[3.9] Frostblades Assassin SSF Viable. 1M+ DPS w/ Budget gear! League starter! Insane Clear Speed

Hey pal, fantastic guide.

Just wondering, what's the viability of this build vs the new improved bosses in 3.9?

Do you happen to have any gameplay video to showcase this?

Appreciate the work you do. Thanks!
yeah I am curious as well how this builds holds up against the new bosses and T16 maps in general. Survivability got a lot harder with 3.9 so I am not sure if this build is good enough defensive wise for the new content.
"
InsaneX3 wrote:
yeah I am curious as well how this builds holds up against the new bosses and T16 maps in general. Survivability got a lot harder with 3.9 so I am not sure if this build is good enough defensive wise for the new content.


I've taken it up to level 82 as a league starter, and I'm struggling. My gear could definitely be improved (and I haven't spent the time to qual my gems yet, but I've made it to red maps with less in the past.

Even with a Belly of the Beast, you're looking at ~4.5k to 5k HP. Steelskin gives you another 1150, but it's been disappointing: the Steelskin health pool doesn't take effect until *after* you take a big hit, and still lets 30% of incoming damage through to your (now diminished) life pool. Even in the best case, it won't take a solid hit for you.

Evasion and Spell Acrobatics help, kind of, but your life total is so low that one or two unlucky rolls will kill you. Whirling Blades can get you out of the way of big windups, but Frostblades (and worse, Double Strike) require you to stay fairly close to hit bosses. Your life leech is almost negligible against single-target, even with Vaal Pact, which has caused me to run extra life flasks while I shop for the Taste of Hate.

The damage is also lacking. Boss fights are a slog, especially with leech or regen metamorphs. But even act bosses were tough--I don't think I've had this much trouble getting to maps since they took out Cruel and Merciless modes. Your life leech and chaining will help you clear trash mobs quickly, but you'll have to stop and pound away at rare monsters for a second or two, and map bosses even longer.

You're also managing a good number of active buffs, which bring down your actual DPS even more. Self-cast golems and unbuffed totems die quickly and need recasting fairly often. You MUST whirling blades frequently to keep fortify up and avoid big hits (which can also take you out of melee range if you're not careful). Then you're managing Berserk and Rage stacks, as well as three damage-boosting flasks--all of which tend to run out against tanky bosses. If you lose your momentum at all, you'll lose your charges and be even worse off. And you'll need to swap out a gem on your body armor for bosses (which I admittedly forget to do pretty often).

Just... a slow, slog of a build at the moment. If I'm missing something major, please let me know.

"
AtlasJackson wrote:
"
InsaneX3 wrote:
yeah I am curious as well how this builds holds up against the new bosses and T16 maps in general. Survivability got a lot harder with 3.9 so I am not sure if this build is good enough defensive wise for the new content.


I've taken it up to level 82 as a league starter, and I'm struggling. My gear could definitely be improved (and I haven't spent the time to qual my gems yet, but I've made it to red maps with less in the past.

Even with a Belly of the Beast, you're looking at ~4.5k to 5k HP. Steelskin gives you another 1150, but it's been disappointing: the Steelskin health pool doesn't take effect until *after* you take a big hit, and still lets 30% of incoming damage through to your (now diminished) life pool. Even in the best case, it won't take a solid hit for you.

Evasion and Spell Acrobatics help, kind of, but your life total is so low that one or two unlucky rolls will kill you. Whirling Blades can get you out of the way of big windups, but Frostblades (and worse, Double Strike) require you to stay fairly close to hit bosses. Your life leech is almost negligible against single-target, even with Vaal Pact, which has caused me to run extra life flasks while I shop for the Taste of Hate.

The damage is also lacking. Boss fights are a slog, especially with leech or regen metamorphs. But even act bosses were tough--I don't think I've had this much trouble getting to maps since they took out Cruel and Merciless modes. Your life leech and chaining will help you clear trash mobs quickly, but you'll have to stop and pound away at rare monsters for a second or two, and map bosses even longer.

You're also managing a good number of active buffs, which bring down your actual DPS even more. Self-cast golems and unbuffed totems die quickly and need recasting fairly often. You MUST whirling blades frequently to keep fortify up and avoid big hits (which can also take you out of melee range if you're not careful). Then you're managing Berserk and Rage stacks, as well as three damage-boosting flasks--all of which tend to run out against tanky bosses. If you lose your momentum at all, you'll lose your charges and be even worse off. And you'll need to swap out a gem on your body armor for bosses (which I admittedly forget to do pretty often).

Just... a slow, slog of a build at the moment. If I'm missing something major, please let me know.



My thoughts exactly at the moment. I chose this build as my league starter and I've leveled it to 86 at the moment. Clear speed is fine. Mobility is fine. Boss damage and overall survivability feels very lackluster. I like the build and how it plays but it's uber squishy against high damage output bosses & metamorphs. With belly, I have about 4.5K health and it just doesn't feel sustainable. Frost Blades and Double Strike require you to be up close and personal in most situations to deal damage. Yes, ancestral warchief can plug away while you're kiting and dodging around but on it's own, it's not significant damage by any means. You're not doing meaningful damage while you're kiting around trying to evade hits and having to be up close to deal damage puts you in the danger zone in most cases to take a significant hit. Doing izaro in uber lab right now feels near undoable at 86. I got humiliated by him a few times tonight and have given up essentially. I'm not saying it's the builds fault entirely, lord knows I'm not the best PoE player however, I feel the HP pool and single target output of this build is really holding it back.

My jewelry items can definitely be improved and my gear isn't the greatest but I feel like i'm going to hit a wall shortly as far as boss damage and survivability goes. The build is fun to play and it's definitely not expensive right now but, just my 2c.

Last edited by KFieLdGaming on Dec 23, 2019, 1:31:09 AM
I have been up to tier 14 in maps, and haven't had much of a difficulty to be honest, being squishy I can agree on and Steelskin still hasn't convinced me.

Furthermore, the build only mentions a budget friendly version that would have worked in 3.8, but in 3.9 (post resist, life and armour buff to monsters and bosses) may feel a bit lacking.

I personally wasn't a fan of Doublestrike, so I removed it.

Furthermore, to get max DPS out of Frostblades, replace Added Cold damage with Hypothermia. (I havent done that yet cause I'm still leveling my Hypothermia gem).

I dropped Cwdt to level 6 and Steelskin to level 13 (procs more often).

I'm still currently improving my build (leveling gems, etc), but I spent my exalt on a Shaped Necklace, then collected enough to Annoit it with Claws of the Falcon.

Based on replacing some gems, and changing a few things on PoB, I managed to churn out 2M+ DPS without even changing the weapons (which I think should be replaced with Rare ones, but I need to calculate on PoB what stats are necessary) and Helmet (I'm 100% positive I can get more gains from a rare helmet).

Gear ATM is like this



Ignore inspiration and empty sockets, was just testing out a few combos with the build that's all.

Onslaught is wasted, I know, but it helped me at lower levels so I kept it there, I'll eventually redo the helmet / offhand sockets whenever I can.

I still have a lot to change in order to reach my desired output, but I do believe the build is capable of 3-4M dps (if not more with rare weapons).

I also swapped out opportunistic for Mistwalker for a bit more defensiveness.

FWIW: In PoB I socketed my gems as follows:

Frost Blades > Elemental Damage with Attacks > Hypothermia > Multistrike > Rage > Ruthless (Swapped with Ancestral Call when clearing).

Just need to get the damn 6 link now!
Last edited by murasam3 on Dec 23, 2019, 3:49:22 AM
Hey, I have a few doubts with a final equipment, I followed the guide, but you don't show the same items in the video as the file for path of building...so I ask.

Better to use the immortal call than steelskin.
the rings are not the same...and dont know what to choose.

how you raise your strength... I'm pretty close to that, and I see the red gems at a higher level than I can get.
In the vid of this build he didn't even do t16.


How is this build feeling in 3.9 everyone? like boss damage/mapping at the higher levels?
Here's my honest opinion.

It's a fantastic build to start with, very fast clear speed and gear requirements isn't really high.

However, end-game it struggles especially with the new buffs, I've tried improving it with a few exalts, it can still do almost everything but it is not gonna be easy.

Build definitely helped me get enough $ to work towards another build.
"
murasam3 wrote:
Here's my honest opinion.

It's a fantastic build to start with, very fast clear speed and gear requirements isn't really high.

However, end-game it struggles especially with the new buffs, I've tried improving it with a few exalts, it can still do almost everything but it is not gonna be easy.

Build definitely helped me get enough $ to work towards another build.


Thought so. Thanks dude.
Hello !
first, thank you for the guide :)
I'm a beginner on POE and i dont know how to upgrade my actually gear
Spoiler



what should i do to improve my gear and less die on boss?
Thanks
Last edited by raeNNN on Jan 1, 2020, 9:32:26 AM

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