[3.7] Cold Executioner - Ice Crash Slayer - easy and cheap build - SSF vialble

Hello fellow Exile, this guide shows you how to make Ice Crash a fun and successful experience. I theory crafted and played this build in SSF only, accordingly with limited gear options. As the build tourned out very powerful for me I think it will work even better on non-ssf. I will provide all my thoughts about gear and everything else that plays a roll when playing a certain build.
Please keep in mind that I am only playing SSF, there is no way I will ever migrate to trade league facing its bad state. Also be aware that I have not in mind being able to kill Uber Elder with this build as I dont aim for being able to do so in SSF. Yet I think it is UE capable with maxed out gear or even less.


Path of Building for my current character (+2 additional skilltree options for lvl 97): https://pastebin.com/n9Zn9Adb

Media coming soon!
Coming soon too: Leveling Section, Life Flask, Flask Section, better survivability section


Pros and Cons:

+ fast, safe and satisfying clearing
+ fast and satsfying one hit boss killing potential
+ satisfying effects of Ice Crash and Herald of Ice
+ cheap to gear for, the only BiS Unique costs 1c on trade league


- probably not that off-meta
- can be squishy if the worst comes to the worst
- guardians are a bit hard to kill, especially Mino and Chimera... god I hate the both of them so much
- Automaton Herald Effect required for full enjoyment ;)


The Basics:

Offensive: We scale physical damage, convert 90% of it to cold and scale elemental damage then too. The Terminus Est is a cheap two handed sword that can carry us through the endgame.Yes, its physical weapon damage is quite low, but it has over 8% base crit chance and good attck attack speed. Due to the high crit chance we dont have to take Overwhlem and can instead take Impact which makes the build much more fun. A great side effect of the TE is the Frenzy CHrge generation, even during a Shaper fight we have access to 3 Frenzy Charges: 4% more damage and 4% increased attack speed per charge. I dont think further investment into frenzy charges is worth it tho.

You can of course use the weapon of your choice, TE isnt madatory for this build but it is very cheap and still very powerful. If you want to compare your characters damage with TE and with your Weapon keep in mind to disable frenzy charges with your weapon as you wont get access to those in Boss situations.

Defensive:
Obviously we scale as much as possible life. Armour is important too, especially for Molten Shell. Defensive layers are Freeze, that keep most mobs from hitting us, the whole Over Leech node of the Slayer (check it out) and thats basicly it. If you have played Winter Orb before you surely knwo how effective freeze and leech can be.
You can build your character a bit tankier by sacrificing damage, I will tell you how below in this guide.

Passive Tree/Pantheon/Bandits and Ascandancy Choices:
Spoiler
Passive Tree: www.poeurl.com/cuvO
Some words on the tree: we just picked some sowrd damage nodes, preferably those that increase attack speed, crit chance and/or accuracy rating. Nodes that only increas physicle damage do not add that much damage. ELse we just grabed some other damage nodes like the fortify cluster. We cannot justify the long way to the big life wheel so I mady my way up to every life nodes that we can get on out path which isnt that much sadly.

Ascandancy (Slayer):
Some general words on this topic: I know a lot of people like cull, but I dont. Personally I dont see it as a damage increase as it does not make a tough enemies health go down fast before you've reached 20%. Even besides that I think the right part of the Slayer tree is better, or at least suits my build better.
Next is the crit node that I want add some words about: simply put - we dont need it as terminus est has even more than 8% bas crit chance. This can be considered a waste of the slayers potention but I feel this is the best all inclusive version. By not having to get Overwhelm we can get Impact, whose advantages I will tell blow.
If you have a sword that easily outplays Terminus Est's (+Frenzy Charges) physical damage but has a low base crit chanse you can get Overwhelm for the sake of Impact. But check PoB before you make this decission.

Take these nodes in the following order while leveling:
1. Impact: this gives you all the increased AoE you need from the tree to make Ice Crash feel and clear well. Besides that we get increased accuracy rating which is extreamly helpful when it comes to maxing out our hit chance. The 15% more melee damage can be neglected as it isnt that big and we dont necessarily want to be close to our target - for survivability purposes.

2. Endless Hunger: Overkill Damage leeched as life is very useful thus hard to describe, just watch you healthglobe before and after taking this node and you will see the diffrnece when killing monsters. It basicly allows you to leech a lot of life even tough the enemy you just slayed didnt have a lot of life.

3. Brutal Fervour: Makes that leech doesnt end when your health is fully recovered which makes leech similar to Life Regeneration. This way you still leech some seconds after having damage dealt. This is a nice to have in my opinion. It adds small defensive and quality of live bonuses. The real power comes frome the other effects of the node. Less damage take, increased attack damage and speed are combined with the over leech just very powerful.

4. Headsman: Basicaly the biggest Damage boost that Slayer grants us access to. Nothing to add here I think. Just take it as last node as we dont need that damage before, it still feels great to have though.

Bandits:
Help Alira, we need some mana regen, as well as the crit multi obviously, the all res helps with gearing

Pantheon: Soul of Solaris to avoid some of the bigger hits and Soul of Shakari for the Poison Immunity
Gear:
Spoiler

My current Gear (SSF, not all BiS accordingly, the only really good item is the amulet i think):
Spoiler



In-depth gear explanation:
Spoiler
Weapon: Terminus Est or a good rare Sword:
Example: 8.2% base crit chance and at least 400 pdps to be on the same damage level with TE + frenzy charges
or: take Overwhelm instead of Impact, in this case you dont have to care ybout the base crit chance, for the sake of less accuracy rating and a lot less AoE.

Body Armour:

Unique Options: Belly of The Beast (cheap to start with, much better rare chests exist tho), Kaoms Heart (much more Life, but you would have to sacrifice some gem set ups... choose wisely)
Rare stats: Life, incr. maximum Life, increased base attack crit chance, Armour, Resists (-# to mana cost is nice, but not necessary, Maim support isnt needed as we do barely deal any phys damage)

Helmet: Dont take Abyssus, its crap.
Rare stats: Life, Rsists, Intelligence, -#% to cold resists of near enemies, Armour
Enchantment: Any Ice Crash enchantment you like the best, phys added as cold is the best

Gloves:

Rare stats: Life, Resists, Attack Speed, Phys damage added to attacks, Armour

Boots: Kaoms Roos should be fine, for the sake of Gems tho...
Rare Stats: Life, Resists, Armour, Movement Speed
Enchantment: Added Cold or Attack Speed

Amulet:
Rare Stats: Life, Intelligence, Resists, Phys Added as Cold, Crit Multi, Elemental Damage with Attacks, Added Phys, Added Cold, Crit chance ... take whatever you can get.

Rings:
Rare Stats: Life, Intelligence, Resists, Increased Elemtal Damage with Attacks, added phys, added cold, attack speed (craft)

Always prioritise Life, max out your resists and get at least 111 Intelligence. Otherwise get as much damage mods as possible, I listed them in order of importance.

Some words on Jewels: I have very limited access to good Jewels in SSF which is why I didnt path to any Jewel node in the passive tree. If you got some good jewels (crit multi, attack speed, life!, melee damage etc) you might wanna check what to sacrifice for a jewel node, but for me all the gernerall nodes are just too good to replace them with some mediocre jewels.
But of course a Hatred Watchers Eye can be very powerful and I would definitly take one if I had one.
List of hatred Mods, beginning with the best:
- Cold pen
- Added Cold
- Crit Chance
- Increased Cold Damage

Gems:
Spoiler
6 Link:
Ice Crash - Hypothermia - Fortify - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Ruthless - Concentrated Effect (swap Conc Effect for Increased AoE support for clearing)

4 Link:
Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Endu Charge on Melee Stun - Blood Magic

5 Link:
Orb of Storm - Power Charge on Crit - Curse on Hit - Frostbite - Increased Critical Strikes

2 Link:
Cast when Damage Taken - Molten Shell

2 Link:
Cast when Damage Taken Lvl: 9 - Blood Rage Lvl: 14 (I am just too lazy to press it my self...)

Fill the rest with:

Blood and Sand, Hatred, Herald of Ice, Lightnign Golem, Vaal Ancestral Warchief
Last edited by henry4200 on Jun 26, 2019, 10:03:55 AM
Last bumped on Jun 29, 2019, 5:57:13 PM
I will try this build today but few questions/hints? came up...

Bandits:
Here you said help Alira, Pob say kill all.. Which one is it now?

Ascendancy:
To bane of legends; in PoB it isn´t activated instead the Headsman, since it´s the path to bane and we would need to more points...
Is it possible to get 2 more points? If not than what will change here?

cheers
"
wowa1990 wrote:
I will try this build today but few questions/hints? came up...

Bandits:
Here you said help Alira, Pob say kill all.. Which one is it now?

Ascendancy:
To bane of legends; in PoB it isn´t activated instead the Headsman, since it´s the path to bane and we would need to more points...
Is it possible to get 2 more points? If not than what will change here?

cheers


I updated the PoB as I just forgot to set the bandit choice. Concerning the ascandancy I just mixed up Bane of Legends with Headsman, I fixed this too.
Thanks for noticing!
Last edited by henry4200 on Jun 26, 2019, 9:37:38 AM
Hi, so i'm going to try out your build, however i'm still a bit not sure if i should do since we're depending to much in the life lech aspect of the build, and therefore i'm not that sure that it will survive to big hits, maybe a 6 link chest with chunks of armour may be safer(now i understand that over leech is like an extra health pool).

Also that many offcolors to an Terminus Est are just not viable(6-link Terminus costing 2.8ex damm) and 5 blue in a terminus est(am i a joke to you).
Not using a critical support and instead of orb of storms put a vaal ice nova to a 4 links may be better to legion encounter since it causes a chain reaction.

For leveling until we have ice crash maybe use frost blades (i was trying with double strike but it feels like slow as hell).
Last edited by CamarãoComunista on Jun 30, 2019, 8:49:39 AM

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