[3.8] Ice Crash is HUGE ft. Berserker with Flat Cold Scaling - All Contents
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Changelog/Update
06 Sep 2019 - 3.8 READY for Blight League Updated changes of skill tree & ascendancy nodes to 3.8 Despite of losing 40% damage from Aspect of the Carnage and 20% increased AoE due to the changes, this build now offers better utility and survivability from warcry spamming that offer 100% uptime on all situations. The DPS is still hitting 3million+ easily. Made some correction on grammar and moved the "PROs & CONs" section to the top of the build guide.
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03 Sep 2019
Thanks for the Pulverize nerfed by GGG, Ice Crash is not that huge anymore. Joke aside, the AoE probably is still good, but just not that big as before. Today the balance manifesto announced that Double Damage chance has been moved & added to War Bringer ascendancy node. This could potentially makes this build more tankier and having better survivability choice over the Aspect of Carnage. 30 July 2019 Uploaded The Shaper kill video. 29 July 2019 Uploaded Uber Elder kill and Mapping videos. 28 July 2019 Correction on Pantheon minor god used for mapping.  PROs & CONs + Single target DPS is awesome + Clear speed is decent enough + Sound effect is satisfying + Everything freeze except endgame bosses - Can't see shit - Only 6k-ish of life - Reflect & No leech map mods must be skipped Video Clips
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Uber Elder: https://youtu.be/XzulaO3zieI
The Shaper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBIxGBrjIXo T13 Mapping Showcase: https://youtu.be/rXkr1q1SHNo T16 The Purifier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsNJ22fMYVw T16 The Eradicator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRhNX-v9x4g T16 The Enslaver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrlD66xsEhs T16 The Constrictor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUjAj0pJiP4 T16 Phoenix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZ1dJz-6I2w T16 Minotaur: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA4Nl9tBt1U T16 Hydra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pJgsbx38bQ T16 Chimera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cknvnbCNib0 Introduction Hi there, this is my third build guide here. Any suggestion/criticism is welcome to make the build guide better. I'm always looking forward to try out some off meta or unpopular skills that have the potential to be fun and good/decent in end game contents. Ice Crash is giving me eye cancer when the AoE gets really huge by almost covering the whole screen and unable to see what's going on lol. Despite of that, Ice Crash is probably the most funny skill I have ever played so far ^^. The icicle burst effect looks pretty cool and shattering all monsters feel awesome. This build works on budget and gets better when more investment is thrown at it. Most end game contents are done with 10c foils (this is the price in the middle of the league period) and a 6-link with some good enough gears. Build Mechanic and Theory In 3.7 patch, Ice Crash has been buffed a LOT. It now have tons of added flat cold damage as the skill gem levels higher, 20% larger AoE and increased damage effectiveness. However, the skill still have the downside of attack speed penalty to balance the skill damage output, sort of but not quite that bad in theory. To make Ice Crash more responsive and pleasant to play with faster playstyle, the solution I found is fairly simple. Dual wielding 1-handed weapons that have high attack speed and critical strike chance to scale the damage and overcome the attack speed penalty from Ice Crash. With high enough attack speed and crit chance, stacking some flat cold damage results a pretty decent DPS. Yes, even with shitty gears/weapons the DPS will reach over 1 million easily. The more added cold damage, the more damage Ice Crash will do because Ice Crash's damage effectiveness is very high as compared to other skills. To make the skill become hilarious (or fun), using multiple sources of AoE scaling gears and skill gem it can cover entire screen (almost) easily with some investment and have a decent clearing speed. Such as Carcass Jack (up to 50% increased AoE), Helm enchant (up to 12%) and Increased AoE & Pulverise skill gem. Playstyle Rush in, slam the ground, everything chilled, frozen and shattered. Kill the monsters before they have a chance to fight back, offense is the best defense. Switch blood and sand aura to blood stance for tough targets, use berserk when in danger or the targets are hard to kill. Berserk is currently the only way I have used to face tank or tackle down Legion rares in higher tier maps (around T13 onwards) safely. Always leap away every 1-2 hit of ice crash against legion rares when they are gathered as a pack and make sure flasks and berserk are up too. Otherwise they won't give a chance to react at all because they are over buffed and will one shot you. Ascendancy Progression Crave the Slaughter >> War Bringer >> Flawless Savagery >> Rite of Ruin
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 Final Passive Skill Tree Patch 3.8 Lv.91 PoB: https://pastebin.com/yHf78pPt
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Patch 3.7
Lv.91 PoB: https://pastebin.com/Zx9Zy3rR Skill Gems & Links
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Main Skill (6-link)
For clearing: Ice Crash - Elemental Damage with Attack - Added Cold Damage - Close Combat - Pulverise - Increased Area of Effect For single target: Swap the Pulverise and Increased AoE to Ruthless and Concentrated Effect. Lv.21 Ice Crash and Added Cold Support gives much more raw damage than 20/20 gems, and they are much cheaper to buy from poe.trade as well. Other support gems just get them up to 20% quality are good enough. Movement (4-link) Leap Slam - Faster Attack - Fortify - Blood Magic Aura (4-link) Hatred - Blood & Sand - Herald of Ice - Enlighten Without enlighten, mana kinda insufficient when spamming ice crash because the mana cost is quite high. In this case, drop the herald of ice buff since the DPS gain from it is the lowest. Curse Setup and Other Buff (4 sockets) Blasphemy - Frosbite Unavailable Precision Lv.1 (for the crit chance bonus by reserving little bit of mana) Ancestor Protector Utility (2x 3-link) Cast When Damage Taken Lv.1 - Immortal Call Lv.3 - Frost Bomb Lv.1 Blood Rage, Berserk, Portal. Gears Gears in 3.7 Leagion League
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Bought the foils for 10c each roughly, the main hand sword was initially no open prefix but I use annulment orb to try get rid of the unwanted prefix and got really lucky result from it. Gear Choices
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Weapons:
Rare 1-handed thrusting swords (foils) with high attack speed, crit chance and some added cold damage. Prefer to have at least 1.9 attack speed, 25% or more crit chance and T3 or T4 added cold damage. As well as an open prefix to master craft the "%Increased Cold Damage". Example of trade search: http://poe.trade/search/ayunohoayorine These types of affix are less popular because most players are either playing physical attack builds or scaling their elemental attack damage from high physical damage weapon and do a 100% conversion instead. Hence, the cost of these foils are dirt cheap as compared to 300-400pdps swords with high attack speed and decent crit chance. Helmet: Look for helm enchant of 12% increased AoE for Ice Crash, they cost like less than 5c. Then craft the helmet with Pristine + Frigid fossils for high life roll and "nearby enemies have -9% cold resist" will be great if you can hit both. For better DPS, "40% increased Ice Crash damage" is the other helm enchant to get. Otherwise, Starkonja and Brine Crown uniques helms are good choices too. Body Armour: Carcass is the best in slot for maximum AoE, off colors might be hard to get but in the middle of the league there are a tons of them available cheap in poe.trade. It cost around 4ex for a 6-link. Example of trade search: http://poe.trade/search/iwaragewohagor Other alternatives can be Loreweave or Rare body armour with high life and - total mana cost to socketed attacks if you are not going for bigger AoE. Gloves: Look for pair of gloves that has "physical damage converted to cold damage" mod, some life and resist and an open suffix for master crafting attack speed. Example: http://poe.trade/search/ononatotanahik Boots: Life, movement speed and some resists. Belt: Leather belt with high life, resists and increased elemental damage to attacks. They are SO MUCH cheaper than Stygian Vyse belts, cause meta. :) Amulet: Impresence (cold), it gives free Frostbite curse aura mana reservation and impresence effect that slows enemies nearby when killing a rare/unique monster. There are also other unique amulet options that might be better but they can be more expensive. Otherwise a rare amulet with life, crit chance & crit multi is good for this build as well. Rings: Rare rings with life, resists,some accuracy and int, increased elemental damage to attacks and some flat cold or open prefix are nice to have. Example of trade search: http://poe.trade/search/sikihumomakino http://poe.trade/search/otenaumoigukas Assassin's mark on hit ring is another option as well if you choose not to use Impresence. Flasks: Divine Life flask, Diamond, Granite, Wise Oak and Silver flask. Mandatory suffix to have on flasks imo: remove/immuneto bleed/freeze/curse on use. If you can't balance your resist for wise oak, use Atziri's Promise flask instead. Jewels: For rare jewels, the first affix is %Increased maximum life. 2nd and 3rd affix to look for are global crit multi, crit multi with swords, crit multi with cold skill, crit multi with one handed weapon, crit multi with elemental skill, melee crit multi, increased damage with swords, attack speed with swords, increased cold damage, melee damage, area damage, and etc. As you can see the number of mods for scaling the damage is very flexible, so put as many as you can think of into the search criteria and set count number as 2. For unique jewels, Watcher's eye is good to have if you can afford it. Followed by Importance: Hatred - added cold damage, attacks have +% crit chance or cold penetration is more or less the same. Precision - Crit multiplier. Bandits & Pantheons Bandits: Kill All Major God: Soul of Brine King (to avoid chained stuns) Minor Gods: Soul of Gruthkul (for mapping) Soul of Shakari (for bosses with heavy poison/chaos damage) Soul of Ryslatha for boss fight that might last long enough to run out of life flask charges such as Uber Elder. Leveling I'm leveling this character with twink gears btw, since this is isn't my league starter. Start with ground slam until Lv.28 then switch to Ice Crash all the way to end game. I will add a detailed leveling step/progression skill tree and skill gems if this build gain enough popularity. Otherwise you can level with anything you want until you have the right gears or skill gems to switch over. FAQ
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1. Why not use other weapon types such as mace or axe?
Swords are currently the easiest and best weapons to scale critical strike damage right now imo, especially the number of crit nodes from swords are more than axe and mace on the passive skill tree and the pathing is easier too. 2. Why the Ice Crash is not fully converted to cold? Because we are scaling the flat cold damage from weapons, added cold damage support gem and gears. Therefore, the amount of low pdps from swords doesn't different/benefit that much from a full conversion. 3. Is this hardcore viable? No, but you can make it viable by dropping Aspect of Carnage and take War Bringer instead. And probably sacrifice some crits and take more life nodes on the skill tree instead. 4. Is watcher's eye mandatory for this build? No, but it is just nice to have. For max DPS, look for Hatred mod that gives added flat cold damage or Precision mod that provide crit multiplier. However, these are quite expensive on the other hand but you can go for it if you have more to spend. 5. Why take Soul of Brine King when you have stun immune at 25 Rage? At the start of mapping/delving/bossing, there's a ramp up time to eventually reach 25+ rage stacks. So before that you are vulnerable to any stun, and whenever Berserk is used for damage boost and mitigation you are losing all rage stacks as well. Just a quality of life to prevent stun lock all the time. 6. The PoB only shows up 2.9million DPS, are you lying on the 4million DPS? No, Close Combat support gem doesn't get calculated in PoB, it's 59% more damage multiplier to 2.9million. Hence, round up to 4 million DPS. Feel free to drop by my YouTube channel for the most recent builds that I have played. https://www.youtube.com/user/RexDragonfly Last edited by hmwgbworld#6997 on Sep 6, 2019, 9:49:48 AM Last bumped on Nov 8, 2019, 11:10:16 PM
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I'm trying it... HC.
I suck, so lets see how far i can go :D |
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I keep trying to add cold conversion into this but I’m coming up with a dps loss over other options. Gloves and watchers eye specifically. My gloves have the delve added flat cold and none of the cold damage+cold conversion ones I plug into pob can seem to match them. Precision watchers eye is also coming up big over a hatred conversion one. Is cold conversion that big a deal since the focus is flat cold here?
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" Cold conversion is the least DPS gain for this build, so it's not worth it but it is nice to have on the glove if u can get it. The build is more demanding as much added cold damage as possibly you can get from skill gems/gears, then scale the damage with high attack speed and crit chance. Since the new Ice Crash skill gem now has over 240% damage effectiveness which makes the DPS big as long as you can get enough added cold damage to it with high attack speed to overcome the attack speed penalty from skill gem. On the other hand, cold conversion is great if you weapons are highly physical based and scaling physical damage on either gears/skill tree, then you want 100% conversion to maximize the DPS in this case. Feel free to drop by my YouTube channel for the most recent builds that I have played.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RexDragonfly |
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I went the flat cold route with weapons since I liked the way you approached that seeing as how foils are going to roll ele damage every other alt anyway, pretty creative. It's a fun build, big dick dps but rippy since YOU CANT SEE SHIT haha. Would be nice if they'd make an mtx for this skill that would tone it way down. I was looking forward to shattering the goddamn porcupines but it's inconsistent,most of the time it works but some packs can still outright kill me.
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" Yea, the porcupines are always deadly for most melee builds. The only ways I deal with porcupines so far are either be careful not to kill the whole pack so I have chance to react with life flask or simply skipping them if map mods are too harsh. Feel free to drop by my YouTube channel for the most recent builds that I have played.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RexDragonfly |
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nice
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Hi,
I have enjoyed ice crash for a long time, and i was about to post my version on forum but i find your and i dont wanna re-post a similar build into it. i would like to share it here, my version scale phys damage and convert it into cold instead of scaling cold. scaling also some regen/recovery rate and leech this is my pob: https://pastebin.com/5wbBk0s6 10m full buff (berserker/blitz/rage) 7m no berserker 3m with only flask (noblitz no berserker no rage) 7.5k life 2.5k life leech Gear
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I hope it can be an inspiration for someone PEACE |
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I dont know if i am missing something here or something, but i can't find a reason for the allocation of the warcry nodes on the passive tree and the ascendancy. |
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" Warcry nodes on the skill tree just a quality of life by canceling the warcry cast animation, making it instant and can be used whenever you are still moving or attacking. The war bringer has been buffed (sort of) because the chance to deal double damage has been moved away from the first node of rage ascendancy. So the warcry is looking good now for both offense and defense, you can still opt for more damage instead since it's just a personal preference. Feel free to drop by my YouTube channel for the most recent builds that I have played.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RexDragonfly |
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