[3.11] Cold BV PF Indigon ft. RF | All content done in HC! | Fast mapper, safe boss-killer

"

- Why all the armour scaling?

It's not a big investment; it's just one flask and wearing strength armour bases. Also conversion happens before mitigation from armour, not the other way around. I'm sure indigon cold BV PF could be played without armour, but in my experience the granite flask makes a world of difference.

"

- To continue on armour, what about arcane cloak + dynamo?

Dynamo is a good node, but I think the alternatives are better. The mana sustain is neat but kinda low-impact compared to what the permanent mana flask achieves. The guard skill buffs are definitely good. The increased mana is not that appealing, because as is the build already has a lot of increased mana and not that much flat mana on gear.

Arcane cloak is worse than molten shell as a shield, and as a damage buff it's not very impactful as it adds a small amount of flat lightning to a cold conversion build

"

- How difficult are your weapon, shield and armour to aquire outside harvest? They looks discusting, especially the shield. If you could provide non harvest crafting details and price estimates, it'd be convenient ^^'

Probably unachievable outside of harvest, at least in trade hardcore where I've never seen something close to them. Maybe it would exist in trade SC outside of harvest, but I have no idea how much it would cost.

I've played the build in delirium (the character is DeepDarkPhantasies, lvl 99 in perma hardcore league) and it was already amazing. Since then, it also received buffs outside of harvest, namely eternal youth and agnostic as good spots for divine flesh, and supreme ego as a massive DPS buff. Capping chaos resist to 90 was not that bad, but admittedly my rares didn't do much except provide life, mana and resistances.

"

- Is dual wield all that bad?

In hardcore I'd always stick to a shield, but for sure in softcore you can go with dual wield, a bow or a staff. That's always going to be a huge damage increase.

Admittedly, without Harvest, the version of the build I'm proposing with this guide becomes a lot more hardcore-tuned, as it'd be hard to have big damage, top clearspeed with elusive+tailwind boots, and still have a lot of hard mitigations. By hardcore standards, it'd still be a super well-rounded build with great clear, boss-killing, and tankiness, but by big-budget softcore standards it might suffer on damage and clear speed.

So maybe this version of the build wouldn't make the most sense in softcore next league, but indigon cold BV PF as a general concept is extremely solid and could be taken in other directions, such as ditching the shield, going phase acro, etc. With indigon giving so much damage and sustain, PF being a fast ascendancy, and the cold conversion synergies scaling the explodey chest so much, it's hard to go wrong with something that centers around this concept.

"

Also, you are solely relying on gear to scale divine flesh's chaos reistance. It's harvest league, and yet your chaos resistance is still below your elemental resistance on an endgame level 100 pob. Is it even realistic to aim for 90% chaos resist in non harvest league? I have a high budget, probably about 250ex, but this just seems very difficult to achieve.
Atziri's promise, then...?

I used Atziri's promise for a long time this league. It's not as much damage as Wise Oak on bosses, but it's comparable if not better on mobs with lower resists and provides reliable leech if you're having issues with your Cluster Jewel. This build actually has a *lot* of flexibility with its flask choices. As well as its gear choices.

While it is indeed Harvest and that does make it a bit hard to gauge the builds potency in a regular league, I should point out that what this build is capable of in Harvest is literally face tanking almost all general content (Including A8 Srs death beams without Fortify), and still maintaining 20+m DPS and 2.5-4k HP/Sec sustain.

Judging by the performance the build gives, it should be very much so possible in regular leagues, particularly on a high budget. Even if we assume all the facets of this build halves, you're still sitting comfortably on a 6-80k pool and 10-12m sdps.

"

Niedzwiedz wrote:

It's not a big investment; it's just one flask and wearing strength armour bases. Also conversion happens before mitigation from armour, not the other way around. I'm sure indigon cold BV PF could be played without armour, but in my experience the granite flask makes a world of difference.

If I were to choose just one between taste of hate and granite flask, can I confirm that the taste of hate is better in terms of physical mitigation? POB suggests higher physical reduction on granite but looking at the damage taken calc, seems taste of hate would be better on big hits (eg. shaper slam)

"

desmondk07 wrote:

If I were to choose just one between taste of hate and granite flask, can I confirm that the taste of hate is better in terms of physical mitigation? POB suggests higher physical reduction on granite but looking at the damage taken calc, seems taste of hate would be better on big hits (eg. shaper slam)

The two are actually mitigating different types of physical damage.

Taste of Hate is there to lower the lethality of the large physical hits, while Granite trivializes a lot of small physical damage hit in fast succession.

That being said, Taste of Hate provides so much damage while also providing the mitigation that it seems far more beneficial to the build, even over Granite. If you were to choose one.

"

EpsiIon wrote:

"

desmondk07 wrote:

If I were to choose just one between taste of hate and granite flask, can I confirm that the taste of hate is better in terms of physical mitigation? POB suggests higher physical reduction on granite but looking at the damage taken calc, seems taste of hate would be better on big hits (eg. shaper slam)

The two are actually mitigating different types of physical damage.

Taste of Hate is there to lower the lethality of the large physical hits, while Granite trivializes a lot of small physical damage hit in fast succession.

That being said, Taste of Hate provides so much damage while also providing the mitigation that it seems far more beneficial to the build, even over Granite. If you were to choose one.

Thanks, make sense. Think I'll stick with TOH then. I am stacking so much hatred increased effect so it is only giving me ard 10% more damage currently hence I was contemplating on dropping it.

"

desmondk07 wrote:

Thanks, make sense. Think I'll stick with TOH then. I am stacking so much hatred increased effect so it is only giving me ard 10% more damage currently hence I was contemplating on dropping it.

Yeah, I ran into the same issue as I theorycrafted whether I wanted to try the crit variant to push the damage as high as I could go. While I found I could theoretically push the 30m sdps theshold, I found that the gearing requirements were borderline absurd, and it made the build much squishier. It's ambitious and it does a lot at once, but at the same time, it almost does too much if you haven't figured out exactly when/where/how you're going to do it.

On the other hand, the non-crit tank or sustain variants are so smooth in terms of gearing and play that it feels like it would be perfectly viable, even if not optimal, outside of Harvest.

Oh by the way, small improvement:

Empower 4 is better damage than cold pen. It also grants an additionnal base radius, and is significantly easier to color for. The gem costs way more tho.

Actually, it seems like the weakest link is awakened cold penetration. So I would replace cold pen by empower, that seems like a better choice.

In dps order, gems are:
Intensify: 65% more
Conc effect: 55% more
Awakened controlled destruction: 50% more
Hypothermia: 39% more
Empower: 31% more
Awakened cold pen: 30% more without wise oak, 26% with wise oak


Edit: nothing new, didn't see it was in gem section. Still, meh for cold pen.

Got inspired by your concept on max block scion, managed to get to almost max block (will be block capped when i reach level 100 and path to arcane guarding), only thing is i'm not sure how to properly determine my current dps on PoB. Also are there better gem links to suggest for better dps? Found that i didn't really need vigilant strike. Also for my necklace, would it be better QoL to have cast speed or phys damage reduction? Also is there any point in time where the indigon would be outperformed by a rare helm ?

"

seikaryuu wrote:

Also is there any point in time where the indigon would be outperformed by a rare helm ?

Indigon is the core of the build. Every stat on it is build enabling. Literally 80% of your damage comes from it, and almost all scaling this build choose to do is to buff indigon effect.

Why do you want to replace it by a rare?

Instead of asking this question, you should have asked yourself "what on a rare item could be worth having that would be better than indigon?".
Reminder that we need to beat ~3k regen per soncond, enabling righteous fire, and about 400-700% spell damage. Is there mods that even come remotely close to this? Of course not. Sure it doesn't have life, but that's about it.

"

seikaryuu wrote:

Also is there any point in time where the indigon would be outperformed by a rare helm ?

Indigon is pretty much core to the build. You can't replace it at any point.