TbXie's Freezing Pulse / Ice Spear Totem Hierophant Build Guide (PoE Settlers of Kalguur 3.25)

July 23rd, 2024, 14:32

Introduction & Expectations

I expected this skill to perform a lot better than it is in your guide. Why is this?

Because it is impossible to cater to everyone, I choose to not overcomplicate things. As a rule of thumb, this means you get to be confident you can obtain your two first Voidstones, an otherwise full Atlas completion & have a great mapping experience in T16 maps with moderates amounts of juice.
This implies you will most likely be looking for some help, or further investments to obtain your last two Voidstones. This is due to the fact that fighting these bosses on acceptable amounts of gear requires an enormous amount of game knowledge, fight practice & mechanical skill. Trying to compare your playing experience to those who’ve done nothing but play for years, tends to lead to dissapointment.

Therefore, take your time & appreciate the fact that some content can be harder for you, and the characters powerlevels you’ve managed to acquire, than for others. There’s no shame in this.

Disclaimer

I am currently playing the new Challenge League and a lot of things have been added of which no mention can be found in this guide?

While I would very much like to give you all the ins and outs of the new powercreep in the new Challenge League, it saddens me to let you know that no Early access is given out and we thus have no more information than anyone else when updating our build guides before the new patches. We try our utmost to make sure everything is as close to perfect as we can, but cannot forecast which special mechanics / interactions might exist in new Leagues. If something of tremendous power is teased or announced beforehand, you can find specific League specific remarks in the section on the Gear Page

What to Expect

🔸 T16 Maps ✔️
🔸 T16 Maps w/ a few Atlas Mechanics or some scarabs ✔️
🔸 Pinnacle bosses when playing well ✔️
🔸 T17 Maps ❗
🔸 Uber Content ❌
🔸 Uber Content when investing well beyond the guide ❗

Freezing Pulse & Ice Spear

Both of the skill used in this Totem build are ranged spells. They both deal & scale off of cold damage. Because they’re both projectile gems, scaling projectiles adds to a ton of clear speed for the one and single target for the other. They lend themselves to be totemized very well because of their intricate “problems” otherwise which get bypassed by converting them into Totems.

Playstyle

Well, as most totem builds, this build plays like a Totem build. The main advantage here is that you need virtually no gear to obtain both clear speed & reasonable single target. Other totem builds tend to rely on getting a unique or another while here, it basically can be played without anything and you will still have the option of having access to both at the opportunity cost of some gemswaps.

Build Assessment

Pro’s & Con’s

➕ Great damage on no budget
➕ Can scale into high end content
➕ Single Target & Clear Speed access

➖ Never stops feeling squishy
➖ Gemswaps necessary for bossing
➖ Not hardcore viable

Viability in Numbers

🔸 Ease of Transitioning: ★★★★★
🔸 New Player Friendliness: ★★★★☆
🔸 Playstyle: ★★★☆☆
🔸 Ease of Gearing: ★★★★☆
🔸 Easily Executable: ★★★☆☆

Map Modifiers to Avoid

While certain combinations of modifiers are generally just bad, such as for example a couple of damage modifiers combined with Critical Strike Multiplier, these are things you are supposed to get a feel for yourself and test out. Just make sure not to combine too much crazy things together. Modifiers the build cannot run are listed here.

❗No Life Regeneration
❗Elemental Damage Reflect

Damage & Defenses

Mechanics

Scaling & Layers

This build layers a lot of conditional mitigation to mostly avoid getting hit for relevant damage. These layers are combinations of following attempts to avoid taking relevant hits:

🔸Four Endurance Charges
🔸Mind over Matter
🔸Reasonable Life Pool
🔸Chill
🔸Damage from enemies is unlucky

Build Resources

Leveling the Build

Leaguestarter or Transitioning

This build has the Leaguestarer tag. This means we will be holding your hand right from the get go until you reach the pinnacle of your power and finish the guide. In order to maximize your experience, please make sure to follow the Path of Building leveling sections accordingly. We will be providing multiple skill trees & gem sets to ease your progress to endgame maps.

You can find the Path of Building link on the Path of Building page .