TbXie's Ice Nova of Frostbolts Hierophant Build Guide (PoE Settlers of Kalguur 3.25)

August 25th, 2024, 13:08

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 ❗

Ice Nova of Frostbolts

Ice Nova of Frostbolts is a spell which means you’re playing a caster archetype. This skill is different from most self casted spells in a way that it requires a source of Frostbolts to do its maximum damage. In our iteration of the build, we automated that source by using a build enabling unique, which is generally cheap. The downside that introduces is the sacrifice of a gearslot as well as having to play a two button build until you get access to the usually very cheap unique item. You get an incredible amount of return for handling the small pains the build introduces though which I invite you to find out while playing this very well rounded build.

Playstyle

The build plays like a two button caster, as mentioned, until you introduce Kitava's Thirst into the build. This will automate your Frostbolt generation and will make it so you’re just spamming Ice Nova’s whilst not really caring about anything else. Most other things are automated outside of some conditional buffs which you might want to press whenever facing some harder bosses / bad combinations of affixes on rares.

Build Assessment

Pro’s & Con’s

➕ Incredibly Durable
➕ Cheap to get going
➕ Investing into it keeps getting your solid returns

➖ Two button build before Unique Helmet
➖ Pretty dependent on Mana Rolls on Gear
➖ Very hungry for levels as passives are important

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 Regeneration
❗Elemental Damage Reflect
❗Damage cannot leech

Damage & Defenses

Mechanics

This build leverages the Archmage Support to combine both the offensive & defensive benefits of Mana. By using some interesting tech from items/ascendancies, Mana turns into a defensive layer, as well as being the main source of your Damage because of the support gem. This is why this build gets to be such a nice all arounder.

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:

🔸High Total Life Pool w/ Mana/Life/Energy Shield
🔸Capped Spell Suppression
🔸Absurd amount of recovery through instantaneous Dual Leech (Life/ES)
🔸Endurance Charges

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 Passive Tree Page

Starting out

When starting out, the build uses Firestorm to get you through the Campaign. The issue is that this only starts at level 28 because of the gem requirements. Before that, you’ll be using a multi-button leveling setup which is the bread and butter of caster leveling but is maybe not your most preferred way of playing the game. Biting through that bullet will be rewarding though.