Frost Blades Assassin?

I've been a little bored and frustrated lately, so figured I should try to come up with a build in Path of Building on my own instead of playing ready-made builds. Yes, that probably means it's not very good, but hear me out.

Have looked over quite a few build guides for ideas, and reading about skills on the wiki, and it looks like Frost Blades may be fun. I don't see many builds with it, so is that because people deem it shit?

I wanted to try something with good crit chances+multi, and taking advantage of power and frenzy charges. Stated DPS is diabolical for now, which I hope is largely because I haven't inserted 'real' items - just the templates from PoB, which are mostly empty apart from the implicit.

Would be real nice if people could take a look and suggests improvements. Life is a little low and I'm near other nodes, but just left it at +166% for now since I kinda wanted the jewel slots as well. I've tried to boost both the physical and projectile part of the skill. Right now PoB lists 71k DPS for the melee part, and 28k for the projectile (which is hopefully for each of them). Hoped to get crit chance higher, but right now it's at 70%, which is still decent I guess.

https://pastebin.com/xVyEdGRr

Haven't set up all skills either, but would naturally want to use a totem and a golem, and a CWDT setup, and probably shield charge+fortify as I've gone with a shield for now.

I tried FB in the incursion event. I was looking for something different and hadn't tried FB before. I thought it was horrible. I barely made it to Act 3 before I quit the build.

First, I just didn't like the feel of it. It's supposed to be a melee skill, but it felt like a crappy version of Ice Spear. It felt like some weird combo of melee, projectile, and spell. But it didn't really play like any of those.

The tool tip damage was fairly high for my level when I quit. But it didn't seem to kill like it should have with that much DPS. Using other skills with that much tool tip, I should have been tearing through mobs. But I found myself have to 2-3 hit trash mobs below my level.

I kept feeling like I should give it more time. But it just felt too bad, so I rerolled as something else while the event was still young.

I hate to be discouraging, since you might like it. But it was not my thing at all.

Ouch. That doens't sound good at all. It looked like an interesting build/skill. I'm not a fan of the super-speed builds every which way you look in this game, but if this barely tickles a blood monkey, it won't be all that much fun.

Will try to tinker some more when I get home, and maybe try it out in-game. Even I can probably get to level 20 reasonably quickly.

I'm not much help with overall build optimisation, more of a mechanics knowledge-base and calculator, so take my "advise" with a grain of salt. Also I'm at work so I can't look at your POB.

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Pangaearocks a écrit :

I don't see many builds with it, so is that because people deem it shit?

Before the latest patch, I read many people saying FB was insane for clear-speed

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I've tried to boost both the physical and projectile part of the skill.

This statement makes no sense, as the projectile part also has a physical part with default FB, and is always physical-scaling

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Right now PoB lists 71k DPS for the melee part, and 28k for the projectile (which is hopefully for each of them).

Ouch, that doesn't make a terrible lot of sense. Are you using clearspeed-increasing but DPS-decreasing support gems? i.e. Chain, LMP, GMP, Fork, etc. If I were in your shoes I wouldn't bother with any of those other than maybe Chain if I wanted to go meta speedyfast, but in that case Gloomfang or Touch of Anguish would be better sources of Chain as they would not have a damage penalty. There's no gem damage penalty for the projectiles so the dps should be roughly similar in theory

-------------overall

-My impression of "meta" FB builds is that you build for clearspeed i.e. spec for the projectile portion and ignore the melee portion altogether

-Not sure if you're already doing this (being a lazy bum at work, no POB) but if you want to scale the melee at all you'd most likely want 2 Fight for Survival jewels for dat sweet, sweet cold pen
-----for ease of scaling you most likely want to take Winter Spirit on the passive tree in lower right hand corner for the 40% conversion

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adghar a écrit :

I'm not much help with overall build optimisation, more of a mechanics knowledge-base and calculator, so take my "advise" with a grain of salt. Also I'm at work so I can't look at your POB.

Probably not at work any more, but this site may work there too: https://poe.technology/poebuddy/xVyEdGRr
It only shows the projectile damage and it doesn't look like I can change it to melee (which is 71k DPS). But as you see from the gear, most of it is essentially empty.

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Before the latest patch, I read many people saying FB was insane for clear-speed

This definitely sounds more promising, although I'd like to be able to take down bosses too. Maybe I would need a different skill for that though, as unlike Arc, it doesn't look like Frost Blades can scale it likewise against single targets.

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This statement makes no sense, as the projectile part also has a physical part with default FB, and is always physical-scaling

Thanks. I also found out this by reading more about it while in bed when I couldn't sleep - heh. I have picked a few pure projectile nodes, but not very many.

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Ouch, that doesn't make a terrible lot of sense. Are you using clearspeed-increasing but DPS-decreasing support gems? i.e. Chain, LMP, GMP, Fork, etc. If I were in your shoes I wouldn't bother with any of those other than maybe Chain if I wanted to go meta speedyfast, but in that case Gloomfang or Touch of Anguish would be better sources of Chain as they would not have a damage penalty. There's no gem damage penalty for the projectiles so the dps should be roughly similar in theory

-------------overall

-My impression of "meta" FB builds is that you build for clearspeed i.e. spec for the projectile portion and ignore the melee portion altogether

-Not sure if you're already doing this (being a lazy bum at work, no POB) but if you want to scale the melee at all you'd most likely want 2 Fight for Survival jewels for dat sweet, sweet cold pen
-----for ease of scaling you most likely want to take Winter Spirit on the passive tree in lower right hand corner for the 40% conversion

I tested out a few support gems, and what seems to be best (of those I tested) is:
Frost Blades - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Added Cold Damage Increased Critical Damage.

Originally I tried Increased Critical Strikes, but it actually yielded less DPS than with Damage. I haven't tried Fork and suchlike, as it didn't sound very good.

Previously I did find a weapon, mighty well-rolled, which it suddenly dawned on me should be a really good fit for a build like this.

Would the "extra chain" mean an extra projectile, or the skill itself repeating? That latter would be pretty damn powerful!

Currently I haven't picked Winter Spirit, but I'm real close so can do it. Not sure what is best to drop as I'm already low on life and should probably try to get at least 175-180%. Good to have many jewels too since they can be really powerful, and I'm near them, but could of course drop 1-2 if that makes the build overall more powerful (or adds survivability).

Kind of want to try out this stuff after spending a good amount of time on it - I just hope it won't suck donkey nuts, which it sounded like it did from the other post further up.

Another options is of course to drop the shield and go with dual wielding - but then I get into some problems with a movement skill (and fortify). The build is probably pretty squishy as it is too, so a shield may be needed.

edit: For having many crap items, shouldn't this start to look decent? 142k DPS on the melee attack and 43k for the projectiles.



This is while using Hatred (in Essence Worm), Herald of Ice and Blood Rage.

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Pangaearocks a écrit :

I tested out a few support gems, and what seems to be best (of those I tested) is:
Frost Blades - Melee Physical Damage - Multistrike - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Added Cold Damage Increased Critical Damage.

ahh I'm guessing POB is failing to apply Multistrike's speed bonus to the projectiles (and Melee Physical Damage would correctly apply to the melee hit but not the Projectiles). That would set the ratio between the two at 71000/(28175*1.94) = 1.2989, or 30% more, which combined with the number of projectile nodes you're taking makes sense. If my guess is right, then, your projectile DPS is probably 28175*1.94 = 54659.5, not 28k

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Would the "extra chain" mean an extra projectile, or the skill itself repeating? That latter would be pretty damn powerful!

basically an extra projectile. +1 chain will do nothing to the melee hit, and it will make it so when 1 projectile hits enemy #1, the projectile is not destroyed but instead seeks out enemy #2.

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Currently I haven't picked Winter Spirit, but I'm real close so can do it. Not sure what is best to drop as I'm already low on life and should probably try to get at least 175-180%. Good to have many jewels too since they can be really powerful, and I'm near them, but could of course drop 1-2 if that makes the build overall more powerful (or adds survivability).

again, disclaimer that I'm not a pro at optimising builds overall, but here is the passive tree I would make if I were building your character as you wanted to:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.3.1/AAAABAYBAABeAQkFtQceCC4M8g2NDdEOSA_EES8RgRGWFf0WvxmOGo0byCP2JP0mlSoLMHwyATOSNj031Dt8Ps9DE0X0SVFJsUp9TZJRR1VLWyZd8mHiYetirGNDY6dkr2egaoxsjG9XcFJ1_XgZePl6U37dfyt_xn_7gayEb4d2idOKOIw2jX2NgY25jb-TJ5UumyadqqEvoqOi2aOKpcupebDYshm0xbVIuMq42b3mvorBoMLsyBTPes_d037WB9fP3UbdSOOE45_kaudU6NbrY-0_7YPuDu9674jw1fGK9W_5N_zF_W7_3g==

162% life. you can probably make it up to 176% with jewels if you want to spend the coin on it :P

this tree also gets 11% penetration from nodes, which brings total penetration on melee hits to 41% if you use 2x Fight for Survival

Frost Blades is quite capable of taking you through most of the game if built right. You will start to run into problems in mid to high red tier maps against bosses where the low single target damage of FB starts to show.

The reason you don't see many builds for FB is because 1)the "Newness" has worn off, 2)other melee skills have been buffed 3) single target damage is on the low side.

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adghar a écrit :

ahh I'm guessing POB is failing to apply Multistrike's speed bonus to the projectiles (and Melee Physical Damage would correctly apply to the melee hit but not the Projectiles). That would set the ratio between the two at 71000/(28175*1.94) = 1.2989, or 30% more, which combined with the number of projectile nodes you're taking makes sense. If my guess is right, then, your projectile DPS is probably 28175*1.94 = 54659.5, not 28k

I've reworked the tree a bit, so not sure how that calculus would come out now. Currently PoB reports 159k for the melee part, and 52k for projectiles. The latter rises to 73k if I turn off multistrike. However, with multistrike, do we get 24 projectiles at Frost Blades level 20? That would mean a great deal more damage than the higher base without MS but only 8 projectiles.

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again, disclaimer that I'm not a pro at optimising builds overall, but here is the passive tree I would make if I were building your character as you wanted to:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.3.1/AAAABAYBAABeAQkFtQceCC4M8g2NDdEOSA_EES8RgRGWFf0WvxmOGo0byCP2JP0mlSoLMHwyATOSNj031Dt8Ps9DE0X0SVFJsUp9TZJRR1VLWyZd8mHiYetirGNDY6dkr2egaoxsjG9XcFJ1_XgZePl6U37dfyt_xn_7gayEb4d2idOKOIw2jX2NgY25jb-TJ5UumyadqqEvoqOi2aOKpcupebDYshm0xbVIuMq42b3mvorBoMLsyBTPes_d037WB9fP3UbdSOOE45_kaudU6NbrY-0_7YPuDu9674jw1fGK9W_5N_zF_W7_3g==

162% life. you can probably make it up to 176% with jewels if you want to spend the coin on it :P

this tree also gets 11% penetration from nodes, which brings total penetration on melee hits to 41% if you use 2x Fight for Survival

Thanks! That looks really good, and provided I filled it out correctly in PoB, can be imported with https://pastebin.com/cD0FCREx. With the same gear and skills-gems-auras, your tree gives 153k DPS for melee and 58k per projectile. The latter is about 10% more than I have.

My reworked tree gives 159k melee and 52k per projectile. I dropped a section of the 'snake' to the west, but still retained some of it, and picked a few other nodes, including Winter Spirit. I kept the projectile damage nodes in the south, so I'm guessing it's the penetration that mainly gets you higher projectile damage?

As part of the quest to get more life I had to drop a power and frenzy charge, so I'm at the minimum of 4 and 3 now (ascendancies give 1 power charge), while you have 5 each. I did manage to squeeze out some more life, though, so have 176% from the tree now, which from what I gather elsewhere is in the recommended range.

Due to the higher projectile damage yours is probably more damaging overall, though.

For easier comparison: Your build and my attempt.

Although it doesn't sound like Frost Blades is all that great, especially in the end game, think I'd like to try it out just to see for myself. If it goes to hell, so be it. We are there anyway ;-) And I'm kind of jaded with my current characters, having hit the softcap of 90.

The biggest issue seems to be single-target damage, because the skill simply doesn't scale in that fashion. Hopefully that is something that may get sorted in the 3.4 update, by making additional projectiles hit the same target or something (unless that would be way too OP). Power creep for the win, huh? :shifty:

Another rework, and trying to learn from adghar's build I was able to include the penetration node in the very south-east by dropping the life regen in the centre south and a few redundant pathing nodes, while almost keeping the same +life percentage.

Still not quite up there on projectiles, but melee got boosted to 184k now and projectiles to 56k.

Another advantage with the SE nodes is boosting freeze chance from 10% to 20%. That could potentially be a big deal as killing frozen enemies can gain me charges.

https://poe.technology/poebuddy/tvTL9pwB

Dropping some life regen could mean it's tricky to keep Blood Rage, at least 100% of the time, but we also have a good amount of life leech, so in combat it shouldn't matter. Could be bad in boss fights when you need to run away to survive, though.

Hi, you´re missing lots of equipment there and some pathing seems contraproductive.

I will add skill tree for the dualwielded crit assassin just for an inspiration I have made for some guy.

He has used Bloodseeker claw (far better life recovery but a bit worse damage) but also added ToA.

DPS with all buffs vs shaper (haven´t changed his gear so still lots of room for improvement)

https://pastebin.com/yyetKr51