[3.5] Death by a Thousand Cuts - Frost Blades & Blade Flurry Raider

Is there a reason why dying sun is not use for the 2 extra projectiles?

"

decyphier wrote:

1. Regarding Phase Acro, it's an extra 10% dodge and 30% spell dodge, but we already have 10% from Veil during Phasing. You really feel those extra % are worth? I can try but I'd like to see what you think.

I also changed my Onslaught flask to a Quartz and picked up Wise Oak - so actually now that I think about it, with phase acro, we have 50% chance to avoid spell damage. That's pretty good, but I'll wait and see what your opinion on phase acro is still.

2. I noticed you didn't take these nodes:


So I removed them, giving me 9 points to use. With these points, I was able to grab the 2nd Molten gem slot/equipped it, and hit the Constitution life wheel and got that as well. I also noticed that I had an extra 4% max life node taken, so I took that away and added it to one of the 5% in the life wheel.

I also took these 3 nodes away:


and moved them to get Will of Blades. I lost 60% crit so I am under 40% without flasks or buffs, but is that still okay for now?

1. I use all of Phase Acro, Quartz Flask, and Atizir's Step. This gives me 66% Spell Dodge and 56% Attack Dodge. Think of it like elemental resistance or block. The reason these defensive nodes are capped (at 75%) is how strong they are.

To put it in mathmatical terms, imagine dodging 36% of the time (without Phase Acro) is like having a 36% damage reduction, avaraging out over a long period. This means you take 64 damage out of a 100 damage hit. Having 66% dodge is taking 34 damage per 100 damage hit. That's a 47% reduction on incoming damage for 30% of dodge.

2. On your point of Will of Blades, it seems that the 2 stray points in 1 handed atk spd and 1 handed crit chance is actually better than Will of Blades. That said, my current tree plans to take neither of these. You can refer to the guide for the new one. This build has historically always been passive starved, and there're a lot of good nodes I had to give up.

"

KiadawP wrote:

Is there a reason why dying sun is not use for the 2 extra projectiles?

This is a good question. I'll take this time to talk about opportunity cost of having a Dying Sun.

Pros: More balls

Cons: 1 fewer flask slot, larger AoE for ball spread, messing with Wise Oak penetration, expensive

While 2 extra molten balls are good, it doesn't scale up linearly. The 1st extra 2 (from the 1st Wilfire) is 66% more damage from 3 to 5. The 2nd extra set (from the 2nd Wildfire) is a 40% more going from 5 to 7. Put Dying Sun into the mix only nets you 28% going from 7 to 9, in reality this is even less because it messes up our Wise Oak balance.

Furthermore, increased AoE makes our Molten Strike spread out more, making it more likely to not hit the single-target we wanted, as that's what we're using the skill for the in the first place.

So to summarise, I wouldn't actually mind having a Dying Sun, but the truth is it's not worth it. Every other Flask we use either gives more damage than it (Diamond) or give critical defensive utility as well as their damage boost. If you're trying to kill Phoenix or something, however, it's not bad to replace Atziri's Promise with it.

Made more and more changes today to my build based on a lot of what's going on here. Extremely tanky now, and way more damage. My next step is hopefully some lucky sales so I can grab a +3 proj Starkonja. With that I should be able to successfully leech most end-game.

Anyway, I checked your latest posted tree - you took away quite a bit of crit in favor of Fangs of Frost and Dervish nodes. Care to explain the reasoning behind this, and what does POB now say about % crit chance with the updated tree? From just a glance and not looking at the math view, it seems so weird for this build to not have those crit nodes...

Also good points and math explanation on spell dodge - the only thing I dislike about taking Atziri's Step is the need to scramble for resistance elsewhere. For example, 1ex rare boots can give ~40% res in fire/light/cold with a good 80+ max life roll.

I just dropped in to the thread to say thanks to the OP and everyone that has given useful information for this build or any other similar variants of the build. I used a ton of information from this guide to help me figure out what I actually wanted to do with my build in particular. I have also played many variants including high dps rare ele claws, touch of anguish and wasp nest's. I ended up going with more of the mathil style skill tree build, but changed a couple of his gem choices and whatnot. I am currently breezing through all red maps with minimal effort. These frost blade/molten strike builds are the real deal.

My current gear has me at 5.6k life

"

decyphier wrote:

Anyway, I checked your latest posted tree - you took away quite a bit of crit in favor of Fangs of Frost and Dervish nodes. Care to explain the reasoning behind this, and what does POB now say about % crit chance with the updated tree? From just a glance and not looking at the math view, it seems so weird for this build to not have those crit nodes...

Also good points and math explanation on spell dodge - the only thing I dislike about taking Atziri's Step is the need to scramble for resistance elsewhere. For example, 1ex rare boots can give ~40% res in fire/light/cold with a good 80+ max life roll.

1. 3 pts in Fang of Frost gives more damage than 3 pts in Heartseeker pretty much in all situations, assuming PoB DPS calculation is correct. This has an added bonus of giving better chills and taking less reflect damage. If you're worried about crit chance not being high enough though feel free to just take Heartseeker. It's your preference. I believe I've always taken Dervish, however.

2. Atziri's Step is a personal favourite of mine. Nothing wrong with just rare boots though. If I get my 6L Belly I might switch to a pair of rare boots myself.

Well it's not such a matter of being worried about % chance on crit, but rather I never really understood what % crit chance we want to maintain *before* Diamond flask anyway.

Hi i'm pretty new to this build so i have some question.
First, it says in the skill : main ( off) hand crit strike chance. So what's the skill actual crit chance ? Main hand + off hand crit or just 1 of them.
Second, when lvling should i focus on crit or until mid-late game ? I mean use inc crit in molten strike setup so i can make use of ice bite. ( i only use molten strike ).
Also so if i want some extra defence will AA, HoA, assasin's mark work ?( my pc is crap so i usually stand still facetank bosses, abyss monsters).
Looking forward to hearing your reply soon. XD
Really nice build u have there. I really love it.

"

Kimbroslice wrote:

I just dropped in to the thread to say thanks to the OP and everyone that has given useful information for this build or any other similar variants of the build. I used a ton of information from this guide to help me figure out what I actually wanted to do with my build in particular. I have also played many variants including high dps rare ele claws, touch of anguish and wasp nest's. I ended up going with more of the mathil style skill tree build, but changed a couple of his gem choices and whatnot. I am currently breezing through all red maps with minimal effort. These frost blade/molten strike builds are the real deal.

My current gear has me at 5.6k life

I'm curious as to why you're using the added lightning damage craft on your catacalysm two stone ring. I dont think it affects either frost blades or molten strike in any way, does it?

Also while leveling do you travel up the tree first or bottom?

"

decyphier wrote:

Well it's not such a matter of being worried about % chance on crit, but rather I never really understood what % crit chance we want to maintain *before* Diamond flask anyway.

That's also mostly a feel thing. It keep around 35%+ crit chance unbuffed personally. It shouldn't be lower than 30%, and with the nerfs to Power Charge it's hard to get too much more.