Here, I am going to show you how to create the build called Frost Blades Pathfinder.
Introduction
Pathfinder is an extremely fast-forming character who can work wonders speed running Maps, Delves, or Heists. With her, you can keep three Utility Flasks up near permanently. Even better is that you can significantly change the function of your build by just changing your flask setup.
Early on, she can rely on large boosts to Elemental Resistances through the Bismuth Flask. But once you get your resistances capped with your gear, you can swap that out for a different Utility Flask.
She’s not perfect though. She has three significant weaknesses:
- She’s very squishy if you let her flasks fall off.
- Her single target DPS can be pretty low and she cannot handle elemental reflect at all.
- She can speed clear all the normal and magic monsters on a map, but if she runs into a rare with high damage reduction and regenerate life, she usually can’t kill it.
This is a great character for farming, but she will struggle on very hard targets.
About The Build
With the Frost Blades Pathfinder, you’ll be wearing leather armor and you’ll use Frost Blades, which is your primary attack skill.
If you want to use a second attack for single target damage, your only good options are Glacial Hammer or Frost Crash because this build mostly scales cold damage.
Both attacks will lock you into a weapon type and require support gems to be worthwhile. Glacial Hammer can be nice for shattering enemies. But in my opinion, you should just stick with Frost Blades.
If you want to create a Frost Blades Pathfinder, simply start a Ranger. Throw away the POE Item called Burning Arrow after you kill Hillock and replace it with Frost Blades. Hopefully, Hillock drops you a melee weapon. Otherwise, don’t delete Burning Arrow quite yet.
The beauty of Frost Blades is that you only need to target one monster, but the skill will automatically target many more. Speed clearing for you just means targeting whatever monster is convenient and letting your skill automatically do the rest.
Leveling The Passive Tree
Leveling up your passive tree is relatively simple as well we have two goals: the Assured Strike cluster but more importantly, the Attack Mastery (Non-Vaal Strike Skills target 1 additional nearby enemy) and the Keystone Iron Reflexes. We’re going to take the lower path out of the Ranger start.
While leveling, you can take the Quickstep path for the increased movement speed and then refund it later when you hit the endgame for the increased damage and critical strike chance from One With Nature.
Then, we’re going to head down toward Iron Reflexes. You can do this right away all in one go if you feel comfortable. But most likely, your damage and health will be far too low to level without constantly dying.
Instead, I recommend taking these life (Life Mastery) and these damage clusters (Primeval Force) that you open up along the way. You’re only going to open up one of these clusters at a time while you path forward. So, each time you do, just take a stop and fill out the cluster before you move on.
If you do this, you should get Iron Reflexes around the middle of Act 4. Then, push your movement speed by taking the Fleetfoot cluster and after that develop all the way up to Art of the Gladiator. Then, head back over to the Ranger side. Develop up through Aspect of the Lynx until you get Revenge of the Hunted and Forces of Nature.
Then, finish the build by taking Lethality, Replenishing Remedies, and Natural Remedies. In one of the two clusters relating to flasks, take Flask Mastery (Enemies you Kill that are affected by Elemental Ailments grant 100% increased Flask Charges). Everything we kill is either chilled or frozen, so what this really says is 100% increased fast charges gained.
It’s unfortunate. But you shouldn’t invest into your flasks until the very end of the campaign. You’re going to get a Bismuth Flask, a Jade Flask, and a Quicksilver Flask during the campaign. So, make sure to keep those.
Your flask engine requires a lot to function though, not only including crafting but also Einhar crafting and the Master Alchemist descendancy. You probably won’t get your flask engine rolling until you get into mapping. But once you do, your power level will skyrocket.
Endgame Passive Tree
As you develop into the endgame, you should find a good axe and then take this cluster right here (Axe Damage), which boosts your critical strike chance and multiplier with axes.
You should also then take the Axe Mastery, which gives you access to Rage. I picked up a unique mace, so I’m memeing a bit and the build is definitely suffering for it.
You’ll struggle with strength no matter what, so you’ll have to find a heavy belt until you can get some strength from your gear. Otherwise, developing the endgame is all about filling in the clusters you’ve already unlocked.
Then, the last choice is your access to this cluster jewel socket. If you push your Pathfinder deep into the endgame, this is your best choice by a wide margin.
Flask Setup
For your flask setup, you will always want to have a Jade Flask and a Diamond Flask. The third flask can be a Bismuth Flask right at the start of the endgame to get your resistances capped early.
But in the end, you’re going to want to have either a Gold Flask for farming, which will give you about 55% increased item rarity or a Sulphur Flask, which gives you a big boost to your damage.
Even when crafted, the base duration of a Quicksilver Flask is just too low in Ruthless. So, the benefit is sporadic. This leaves you with two life flasks: one with bleed immunity and another with poison immunity Crafting Flasks.
l Also Read: The Best Strategy To Complete POE 3.22 Tournament! – Full Run & Strategy Guide
Crafting Flasks
When you’re crafting your flasks, remember to use Glassblower’s Baubles first on a normal rarity flask.
This means that in four bobbles you can get to 20% quality on a flask with your best increase to base duration. If you do this on a flask that is already magic, it will require far more bobbles to use. It’ll take 10 instead of just 4.
Crafting flask modifiers gets a bit complicated. For prefixes, the best stat which you really want is increased charge recovery. This stacks multiplicatively with increased flash charges gained and ensures that your flasks are always on.
If you can’t get that, either of these two modifiers (#% Chance To Gain A Flask Charge When You Deal A Critical Strike & Gain # Chance When You Are Hit By An Enemy) that restore charges will work and if you can’t get that, #% Increased Duration will work as well.
More charges don’t really mean anything to us in this build and anything that reduces fast duration is actively bad for us. That brings us to the suffixes.
In this build, anything that says during a flask effect really means always. So, any of these modifiers are just a free big load of stats in this build.
Perfect Flask Setup
In an absolutely perfect world, you would have 4 flasks: 1 Diamond Flask, 1 Jade Flask, 1 Sulphur Flask and 1 Gold Flask. They would all have 20% quality and increased charge recovery.
And the 4 flasks would have this modifier: one giving you increased critical strike chance, one giving you attack damage leeched as life, one giving you increased attack speed, and a Gold Flask with increased movement speed.
You’d use 2 Health flasks and 3 Utility Flasks. If you were pushing hard content, you would substitute in the Sulphur or Jade Flask for your Gold Flask and then substitute the Gold Flask back in when you were farming easier content.
Note that the amount of POE Currency required to get a perfect flask setup even just the perfect combination of modifiers would be astronomical.
You can burn POE Orbs. But for the most part, if you’re lucky enough to get a combination of affixes that works, just keep it. You just get what you get until you’re rich and have a backup you can craft. You would have the option to go down to one healing flask but that will leave you vulnerable to either bleed and corrupted blood or to poison.
If you take the Armour and Evasion Mastery to gain immunity to poison, you could try out 4 simultaneous Utility Flasks. But I haven’t tested it yet and I don’t know if that’s a good idea.
Menagerie Craft
Now that you have your flasks, it’s 20% quality and you’ve got enchantments that work.
Head over to Einhar’s Menagerie, you’ll need “4 rare beasts captured per flask” and you want to craft the “use when charges reach full” option. This makes it so that as you fight. Your flasks are constantly refilling and if they reach full, they restart.
Their effects will only wear off in extremely long fights. And even in that case, you still have the option to manually use them.
Ascendancies
With your ascendancies, you’ll want to take Nature’s Boon, then Master Alchemist and then Nature’s Adrenaline.
If and when you get your fourth ascendancy, you can choose to take Master Surgeon. But you can get this effect with just a transmute orb. Instead, my plan is to take these two points (Flask Effect and Duration & Flask Effect and Charges Gained) for the flask stats instead. It may be unconventional, but I think it’s best.
