Level 92 Freezing Pulse/Frost Bomb Elementalist Needing Build Help

I have a level 92 Crit Based Elementalist which I've been playing off and on since 2013 and I generally love the character and playstyle (I've tried a slew of other skills but FP/FB just resonated with me the most).

Lately I've been feeling frustrated with the lack of both adequate DPS and defenses as I tackle tier 14+ maps and Uber Atziri.

I've been playing strictly in the standard league as a SSF character (since before SSF league was a thing) and I've been fairly lucky with gear thusfar.

I'm using MoM, Arctic Armor and CODT+IC (as well as some golem tanking using minion life and meat shield) as my primary defenses. I used to have mana leech support (swapped it for Arcane Surge recently) attached to FP for mana pool sustain for MoM but since the gem now only supports attack skills I've been struggling to find a way to compensate.

I die every 3-4 maps, whether I attempt the boss or not, to OHK or very quick attacks from, usually ranged, enemies as I cannot get out of the way fast enough most times due to lag or just slightly slow reaction time (both of which I've tried to fix but have realized there's nothing I can do about either at this point).

I have tried swapping flasks around to include more utility/defense oriented ones like Basalt, Granite, Quartz, Jade but after trying each for several months I found my survivability didn't really increase so I've been sticking mostly with life flasks now.

I've also been struggling to get my total life pool to anything above 5.3k and I know some of that is gear and some of it is passives but I don't trade and, through tinkering, I've found that adding more life nodes takes a significant toll on my already subpar dps.

Essentially, I'm not sure where to go from here so I thought I'd post here and maybe get some suggestions for things I haven't thought of.

Thanks in advance!

Hello Exile!

Convenient timing; I've been playing a lot of FP recently in MSSFHC myself. That being said I just converted the build to Frostbolt in MSC to give it a try.

I managed to clear red maps with FP however I had to utilize layers of defense I wasn't used to using (I usually just go Life/Armour/Block). FP sadly loses damage during it's projectile life which means you need to be in roughly 'just outside melee' range to do the most damage. Because of this what seemed to work for me was defenses in this order: Freeze > eHP > Blind > Dodge/Block.

Freeze: This is what kept me alive most; ranged/melee can't hit you if they are frozen. I know this sounds a little 'cheesy' but making sure you have enough damage to freeze on almost every cast is a life saver. Avoid the % chance to avoid elemental ailments map mod!!

eHP: I found hybrid life+ES most comfortable after trying MoM and MoM+EB. Stone golem gives a nice amount of life regeneration while your tree and support gem gives some leech at the same time. You don't need to keep them even, just getting the 8 hybrid nodes to the right of the witch starting area and the "% life as extra ES" craft on body is enough. The dream would be to get "Corrupted Soul" https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Corrupted_Soul however, in SSF this is tough.

Blind: Since you're up close blind is easy to apply and provides a lot of safety. Early on "Flesh and Stone" aura combined with "Dread Banner" is amazing. Sure the banner is aimed at impale builds however it also lowers accuracy of enemies. Later on you can drop "Flesh and Stone" for a Redeemer influenced chest with the mod "Nearby Enemies are Blinded".

Dodge/Block: On top of the enemy having a low chance to hit with attacks, you'll then have dodge or block. Dodge is the easiest to get as it can be picked up off the skill tree in large quantities however, it makes your ES pool lower. If you go block you'll need to make sure you get the spell block nodes from the witch areas and use a shield with spell block chance to get best effect. On top of this you'll have to make sure you are using "Soul of the Brine King" as you don't want to get stuck in multiple block recovery animations when hit in quick succession.


When it comes to FP's damage I can't quite give you a quick answer as I haven't tried crit; I found elemental overload to work great instead. Perhaps try throwing in a Cold Snap + Bonechill to further up your damage?

If you go hybrid life+ES mana regeneration is easy to manage; just need to roll a "Eternal Mana Flask" with the mod "Flask Effect if not Removed at Full Mana". Ideally make a few of these flasks! Poison immunity for before immunity soul. Curse immunity once you have poison immunity soul. Bleed immunity for Awakener (Yes, I'm not kidding. As this build the scariest part of Awakener was the big bleed if you get touched at all by his final phase laser).

I hope this helps a little at least! Let me know if I can clarify anything or you have some questions :). Feel free to post a PoB link or your character if you want more targeted help.

Thanks for the quick and thorough response Pixel_Kitten.

Here is the link to my character so you can get a better sense of what I'm workin with: https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Deranged667/characters?characterName=FingerChickens

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Freeze: This is what kept me alive most; ranged/melee can't hit you if they are frozen. I know this sounds a little 'cheesy' but making sure you have enough damage to freeze on almost every cast is a life saver. Avoid the % chance to avoid elemental ailments map mod!!

Yup, I forgot to mention this as one of my defenses. Being a crit based build, freeze isn't hard to come by on trash mobs and bosses that aren't freeze immune/resistant but, as an example, on things like Atziri, some of the watchstone bosses, etc. I have a much rougher time.

"

eHP: I found hybrid life+ES most comfortable after trying MoM and MoM+EB. Stone golem gives a nice amount of life regeneration while your tree and support gem gives some leech at the same time. You don't need to keep them even, just getting the 8 hybrid nodes to the right of the witch starting area and the "% life as extra ES" craft on body is enough. The dream would be to get "Corrupted Soul" https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Corrupted_Soul however, in SSF this is tough.

Corrupted Soul would be nice, I agree. Right now I think I have grabbed all the most efficient pure life, as well as hybrid life/es, nodes on the passive tree I can which don't necessitate a significant loss of my DPS (including the ones you mentioned). I'm also not sure how to fit Stone Golem into my gem links as I currently run both Flame and Ice Golems, supported by minion life and meat shield, on a +2 to minion gems helm (which happens to have a 100% inc flame golem buff lab enchant on it) for the damage and crit buffs.

"

Blind: Since you're up close blind is easy to apply and provides a lot of safety. Early on "Flesh and Stone" aura combined with "Dread Banner" is amazing. Sure the banner is aimed at impale builds however it also lowers accuracy of enemies. Later on you can drop "Flesh and Stone" for a Redeemer influenced chest with the mod "Nearby Enemies are Blinded".

I always forget about Blind as a defensive ability for casters. Right now I'm running Arctic Armor for the damage reduction. I'm also using HoI for the damage and cold pen with Mastermind of Discord. This leaves me with limited mana to run other mana reserving skills. Since reading your post, I was thinking of linking Blind support to HoI as an alternative to running Flesh and Stone and then adding Dread Banner into my build as you suggested.

"

Dodge/Block: On top of the enemy having a low chance to hit with attacks, you'll then have dodge or block. Dodge is the easiest to get as it can be picked up off the skill tree in large quantities however, it makes your ES pool lower. If you go block you'll need to make sure you get the spell block nodes from the witch areas and use a shield with spell block chance to get best effect. On top of this you'll have to make sure you are using "Soul of the Brine King" as you don't want to get stuck in multiple block recovery animations when hit in quick succession.

Yeah, my dodge/block is almost non-existant as a dual-wield character. I guess I may have to bite the bullet and swap in a shield for my off-hand wand for the extra life and defenses.

"

If you go hybrid life+ES mana regeneration is easy to manage; just need to roll a "Eternal Mana Flask" with the mod "Flask Effect if not Removed at Full Mana".

Thanks, I'll look into this.

One question I do have is whether I should be using Clarity/Vaal Clarity at all or swap it for something else? Right now I don't have the mana pool to keep the Clarity aura on but I do use Vaal Clarity often to keep my character casting even as I'm taking damage or as a way to buy some time while I replenish mana flask charges. I'm wondering if some other Vaal skill (or skill in general) might be a better fit for my build.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!