molten Shell(lvl 15) - Increased duration(lvl 20)

basically your standard setup for CWDT, the armour from molten shell isn't incredibly useful, but we got another socket to fill, so why not.

Mobility Setup

Flame dash - Faster casting - Fire penetration - Arcane Surge

Your basic Movement skill setup, since we got a 4link at our disposal I threw in arcane surge.
arcane surge most recently triggered as soon as you spent a certain amount of mana using the skill it was connected to, buffind spell damage and mana regen. keep this gem's level low enough to trigger of a single cast of flame dash, the fire penetration gem is in there for it's mana multiplier.

Aura Setup, Golem

Clarity - Herald of ice

pretty self explanatory, buff your mana regen for resource management and survivability, buff your cold damage for more cold damage.

for your golem the choice is pretty much up to you. wanna trigger Elemental overload more frequently ? use ice golem. need more defenses ? chaos golem. more speed ? lightning golem. you get the idea.

Curse Setup

Ball Lightning - GMP - Curse on hit - Frostbite.

still using a staff but got a 5link chest ? throw in increased critical strikes.





LEVELING

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Leveling is rather straight-forward, get a 3-link weapon with +1 to level of cold gems as soon as possible, socket whatever you main skill is in there and link it with added cold damage - lesser multiple projectiles, when you get to act 5 and have acces to the threshhold jewels, get the one for the skill you chose and switch LMP for faster casting/spell echo/ any of the more multiplier gems for spells.

there is a vendor recipe which produces a weapon with +1 to level of cold gems, the recipe is as follows:

-1 magic (blue) sceptre or wand (rolls don't matter)
-1 orb of alteration
-1 sapphire ring

you can augment the item afterwards, but even if you don't get a useful second stat, that weapon will take you to lvl 60+ just fine.


(the build can switch between freeze pulse and frostbolt very easily, just switch the skill gem itself and the threshhold jewels, nothing else needs to change, so while leveling you can test both skills. in most situations while leveling frostbolt will be the safer option.)

Contact

Whelp, this is the first time i've ever doen a build guide, so i apologize for all the mistakes in here, if you have constructive criticism or questions please post them or message me here on the forums or ingame. i am still working on a video for this guide which will contain gameplay and an explanation of how to gear up for maps.

THE END

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Huge thanks to MoarPizza for the the build guide template which reduced the time it took to write this up to under 5 hours.

UPDATE

added video

Thanks for this.

When you say the high tier maps and scaling are bad, what would you say is the highest map tier you can reasonably expect to be able to farm as a league starter?

Thanks for this, probably my starter for harbinger tonight :)

what is the gem link if I go to 2*3 socket weapon (instead of staff 5/6L) ?


Edit : to get early the +1 cold gems, use this vendor recipe (low on currency need)

Weapon (has to be magic)
Sapphire Ring (for +1 to Cold Gems)
Orb of Alt
=> Weapon with +1 to level of Cold Gems

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Downward_Spiral wrote:

Thanks for this.

When you say the high tier maps and scaling are bad, what would you say is the highest map tier you can reasonably expect to be able to farm as a league starter?

i can't say for sure, since we got some buffs in 3.0 and I only got to test a character over lvl 70 in standard 2.6, it also kinda depends on what you would consider a smooth experience etc. Suffice it to say i did some T8 and T9 maps in standard using a lvl 18 freeze pulse and didn't have what i would consider a bad experience.

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Pimousse wrote:

Thanks for this, probably my starter for harbinger tonight :)

what is the gem link if I go to 2*3 socket weapon (instead of staff 5/6L) ?

if you got a good 5-link or even a 6-link chestpiece and you chose to go with something like 2 well rolled rare daggers the links stay mostly the same, instead of your weapon your main skill goes into the chestpiece, while i would move auras and golems from wherever you got them into your weapons.

also thanks for the recipe, I considered that common knowledge, but in hindsight i'm probably wrong about that, i'll add it later.

Hey guys, i swapped out the link to the passive skill tree from poeplanner to the one on the GGG website, so now you can acces it again, sorry for the inconvenience.

Hows the league going for you so far? I'm level 42 having a rough time finding a decent staff.

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kasperbrah wrote:

Hows the league going for you so far? I'm level 42 having a rough time finding a decent staff.

getting a very good staff around 42 will be tricky, what's your current weapon if i may ask ?

This hunk of poo

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kasperbrah wrote:

This hunk of poo

you should be able to at least start mapping with that just fine.