I'm going for Trickster because it got a good buff to it's Escape Artist thanks to the stronger base types and without any nerfs to Discipline , CI should be an incredible strong defense this time around. It has also Overleech which you can improve even further with Ghost Reaver (alongside the additional Cast/Attack Speed buff) which enables you to use Energy Leech Support with the amount of Leech you will gain. I don't like to rely only on Freeze/Chill for my defenses and while I'm sure that Warden will be a strong damage option, I'd rather take the reliability of Trickster
once you got your CI pob cooking i would greatly appreciate a share. The one thing i disliked about Forstblades is that its not using my fav Trickster Node Soul Drinker. I tried to swap to CI in pob before but i was too bad at poe to make it good lol.
Warden seems like the ultimate glass cannon ascendancy. It only has barkskin stuff for defense, which seems quite unreliable. I think trickster definitely yields a much more well-rounded character. Also, a little note, shock duration is only 2s at base, and warden doesn't give too much.
Seems like a choice to make a glass Cannon or not. Ranger is close enough to Elusive on skill tree. Then add a warcry, increased duration in boots or gloves. So you have permanent up time on at least three Endurance charges, for Immortal Call, Cast when damage taken, setup. I'd add on some triple elemental Claws, to help with Trinity support. So you get max Scorch, Yoke, Freeze, at all times. My build won't be a glass Cannon, if Elusive and Evasion fails then you'll have Immortal Call with 3 Endurance charges and a fourth to be Anointed later. ☮️👍
Why are you allergic to building defences outside of the ones from your ascedancy? Blood and sand, endurance charges, fortify, buncha lifesteal, youre next to suppression and you have barkskin on top of all of these
You can annoint Defiled Forces Get Fractured Additional Curse body armour from Delve Get curse on hit from any source or arcanist brand + elemental weakness. Shocks will then be refreshed every time you hit something or arcanist brand activates.
Bro you are the main reason I even play frostblades in Poe as my main build. Just love every damn sentence you speak about this build. Imma start with warden too ❤
I have been playing PoE since 3.12 and I gotta say that no content creator takes better care of his community than Zish. Playing Zish’s Frost Blades build, I got the furthest and most powerful I’ve ever gotten in a league. I hit 100 million DPS, bought a Headhunter, crafted my own GG items for the first time, and took down pinnacle content all with just the guidance from Zish’s videos. So many creators toss out a half baked league starter with minimal context, and then you’re lucky if you see an updated PoB a few weeks later. Zish puts out content multiple times a week and it is almost all directly influenced by the community’s questions and struggles as we progress together and run into roadblocks. If you are new to PoE this is a build / creator / community that is seriously worth your consideration and will respect your time and commitment with the character you make.
3 seasons in and your fb trickster has been my favorite league starter and the first build that I got all voidstones with. Last league started as deadeye and just felt okay. I’m ready for fb again
Something to consider for trickster: replica badge + ralakesh. You can get another 2 frenzies from tree (shadow/ranger) very feasibly, and if you go trinity instead of yoke, you get 7 endurance charges = 28% elemental damage reduction = not bad at all. Then if you want to invest further, +1 frenzy rings (precursor emblems to start, replaced by synth implicit rings eventually?), along with +1 frenzy charge gloves (warlord influence iirc). There's also the fact that with the new fourth tier of EV/ES bases, you can get a crapton of ES with trickster for practically free, especially considering recombinators are back (to some extent).
Great overview! Tinctures require some investment but I think they definitely have the potential to be pretty insane, with the caveat that it will be clunky to have to reactivate them over and over. I would also note that per the Recently Asked Questions thread, Barkskin has been changed to reserve 10% mana instead of 25% but it no longer increase armour per stack of bark.
Dude you are an instant subscribe for me! My only complaint is I discovered your channel a few days ago (I had hated the league before playing your FB trickster). Looking forward to play warden in 3.25! Keep up the amazing work!
Ran Frost Blades in a league, was my most successful build, you inspired me to do it again and on Warden. I look forward to the PoB you will be putting up.
Eye of malice (that also has exposure) +double scorch +curse on hit (max effect on ring that cheap ring) +2 curses of fire and cold (maybe anathema), wouldn't actually get the enemy resistances to -180%? Also, there's this node Nature's concoction that pretty much get's you uptime in all flasks (flasks close to tictures get 2 flasks on hit with weapons). Most likely 1 topaz, 1 ruby and 1 saphire to help in the resistances. Enduring suffusion (ascendancy node) can also get 100% uptime on tictures (that you can have two) if you also get practised reapplication (25% cooldon recovery of tinctures).
About mana burn from tinctures. I was thinking. There's that timeless jewel that gives a keystone that converts 80% of mana into armour. What leaves you with 120 mana or so. 1% of that it's 1.2 mana. 10% 12 mana. so on. Easy trick to sustain tinctures. Pretty easy to sustain to 20 seconds or more. But maybe the mastery also does the trick, if you need another timeless. We need at least 12 seconds to proc enduring suffusion (tincture effects keep up for 6 seconds after they're off) and maintain a tincture with 100% uptime
I think I will try out Warden Frost Blades with Oath of Winter, Summer and Barkskin. I'm going to be trying out Barkskin as it looks like a decent defensive buff, giving an effective 775 bonus health pool against non-chaos hits and capping out at 20% more evade as well as pushing suppression up to 76% damage absorption from 56%. Might end up being trash (14 seconds without taking hits to regen that barrier seems questionably useful), but it'll be fun to see if I feel tanky or not.
In 3.23 People used Arcanist brand+Blazing Salvo+Return proj to stack sh`t ton of poison stack to ramp up Poison duration Charm, might take a look on that since now we have sockets to actully use something like that for stuff like Shock stacking. We just need to get global lightning flat somewhere - which is easy to do.
I see that new flesh and stone can offer 10-20% reduced dmg based on proximity (not just physical). It could more or less compete with crab if we want to add survival kit. We are also dropping the small cluster jewels for totems which we can replace with generic reservation or grace reservation ones or something. Frankly, barkskin is a huge opportunity cost to pick, the other choices offer so much and barkskin requires armor and evasion most likely. One thing I will certainly miss about totems was that they ate attacks like searing exarch balls..
My secret MVP from last league was Ice nova of Deep Freeze on a manastacker. Definitely going to use it again this league on the Warden. Consider INODF+CDWT+Unbound Ailments+Inc AOE to replace the totem 4-L. The gem has 50% chance to freeze and we get 45% from the nodes in ranger area. Keep the gem and CWDT to mid levels and it'll proc every time we take a hit. This Means huge sections of the map, especially those immediately around us are basically guaranteed stunned for 2s. This basically prevents dogpile damage from getting zerged down, and gives your the precious seconds needed to get recovery in off spikes. I also think i'mm going to try Hybrid bases and take Winddancer with Barkskin. I think Barkskin is going to Scale Hybrid bases super well, and still lets us get very high evasion levels. I'd run Grace over Determination because wind dancer. Also a thing to consider is the amount of reservation near ranger now. Charisma, + the new mana node gives us 12%mana res eff and the 20% node near Duelist lets you run Grace, Hatred, Barkskin, precision~lvl 11 is and still have 30-40 mana. Enlighten enables lvl 20 with 30 mana~ Also going toward duelist gives us Mark masteries and another cold Master, 50% increased damage from time frozen. Just another 50% more multiplier we can tap into. This also puts us reach of the old awesome Vaal Pact by 1 node and there's a lot of Leech around our pathing tree now. But this pulls away from going up toward shadow start. Strong considering dropping a lot of the stuff around the claw wheel and the claw wheel it's self, or more likely the stuff right in front of shadow. Also lots of projectile nodes we could pick up in ranger that give crit and AS. We could probably drop Night blade for trinity.
Yeah Warden looks pretty insane. The best defensive layer of frost blades has always been freezing & killing everything in the frost blades path. I will give it a shot, it would not be the first time I hop back on Frost Blades trickster after a failed league starter! But I think it will work out.
Cool, Warden should be interesting. The frost and scorch nodes look too good. The Warden can also get some good stuff in the Hunter area that Tricksters normally wouldn’t get like Onslaught on the armor/evasion wheel, blind and 130% crit for 4 talents and more attack speed nodes in the hunter area which attack speed will be at a premium in this league. A blind/Freeze combo on hit could give the Warden some tankiness. As for Trickster, I think they got an indirect defensive buff with the endurance charge and the big uptime that Tricksters have on charges. If one can find a way to get 5 endurance charges plus charge generation, maybe through warcries, that would be a strong additional defensive layer for the trickster.
I would say that usually, on a character like this with so much damage, you wouldnt need more damage. It feels overkill at the top end. On leaguestart tho, you can't say to more damage, you need anything you can get. For melee, trickster didnt use his full power in terms of defence, so I think raider is simply better now. Barkskin looks really strong, especially the node behind it. It works as overcapped suppress prevention mastery but without downside. It's pretty much anti burst. The only way trickster becomes relevant this patch is if we can finally unleash his true potential, being the CI tank god. Having more es from escape artist and perandus pact for es can make this possible. I was coping about this version yesterday in the comments, but it is actually viable, only thing I would lose is lethal pride benefits, because I would put the pact in its place. If perandus pact didnt make it, this version wouldnt be possible. If I play frost blades melee next league, I will still do trickster regardless of being es or life based, im just too addicted to trickster 😂. And I dont like to play a build just to get nerfed next patch, so I will prevent the pain 😂.
I think people are overstating the defensive capabilities of trickster here.. at least the way we build it for frostblades.. IMO, Trickster has a much stronger league start due to the built-in utility and recovery... and warden might be pain until you can some gear for both offense and defense.. But my guess is Warden will be grossly outscaling trickster by the mid-point of progression. Im with Zish here.. Warden is the easy choice imo.. but it will certainly be less newbie friendly as youre going to have to know how to use PoB and be able to build defense on fly.
I'll be waiting for updates. Played FB the last two leagues and was the best progression I have ever made in the game, but I'm curious about other melee builds, so I think FB might be a secondary character this one. Like I said, keep updating us with FB changes and good luck with league start. :)
hey man, first of all wanna say appreciate the guides, frost blades has been my fav skill since starting the game. I wanted to ask, since im not super knowledgeable and I rely on guides and pobs a lot, I saw your warden pob for this league but do you happen to have a pob for trickster?
Do you have a recommended filter for mapping around t13+ specifically for fb trickster? I'm trying to make my own and I'm getting close to what I think would be okay but I'm worried about hiding something I'll need. Thanks :)
what do you think about dropping the yoke now that we get shocks with the ascendancy skill and instead getting replica badge of the brotherhood so that we get 6 or 7 max endurance charges which should be much stronger now that you also get 4% less ele damage per endurance charge and together with an enduring cry we would have max endurance charges all the time.
Yes it's a possibility - we have to feel out shock-stacking a bit, Yoke might not be the best choice if we can reach high shock. Lots of other good choices
Hey Zish. I'm new to Poe and I'm liking the idea of trickster. I'm assuming I can switch to lightening strike if needed from frost blades? Also where would I find a pob for frost blade trickster for 3.25 or do I just follow your 3.24/23 guide. Thanks so much Poe is very daunting for a new player
The Trickster versions in the past will be mostly the same - but those Tricksters didn't really have anything worth running over Warden, which will have easy insane damage, in my opinion. GL either way.
Hi Zish, Been Following ur build soooo many times. but for this League since Warden can give a lot of damage but we also need to think about the Defense, here is my Opinion, what if play frostblade with frenzy stack, using the replica farrul and replica brotherhood to get the endurance charge equals as frenzy charges . this is really raw idea. what do you think about this?
I would say if ur goin glass canon maybe better to start as deadeye to farm like 10-20 div and then swap to warden, once the dust has settled and people have tested barkskin and tinctures. I'm also curious on lightning strike on warden, maybe poison with tinctures
I would never play Deadeye for Frost Blades, Deadeye has virtually nothing (Mark effect) for melee damage, the projectile component of FB is irrelevant for single target.
Now that added damage is gone from gem, FB and FB katabasis (hit version) are basically interchangeable right? Any thoughts which one is better? Or just all playstyle preference.
Hey Zish, great builds as always. What do you think about Vaal Pact change? Wouldn’t it be great for this build given that we attack so fast? Also, given that mana costs are increased, would Gemini claw make sense?
Leech is on FB is already insane and Vaal Pact will make it ridiculous - Overleech isn't great on lower-life Evasion builds IMO. If you want to be tankier and have less damage, go Slayer
@@ZishPOE fair. i think im just more drawn to slayer because i have many possible builds to switch to in case i swap around a lot usually. love how many different options we get for melee builds this league
Lightning Coil as armor? Since it provides Armor+Evasion. Thinking of stacking armor and ES with Barkskin as defenses. Or maybe new base rares will give tons of more defenses and just need to craft GG rares except Heatshiver as the only unique
no the damage on single target will be the same - katabasis has no projectiles and farther range - but you need splash damage to clear, I don't recommend it on Warden at least
What do you think about slayer frost blades I was thinking of league starting ruetoo fb of catabasis slayer then late game transitioning to regular fb to scale higher
Is Frost blades dmg buffed too? Bc of all this melee buffs i wondering if it would more dmg now even without the totems ( on the regular trickster build) Overall it seems like the warden is complete broken in terms of dps/dmg
have you see the new annoit? It grants you min elusive of 20%, and a slower degradation of it. I think it might be a big deal, especially for early mapping.
For me it's one of the smoother feeling builds even on console, with the exception of needing to toss down melee totems, however they have been removed and melee was buffed to compensate (including frost blades) so should feel great now
i love how everyone is just like ok 2%shock 50 stacks sure thats 100% MORE DMAGE OMG ITS SO GOOD, you have to hit a mob 50 times in 2sec to proc that .. thats really unrealistic. you will need insane attack speed and prolly ally/shock duration on top to even come close to 100%
I mean, getting ~300% more damage is A LOT harder than getting freeze immunity, so I think I'll be going warden. Last time I played FB was before heatshiver got nuked, now it's going to be that but even stronger. The only concern I have is that shock node honestly looks pretty clunky for bosses, as shock duration is only 2 seconds. Meaning we'd have to be sitting there hitting 10 APS for 5 seconds to get the max shock, which is just infeasible on any endgame boss such as sirus or maven. Would returning proj actually do something here? If they return and hit a 2nd time we'd only have to sit there for 2.5 seconds if we're at 10 APS, which almost fits into the time frame of oath of winters 2 second freeze, or maybe it freezes even longer due to the hoarfrost thing. (Or would EVERY returning projectile hit and we'd max out the shocks in like 5 hits? I'm not sure how it works) Depends on how often we can freeze endgame bosses I guess, last time I played FB trickster I was freezing bosses pretty often but for very short durations, but with how much damage we're getting from warden, freezing should be even easier AND more powerful. But then again, if you use a gem slot for returning proj you will be missing a damage gem slot, thus making freezing harder. Don't really know what to think lol. But that freeze node looks very overpowered. It will work on endgame bosses right? Since they CAN be frozen, and that oath of winter ascendancy will make the minimum freeze 2 seconds, maybe longer with hoarfrost, couldn't we pretty easily keep an endgame bosses permafrozen, if we just freeze it as soon as it comes out of freeze? Maybe endgame bosses will have some new protection or cooldown against being frozen cause that seems too op. Who needs defensive layers when you can just turn off the mob completely and kill it without it ever taking an action? And if it's permafrozen, makes it a lot easier to stack the shock stacks, which in turn makes it easier to freeze again. But I don't think they're gonna let that slide, it'd be WAY too overpowered if it works like its worded. Probably will have like 80% reduced effect on pinnacle bosses or some sort of cooldown. Or they will just make pinnacle bosses completely immune to freeze, lol.
Yes the shock node needs to be cooked a bit to be min-maxed, might need to use some other tech to stack up shocks or just go Tincture instead. As for freezing bosses, you will freeze them very consistently, but most end-game bosses can't actually have their action speed lowered to 0, but they still "count" as frozen for Heatshiver damage. Their action speed did get lowered tho from 30% to 50% this league, so they will be slower than ever.
Ahh I see. So the freeze node is still OP as we basically make bosses take actions at 50% of their normal speed. And it counts for heatshiver. And any normal boss or rare mob will just never move. That's still pretty insane. As for the tinctures I know I'll be going the shock node anyway. The idea of having to get used to activating and deactivating tinctures is just disgusting to me and I'd rather just have some smaller damage buff that works passively. Also I have no doubt that we'll be able to figure something out, even if its something as primitive as swapping in returning proj for big bosses, if it turns out to be a damage boost
Freeze as a defensive layer is amazing, especially with 2 sec minimum and bosses being slowed to 50%...it's gonna feel great imo. You've never needed move speed less - with whirling blades/Frostblink for mobility and increased pickup radius, QoL is through the roof
@@ZishPOEyeah freeze has been awesome and my main reason for beelining +2 after yoke 100% agree we got enough MS for OSA to not make a huge difference in feel in that regard… will miss the AS tho cause that is actually felt a lot (done two A5 league start preps as trickster the last days) but I think the top end potential of warden is just too good to pass on (and will likely be tuned later)
It's exactly the same for a hit-based version scaling-wise - it just has a much farther range, but no projectiles. If you ignore the cold DoT component, it's just a different style/flavor of attack.
@ZishPOE ahh so can switch them out with no worries, just saw alot of builds with slayers playing it not knowing the differences besides stacking endurance charges and using arns belt
You guys forgot about really important part - wardens freeze node. I dont know why everyone overlook it , because it is very broken. You just have perma freeze on anything you touch ( with respectable attack speed ). Freeze is insane defensive layer. If you froze almost everything with trickster , now imagine warden. Lmao , i think GGG slighty overtuned that ascendency.
Yeah, this is what makes frost blades feel so tanky before you get end game gear - you are just not getting hit often. Once you get good at attacking at angles that will hit the next group of monsters most everything is frozen before you engage.
Will increased effect for non-damaging ailments affect that 2% shock? If so, with 100% increased effect you could reach 100% more damage taken in less than 1 second with a skill such as molten strike.
will you be updating a trickster PoB as well? also how will levelling be affected or we can still follow the Acts video you previously uploaded and less the totem stuff?
Not much is really changing for Trickster - the old guides I have will all be applicable still (minus totems, add whatever new gems you want i.e. war banner). Leveling will feel the same-ish, maybe better
Banner is the obvious choice + 3 portal gem for a total a 9 since we are a glass canon (I'm kidding ofc, just wait for Zish to post his updated guide when he's finished cooking I guess)
The only thing I'll say about Intures right now is that they may be incredibly op since 17% increased attack speed was on a level 18 tincture as a single mod. I think scorch outside of a league starter is going to be pretty good from warden due to the damage scaling being focused on slower hits instead of having as much attack speed as we could have potentially have before.
The 92% max action speed on monsters isn't "whatever" lol, it basically kills soul eater and all mobs that have increased attack speed because those mods just become dead mods, ever got absolutely slapped around by a mob with 5000aps ? not with trickster, and chill doesn't counter it the same way.
Action speed and attack speed are different things - capping action speed doesn't prevent you from gaining attack speed - and yea, chill lowers action speed so it literally does counter it the same way...anything you touch (and chill) will have less than 92% action speed anyway. So yea, it is kinda whatever unless there's a monster you can't touch for some reason
I'm going for Trickster because it got a good buff to it's Escape Artist thanks to the stronger base types and without any nerfs to Discipline , CI should be an incredible strong defense this time around. It has also Overleech which you can improve even further with Ghost Reaver (alongside the additional Cast/Attack Speed buff) which enables you to use Energy Leech Support with the amount of Leech you will gain. I don't like to rely only on Freeze/Chill for my defenses and while I'm sure that Warden will be a strong damage option, I'd rather take the reliability of Trickster
I was also thinking this, loss of attack speed makes soul drinker real nice. Do you have a POB in progress for the CI transition?
once you got your CI pob cooking i would greatly appreciate a share. The one thing i disliked about Forstblades is that its not using my fav Trickster Node Soul Drinker. I tried to swap to CI in pob before but i was too bad at poe to make it good lol.
Warden seems like the ultimate glass cannon ascendancy. It only has barkskin stuff for defense, which seems quite unreliable. I think trickster definitely yields a much more well-rounded character.
Also, a little note, shock duration is only 2s at base, and warden doesn't give too much.
Could be true - but DAT DAM THO
Seems like a choice to make a glass Cannon or not. Ranger is close enough to Elusive on skill tree. Then add a warcry, increased duration in boots or gloves. So you have permanent up time on at least three Endurance charges, for Immortal Call, Cast when damage taken, setup.
I'd add on some triple elemental Claws, to help with Trinity support. So you get max Scorch, Yoke, Freeze, at all times.
My build won't be a glass Cannon, if Elusive and Evasion fails then you'll have Immortal Call with 3 Endurance charges and a fourth to be Anointed later. ☮️👍
Why are you allergic to building defences outside of the ones from your ascedancy? Blood and sand, endurance charges, fortify, buncha lifesteal, youre next to suppression and you have barkskin on top of all of these
You can annoint Defiled Forces
Get Fractured Additional Curse body armour from Delve
Get curse on hit from any source or arcanist brand + elemental weakness.
Shocks will then be refreshed every time you hit something or arcanist brand activates.
2 second screen wide freezes with FB certainly sounds like good defense to me
Bro you are the main reason I even play frostblades in Poe as my main build. Just love every damn sentence you speak about this build. Imma start with warden too ❤
Really excited for the next Frost Blades Warden guide!! Now I'm struggling whether start from Slayer shockwave cyclone or Frost Blades Warden.
I have been playing PoE since 3.12 and I gotta say that no content creator takes better care of his community than Zish. Playing Zish’s Frost Blades build, I got the furthest and most powerful I’ve ever gotten in a league. I hit 100 million DPS, bought a Headhunter, crafted my own GG items for the first time, and took down pinnacle content all with just the guidance from Zish’s videos. So many creators toss out a half baked league starter with minimal context, and then you’re lucky if you see an updated PoB a few weeks later. Zish puts out content multiple times a week and it is almost all directly influenced by the community’s questions and struggles as we progress together and run into roadblocks. If you are new to PoE this is a build / creator / community that is seriously worth your consideration and will respect your time and commitment with the character you make.
@@TehSiets preesh mate
just came across your channel yesterday and i am already excited for your Starter Warden FB Guide 😊
3 seasons in and your fb trickster has been my favorite league starter and the first build that I got all voidstones with. Last league started as deadeye and just felt okay. I’m ready for fb again
Something to consider for trickster: replica badge + ralakesh. You can get another 2 frenzies from tree (shadow/ranger) very feasibly, and if you go trinity instead of yoke, you get 7 endurance charges = 28% elemental damage reduction = not bad at all. Then if you want to invest further, +1 frenzy rings (precursor emblems to start, replaced by synth implicit rings eventually?), along with +1 frenzy charge gloves (warlord influence iirc).
There's also the fact that with the new fourth tier of EV/ES bases, you can get a crapton of ES with trickster for practically free, especially considering recombinators are back (to some extent).
Great overview! Tinctures require some investment but I think they definitely have the potential to be pretty insane, with the caveat that it will be clunky to have to reactivate them over and over. I would also note that per the Recently Asked Questions thread, Barkskin has been changed to reserve 10% mana instead of 25% but it no longer increase armour per stack of bark.
Dude you are an instant subscribe for me! My only complaint is I discovered your channel a few days ago (I had hated the league before playing your FB trickster). Looking forward to play warden in 3.25! Keep up the amazing work!
Ran Frost Blades in a league, was my most successful build, you inspired me to do it again and on Warden. I look forward to the PoB you will be putting up.
Eye of malice (that also has exposure) +double scorch +curse on hit (max effect on ring that cheap ring) +2 curses of fire and cold (maybe anathema), wouldn't actually get the enemy resistances to -180%?
Also, there's this node Nature's concoction that pretty much get's you uptime in all flasks (flasks close to tictures get 2 flasks on hit with weapons). Most likely 1 topaz, 1 ruby and 1 saphire to help in the resistances.
Enduring suffusion (ascendancy node) can also get 100% uptime on tictures (that you can have two) if you also get practised reapplication (25% cooldon recovery of tinctures).
Yep very strong stuff, will definitely be lookin at Tinctures. Heatshiver's too good though I think
About mana burn from tinctures. I was thinking.
There's that timeless jewel that gives a keystone that converts 80% of mana into armour. What leaves you with 120 mana or so. 1% of that it's 1.2 mana. 10% 12 mana. so on. Easy trick to sustain tinctures. Pretty easy to sustain to 20 seconds or more.
But maybe the mastery also does the trick, if you need another timeless.
We need at least 12 seconds to proc enduring suffusion (tincture effects keep up for 6 seconds after they're off) and maintain a tincture with 100% uptime
Yes, Power of Purpose - but then after you turn your auras on, you'll have like ~5-10 mana - not enough to actually do anything.
@@ZishPOE unless you used life instead of mana for everything else?
Let's see, do I want astronomically higher damage for the opportunity cost of having to get ailment immunity? I'm a softcore player, OF COURSE I DO.
THIS IS THE WAY
GIGACHAD
I think I will try out Warden Frost Blades with Oath of Winter, Summer and Barkskin. I'm going to be trying out Barkskin as it looks like a decent defensive buff, giving an effective 775 bonus health pool against non-chaos hits and capping out at 20% more evade as well as pushing suppression up to 76% damage absorption from 56%. Might end up being trash (14 seconds without taking hits to regen that barrier seems questionably useful), but it'll be fun to see if I feel tanky or not.
Has anyone been thinking about slayer?? endurance charges are insane due to frenzies. Any thoughts on that?
Tankier, slower, more expensive
@@ZishPOE Could you elaborate on this a bit more? I've seen other popular builds using slayer so I'd like your input. Would damage suffer too?
In 3.23 People used Arcanist brand+Blazing Salvo+Return proj to stack sh`t ton of poison stack to ramp up Poison duration Charm, might take a look on that since now we have sockets to actully use something like that for stuff like Shock stacking. We just need to get global lightning flat somewhere - which is easy to do.
Very interesting idea indeed, must cook more
Really looking forward to that guide.
I do follow your warden build because I do have the romance of warden!
I see that new flesh and stone can offer 10-20% reduced dmg based on proximity (not just physical). It could more or less compete with crab if we want to add survival kit.
We are also dropping the small cluster jewels for totems which we can replace with generic reservation or grace reservation ones or something.
Frankly, barkskin is a huge opportunity cost to pick, the other choices offer so much and barkskin requires armor and evasion most likely.
One thing I will certainly miss about totems was that they ate attacks like searing exarch balls..
Could be an option over Barkskin, for sure. Gotta cook it
My secret MVP from last league was Ice nova of Deep Freeze on a manastacker. Definitely going to use it again this league on the Warden. Consider INODF+CDWT+Unbound Ailments+Inc AOE to replace the totem 4-L. The gem has 50% chance to freeze and we get 45% from the nodes in ranger area. Keep the gem and CWDT to mid levels and it'll proc every time we take a hit. This Means huge sections of the map, especially those immediately around us are basically guaranteed stunned for 2s. This basically prevents dogpile damage from getting zerged down, and gives your the precious seconds needed to get recovery in off spikes.
I also think i'mm going to try Hybrid bases and take Winddancer with Barkskin. I think Barkskin is going to Scale Hybrid bases super well, and still lets us get very high evasion levels. I'd run Grace over Determination because wind dancer.
Also a thing to consider is the amount of reservation near ranger now. Charisma, + the new mana node gives us 12%mana res eff and the 20% node near Duelist lets you run Grace, Hatred, Barkskin, precision~lvl 11 is and still have 30-40 mana. Enlighten enables lvl 20 with 30 mana~
Also going toward duelist gives us Mark masteries and another cold Master, 50% increased damage from time frozen. Just another 50% more multiplier we can tap into.
This also puts us reach of the old awesome Vaal Pact by 1 node and there's a lot of Leech around our pathing tree now.
But this pulls away from going up toward shadow start. Strong considering dropping a lot of the stuff around the claw wheel and the claw wheel it's self, or more likely the stuff right in front of shadow.
Also lots of projectile nodes we could pick up in ranger that give crit and AS. We could probably drop Night blade for trinity.
Interesting stuff - GL!
Yeah Warden looks pretty insane. The best defensive layer of frost blades has always been freezing & killing everything in the frost blades path. I will give it a shot, it would not be the first time I hop back on Frost Blades trickster after a failed league starter! But I think it will work out.
last league i had 11 frenzy and 11 endurance charges with my raider.. i would blast this league with that build.. RIP RAIDER (/ best class ever)
Cool, Warden should be interesting. The frost and scorch nodes look too good. The Warden can also get some good stuff in the Hunter area that Tricksters normally wouldn’t get like Onslaught on the armor/evasion wheel, blind and 130% crit for 4 talents and more attack speed nodes in the hunter area which attack speed will be at a premium in this league. A blind/Freeze combo on hit could give the Warden some tankiness.
As for Trickster, I think they got an indirect defensive buff with the endurance charge and the big uptime that Tricksters have on charges. If one can find a way to get 5 endurance charges plus charge generation, maybe through warcries, that would be a strong additional defensive layer for the trickster.
Tinctures seem like they will be a meme for mapping, but good for bursting bosses
Yea probably
I would say that usually, on a character like this with so much damage, you wouldnt need more damage. It feels overkill at the top end. On leaguestart tho, you can't say to more damage, you need anything you can get.
For melee, trickster didnt use his full power in terms of defence, so I think raider is simply better now. Barkskin looks really strong, especially the node behind it. It works as overcapped suppress prevention mastery but without downside. It's pretty much anti burst.
The only way trickster becomes relevant this patch is if we can finally unleash his true potential, being the CI tank god. Having more es from escape artist and perandus pact for es can make this possible. I was coping about this version yesterday in the comments, but it is actually viable, only thing I would lose is lethal pride benefits, because I would put the pact in its place. If perandus pact didnt make it, this version wouldnt be possible.
If I play frost blades melee next league, I will still do trickster regardless of being es or life based, im just too addicted to trickster 😂. And I dont like to play a build just to get nerfed next patch, so I will prevent the pain 😂.
I think people are overstating the defensive capabilities of trickster here.. at least the way we build it for frostblades..
IMO, Trickster has a much stronger league start due to the built-in utility and recovery... and warden might be pain until you can some gear for both offense and defense.. But my guess is Warden will be grossly outscaling trickster by the mid-point of progression.
Im with Zish here.. Warden is the easy choice imo.. but it will certainly be less newbie friendly as youre going to have to know how to use PoB and be able to build defense on fly.
I'll be waiting for updates. Played FB the last two leagues and was the best progression I have ever made in the game, but I'm curious about other melee builds, so I think FB might be a secondary character this one. Like I said, keep updating us with FB changes and good luck with league start. :)
Zish, great video as always
But can you compare with slayer and gladiator?
Def and damage
It is really incredible interesting. I'll try it for sure.
hey man, first of all wanna say appreciate the guides, frost blades has been my fav skill since starting the game. I wanted to ask, since im not super knowledgeable and I rely on guides and pobs a lot, I saw your warden pob for this league but do you happen to have a pob for trickster?
no, the trickster version is basically unchanged minus totems
Do you have a recommended filter for mapping around t13+ specifically for fb trickster? I'm trying to make my own and I'm getting close to what I think would be okay but I'm worried about hiding something I'll need. Thanks :)
what do you think about dropping the yoke now that we get shocks with the ascendancy skill and instead getting replica badge of the brotherhood so that we get 6 or 7 max endurance charges which should be much stronger now that you also get 4% less ele damage per endurance charge and together with an enduring cry we would have max endurance charges all the time.
Yes it's a possibility - we have to feel out shock-stacking a bit, Yoke might not be the best choice if we can reach high shock. Lots of other good choices
What about a Hallow Palm Ice Crash Warden? Thoughts
Hey Zish. I'm new to Poe and I'm liking the idea of trickster. I'm assuming I can switch to lightening strike if needed from frost blades? Also where would I find a pob for frost blade trickster for 3.25 or do I just follow your 3.24/23 guide.
Thanks so much Poe is very daunting for a new player
The Trickster versions in the past will be mostly the same - but those Tricksters didn't really have anything worth running over Warden, which will have easy insane damage, in my opinion. GL either way.
Hi Zish, Been Following ur build soooo many times. but for this League since Warden can give a lot of damage but we also need to think about the Defense, here is my Opinion, what if play frostblade with frenzy stack, using the replica farrul and replica brotherhood to get the endurance charge equals as frenzy charges . this is really raw idea. what do you think about this?
I would say if ur goin glass canon maybe better to start as deadeye to farm like 10-20 div and then swap to warden, once the dust has settled and people have tested barkskin and tinctures.
I'm also curious on lightning strike on warden, maybe poison with tinctures
I would never play Deadeye for Frost Blades, Deadeye has virtually nothing (Mark effect) for melee damage, the projectile component of FB is irrelevant for single target.
Now that added damage is gone from gem, FB and FB katabasis (hit version) are basically interchangeable right? Any thoughts which one is better? Or just all playstyle preference.
@@shanxhe not really interchangeable because katabasis requires melee splash....
Hey Zish, great builds as always. What do you think about Vaal Pact change? Wouldn’t it be great for this build given that we attack so fast? Also, given that mana costs are increased, would Gemini claw make sense?
I love Vaal Pact and plan on trying it out at least, and ya Gemini claw could be a solution if mana is too tight
what about slayer? leech + endurance charges seem to be strong. easy access to the frenzy charges and onslaught to compensate for attack speed loss
Leech is on FB is already insane and Vaal Pact will make it ridiculous - Overleech isn't great on lower-life Evasion builds IMO. If you want to be tankier and have less damage, go Slayer
@@ZishPOE fair. i think im just more drawn to slayer because i have many possible builds to switch to in case i swap around a lot usually.
love how many different options we get for melee builds this league
does return proij work with frost blades?
Will you still produce a new updated guide for trickster as it would be much appreciated ?
Maybe a quick POB update - we'll see if I have time
@@ZishPOE That would be awesome alot of your old stuff is still relevant so a pob would be great
@@ZishPOE ya that would be awesome for a quick comparison of the two ascendancies
love the thumbnail
Could somehow use replica badge of the brotherhood for endurance charges?
You could, but I won't
Trickster with replica should be really good.
Couldn't decide between ls or frost blades but now I've made my decision 👍
When does the league start pob?
Any thoughts on Katabasis alt gem?
It's ranged without Projectiles - probably plays around the same. I won't be using it, though
Lightning Coil as armor? Since it provides Armor+Evasion. Thinking of stacking armor and ES with Barkskin as defenses. Or maybe new base rares will give tons of more defenses and just need to craft GG rares except Heatshiver as the only unique
I prefer evasion + suppression, solid, simply defense. I would definitely not recommend armour + ES for a FB build on the right side of the tree.
@@ZishPOE oops, I did mean armor+Evasion and not ES. Agreed xD. Just thinking of how to utilize Barkskin or just skip it
Hi! Could the CATabasis version of frost blades can be putted instead of regular? Will it be more DPS?
no the damage on single target will be the same - katabasis has no projectiles and farther range - but you need splash damage to clear, I don't recommend it on Warden at least
@@ZishPOE Thanks!
I m curious to see TS ON IT IF TRINITY WORKS DMG WOULD BE INSANE.
Is this viable in SSF as a league starter?
Yes absolutely
Do you think the new annoint that makes Elusive degrade slower and cut off at 20% is worth it?
I can't think of another anoint that will outweigh the consistency buff
I mean, it cuts off the part of elusive we don't want, and increases de uptime of the portion we want, so I think it is giga good
It seems quite strong, yes - gotta suss it out with the other choices.
Definitely warden, it gives so much damage that we can just focus on defences a bit more and still do more damage anyway.
Can FB and Lightning strike just swap between each other the skill wise if FB doesnt feel good? skill tree wise?
@@arton9090 they'll be relatively similar yes, should be an easy swap
@@ZishPOE Ah thanks, i meant for trickster tho? should not be too much too?
Hello, can you do some theorycrafting/pobing for FB of Katabasis on warden ? Just pressing follow, love your style and explanations
Katabasis is the exact same gem for scaling a hit-based build, it just has more range but no projectiles.
@@ZishPOE oh, thanks for explaining! I am kinda newbie and don't play a lot of builds
What do you think about slayer frost blades I was thinking of league starting ruetoo fb of catabasis slayer then late game transitioning to regular fb to scale higher
More defensive, more expensive
Is Frost blades dmg buffed too?
Bc of all this melee buffs i wondering if it would more dmg now even without the totems ( on the regular trickster build)
Overall it seems like the warden is complete broken in terms of dps/dmg
have you see the new annoit? It grants you min elusive of 20%, and a slower degradation of it. I think it might be a big deal, especially for early mapping.
Could be the choice, need to suss it out with the others. Too early to say.
Does barkskin from ascendancy still do mana reservation like the old one from affliction? Or just free bark skin?
Still reserves mana
Yep 25% mana - makes it hard to fit in.
Did you see the update about FB going down to 409% from 490% at gem level 20?
yes - unforch. dev fatfinger maybe
i'm playing glad with frostblades, gonna be super tanky and still have over 22 mil pob .
Hey, thoughts on LS of Arcing? I still like Frost Blades more but been seeing a lot of talk about that skill.
LS is gonna be very strong, for sure. Stronger single target, bit less clear speed imo.
Im gonna play Slayer this time probably.
Good luck
are you going to make a 3.25 Tricker build too
Maybe, if I have time
@@ZishPOE even if you don't I will just go warden, still appreciate the content you make thanks for it all
Ive never played FB does it feel good to use, not clunky or anything?
For me it's one of the smoother feeling builds even on console, with the exception of needing to toss down melee totems, however they have been removed and melee was buffed to compensate (including frost blades) so should feel great now
will you still make a POB for trickster this league?
Perhaps
We need you to bro, trickster will still be old faithful. Wardens damage looks nutty with gear but trickster 100% got buffed as well with the changes.
i love how everyone is just like ok 2%shock 50 stacks sure thats 100% MORE DMAGE OMG ITS SO GOOD, you have to hit a mob 50 times in 2sec to proc that .. thats really unrealistic.
you will need insane attack speed and prolly ally/shock duration on top to even come close to 100%
If it turns out to be bad, we can just use the Tincture node for almost 100% uptime on a Tincture instead
I mean, getting ~300% more damage is A LOT harder than getting freeze immunity, so I think I'll be going warden. Last time I played FB was before heatshiver got nuked, now it's going to be that but even stronger. The only concern I have is that shock node honestly looks pretty clunky for bosses, as shock duration is only 2 seconds. Meaning we'd have to be sitting there hitting 10 APS for 5 seconds to get the max shock, which is just infeasible on any endgame boss such as sirus or maven. Would returning proj actually do something here? If they return and hit a 2nd time we'd only have to sit there for 2.5 seconds if we're at 10 APS, which almost fits into the time frame of oath of winters 2 second freeze, or maybe it freezes even longer due to the hoarfrost thing. (Or would EVERY returning projectile hit and we'd max out the shocks in like 5 hits? I'm not sure how it works)
Depends on how often we can freeze endgame bosses I guess, last time I played FB trickster I was freezing bosses pretty often but for very short durations, but with how much damage we're getting from warden, freezing should be even easier AND more powerful. But then again, if you use a gem slot for returning proj you will be missing a damage gem slot, thus making freezing harder. Don't really know what to think lol. But that freeze node looks very overpowered. It will work on endgame bosses right? Since they CAN be frozen, and that oath of winter ascendancy will make the minimum freeze 2 seconds, maybe longer with hoarfrost, couldn't we pretty easily keep an endgame bosses permafrozen, if we just freeze it as soon as it comes out of freeze? Maybe endgame bosses will have some new protection or cooldown against being frozen cause that seems too op. Who needs defensive layers when you can just turn off the mob completely and kill it without it ever taking an action? And if it's permafrozen, makes it a lot easier to stack the shock stacks, which in turn makes it easier to freeze again. But I don't think they're gonna let that slide, it'd be WAY too overpowered if it works like its worded. Probably will have like 80% reduced effect on pinnacle bosses or some sort of cooldown. Or they will just make pinnacle bosses completely immune to freeze, lol.
Yes the shock node needs to be cooked a bit to be min-maxed, might need to use some other tech to stack up shocks or just go Tincture instead. As for freezing bosses, you will freeze them very consistently, but most end-game bosses can't actually have their action speed lowered to 0, but they still "count" as frozen for Heatshiver damage. Their action speed did get lowered tho from 30% to 50% this league, so they will be slower than ever.
Ahh I see. So the freeze node is still OP as we basically make bosses take actions at 50% of their normal speed. And it counts for heatshiver. And any normal boss or rare mob will just never move. That's still pretty insane. As for the tinctures I know I'll be going the shock node anyway. The idea of having to get used to activating and deactivating tinctures is just disgusting to me and I'd rather just have some smaller damage buff that works passively. Also I have no doubt that we'll be able to figure something out, even if its something as primitive as swapping in returning proj for big bosses, if it turns out to be a damage boost
Bad thing about Warden imo is that Freeze is going to be your main defensive mechanic early and no move speed/action speed.
Freeze as a defensive layer is amazing, especially with 2 sec minimum and bosses being slowed to 50%...it's gonna feel great imo. You've never needed move speed less - with whirling blades/Frostblink for mobility and increased pickup radius, QoL is through the roof
@@ZishPOEyeah freeze has been awesome and my main reason for beelining +2 after yoke
100% agree we got enough MS for OSA to not make a huge difference in feel in that regard… will miss the AS tho cause that is actually felt a lot (done two A5 league start preps as trickster the last days) but I think the top end potential of warden is just too good to pass on (and will likely be tuned later)
@@ZishPOE I’m gonna send it with you as well the damage looks so nuts I think the rest will work itself out.
Is frostblades of katabasis technically better than normal frostblades?
It's exactly the same for a hit-based version scaling-wise - it just has a much farther range, but no projectiles. If you ignore the cold DoT component, it's just a different style/flavor of attack.
@ZishPOE ahh so can switch them out with no worries, just saw alot of builds with slayers playing it not knowing the differences besides stacking endurance charges and using arns belt
Why not choose slayer? What's wrong with it?
less damage more tanky
Lets do Frost Blades Slayer
go for it
You guys forgot about really important part - wardens freeze node. I dont know why everyone overlook it , because it is very broken. You just have perma freeze on anything you touch ( with respectable attack speed ). Freeze is insane defensive layer. If you froze almost everything with trickster , now imagine warden. Lmao , i think GGG slighty overtuned that ascendency.
Oh trust me I didn't forget about it :)
Yeah, this is what makes frost blades feel so tanky before you get end game gear - you are just not getting hit often. Once you get good at attacking at angles that will hit the next group of monsters most everything is frozen before you engage.
Still cant decide tho.
Will increased effect for non-damaging ailments affect that 2% shock? If so, with 100% increased effect you could reach 100% more damage taken in less than 1 second with a skill such as molten strike.
probably not, it said "maximum effect of shock is 2% increased damage taken"
No it won't - but a skill like Molten Strike that hits many times (especially with returning proj) could stack up quick shock stacks anyway.
What about slayer?
Tankier, more expensive, slower
will you be updating a trickster PoB as well? also how will levelling be affected or we can still follow the Acts video you previously uploaded and less the totem stuff?
Not much is really changing for Trickster - the old guides I have will all be applicable still (minus totems, add whatever new gems you want i.e. war banner). Leveling will feel the same-ish, maybe better
Ill try Warden as second character. Defense seems to unreliable
What can i use instead totems ? we got 4 socket for it now
Could try a Banner.
Banner is the obvious choice + 3 portal gem for a total a 9 since we are a glass canon (I'm kidding ofc, just wait for Zish to post his updated guide when he's finished cooking I guess)
I’m still going Raider cause IDGAF, yo
Not sure if Trickster or Slayer
Alright bois, FB Warden it is!
The only thing I'll say about Intures right now is that they may be incredibly op since 17% increased attack speed was on a level 18 tincture as a single mod.
I think scorch outside of a league starter is going to be pretty good from warden due to the damage scaling being focused on slower hits instead of having as much attack speed as we could have potentially have before.
The 92% max action speed on monsters isn't "whatever" lol, it basically kills soul eater and all mobs that have increased attack speed because those mods just become dead mods, ever got absolutely slapped around by a mob with 5000aps ? not with trickster, and chill doesn't counter it the same way.
Action speed and attack speed are different things - capping action speed doesn't prevent you from gaining attack speed - and yea, chill lowers action speed so it literally does counter it the same way...anything you touch (and chill) will have less than 92% action speed anyway.
So yea, it is kinda whatever unless there's a monster you can't touch for some reason
Can you link PoB soon?
Probably Monday/Tuesday, gotta cook it
mister slayer frostblade?
I think slayer is another option
Indeed it sure is another option
When Pob trickster ? +-
Dont think I'll have time, it wont change much from last leagues though
n slayer pob plz
Cool, but I still prefer Trickster.
This mfer pumps fb content like a bull without pills >> click here
Why not slayer?
Why Slayer?
@@ZishPOE probably he saw ruetoos take on the frost blades katabasis
How about Slayer?
Tankier, slower, more expensive
i'm going for assassin
Yikes - Good luck!
Some people even say slayer dunno why :D ?
A probar FB una vez más
ty man
i will do warden to this frostblade , op damage but yah not enogh tankines
Warden spark or trickster spark?
IDK
Thank u for the video.