[3.0] Life MoM Frost Cascade Miner (Viable for Everything)
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Hey there everyone! This is my first time posting a build guide, so please don't be too harsh on me, but critiques are welcome!
That said, let's get to it!
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Pros/Cons-
Pros:
-New Player Friendly! Helps to learn mechanics since we are able to place mines and learn to manually evade skills while detonating! At least I feel it would help to learn the game this way, but I've been playing for years- maybe someone with a bit less experience can give me some insight as to why this is not a valid statement. -Can start playing the build on a 4-link once you get to Act 5 and complete the unique jewel quest in a new league! -Cheap to start off- [[Tremor Rod]], [[Essence Worm]], and (2) [[Frozen Trail]] jewels are the only required unique items for the build to really start feeling good. -Good clear speed AND single target achievable on a single 5 link! -Scales great with end-game investment! -Reflect? What's that? We don't care about it for sure! -Able to do ALL content with relative ease on a Five Link! This includes all Guardians, Shaper, Uber Atziri, Breaches, Uber Lab, and yes, Hall of Grandmasters too! -Can run most all map mods, with exception of Blood Magic. No Regen maps, while doable, can make things difficult on the higher tier map bosses (guardians, mostly) as mana flask charges are likely to run out. I may be missing something, but I think every other mod is pretty much fair game. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cons: -EHP of only ~7.5k, but could sacrifice damage for more. -Not T1 Meta clear speed, ala Vaal Power Siphon or similar.
Mandatory Uniques
The Tremor Rod being mandatory for late, late game is actually debatable, but it is definitely the best way to get the build going. See info in "My Current Gear" section for more information. This one could also be swapped for something different, but we greatly decrease the effectiveness of our Mind Over Matter if we reserve 50% of our mana with Hatred and I would not recommend dropping it for end game. We need these (at least 1) for our Frostbolt to be at all effective at clearing.
My Current HSC Gear and Gem Links
Possibly BiS weapon for this build, though I'm still testing (read: trying to afford/acquire GG crit dagger) the idea of a dagger/shield combo, possibly dual wield I suppose. I originally thought that the best choice would be to go for the dagger/off-hand combo for the critical damage, however, the Tremor Rod provides a smoothness to the gameplay that I may not be able to give up, despite higher output of damage per volley of mines. My Path of Building link has a Tremor Rod in one weapon setup and a [[Divinarius]] with a [[Rathpith Globe]] (as cheap starter options) in the other. It also has specific skill setups designated for the 5/6 link Tremor vs. a 5/6 link chest piece for ease of testing. Do note that you can use a single 5-link Tremor Rod with 4B1G and use [[Increased Critical Damage]] instead of the [[Cold Penetration]] with the FB setup. This allows you to simply swap your Glacial Cascade, Physical to Lightning, and Concentrated Effect gems for Frost Bolt, Increased Critical Strikes, and Increased Critical Damage to go from single-target to general clear. I however, find it so much smoother to simply weapon swap when I need to switch to/from single target and got lucky coloring and 5 linking the two separate staves pretty early on. Definitely go for 4B1G if you can only afford a single 5 link Tremor Rod. But if you can get two like I have, I do think that Cold Penetration is a better gem than Increased Critical Damage is. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not required whatsoever here, I just hate having to worry about Freeze and would rather not take up a flask slot for it. Can be swapped for any rare helm with life/resists and maybe some mana on it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Again, not required for this build, but the health boost is pretty nice. A [[Carcass Jack]] works very well also, though it only provides damage boost to our Glacial Cascade. Any rare with life, resists and maybe some mana on it would work just fine here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This builds tree does not grant us very much Dexterity, of which we need ~111 for our Cluster Traps gem, so we need to think about picking that up in a 2 or 3 gear slots rather than spending points on the tree. Passive Tree investment can be a good idea during leveling though, so don't be afraid to spec into those +30 nodes. Keeping our attribute requirements in mind, the usual life, resists, and some mana is what you want if you're already covered. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pretty much the same story here, but of course we want some movement speed. So, look for movement speed, life, resists, and maybe some mana if you can. Two-tone boots are really a great option for the implicit resists- helps with gearing the other slots significantly. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Assuming we're able to cover our resistances elsewhere, which we should be, we want to get some juicy damage mods on our amulet. Critical Strike Multiplier, Critical Strike Chance and Increased Spell damage are the mods that increase our damage the most for this slot. That is 2 suffixes and 1 prefix, so you have room for some dexterity or resistance, as well as life, mana, or both. [[Bisco's Collar]] is of course an option here too. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pretty much required for our MoM to still be effective while utilizing our Glacial Cascade on single targets. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here we're looking to cover more dexterity, life an resistances. If we are able to cover resists and such elsewhere, we could go for a little bit of damage in this slot with an Opal or Diamond ring perhaps. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Again, life and resists. A Physical Doryani's is a decent option, albeit without a life roll on it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Flasks are up to you... these are just the ones that I currently have equipped and have suited me quite well. I'd keep at least 1 Life and 1 Mana flask on your bar at all times. You will also definitely want an anti-bleed flask, as it's deadly. A Warding flask is also advisable. Others are really up to you. Offensive Unique options would be [[Atziri's Promise]] (works with both skills, but FB does benefit less) and [[Taste of Hate]] (only works for GC, but the defense is nice on it). [[Wise Oak]] is a decent defensive and offensive choice, IF you can balance your resistances perfectly (all equal); otherwise, I don't think it's worth it solely for the offensive benefit. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My character currently only has the 2 Frozen Trail jewels and an Anatomical Knowledge jewel socketed. My tree at level 92 only has 3 sockets right now as I figured a better way of pathing while writing this guide (the level 92 tree here has 4 jewels). Aside from the Frozen Trails, I don't think any other jewel is mandatory. Clear Mind is a decent offensive boost, but I'm not sure how I feel about actually losing Clarity. More testing is required here, but it will likely be up to personal preference for each player in all honesty. The Anatomical Knowledge in the Witch area is good for giving us ~200 life for the character, but a rare with life and damage would be much better (a single stat 7% life jewel gives us ~110 life, so not much less), I just haven't felt the need to upgrade it yet and I kinda forget about jewels once I have something socketed in place... Other than the necessary Frozen Trail jewels, I believe that ultimately, the best mods to look for on jewels to fill in our other sockets will be Life>Crit Multi>Damage (damage being general, spell, or mine % increased damage).
Leveling Guide
My Path of Building link has the following trees input for quick selecting. I feel that it is pretty straight forward, but I'll explain some decisions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ~Level 26
Spoiler
Starting out, we're just going to grab some damage, life and a couple of mana nodes to help us get going. You can purchase a Frostbolt gem from Nessa as soon as you defeat Hillock (it's unfortunately not a quest reward for us though, so go ahead and buy it for a scroll). I would take the Fire Trap as your reward. I feel purchasing a Freezing Pulse gem from Nessa is worth it as it feels like it's slightly more powerful in the early stages when enemies can get up close and personal with you, though this is not necessary if you're comfortable using just FB with other utility skills early on. You'll also want to go ahead and purchase an Arcane Surge to link with Frostbolt (or Freezing Pulse). You could also choose to level with just about any elemental spell you feel comfortable with as our tree is going to be pretty generic for a while. That said, you should just do whatever feels good for you leveling up until we can get our mines going. I feel like I initially leveled with Freezing Pulse and Frostbolt, into Firestorm and a Flame/Firestorm Totem.
In Act 2, we'll help Alira because all of her bonuses will help us. If more detailed leveling information is requested, I'll create a new character and take more detailed notes as I'm bringing him to fruition. Note the slight respec of 7 nodes.
Spoiler
Here we reach out for more life, as well as some mana and Mind Over Matter to help boost our survivability. We also get our first 2 jewel slots so we can socket the Frozen Trail jewels. Don't be afraid to reach for these jewels earlier on as they make Frostbolt so much better to play with. You could have both your first 2 jewel sockets around level 34 or so if you wanted by simply respec'ing the 7 nodes (Coordination node and Nullification cluster along with the connecting dexterity node) into the 'outer highway' and then grabbing the Witch jewel socket ASAP.
Spoiler
At this point, we should definitely be using our mines for most, if not all of our damage.
Thus, we'll want to break into some of the damage nodes for our build- we'll pick up the big Clever Construction and High Explosives, as well as the Volatile Mines clusters. You may want to head for these earlier if you feel your survivability is already decent and want to start pounding away with your mines sooner.
Spoiler
Now we reach down to the Scion life wheel, because we are pretty desperate for it at this point. We'll also grab our third jewel socket and the rest of the Annihiliation cluster.
Spoiler
Time to get the Blast Clascade cluster for the juicy power charge generation, and then some sweet critical multiplier nodes in the Doom Cast and Throatseeker clusters.
Spoiler
Now we finally get our extra power charges, Witch area first for the increased spell damage per charge, as well as the Snowforged cluster.
Spoiler
For me, I want to feel more powerful after every level up, not every ~3 like you may expect we would do getting the next jewel sockets. Once you get leveled up this high, it takes long enough to gain one level, three is just too much to go between 'power boosts'. Instead of gathering the nodes straight out like one may think, I instead chose to add in the 20% critical chance nodes in the Blast Cascade and Doom Cast clusters for the first 2 levels, then respec out of them on the third level and grab the jewel socket. I find it more intriguing to level this way, but do so how you choose. My Path of Building link has trees for higher levels and shows this method in action between the level 92-95 trees.
I will now give a list of the gems you'll want to get as you go through your journey. Note that you probably will need/want multiple copies of some of these gems if you want to have your setup exactly like mine is, or go ahead and start leveling copies for GCP recipe and Vaal Orb usage. It's also not completely necessary for you to get all of these as you're leveling up since we can go back and buy the slightly leveled versions later from the vendor (or just get some real leveled gems from poe.trade), but if you have the sockets available to level them now, go ahead and do so! Act 1 Shadow Quest/Vendor Rewards: Frostbolt Arcane Surge Clarity Flame Dash Increased Critical Strikes Minefield Multiple Traps Remote Mine (note that you do not need any Remote Mine gems if you plan to use solely Tremor Rod, however, the Rod is not usable until level 45; to start playing mines before level 45, you must pick up this gem) Trap Frost Bomb Spell Totem Act 2: Concentrated Effect Faster Casting Increased Critical Damage Physical to Lightning Trap and Mine Damage Act 3: Hatred Glacial Cascade Enfeeble Cold Penetration (optional- see Tremor Rod info under "My Current Gear" heading) Increased Duration (can be purchased from Siosa after completing his quest, though this one is much less necessary than others at this point) Act 4: Cast When Damage Taken Cluster Traps Increased Area of Effect (optional- can be used with Glacial Cascade for clearing if you choose to skip out on Frostbolt, though I personally just stuck with Concentrated Effect myself- yes I initially leveled solely as Glacial Cascade and decided to add Frostbolt into the mix much later on) At some point you will want to obtain 2 Detonate Mines gems and a Vaal Clarity gem. These are drop-only gems, so you'll either need to get lucky, or trade for them. I recommend 20% quality on 1 of the Detonate Mines gems so that our Spell Totem casts that much faster (trust me, it's worth it).
Leveling Gear Options
The following is the gear I used basically up to my 80s in leveling.
It is not great, and I didn't even have my resistances maxed, but it got the job done. These are just possible suggestions and should not be taken as awesome options: The swords and the shield benefit Glacial Cascade greatly, as does the [[Ashrend]] if you use it for your mine setup. Can be a very good 4-link mine option before we get our Tremor Rod. You'll also notice the [[Deerstalker]] trapper boots. When I started leveling, I began with the physical nodes in the Shadow start instead of the elemental nodes since I had planned to just go with Glacial Cascade initially. Since I began this way, Bladefall was a perfect candidate for me to level with. I used these boots to create an easy 5-link Bladefall trap. This is probably not as effective with my elemental tree, but may still be a decent way to level. The [[Hrimsorrow]] gloves become completely useless once you're able to add the Physical to Lightning gem into your GC setup (unless you're doing the BF trap thing, which then there's an argument for keeping these a little longer).
Ascendancy
 We will be ascending into the Saboteur sub-class. You will first want to get Bomb Specialist and then Demolitions Specialist with your first 2 labyrinth completions. Merciless Labyrinth will have you getting the Explosives Expert node for that penetration, extra fire damage for Glacial Cascade, and the 10% reduced damage from traps and mines certainly doesn't hurt. The last 2 points are probably best put into Blinding Assault, as no other Notable in the Ascendancy really benefits us. I'd be glad to have some insight as to why another option is better here, but I don't think we have one.
Videos
I apologize in advance for the quality of these videos. I did not realize that my recording software was set on 720 output instead of 1080, and the quality of the video seems to be much more degraded than even that. I have changed this setting now, so future videos will hopefully be much better.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Xoph Breachstone Run --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T11 Shaped Racecourse Clear --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T12 Vault w/40% Pack Size Clear --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T13 High Gardens w/No Regen Clear --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T14 Springs Clear --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minotaur --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hydra --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phoenix --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Full Shaper Run --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hall of Grandmasters
Special Gem Setup
Take note of my Scorching Ray setup in the Tabula at the beginning of this video. All of these gems with the exception of the Burning Damage were purchased at the vendor and have been used solely in that Tabula for HoGM runs, so they are all ~lvl 11. I highly doubt even a 6 link would be necessary if these gems were leveled up to a more appropriate level- I'd think a 4 link would suffice, but haven't tested.
"But Tobi, why is this necessary in the first place?" you may be asking. For those unfamiliar with the Grandmasters map, there are a couple (maybe a few?) exiles that can spawn amongst it's halls which are focused almost solely on Cast When Damage Taken mechanics. These exiles do hardly any damage with their normal attacks and skills- some can't do anything other than the default attack if you do not hit them. These characters are also extremely tanky, focusing defenses, including lots of regen and leech from their CWDT setups in order to constantly heal themselves, making it extremely difficult to kill them outright with a build that focuses on hits. This is where the Scorching Ray setup comes in. Any Damage Over Time skill that does not actually hit the enemy would probably be a decent option, but this was the simplest one that came to mind, and I know Scorching Ray scales very well as it levels anyhow. You'll see in the video that I come across one or two of these CWDT Regen Tanks. Simply pop the Tabula (or whatever item) on with the Scorching Ray links in it, and keep that exile in the beam while they run around looking stupid, or possibly swinging their sticks in vain at you. I may have just made running this map for others a lot less profitable by discussing this topic here, but whatever... Not like a whole bunch of people are going to see this anyway, right? :) *EDIT* Here's the Tabula with gems in it: Full Uul-Netol Breachstone Run **Added 9/16/2017** This is actually a rather slow run... I didn't have my head in the game when doing this run and I kinda just lag behind while doing it. Still completed it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- T15 Beachhead Solo Run **Added 9/18/2017** --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More to come- I have killed Chimera deathless numerous times, just haven't gotten it recorded... My first Uber Atziri attempt this league failed because I managed to not kill the Trio in the right order... Both the melee guys fell first and then I just couldn't get close enough to Butterface (I know you guys have another name for her, but I like Butterface). Working on getting another Mortal set and hopefully a recorded deathless run for you guys. Have also ran Hall of Grandmasters numerous times for people this league, but haven't thought to record one. Next time, hopefully I'll hit that record button! **Video has been added** Also working on getting Chayula and Uul Netol shards gathered for runs to record, as I know there will be plenty of you saying, "But that's just a Xoph breach... puh-lease..." Chayula's just so damn rare/expensive and I have a wife and kid so... yea I can't play as much as I'd really like to in order to easily be able to do (by do, I mean afford) this content. I did have Chayula show up in a normal map's breach and I mowed him down without much issue, so I don't think the full run will pose too many problems. **Uul-Netol Video has been added**
Path of Building
Please let me know if you feel I've left out some important information or if you have any questions. Thanks for taking the time to look at my first build guide! And remember, stay safe out there! To all the girls in the red high-heeled shoes, they took all our money and stole all our boos. They ain't got their cherries, but that's no sin, they still got the box the cherry came in! Last edited by Tobias1501 on Sep 18, 2017, 2:16:18 AM Last bumped on Jan 10, 2018, 10:36:48 PM
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Nice, I like it.
You could improve abit on the leveling part though. Esp for the Kitava battle. When and how the skill tree should look like, recommended HP and so on. (Not many guides do this atm but it gotten important with 3.0) | |
" Thanks! I am aware the actual leveling guide part should be a bit more detailed, it's just hard to do that from a 'retrospective' viewpoint, especially considering how I initially started as pure Glacial Cascade and didn't actually introduce the Frostbolt into my build until well into maps. Most of my leveling with this specific character was done using trap setups with Deerstalker boots and the pseudo 6-link Ashrend. I will likely just start a brand new character and jot down notes as I progress and hit specific milestones. Again, thank you for your input! To all the girls in the red high-heeled shoes,
they took all our money and stole all our boos. They ain't got their cherries, but that's no sin, they still got the box the cherry came in! |
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Hi. Thanks for guide.
But I still dont get the totem/detonate think. Can someone explain me how it is work? I must cast totem to detonate my mines? or? I´m new player. Thanks | |
" There is a key bind for you to detonate totems by yourself- you do not need a Detonate Mines gem in order to do so. However, Spell Totem+Detonate Mines (gem) will constantly detonate them for you so that you can just spam placing mines and not worry about stopping to detonate them. Self-detonating them with your normal keybind (mine's set to R, not sure if that's default or not though) works fine for general map clearing, but when you want to lay down some heavy barrages of Cascades or Bolts, the Spell Totem combo works wonders. The totem merely has to be in the general vicinity of at least one mob in order to detonate your mines, whether you place them near the totem or not, if it can see an enemy, it'll constantly detonate your mines until it expires. To all the girls in the red high-heeled shoes, they took all our money and stole all our boos. They ain't got their cherries, but that's no sin, they still got the box the cherry came in! Last edited by Tobias1501 on Sep 14, 2017, 5:16:49 AM
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i
Last edited by MruczekM77 on Sep 14, 2017, 5:50:52 AM
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high single target pvp setup?
maybe go low life Use hatred on life rezervation and take same physical damage node? |
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" Ok, thanks. So generaly you must put totem every new screen (but it seem that not, from video, still little confused, sorry :/). right? | |
" u're doing this only for the bosses, when u need to blow something fast without any interruption for general mapping u just placing once, then pressing detonate while already running further Glacial Hammer now has 3-5% Chance to Poison on the character select screen. Last edited by HQuality on Sep 14, 2017, 11:51:01 AM
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" I don't really think you even paid much attention while (if you even actually did) reading the post. These trees are all Life/MoM based, so low-life makes no sense. You can build this for a low-life or even CI setup, that skill tree will look quite different though. I don't think low-life is at all necessary for the damage, as you can see from the videos I posted. I do not have the physical damage nodes in this build because those only benefit Glacial Cascade- yes, if you want your single-target damage to be higher, you can choose to pick these up in the Shadow start, and even the large cluster to the top right of Shadow start, but again, all of the videos you see are done with an elemental, hybrid Glacial Cascade and Frostbolt setup in mind. If you choose to go the physical damage focus route, your clear speed will not be as great as it can be with Frostbolt, just because Frostbolt covers so much more area and Glacial Cascade does. My single target is plenty high enough for me right now anyway without having to go into those physical nodes. In fact, the whole reason I added Frostbolt to my build in the first place is because it was lacking in clear speed, not single target. I initially had all of those physical nodes, but I respec'd into the elemental-focused trees in my guide and really only lost a small % of single-target damage... like ~10% if my memory serves. My Path of Building link actually has a high level physical tree saved in it so that you can choose to go only Glacial Cascade if you want. Just checked it- the difference in GC damage between my Level 100 elemental tree vs. the level 99 physical tree is less than 12% according to my math. I do pretty much dominate in Sarn Arena or PvP when I take this character into them, really only losing to insane KB wanders or KB miners, but I'm really not sure how many people actually care about PvP... but sure, we're good for that too- see Hall of Grandmasters video that I added for a semi-PvP example. To all the girls in the red high-heeled shoes, they took all our money and stole all our boos. They ain't got their cherries, but that's no sin, they still got the box the cherry came in! Last edited by Tobias1501 on Sep 14, 2017, 1:45:31 PM
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