[3.1] Ahn's Might Glass Cannon Frost Blades(1.9m Shaper DPS)

Introduction

This build is a new iteration of my previous frost blades build from Harbinger but now without all of the expensive gear plus new gems and items. Similar to my previous build, this build is very squishy so I would not recommend this for HC at all. I may die a few times who cares as long as I am having fun and efficiently farming maps and bosses.

With the Ahn's Might rework, it became one of the best 1H swords in the game for it's prices but that's if you can live with the pitiful 1.3 attack speed on them.

Path of Building Link

https://pastebin.com/7nXPTDLx

Pros and Cons
Spoiler

Pros:
Relatively cheap when I made this build
Insane clear speed
Nukes bosses faster than most builds
Doesn't use rare jewels in skill tree
20% Culling
High damage ceiling
Doesn't use Blade Flurry
MTX effects looks cooler on swords


Cons:
Insanely squishy without phys to cold conversion and blind from pandemonius
Damage is flask reliant
Not HC Viable
Blade flurry will still do more dps with the same budget




Videos

Some videos I recorded for the time being. There should be more right around mid league where I can invest into more currency to run the harder maps.

I also haven't ran elder guardians recently and didn't think of recording them earlier on in the league. Shaper guardians are harder anyways so those videos should be good enough.

Endgame Build Shaper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkSilBz2co8&t=38s

Shaper (Asked my friend to use his set because I didn't want to gamble with 100c and get nothing, so no guardian for now unfortunately :()
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gDFkX2iVAw&feature=youtu.be

Abyssal Lich I think this is the hardest lich form? I think he has different forms; one with skull face and one with the imp face from the supporter pack. This was on a shaped vault map so T14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXgS68Feiow&t

Shaped Vault
https://youtu.be/VvK0rBAerVE

Phoenix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiuOh0tHF2U

Hydra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmxsZjYQ6Ck

Minotaur
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T_gF6-KOH0

______________________________________________________________________________

Current Gear
Spoiler



It's that part of the league where I'll have to graduate from Ahn's Might. Extremely good start swords but eventually rare swords will just be straight up better. Next step is to replace scaeva with a similar sword. Looking out for rare swords with elemental damage with attacks on it now because it gives us a very good amount of dps and usually cheaper than the crit multi varaints.



Gear

Spoiler



Gear Explanation

Spoiler



This sword is the only reason why I made my league starter a pure frost blades character. Absolutely insane bang for your buck weapons that won't be beaten by rare 1Handers until spend at least 10-20ex on each sword plus all of the accuracy rings you would need to reach 90% accuracy. Once there are more readily available jewelled foils on the market and steel rings that have 350+ accuracy rating that doesn't cost a fortune, I would start making the switch.



I'd say this is a pretty mandatory for any melee build. Well for me that is since I value damage over anything. Freeze and blind from Pandemonius makes it fairly safe so the penalty is not too bad. I'd prob get one with a frost blade enchant last on my bucket list.



Using a impresence for mapping/grinding now because of the neat free blasphemy and life but only until I save up enough for a bisco's collar.

Pandemonius is insane for bossing and beats a crit ammy for sure when doing shaper/guardians. The blind on hit is also a extremely neat feature that makes bossing somewhat safer but don't rely on it too much since you'll always be in danger of getting 1shot by any breathing mob.



More life, whats not to love.

Extremely tempted in using an elder chest with at least 1% crit chance on attacks and lose about 300 life but most of the good ones are pretty expensive at the moment.



Probably one of my favorite and best unique that came out in Abyss. 10% more damage, life, attack speed and two more jewel slots made the choice a no brainer for me.



Where I try to get intelligence on since this build is so starved of it after the acuity nerf. Intelligence on the boots is the #1 priority and decent life and resists soon after. Once there are better boots available that gives intelligence and dual 45+ resistances then I'd say work on the rings. Currently my rings are the cheapest piece of gear on me at the moment because good steel rings cost a fortune right now so I'm waiting for the market to settle down a bit. The focus on rings right now should just be life, resists, intelligence and maybe some physical damage. Endgame goal should be life/intelligence/accuracy rating/physical damage/resistance.



Please don't use any other rare belt because not only are you losing life but also damage.



More DPS pretty much and the knock back from lion's roar makes bossing really safe. Taste of hate is pretty pricey so maybe use Oak if you don't want to splurge on ToH. Atziri's Promise is mandatory but it's cheap! The extra leech from the flask is so good.



Since mapping you're always going to have onslaught up, a silver flask won't be needed and having curse immunity on a flask is pretty much mandatory nowadays. But for doing bosses that don't spawn any adds like shaper and guardians you're gonna want to use writhing jar for the 20% more damage from our slayer ascendancy. Obviously you wouldn't want to replace your curse immunity flask when you're running a guardian map that has temp chains, ele weakness or enfeeble so keep that in mind.


Mandatory in every crit build and putting the freeze immunity on the diamond flask is also important
because you're always going to need it because the most deadly ailment in the game is chill/freeze. You do not want to play this game without chill/freeze immunity because of random sea witch mods, strongboxes and insane exiles and beyond mobs that will cast freezing spells on your whole screen.


Gems
Spoiler

Frost Blades Setup:


For Mapping Switch

for


Curse (With Impresence) :


When you no longer use Impresence switch to :


CWDT Setup :


(Actually fucked up and leveled Immortal call and CWDT by mistake and was too lazy to get new ones but use a level 1 CWDT and level 1 Immortal call instead.

Whirling Blades:


Faster Casting Vaal Haste/Summon Ice golem for QoL:


Auras and Misc:


Prioritize blood rage over leap slam if you aren't using an unset ring.


Jewels
Spoiler

No brainer choice here


Absolutely mandatory when running with ahn's might since it's only useful if you can get crit multi and accuracy at once.



Such an overpowered jewel that just boosts already strong skills that utilize hatred. The penetration version is fairly cheap (50c) and out performs my 4x crit multi back in standard when used on Shaper/guardian. Crit on hatred is obviously the better choice but it's pretty expensive at the moment and only a marginal boost over penetration for bosses. But this item gave me a new chase item for endgame after I get headhunter because you can get crit and penetration on the same jewel but that'll cost around 80 ex and assuming you ever see one on the market.


Ascendancy and skill tree

Spoiler
https://pastebin.com/zf4utVMR

Skill tree is set for level 95 because thats a realistic number that I can probably get to later in the league.

For the people that don't use PoB :

Usually people would want to go raider for frost blades but that obviously wouldn't work on this build since we're using Ahn's Might.

I've tried gladiator at the start but I hated it so much because of no stun or bleed immunity. And the extra defensive help from block from the tree alone is so bad unless you heavily invest into block so just having free stun immunity already trumps blocking.

Slayer is probably the best ascendancy for the class because it is so versatile and with the removal of the old Val Pact, it's better than ever.
Last edited by OrangeLeaf on Jan 4, 2018, 8:16:23 PM
Last bumped on Mar 2, 2018, 2:52:07 AM
kinda fresh look on frostblades items) interesting.
I dont have enough bulk atm for abyssus. What helmet should I use as a placeholder?
Rat's Nest or Starkonja is ok. Just don't use a rare helmet with resist because you're going to want to base your other resists around abyssus later on. I've seen people take light poacher on FB but it's kinda overkill since FB already clears so well.
Well, I've been wanting to build a FB char but I didn't feel like rolling a raider and wanted to try something different so I landed here. I'm curious though, how did you level? Did you use FB for the leveling process? I was thinking about getting a brightbeak and using sunder just to get through the early game quickly but I was wondering how you did it, thanks for the guide.
"
tmntnut wrote:
Well, I've been wanting to build a FB char but I didn't feel like rolling a raider and wanted to try something different so I landed here. I'm curious though, how did you level? Did you use FB for the leveling process? I was thinking about getting a brightbeak and using sunder just to get through the early game quickly but I was wondering how you did it, thanks for the guide.


This was actually my league starter and it went pretty smooth. I used frost blades for pretty much everything so no blade flurry cheese. But since it's mid league (I think?) It's probably better to just buy some leveling unqiues and go through it with sunder but frost blades is completely fine as leveling skill imo. Though, I also got a tabula very early on in the storyline so that might've made a big difference.
You know, I actually just stuck with frost blades to get used to it and just hit level 81, got mostly all the required stuff, sitting at 4200 life haha but I'm obliterating stuff. Currently have a potential of like 1.6 million DPS or something like that. I messed up and took two attack speed nodes instead of two health nodes at the beginning of the tree so I would be a little bit higher if it wasn't for that, probably gonna have to mess around to get more life and lose out on a damage node somewhere but so far this build clears super fast and is surviving better than I'd expect without instant leech. I've only done up to t12 so far because of my life but once I get to 90 or so I'll try guardians and such, super squishy but really fun so thanks for the build. I will say I've invested like 10 ex now and I'm doing about as much damage as my bloodseeker BoR BF zerker that I invested like 2 ex into but the clearspeed is a night and day difference.
Shoot, I forgot to ask, I'm not quite sure I understand the interaction with blood rage, does it create a faux frenzy charge so we get both bonuses from the ahn's mights? I'm also wondering if at some point it'll be better to get 400+ pdps swords over the mights, I got lucky and snagged a 347 pdps one for 1 alch and my other is only like 330 but it's working out so far.
Nah I just use blood rage because it's free attack speed and there's zero downsides to it because we're Slayers. I ditched Ahn's Might right when I had enough exalts to buy decent swords. Although, your 330 pDps sword may not be enough because I'm assuming it doesn't have any base crit on it.I remember scouring the market finding cheap swords under 10 exalts that could replace my Ahn's but it was pretty impossible. If you don't have PoB I really recommend getting it because it's pretty easy to plug in swords from poe.trade and see if it'll increase damage from duel wielding 2 Ahn's Might. I think it has an error right now if you replace replace 1 Ahn's Might or remove the frenzy jewel, It'll still give you both of the bonus for 50% crit mutli and 500 accuracy so keep that in mind. When you fully replace your swords you should also note that you're now freeing up a jewel slot so that could give you a huge DPS boost as well.

An example of said jewel
Last edited by OrangeLeaf on Jan 6, 2018, 1:47:33 AM
I have a 1 handed sword that has a total dps of 460 ( eDPS + pDPS ). I was wondering if I should get rid of my ahn for it?

Report Forum Post

Report Account:

Report Type

Additional Info