[3.7] Frost Spear CoCospri Assassin (budget version 60c estimated / 4ex for all content)
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Hello everyone, this is my first guide and I like to keep things simple.
Feel free to ask any questions or message me in-game, I know the interactions get complicated really fast. Hope you enjoy! Intro - updates and general info
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I intend to make a viable guide to both new and old players. When I started playing PoE, I tried to follow guides that didn't specify the true cost of the build, or overestimated the damage. And it can be really frustrating when there is no mentioning to an expensive item that is 100% required to make the build work.
That is why I tried to make a budget functional version, showing the upgrades and options to fit your own budget. Jul 10th - updated info on budget and detailed gear Jul 17th - updated name, skill gems and detailed gear Jul 23rd - added jewels info and trade links The build changed a lot since the first time I posted. I wanna say thanks to everyone that replied and contributed to min/max the build, any suggestion is appreciated! Shoutout to Ultimesk, Coatesy and diablomix! With reasonable investment (about 4-5ex), you can clear all content deathless (including uber elder and uber atziri). The 60c budget is legit for Legion, considering cospri's malice as 35c - you can buy the main uniques for 45c (weapon, shield, helmet and ring). Then you have to 15c to spend on 6 rares and 3 jewels, focusing on life and around 50-55 resist on each slot. After many suggestions and testing, the best setup I found is frostbolt/ice nova/ice spear. Ice nova instead of ice spear is strong but lacks aoe and clearing speed without proper investment. Arc is still awesome for Legion encounters, especially with Vaal Arc, but Ice Spear will give you more dps paired with good aoe. Build Summary
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1. Assassin ascendancy for high crit chance, power charge generation, culling strike and reflect immunity;
2. Cospri's Malice for casting two cold spells and an extra Cast on Crit setup on the armour; 3. Critical Multiplier to abuse the high crit chance; 4. Solid defense with more than 7k hp, evasion, chill, freeze and 78 max elemental resists. Permanent blind and fortify. This is the only required item, and together with a cast on crit setup on the armor, we get our damage going. Your main spells will be Frostbolt, Ice Nova and Ice Spear. Vaal Arc can be used instead of Ice Spear for bonus Legion shenanigans. Cheap Version Quick Guide - follow this if you are new to the game
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All you need to see how the build performs are a Cospri's Malice and a 5-link body armour, really. You can fill the rest with rares, and then start buying other stuff if you enjoy it.
PoB: https://pastebin.com/F8Ak8KYD
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1. Get to level 68;
2. Buy Uniques: Cospri's Malice, Lycosidae, Starkonja, Mark of the Shaper and an Elder rare ring; 3. Buy rares: 5-link armour, gloves with increased damage against chilled enemies (these come with cold resist), amulet, belt and boots (preferably with 30 movement speed); 4. Buy jewels and flasks: one frozen trail, two rares jewels with life, crit chance or multi, spell and elemental damage, a Wise Oak and an Atziri's Promise; 5. Buy and socket gems (Lilly Roth - Oriath):weapon (frostbolt, ice nova, life leech), shield (leap slam, fortify, faster attacks), helmet/boots/gloves (cwdt, frost bomb, steelskin, enfeeble - herald of ice, ice bite, onslaught, zealotry - vortex, arcane surge, unbound ailments, bonechill), body armour (cyclone, cast on crit, increased crit strikes, hypotermia, ice spear) 6. Get Alira for bandits, Lunaris/Gruthkul for Pantheon and Deadly Infusion on the ascendancies. By level 68 with cheap gear you will have around 5k hp to start mapping. Leveling
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Keep in mind that your weapon needs level 68 to be used, but you can level up with frostbolt and ice nova, since they synergize really well. Abuse the Vaal Ice Nova in Blood Aqueduct runs. A 4-linked spell, with Herald of Ice and Thunder usually gives enough damage to go through the 10 acts, but a Tabula Rasa always helps.
Look for rare items with spell damage, elemental damage, damage added to spells and cast speed. Fill the other slots with life and resists. You can mirror the final tree as you level up, focusing on the damage nodes for clear speed, and getting only the nearest life nodes to be more efficient. Leave crit multiplier nodes for later (after you get Deadly Infusion ascendancy). Storm Brand with Added Lightning and Onslaught is also a good option. If you have a Poet's Pen, try Arc and Lightning Warp. Detailed Build Level 100 PoB https://pastebin.com/wYs6KcbD
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Current Gear and Gem Links
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Shaper DPS
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PoB doesn't calculate the CoC damage, so I considered 6 casts per second for each setup:
No buffs: 1.5M Using flasks: 2M Flasks and Vaal skills: 2.5M Talent Tree / bandits / pantheon
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https://pastebin.com/wYs6KcbD
Ascendancy order: "Unstable Infusion", "Deadly Infusion", "Ambush and Assassinate" and "Opportunistic" last. Bandit: Alira. Pantheon: Lunaris and Gruthkul Gem Links
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Basic setup for damage in your weapon with leech as main source of sustain. Body armour setup for the extra Cast on Crit and perma Fortify. Use the fortify with leap slam if you don't have a 6-link. The spell is open for any choice, but the best are Ice Spear, Arc and Ice Nova. You can clear all the content with all of them: Just make sure you pick a skill gem with inherent aoe to compensate for the lack of aoe increasing from the tree/items. 1st 4-link - Cast when Damage Taken fully defensive setup. You drop zealotry and use the enfeeble with blasphemy before acquiring the Watcher's Eye. 2nd 4-link - The Herald of Ice explosions will provide clear speed, frenzy charges and onslaught. 3rd 4-link - Vortex will be used on bosses mostly. Link an Arcane Surge level 7 if you don't have other sources for it. Shield - Flame Dash for utility, Vaal RF and Vaal Haste to melt bosses together with the Vortex setup. Detailed Gear
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Weapon
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Only option. No need to corrupt for another implicit. Shield
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I went lunaris for damage only, but you can go with a rare shield for more balance with life and spell damage/crit. The jaws of agony will be on your off hand to keep the power charges up on bosses. You need unnatural instinct and tempered mind to cap the hit chance, otherwise, use lycosidae: If you can't get any of the uniques to cap you accuracy, drop Ice Bite to save mana and level up your Precision Aura with an Ice Golem. Helmet
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Starkonja with an enchant matching one of your skills gives everything you need. An upgrade would be a fossil crafted with life and -cold res to enemies, plus any other useful stat. But remember that you need a lot of dexterity to use your weapon. Body Armour
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The max resists are still awesome, even with the nerf from 80 to 78%, and this build benefits from all other stats too. You can get a rare elder/shaper armor with crit chance and life/resists, but personally, I still prefer the max elemental resists from the Loreweave. Gloves
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Your enemies are permanently chilled, so get the temple mod with increased damage against chilled enemies, which also comes with cold resist. Get one of those with life and other resists too if possible. They aren't expensive this league, so you can even try to corrupt for some extra utility. A defensive and expensive choice is Atziri's Acuity, for the permanent Vaal Pact, but you'll lose damage. Belt
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To craft one with cold and elemental damage, you need frigid (cold) and prismatic (elemental) fossils. The easiest way is to use a 3 socket ressonator, with pristine (life) fossil as 3rd choice. Shaper belts can have cooldown recovery speed, or can be bench crafted as a suffix. They reduce the 150ms coc cooldown, raising the dps cap for this build, but only significant on bosses. Before crafting the one I'm using now, I had rare with a lot of life and some resists to get them even for Wise Oak: Boots
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A good rolled rare with life is the best option. I suggest getting 30% move speed or more, considering cyclone slows you down, and most of time you'll be spinning around. Cheap alternatives are Mutewind Whispersteps and Doryani's Delusion (cold damage). You can search for cooldown recovery speed on shaper boots too, to reduce the 150ms coc cooldown. Amulet
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The most expensive unique on the build, and also the best item for the slot. The blind alone is an extra defense layer. Yoke of Suffering is a good alternative. It is cheaper, have resists to help gearing up early and gives a nice damage boost. You'll lose damage against bosses (no shock) and the blind, when compared to Pandemonius. You can even use a bisco or a rare with quant if you like MF. Rings
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The Shaper ring is a cheap and effective option, giving some life and a lot of damage. Pair it with an elder ring with life and resists. You can try to get a curse on hit in the elder ring too, either poacher's and warlord's mark are useful. Switch Steelskin for Immortal Call if you have Warlord's Mark on Hit. Flasks
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1. Dying Sun for extra projectiles and some aoe; 2. Wise Oak for damage and defenses (try to balance the resists, or at least get cold higher and even fire/lightning); 3. Atziri's Promise for damage (only the elemental damage roll matters, you don't benefit from phys roll); 4. Diamond anti-curse for extra crit rolls; 5. Quicksilver anti-freeze for zoomies. Jewels
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One Tempere Mind above the witch area, two Might of the Meek for extra hp below and left of the Scion area, and an Unnatural Instinct to the right. You can search for a different Watcher's Eye, with different auras, but I recommend getting the precision crit multi in one of the mods (precision level 1 costs 22 mana only). For the other rare ones, focus on life, and crit multi matching your skills. A corrupted one with the implicit "corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you" is really useful for the high tiers maps, considering it takes less than half second to can drain 7k life. Get one Frozen Trail if you are not using Dying Sun. Trade search for 2 mod cheap rare jewels with life: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/WlZlGzfm Trade search for 4 mods rare jewels with life: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/28rn7psk Trade search for Watcher's Eye mods: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Legion/GEjeEOFb Map mods
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No leech - the only mod you'll always avoid, since leech is your only source of hp sustain
Chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments - only a problem on red maps and if the map has porcupines, like orchard, because they won't freeze and explode on death Elemental reflect - your crits can't reflect damage, so shouldn't be a problem with diamond flask and power charges up. With all the ascendancies, the bonus crit chances from assassin should get you capped or near the cap. Still, in the end, it will depend heavily on your gear and tree choices. No regen - swap a mana flask or a mana on hit jewel Other than these mods, just alch the map and go Legion Tips
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21/23 gems - they are cheap this league and spells get a lot of extra damage with each level; Legion encounters - never stop moving, or you will be nuked by the rare mobs in higher tiers; Corrupted blood - some rares can give you corrupted blood, and you won't be leeching them until they break free. Either grab a corrupted jewel or be extra careful. Have a nice day! Last edited by nBonaldo on Jul 23, 2019, 2:31:49 PM Last bumped on Aug 7, 2019, 11:47:04 AM
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Looks like an OP build! Do you have any video footage of mapping/bossing?
Also, what's the fastest way to level this you think? Poet's pen with arc? |
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" I'll record something later today, the damage is enough to melt any boss. Poet's pen is always fun and fast to level up, and should be fine with the elemental damage from the tree. Try arc and lightning warp on it! | |
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Are there map mods this build can't run?
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" Only the no leech maps are a problem, because your sustain comes from the main weapon spells leeching. You are immune to reflect if you crit. With full power charges and diamond flask up, there is no problem. No regen only requires a mana flask instead of a quicksilver, but a mana on hit jewel is also enough. Other than that is just alch and go. | |
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Hi there, might try out your build !
What do you think about the Soul Tether + Glorious Vanity combo ? It gives a shitload of extra energy shield, which would scale nicely on that build, given the huge HP pool. Did some testing with my current gear, and i'm at 5.5k hp and 3.37k ES with a devoto. Also, using a Tempered mind on the jewel slot near the witch starting area allows to get rid of the Lycosidae since it gives a LOT of accuracy, which would allow to slot in Light of Lunaris ! Last edited by TheBeardmage on Jun 28, 2019, 8:20:00 PM
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" If I got it right, the soul tether/glorious vanity combo should give around 1700es, against 700hp from a rare belt and jewel. If the resists from the belt aren't a problem, it should be worth. I tried some setups with the tempered mind and an unnatural instinct to reach 100% hit, but ended with less hp. I'll experiment more on PoB with the jewels and the tether/vanity combo, but in the end I feel that a 7k hp pool is the minimum to survive T15/16, unless we could find a better protection to phys damage, like warlords mark on the elder ring and immortal call instead of steelskin, but I'd need an extra curse to keep the enfeeble. | |
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Thanks for the quick answer !
Atm i'm at 95/90% accuracy, and added a poacher's mark on hit on an elder ring. It provides lots of health/MP regen, frenzy charges and extra accuracy, which is great imo. Also for more leech i've slotted an Atziri's Acuity to double the leech in battle since we crit a LOT, it might be useful. Somehow I manage to still cap my resists thanks to the huge bonus from might of the meek, and the extra crit doesn't hurt ! To add even more ES to the buffer you can get an elder vaal regalia with extra crit, 100+ HP, 10% HP and the craft "Gain 10% of max life as extra max ES" and it's insane. I don't know how it would compare to loreweave damage-wise. But at this point I don't know if adding even more life/ES is worth it. It probably depends on the overall DPS of this build in high tier maps I guess ! |
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I tried to record a video but my gpu can't handle poe and recording at the same time lol
Anyway, I tried the tether/vanity combo but didn't like much. I'd drop a good jewel (life, double crit multi and attack speed) and need more int and dex from other sources. So I decided to try my luck in crafting a cold/ele damage belt and it went really well. On the 2nd try with a frigid/pristine/prismatic combo i hit this: For the gloves, I'm not sure if the extra leech helps against the big hits. The times I died it was pretty fast lol. But let me how it works for you on T15+. The loreweave was a defensive choice, even after the nerf from 80 to 78, the elemental mitigation is really good. And we benefit from all stats too. Still, the elder with crit and extra es/life is awesome, I'll try my luck crafting it, and if it works, the tether/vanity combo should become a choice for me again. | |
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I forgot to add, the unnatural instinct with tempered mind are working really well, so I'm using the lunaris shield you suggested.
I'm also using a Sinvicta's Mantle on the off hand for the free rampage now. You can kill easily with the axe and arc to start the rampage. |
