[3.19] Frost Blades Berserker (League Starter/Versatile Budget Build)

Will try to update pobs today since it’s officially updated for 3.19 now (had to double up yesterday to free myself for Friday). Also working on an earlier transition to some dagger variant of Spectral Helix to smooth out early mapping.

Final updates finished. Added earlier adoption of Spectral Helix Dagger (or Claw) + Nightblade to smooth out mapping and updated all PoBs. Good luck!

E: I had looked through the unique changes briefly when the patch notes came out. I didn’t include any of these in the guide or pobs because I wanted to make things as little unique dependent as possible. Just a few notes I had in case you run into any of these while leveling:

-Southbound for low budget damage option
-Hrimsorrow + Spectral Helix for 100% cold budget conversion
-Heatshiver + Trinity + skitterbots for cold/fire Spectral Helix
-Vaal Carees gloves + Vaal ancestral Warchief for easy onslaught + giga totem
-Deathrush ring for easy leveling and mapping adrenaline (potential use for invitations or any boss + mob content)

Fixed an oversight with mana issue for level 81 mapping pob.
Make sure to use the updated one.

First two days of Lake of Kalandra are all but done now. I was late getting started but I managed to play a lot more than usual for league start. I made it through the campaign and into maps on day 1 and had all of the items for Frost Blades transition (white wind, enduring composure base, 2x fight for survival, Tabula, 30% berserk enchant helmet base) + ~30c while running yellow maps on self found gear by the end of day 2. Some points for how my experience went league starting with this build and adjustments:

-common opinion, rares are rough

In response, I’m advocating more resources to complimenting defenses for the build.
Exploring options with multiple defensive auras (Determination + Arctic Armour + Vitality is something I’m running for yellow maps currently). Will revisit Unwavering Stance + Iron Reflexes vs Evasion. Will update pobs with more defenses.


-mana can be a concern throughout the campaign without some adjustments

Mana issues are easily solved with minor adjustments but without clarification this could make a new players experience terrible so things need to be more accurate with gem levels and at what levels you grab reservation. The build felt very smooth for leveling and early maps, speed and damage are there. Will update pobs.


-budgeting can be improved

Some recommended items are going to be just entirely too expensive early on and defeat the entire purpose of the guide (looking at you Mark of the Elder), at least at the point of league start. Will further improve budgeting for the lowest FB budget. I’ve also considered just keeping Spectral Helix until Delirium content is fully enabled through gear and atlas passive. This would effectively make the guide more league start centered and I would adjust pricing, budgeting, and crafting accordingly (the guide was originally made from a mid league perspective)


-Harvest is not great without passives

A lot of the crafting goals lean on cheap harvest crafts. These are now much less abundant in the early mapping stage. Will adjust item choices and crafting with this in mind and example atlas passive trees for what is ideal to focus on at what points of progression. We will still ultimately use harvest, it’ll just come online later


-Levels in Frost Blades pobs are too high

They don’t serve an accurate representation of build power early on at 95 and 97 respectively. Will adjust pobs be to more low level friendly and add higher level example options


-Spectral Helix is really good

Something already established among the community, the skill is busted. Taking into account the points above, will adjust all aspects of the guide to lean on it longer to make the transition to Frost Blades more smooth and will add more end game options for Spectral Helix (this could be a very strong budget bossing option instead of Frost Blades’ insane clear, still using White Wind to its’ full potential)


Other than that, I have some new ideas for scaling into end game so lots to improve on. GL!

I'm sure I missed something but what's the point of General Warcry ?
Is it only to taunt and warcy uses ?
In this case, why not simply using enduring cry for the regen/endu charge ?

Or does general's warcry can use totems ?

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Leverdatre wrote:

I'm sure I missed something but what's the point of General Warcry ?
Is it only to taunt and warcy uses ?
In this case, why not simply using enduring cry for the regen/endu charge ?

Or does general's warcry can use totems ?

We use General’s Cry because it has the lowest cd. We manipulate rage with warcry while under 25 rage.
I do use Enduring Cry for some of the campaign (notably Kitava/Labs)

Will have a video or two of 50c day 2-3 yellow maps on frost blades today.

Want to try dat build. Question: why did you make so much pub links instead of making 1 with multy-trees in pub?

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Rektor322 wrote:

Want to try dat build. Question: why did you make so much pub links instead of making 1 with multy-trees in pub?

Great question and I’m working on how to consolidate pobs a bit better.
Long story short, it’s hard to organize example items for separate builds on one pob and you can’t set different levels for the character for different drop down options. I think leveling can probably be condensed to one so it would be 3 all together. For now you can just import each as separate pobs all at once and change as you hit labs.

I’ve done a lot of work for this since league start and tested a lot of options. We’ve added 100% ailment immunity, cheaper options all around, early suppression cap, better leveling and early mapping, and more layered defenses. And of course the devil is in the details so much more of that too. Many updates coming soon.

Been some time since I played Frost Blades and looking forward to trying this build. I watched the VODs because I needed to see how you used all these active skills. You where even using a skill on the CTRL bar!

Questions, I saw power charges occationally generated. What is generating them? I am a simply fella that would refer three maybe four active skills:

Frost Blades
Blood Rage
Berserk
Ancestral Protector
Withering Step
General's Cry
Hydrosphere
Vaal Ancestral Warchief
Whirling Blades

Whirling Blades is the travel skill. FB of course. Vaal AW for extra support. Acestral Protector for additional attack speed and range. Based on the number of times you were hit, perhaps I could set the rest up with CWDT with life tap?

@schnoodlez yea this is ridiculously intensive on keybinds and actions.
I actually had the same idea and put my Hydrosphere/Frost Bomb (Frost Bomb has uses against regen and a bit more exposure but Hydrosphere can be hit to launch Frost Blade projectiles one per second. I’ve been using Frost Bomb but either works) on a 4 link with CWDT 1 + Lifetap 1 + Immortal Call 3 or Molten Shell 10. I’ve also been using Vitality over Vaal totem (Blood Rage puts you in a rough spot moving around map sometimes, Vitality means you’re never losing life to Blood rage) so that’s one less active skill but you can get exposure from glove implicit and that’ll free up another societ (I’ve been using 1x Unset Ring). Using Instilling Orbs on flasks to automate them can help too.

Can check my Berserker, Mirrormylastbuild, if you’re interested in seeing what I’m doing as I go until I can get around to updating everything.