Glacial Hammer Raider - 3.15 Build Diary

For 3.15, I decided to embrace these uncertain times and not follow a build guide. Instead, I'll be improvising my build from scratch, drawing on my own mediocre game knowledge, and any advice I can solicit from the community.

I'd just hit Act 7 when I had the thought that it might be fun to keep a build diary to document the process. Hopefully this will help motivate me to push further than I usually make it each league, and draw some advice from the community. So, here it is: My adventures in playing a Glacial Hammer Raider.

Why Glacial Hammer? It's a skill that's been on my shortlist for a long time now. I enjoy playing things that few other people play. It makes me feel unique.

Why Raider? A few reasons. First, I don't play male characters, which limits my options considerably. Second, the Ranger starts very close to a number of cold and elemental damage nodes. Third, I noticed that the Phasing branch of the Raider ascendancy comes with elemental exposure. Since I've never really taken the Phasing branch before, it seemed like a thing to do.

Here is where I'm at, as of level 54: https://pastebin.com/q1QJBC0q

Originally, mana was a big issue which only got worse as I reserved more and more mana for auras. Once I picked up Essence Sap (for the mana leech) and Primal Spirit (for the increased mana and +20 Str/Int), mana became a complete non-issue. I expect I'll probably have to adjust further as I get more links for Glacial Hammer, though.

It plays quite comfortably. I rarely die unless I do something stupid. My damage is on the low end, though, and I'm definitely feeling a bit of a fall-off as I move in to act 7. I expect better gear and more links to fix that.

For my next few levels I'm planning to climb up to the Constitution island, pick up a jewel socket or two, and look into some of the Mace/Scepter islands poking off the bottom route. I'm not freezing things quite as much as I'd like, so I'll have to research how Freeze works, and what I need to pick up to scale that efficiently.

Update! Here's where things stand, as of yesterday: https://pastebin.com/MPtaZEax

Also, apparently I have two PoE accounts. This explains why filterblade never seems to work for me.

I made it to Act 9, and things are looking up!

Gear-wise, I picked up a new mace from Rog. I kind of krangled it in the crafting process, but going by tooltip DPS the overall damage is still higher than for the old one.

I also traded for a Winter Burial jewel, and that's made a huge difference. I was already 100% cold conversion, but the splash damage has been very nice for dealing with packs.

I felt I had enough chromatics to try for a 4-link, so I Rog'd up a new chestpiece and added Elemental Proliferation. Freezes are much more consistent now, occasionally freezing entire packs. I'd like to get more freezes on bosses somehow, but I suspect I might have to lean into crits for that, and that's a whole new area of the game that I've never explored.

Tree-wise, things are going as planned. I crawled up to grab Constitution, a few jewel slots, and some mace/sceptre nodes. I'm still not sure what I should be grabbing to most efficiently scale my damage.

I finished the Cruel Labyrinth and grabbed Avatar of the Veil. Elemental ailment immunity is within reach! An unexpected upside is that the exposure effect makes monsters much easier to see.

What's next?

Hopefully I'll have some time tonight to get through Act 9, at least. The plan is still to keep grabbing damage and life, though I'm also going to look into whether or not I can get the last 30% I need for full ailment evasion via the passive tree.

I'll need to balance my resistances sooner or later. My cold res is in the toilet right now. I've been sipping a Sapphire Flask to compensate. Really not looking forward to res-capping for maps. It's always a real motherfucker to do.

In the far future, when I finish the Merciless Labyrinth, I'm looking forward to having Frenzy charges again. Around that time, I intend to move up to a 5-link and try Ice Bite Support.

I might try and put some time into Heist this league. Getting an Anomalous Glacial Hammer would be so choice.

What am I struggling with?

What's the most efficient way to scale my damage? Cold nodes? Mace nodes? Crit nodes?

I feel like I should have more skills. I'm not nearly familiar enough with the various temporary buffs, warcries, etc.. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated!

I need a guard skill! I'm currently vacillating between simply taking Steelskin, or trying to generate Endurance charges somehow and taking Immortal Call. Vaal Grace also comes to mind, now that I think about it.

A10 Kitava down. That's the campaign done in four days and 45 deaths. My hand hurts.

The build, as of tonight: https://pastebin.com/vjitJVca

This is gonna be a bit more perfunctory, since I'm tired. Usually I do these the day after.

Long story short: Feeling pretty demotivated. Damage isn't great and isn't getting much better. But I usually feel pretty low by the time I reach maps. Might be a consequence of I tend to push pretty hard when the league starts and maybe burn myself out a little.

I Rog'd up a bit more gear. A lucky roll on a shield actually provided the last bit of ailment avoidance I needed to get over 100%. I might respec the points I've put into the Crystal Skin cluster and just get the 30% avoid I need from gear. Only, I'm not very good at gearing. It's why I tend to rely on the passive tree so much. Something to think about!

Merciless Labyrinth down. I finally have Frenzy Charges. I'm hoping this will help with my damage problem. Time will tell.

I've set up a CWDT Steelskin + Inc Duration

I picked up Frostbite to help with bosses and beefy rares. I think it helps?

What's next?

Now that I've hit maps, it's time for the biggest motherfucker of a task that I hit every league. Fixing my resistances. I hate doing this. I hate doing this so god damn much.

Besides grabbing more life, the next few notables I have my eyes on are Deflection, Blood Drinker, and generally raising my maximum Frenzy Charge count.

I looked into some possible ways to buff my attacks, but it doesn't look like any of the warcries do what I need. I might try Ambush?

What's my biggest problem?

My single-target DPS is abysmal. It's in the toilet, which is in the dumpster, which is in the alley behind a Denny's.

With Winter Burial, my damage kind of scales based on how many mobs there are. So, clearing packs is no problem. Packs blow up with a nice crunch in one or two hits.

But when it comes to bosses, or the rares that manage to survive the initial crunch, I've got nothing. If they have any regen at all, I straight up can't kill them.

I don't know what to do.

Glacial Hammer don't hype ppl :).

Buy a cheap 5/6l and take a look to frost blade/lightning strike build for the gems (Gh-edwa-anstcall-trinity-add cold/inspiration/hypo/icebite?)
Take thé glacial Hammer jewel, swap weapon for a full cold one or look cameria's weapon/doryani's/ frostbreath/nébulis.

Put flat lightning and fire dmg for Trinity buff(Amy/ring/Shield/dual élém weapon).
Add a ancestral totem/blind/ culling setup
Add hydrosphère/prolif/ duration setup. The ancestral clone strike on hydrosphère and you gain the jewel aoe dps (+hydro aoe) for free on boss.
Add a cwdt-vigilant strike-fortify setup or vengeance/fortify

Road tout Yellows Map is open, for red you need Crit/Crit mult (i think)


Have fun