[3.2] Lifting's Frost Blades & Dual Strike Champion | Fast Mapper & High Single Target DPS!

"

LiftingNerdBro wrote:

I mention several times that getting the right affixes on your rare gear is incredibly important. When I look at your gear it is obvious that you haven't read or heard what I say in the guide.

...

When I look at your gear, you don't have a single rare item with more than 30 life, and some of them have no life roll at all.

I hope this doesn't come off as being rude - that certainly isn't my intention, but it is incredibly frustrating when I put a lot of effort into emphasizing how important this is and yet it remains ignored.

Good luck! =)

Hi Lifting! No, you certainly didn't come off as rude. I know I came off a little bit that way in my comment because I was frustrated. I do apologize for that. It wasn't directed at you or anyone in particular - aside from myself of course, given when I put in the effort & struggle I can't help but feel like an idiot. Hard not to feel that way with more failed builds than not. If it came off as though it was aimed at you, I apologize. I just feel crazy sometimes when I feel like I've put the time/effort into the game by reading guides, experimenting, scouring wikis, watching videos like yours, etc. and yet I still feel I don't understand everything I should. On top of that, I see videos of people just blowing through leveling content and jumping into maps and blowing through those as well. It is frustrating to struggle like that when I see how trivial it can be for others. I bet you were crushing end games maps by day 2 :-). I've had only one character I feel I could call successful over four characters, and one of those was a nearly full respec.

First off, I'd like to promise you that I did read the guide and watch the video. Pinky promise! It simply didn't feel like I was only a few hundred life away from being tankier and stopping those huge damage spikes from melting me immediately. I admit that could be so very, very wrong. I still have a lot to figure out about this game, that much is clear. I knew if anyone looked at my gear that the number one issue would be the life rolls for sure given, as you mentioned, you stressed their importance. That's why I mentioned that I knew I wasn't perfect yet and that my life was low. I'm currently trying to find and afford the gear to balance life rolls, int/dex/str requirements for gear/skills and keep 75% in all resistances (one of my rings is essentially just used to cover my lightning res). Since there isn't a lot of jewels used in passives, there isn't a lot of extra places to get res from (or inc. max life %) so getting the right gear has been a bit slower for me so far. This is also the first time I've played an event or season, as I started playing a couple months ago & began in Standard. I am trying to adapt to the limited market and tighter funds to be able to get the right gear.

I see in your guide that I'm supposed to have about 450 more life than I currently do for early mapping (I started crafting life on my gear I think after you probably looked at it). I know those are still low-tier rolls, and that I'm still under your recommended level even with those crafts. I know ele-reflect can be rough, but one-shots were happening on maps without that mod and in Tier 1 maps to boot. Is 3200 life really going to be enough to keep me from dying from those huge damage spikes? I am aware there are multiplicative effects of the life on gear & inc. life %, but it's clear I still don't fully understand it. I have a hard time seeing myself getting to 3200 with a few more life rolls on my gear, much less how I could get to the 5200 required for end game. About what tier maps do you believe 3200 life will be good for before I have to focus on it even more? And do I appear, otherwise, to mostly be following the guide correctly?

For what it is worth, I have started to get a better handle on the build. I'm at least able to do some Tier 5 maps, though I am struggling to feel like I can make my build anything close to the dominance of your build (especially without the out-of-reach Farrul's gear). Feels like I might be topping out at what is capable, even as I look to the future of the passives and certain gear I still need. Especially when I see your PoB of millions of damage & I am an order of magnitude weaker. I try to use PoB to understand more, but it is clear I am in dire need of some kind of remedial PoE course :-).

I would like to end by saying I very much appreciate the time people take to make these very thorough guides, and so I certainly do appreciate and thank you for the effort you have put into this guide & into the PoE community in general. I'd have a much harder time with the end game content if it weren't for people like you who take the time to outline these builds. I am hopeful that one day I can understand how everything fits together and that I can make builds and guides and be an asset to the community as well. I thank you for taking the time to respond, and a thanks in advance if you respond to this as well!

"

Phypon wrote:

stuff

I plugged your build in Path of Building and you should be able to get to 3400 life just by getting +70 on everything, as much as 3600 with higher rolls on helmet and chest. BUT life isn't everything. Use a Basalt flask and a Stibnite flask, drop your Sapphire and either Silver or Quicksilver. Use Cast when Damage Taken Enfeeble. Don't always use Blood Rage, it does a lot of damage to yourself with no phys mitigation. Pick up every life node you can (even the 4% ones) if you aren't in the Scion life wheel.

For whatever it's worth, I would NOT call this a beginner-friendly build if you want to take it into red maps. Normally that's just fine, but it might be a bit misleading to some people because Frost Blades is usually pretty beginner-friendly.

Leveling is awkward because of the big passive point investment to get Scion life wheel. Because of the pathing, the wheel isn't even that efficient. Lifting's example tree gets 41% life pathing to Scion life (assuming 7% jewel), but you can instead get 34% by picking up a bunch of 4% nodes and 2 additional jewel sockets. Personally I don't think Scion life wheel is "worth it" until like level 85 or something, though you'd need a lot of regrets to do a late transition.

Stat requirements are surprisingly hard to hit without investing in the +30 passives. With the exception of going to Scion, this build conveniently dodges Strength/Int pathing nodes pretty well, and you need a lot of both for gems/ToA. It makes shopping for rare items a little more difficult, especially if you're using a rare helm and chest with no resists or Str/Int.

This build is super thin on defensive layers. Maybe it's just because Flashback with red Pokemon can be pretty dangerous, but I can't imagine not taking perma Fortify. Loreweave is great, I got lucky and rolled one with 79% res and good damage rolls, but I think Belly of the Beast would also be a solid choice. And no CwDT Immortal Call is kind of crazy? I know we shatter a lot but IC is a great bonus definitely worth dropping a damage gem on Ancestral Protector. It also lets you do the Soul of Arakaali Blood Rage trick.

Also sidenote, I think CwDT Assassin's Mark should be better than Frostbite pre-Farrul's.

Hey Lifting, just a question about the conversion of cold damage. Why do we need get the Physical to lightning conversion Watcher's Eye , when we have the gem frost blades already converting 60% of physical damage to cold damage and taking winter spirit which gives 40% of physical to cold damage.

"

Forii wrote:

Hey Lifting, just a question about the conversion of cold damage. Why do we need get the Physical to lightning conversion Watcher's Eye , when we have the gem frost blades already converting 60% of physical damage to cold damage and taking winter spirit which gives 40% of physical to cold damage.

You are correct, but this only true for Frost Blade, which is just our clear skill.

For Dual Strike, our main boss skill we just have the 40% from Winter Spirit, the rest is unconverted. And we want to scale DS, as FB is as good as it needs to be to clear.

If you do not have the jewel, then you have to use Phys to Lightning in your DS 6-link, which stops you from using a more powerful gem there.

At least that is my understanding from where the build is going.

I'm leveling it now to test it out if i'll like the play-style.

"

Intervation wrote:

Thanks for the build!

Having loads of fun with it but will probably get to sick of adrenaline:)

any suggestions on gear upgrades? Know 1 cast when damage taken is broken just cant stand dropping frostbomb, ancestral, bloodlust and adrenaline all the time.

And since helmet and chest piece is pricey as hell whats the best enchant? wondering if i should go with frost blades % 40 or one of the dual strike ones. Cant for the life of me find that Jewel with % phys conversion either(might want to add it to written guide)

Few questions
How important is the evasion on gear pieces?
What about abyss jewels with flat dmg and life?

Sorry if I asked something already explained

For the helmet enchant I would go with Dual Strike because this really adds single target dps and makes boss fights shorter and more easy. Although I do not know what is better: 40% damage or 15% attack speed. Maybe Lifting can clarify that =)
The % physical conversion jewel he means is probably a Watchers Eye with "% of phsyical damage converted to lightning damage while affected by Wrath". But they are pretty expensive. At the time I write this there is only 1 of these listed on poe.trade and it goes for 4ex.
But I don't know how this fits this build because we don't have any mana left to reserve for Wrath unless we replace hatred.

@Lifting
Thanks for your awesome builds and guides! I really enjoyed your MS Warchief in Bestiary when I gave the game another chance after quite a while. It was super smooth to play and now I really enjoy this build in Flashback league. Although I really don't like that Adrenaline perk so I went with perma Fortify. That way I have 2 things less to care about at challenging encounters: Fortify uptime and Adrenaline buff.

Besides the thing with the Watcher's Eye the only inconsistency I found in your guide is that you recommend Stone Golem but use Lightning Golem yourself in your Cwdt setup. Is there any specific reasoning behind this?

Keep up your good work and have fun playing!

Edit: Second thought about Watcher's Eye.

How would this build perform compared to goober's and other builds that use reave/bf?


I really like frost blades mechanics more than reave (kinda aids to keep up unless in really dense maps), and bladeflurry, while very high dps, can be annoying to build and release.

I imagine your build will be much simpler to play with frost blades and dual strike. But with quite a bit of lower dps ceiling, is that right? Frost blades clear way faster and safer than reave though.

Hey everyone, can anybody tell me why there are "frost walls" when he hits with frostblades? And whats the mechanic/usage?
What I'm missing? Thanks!

This build looks super fun.

Since the beasteary mechanic will not be staying in the game, will you not be able to get the chest and helm?

looked like a super fun build to mess around with but kind of sad as you said in the video the build is some what designed around the items.(At least I believe this is what was said)

A bit newer to the game so I apologize if this is an annoying question. If we are unable to get the chest/helm in Incursion and is what the build uses to scale, Do you have any suggestions for scaling this build into the late game for incursion?

Edit: after re watching I see the back up helm and chest you suggested

You can 100% run this build without chest and helm.

Check my duelist in standard league, I modified it a little bit but core concept is still the same.

Frostblade is way better for area clear, I pick totem because I mainly use this car to kill guardian, shaper and elder etc.

Hope that helps....

With this build the things you can’t face tank are:

1. Elder gound slam (deals 32000 cold dmg)

2. Ubler queen flameblast

3. Ubler elder and shaper gound slams (Solaris only works with one mob)

Build Looks awesome and very fast. Looking towards start of next league which of your builds do you like better for the league starter. This one or the Lead Sprinkler build you have?