[3.22] GH Permafreeze Scion - Fun, Krangled, Cheap, & "Unique"

3.23 Update: Build most likely bricked without tattoos, will keep guide updated in case they go core later

Here is a list of things this build relied on tattoos for:

Fortify on hit: This is probably the easiest fix, you'll just need a different corruption on your Frostbreath. It's only a % chance instead of guaranteed, but on the bright side it frees up your amulet anointment for something else.

Capping chaos resist: Not the end of the world, can probably be capped with better gear if you're willing to pay the price. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Capping block chance: Not the end of the world, but you'll be unlikely to find another way to get 8% block chance. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Maintaining Precise Technique by balacing accuracy and max life: 40% less damage is a big deal, but there are probably other ways to keep this perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Leech: This bricks the build imo. Without the 240% increased maximum life recovery per second from the 2 Kitava Makanga tatoos + Warrior's Tale, your survivability will take an unaccepable hit. You get 5 passive skill points back, but even with that plus the anointment, I can't think of anything that would offset it.

We lose out on some freeze chance and fire exposure with the removal of alt quality gems too (unless there are replacements coming with the new gem system that haven't been revealed yet), but that's not too major either.

Heatshiver nerf from 100% more to 30% more really stings though!

I'll keep this build in mind for later leagues as it's kind of my baby lol, if/when tattoos go core I'll be happy to keep it updated.


Been playing PoE for years and this is the first build I've ever created from scratch and felt good about. I would usually find a meta-ish build on youtube or something and tweak it slightly to make it my own. While I think the build is functional and polished enough to share, this being the first build I dreamed from the ground up, built, and played, there is a good chance it could be improved, so any feedback is appreciated.

https://pastebin.com/dbybCxSh

One of the most common ways people die in PoE is oneshots. There are oneshots you expect (telegraphed stuff like shaper slams), and ones you don't. Even huge dps builds that can delete bosses in seconds can get oneshot by unlucky, unexpected oneshots from one attack from one random thing that doesn't die fast enough for whatever reason. The main focus of the build is mitigating these unexpected oneshots by dropping the fattest, most disgusting freezes imaginable across the entire screen.



T16 map bosses? Frozen forever.

T16 6+ Essence monsters? Frozen forever.

Rippy, one-shotty Metamorphs? Frozen forever.

Triple Ghosted Rogue Exiles hiding in a pack at the edge of the screen ready to leap slam you? Frozen for 5 seconds from trash HoI chains, until you can get into melee range.

Ranged monster taking potshots at you from a distance? Entire pack frozen for 5 seconds from a level 10 CWDT Cold Snap, until you can get into melee range.


Unethical. If Ubers could be frozen, this build would freeze them permanently.

Even mobs that are freeze resistant (80% less freeze duration) are not safe, they freeze just like everything else. Only mobs you need to watch out for are "Cannot be Slowed", fully or otherwise.

Pros

Really satisfying clear with chaining freeze explosions

Feels a lot safer than it is

Respectable single target dps. Enough to do Pinnacle bosses, but not as fast as boss killing builds (all Pinnacle config):

1.2m: Single button faceroll (just auto flasks, CWDT stuff, and Glacial Hammer)

2.5m: A little more serious (Elemental Weakness, Flame Wall, Ancestral Protector)

4.5m: Maximum Effort (Above, plus Vaal Ancestral Warchief & Vaal Haste)

Facetank most things even if you can't freeze them using block/dodge/leech (just be careful of telegraphed high damage/oneshot mechanics)

1 button playstyle for clearing (all the other buttons are for tougher stuff)

Cheap. You can get up to red maps on a < 1 div budget. The polished endgame version in the PoB is ~30 div which I understand isn't that expensive compared to other builds.

Leveling is easy

League start viable on trade leagues


Cons

Only ~4k eHP leaves you very susceptible to oneshots and mechanics that aren't oneshots per se, but are heavily telegraphed with the expectation that you dodge. Exarch balls, for example.

Can't do Ubers (DPS too low, and the builds defensive strategy isn't well matched to Uber bossing)

Can't finish Simulacrum (Can probably get to mid 20s, but will likely fail the Kosis DPS check)

Despite having good clear, Legion encounters don't feel very good

Can probably survive Delirium juiced maps, but the clear speed would be unacceptable

Heavy reliance on uniques means no SSF leagues, rigid build structure, low eHP, and low global defense stats.


Defensive Layers

100% chance to freeze (almost) everything you hit, and the rest of the screen too

10% (Expedition's End) or 25% (CWDT Cold Snap) chill on things you haven't hit yet

Leeches 150% of max HP every second, and leech effects don't end on full HP

5 endurance charges: 10% to gain on kill, 25% to gain on block, gain 1 every second if hit recently

50% Immortal Call uptime on lvl 1 CWDT

Fortify on hit

100% suppression (no flasks)

75% block and chaos resist (no flasks, thank you tattoos)

Elemental ailment immunity (no flasks)

Poison/Blind/Stun immunity (no flasks)

< 0% curse effect (flasks up)

Decent chance to dodge (80ish%, 35k Evasion, flasks up)


Map modifiers to be careful about

Unstoppable (Monsters' Action Speed cannot be modified to below base value): Doable, but nothing can be chilled or frozen now. Anything that isn't trash is probably going to be able to attack you now. I would suggest you avoid this mod.

of Congealment (Cannot Leech from monsters): Theoretically doable, but leech is a huge defensive workhorse for this build. I would suggest you avoid this mod.

of Insulation (70% chance to avoid elemental ailments): Definitely doable, but you have to go a bit slower since your 100% chance to freeze is 30% now and you might get swarmed.

of Imprecision (Players have 25% less Accuracy Rating): Not a big problem, but you should know that you do 40% less damage now because numbers are tight with Precise Technique (why the Blind immunity corruption on helmet is important)


Gear


Heatshiver is a massive DPS boost for anything that freezes. We get a further 100% increased damage on ignited enemies from Fire Mastery as well.
You can easily make it to red maps without it though. The blind immunity corruption is a very cheap corruption outcome, and it helps us hit things, and not do 40% less damage when we get blinded because we lose our Precise Technique.


Expedition's End helps with dropping those fat unethical freezes, and also offers some defensive utility by chilling stuff before you even hit it, boosting damage and bumping our chance to freeze to 100% when we do hit it.
More expensive now that Sanctum went core unfortunately, but you can get well into red maps without it, this is a chase unique.


Painseeker is a big defensive workhorse, as this lets us freeze things much more easily. It's cheap as heck (but expensive getting the socket colors you need lol).


Yoke of Suffering gives us resistances, a nice damage boost because of all the ailments we're stacking, and lets us shock with our cold+fire damage. The reduced ailment duration seems like it would kneecap the build, but 30% reduced is inconsequential in the face of 850% more.


Cheap as heck and very close to BIS for this build. There are some very specialized upgrades, but they're all worth multiple Divines. Not worth IMO. You can get a Frostbreath close to max roll with a good corruption for a few Chaos.


Cheap and pretty much every stat on this ring syngergizes with the build extremely well. I was using 2 of them until I got into red maps and needed more chaos res.


Remaining pieces of rare gear should focus on spell suppression, max life, resistances, and elemental ailment avoidance on boots.


Gem Links

Auras:
Anomalous Hatred-Grace-Herald of Ice-Enlighten
Anomalous Hatred is cheap and makes is easier for us to freeze things. Always a plus with this build!

CWDT 1:
CWDT (lvl 1)-Immortal Call (lvl 3)-Increased Duration-Frost Bomb (lvl 10)
Frost Bomb to apply Cold Exposure and reduce regeneration

CWDT 2:
CWDT (lvl 1)-Anomalous Cold Snap (lvl 7)-Unbound Ailments-Bonechill
Anomalous Cold Snap isn't necessary, but it's chill effect we're trying to stack to increase damage with Bonechill (and it's also way cheaper than Divergent Bonechill which does the same thing). Even at level 7, our Cold Snap is strong enough to freeze trash that hits us from out of range!

GH:
Glacial Hammer-Ice Bite-Awakened Cold Damage-Anomalous Hypothermia-Ruthless-Multistrike
Anomalous Hypothermia is needed for the chance to freeze (as we can't crit). Ruthless and Multistrike help by fattening up some of our hits so we can get fatter freezes. It doesn't matter that only 1 out of 3 hits will be fat, because we have enough added effectiveness from Painseeker/Expedition's End to hit the max 5 second freeze time on those hits, and it takes way less than 5 seconds to cycle through 3 attacks.

Damage boosters (links not really necessary):
Phantasmal Flame Wall: Needs to be Phantasmal to apply Fire Exposure
Elemental Weakness: Since we do Fire and Cold damage we need EW
Ancestral Protector & Vaal Ancestral Warchief: Huge DPS boost with Panopticon allocated via Thread of Hope
Vaal Haste: Another huge DPS boost


Ascendancy

Elementalist: Gives us 40% more damage by juicing our exposure, and makes us immune to reflect.
Juggernaut: Big accuracy boost, stun immunity, and endurance charge generation


Notes about the Passive Tree

This is the most krangled passive tree I've ever made, and I'm kind of proud of it.

6 Unique pieces of gear wasn't enough? How about 6 unique jewels?

Megalomaniac: All 3 passives are useful for this build. I kind of lucked out with this one, YMMV but there are ways to adjust.

Thread of Hope: You'll need this early to round out your stats (+20 to each from the 3 Duelist notables), block chance, and burst damage from Panopticon.

Impossible Escape: Luckily this one isn't too expensive, but Galvanic Hammer and the 2 minor nodes give great damage, and are needed to boost accuracy for Precise Technique. Purity of Flesh and Reservation Efficiency are just nice nodes to get.

Unnatural Instinct: Not strictly necessary, it's another chase unique. Gets you 9% Move Speed, 9% Block Chance, 10% Skill Effect Duration, 10 Strength, 12 Life, 5 Dex, and 4% Attack Speed. Not bad for 1 passive point.

Glorious Vanity (Ahuana): This is a huge defensive boost because our leech effects are no longer removed on full life, and OH MAN does this build leech.

Warrior's Tale: Basically gets us a 3rd Kitava Makanga tattoo for 3 passive points, which is fewer than you'd need to spend pathing to garbage nodes trying to fit another one on the tree.


Flasks

Reduced Effect of Curses: This passive tree is so krangled, you should be able to get a jewel with a Reduced Effect of Curses corruption. That + This flask mod + Yugul Pantheon will grant Curse Immunity when flasks are up.

Attack Speed: Straight damage.

Silver Flask: Onslaught is nice.

Jade Flask, Stibnite Flask, Evasion suffix: Most of our evasion rating comes from flasks. Not ideal, but that's what happens when you have a build with this many uniques ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Life Flask with Bleed/Corrupted Blood Immunity: Use the prefix of your choice. I've always liked Panicked, but Seething is good too.


Tattoos

When placing Tattoos, make sure you don't overwrite too many Dex nodes, or else you'll lose Spell Suppression chance with Magebane! On at least 2 occasions I forgot about this and was pulling my hair out wondering why I'm at 99% suppression chance now.

Kitava Makanga: We can get 2 with relatively little investment, with a 3rd coming from Warrior's Tale.

Valako Shieldbearer: Need lots of these to max out our block chance. Luckily we have the nodes for it.

Honored Tattoo of the Oak: We need life wherever we can get it.

Ramako Archer: As we get more life from Oak Tattoos, we need to balance it out with accuracy so we don't lose our Precise Technique damage.


Gameplay videos

https://youtu.be/vUFxn-FuZbc
https://youtu.be/V64Rg5dExvU


As long as you're mindful of what this build is for and what its limitations are, it's really fun to play.

Thanks!
Last edited by RaSTVaMPHuNT on Dec 7, 2023, 5:18:39 PM
Last bumped on Jul 20, 2024, 4:12:08 PM
Looks really fun, what kind of content are you generally farming with this build? I see in the videos you posted that you are doing essence farming, is that all this build is super solid at farming or are there other areas it would shine in?
Sorry for the late reply!

It's first and foremost a mapping build. I made it with the aim of being a fun build to grind maps with whatever extra content you like (Legion feels kinda bad though). Whatever map content you like on the atlas tree this build can do well. I just like farming Essences (and recently respecced into Harbingers and Harvest too).

It CAN do non-map content too. Heist and Delve work great.

The biggest problem for this build is pinnacle bosses because they can't be frozen, which is probably the biggest defensive tool this build has. It CAN kill them, but you'd have to work a lot harder than most other builds.
For some reason it's not letting me edit the original post anymore and it deleted all my additional notes.

I have no idea what's going on? I can't even post the notes in a new reply.

Edit: Was able to revert the post from the edit history, didn't even know that was an option. Lucky for me...Guess I should cool it on the updates.
Last edited by RaSTVaMPHuNT on Oct 27, 2023, 9:52:36 AM
"
RaSTVaMPHuNT wrote:
Sorry for the late reply!

It's first and foremost a mapping build. I made it with the aim of being a fun build to grind maps with whatever extra content you like (Legion feels kinda bad though). Whatever map content you like on the atlas tree this build can do well. I just like farming Essences (and recently respecced into Harbingers and Harvest too).

It CAN do non-map content too. Heist and Delve work great.

The biggest problem for this build is pinnacle bosses because they can't be frozen, which is probably the biggest defensive tool this build has. It CAN kill them, but you'd have to work a lot harder than most other builds.


Thanks for the reply! (and sorry for my own very late reply, hahaha). Knowing it can delve and heist is great, variety is nice sometimes as farming the same over and over can get a tad repetitive. Overall build looks really solid, and I am extremely interested in league starting it next league! Again thank you for the awesome guide and post here.
"
Fadedlimes wrote:
"
RaSTVaMPHuNT wrote:
Sorry for the late reply!

It's first and foremost a mapping build. I made it with the aim of being a fun build to grind maps with whatever extra content you like (Legion feels kinda bad though). Whatever map content you like on the atlas tree this build can do well. I just like farming Essences (and recently respecced into Harbingers and Harvest too).

It CAN do non-map content too. Heist and Delve work great.

The biggest problem for this build is pinnacle bosses because they can't be frozen, which is probably the biggest defensive tool this build has. It CAN kill them, but you'd have to work a lot harder than most other builds.


Thanks for the reply! (and sorry for my own very late reply, hahaha). Knowing it can delve and heist is great, variety is nice sometimes as farming the same over and over can get a tad repetitive. Overall build looks really solid, and I am extremely interested in league starting it next league! Again thank you for the awesome guide and post here.


I wouldn't suggest it, sadly.
At least not until (if) tattoos go core.

Here is a list of things this build relied on tattoos for:

Fortify on hit: This is probably the easiest fix, you'll just need a different corruption on your Frostbreath. It's only a % chance instead of guaranteed, but on the bright side it frees up your amulet anointment for something else.

Capping chaos resist: Not the end of the world, can probably be capped with better gear if you're willing to pay the price. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Capping block chance: Not the end of the world, but you'll be unlikely to find another way to get 8% block chance. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Maintaining Precise Technique by balacing accuracy and max life: 40% less damage is a big deal, but there are probably other ways to keep this perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Leech: This bricks the build imo. Without the 240% increased maximum life recovery per second from the 2 Kitava Makanga tatoos + Warrior's Tale, your survivability will take an unaccepable hit. You get 5 passive skill points back, but even with that plus the anointment, I can't think of anything that would offset it.

We lose out on some freeze chance and fire exposure with the removal of alt quality gems too (unless there are replacements coming with the new gem system that haven't been revealed yet), but that's not too major either.

Heatshiver nerf from 100% more to 30% more really stings though!

I'll keep this build in mind for later leagues as it's kind of my baby lol, if/when tattoos go core I'll be happy to keep it updated.

Thanks so much for your interest though, and I'm glad you liked my build!
Last edited by RaSTVaMPHuNT on Dec 7, 2023, 5:19:37 PM
"
RaSTVaMPHuNT wrote:
"
Fadedlimes wrote:
"
RaSTVaMPHuNT wrote:
Sorry for the late reply!

It's first and foremost a mapping build. I made it with the aim of being a fun build to grind maps with whatever extra content you like (Legion feels kinda bad though). Whatever map content you like on the atlas tree this build can do well. I just like farming Essences (and recently respecced into Harbingers and Harvest too).

It CAN do non-map content too. Heist and Delve work great.

The biggest problem for this build is pinnacle bosses because they can't be frozen, which is probably the biggest defensive tool this build has. It CAN kill them, but you'd have to work a lot harder than most other builds.


Thanks for the reply! (and sorry for my own very late reply, hahaha). Knowing it can delve and heist is great, variety is nice sometimes as farming the same over and over can get a tad repetitive. Overall build looks really solid, and I am extremely interested in league starting it next league! Again thank you for the awesome guide and post here.


I wouldn't suggest it, sadly.
At least not until (if) tattoos go core.

Here is a list of things this build relied on tattoos for:

Fortify on hit: This is probably the easiest fix, you'll just need a different corruption on your Frostbreath. It's only a % chance instead of guaranteed, but on the bright side it frees up your amulet anointment for something else.

Capping chaos resist: Not the end of the world, can probably be capped with better gear if you're willing to pay the price. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Capping block chance: Not the end of the world, but you'll be unlikely to find another way to get 8% block chance. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Maintaining Precise Technique by balacing accuracy and max life: 40% less damage is a big deal, but there are probably other ways to keep this perfectly balanced, as all things should be. Maybe the freed up anointment will help here?

Leech: This bricks the build imo. Without the 240% increased maximum life recovery per second from the 2 Kitava Makanga tatoos + Warrior's Tale, your survivability will take an unaccepable hit. You get 5 passive skill points back, but even with that plus the anointment, I can't think of anything that would offset it.

We lose out on some freeze chance and fire exposure with the removal of alt quality gems too (unless there are replacements coming with the new gem system that haven't been revealed yet), but that's not too major either.

Heatshiver nerf from 100% more to 30% more really stings though!

I'll keep this build in mind for later leagues as it's kind of my baby lol, if/when tattoos go core I'll be happy to keep it updated.

Thanks so much for your interest though, and I'm glad you liked my build!


The build really did seem interesting to me, and an absolute shame it got hit so hard with the changes. I'll be keeping my eyes out for any changes and possible viability in the future, thanks again for keeping me updated with the changes and all that.
Not to revive a dead thread, but... those changes don't seem terrible...

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