Dear exiles, the PoE 3.29 Curse of the Allflame is coming. PhazePlays is here with the spellcaster build guide for Arctic Salvo. This build bombards enemies with rapid barges of frozen projectiles. Let's dive in.
Ratings
This icy spellcaster combines creeping Frost, winter orb, and countless projectiles.
Arctic Salvo
Damage ★★★★★
Defense ★★★★
Bossing ★★★★★
Mapping ★★★★★
Recovery ★★★★★
Mobility ★★★★
It has incredibly high burst damage, and it's great bossing. Mapping coverage is fantastic with Winter Orb, huge area of effect, and explosions. Everything gets chilled and frozen for an extremely safe playstyle.
Mystic Refractor is a great damage multiplier and means multiple projectile supports aren't needed.
We easily cap critical strike chance with Overloaded Intensity and the deer mode. This build has top-notch recovery with instant leech for both life and energy shield, with damage intake split between the two. Pact of Beidat doubles creeping frost damage for eight casts, but comes with a drawback: a 10-second random debuff.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Fantastic Mapper
Chill and Freeze
Great Damage
Large Area of Effect
Cons
High Socket Pressure
Melee Range Bossing
Mapping
For mapping, it's a two-button build. Creeping Frost and winter orb. Winter Orb lasts for around 10 seconds, so it should usually be refreshed every seven or eight seconds. The more cast speed you have, the faster it'll reach 11 stacks. In between refreshes, cast Creeping Frost every 1 or 2 seconds so that overloaded intensity stacks don't fall off.
Bossing
For bossing, always maintain Frostbite. Cast Creeping Frost in melee range with your cursor near the boss. If being in melee range isn't an option, consider gem swapping in greater volley.
Occasionally, channel a few stacks of winter orb to maintain power charges; Frost shield is optional. As a general rule, always channel 11 stacks of winter orb right before pressing frost shield. If there's boss downtime, spam Creeping Frost to maintain overloaded intensity stacks and refresh winter orb.
Creeping Frost
Let's quickly cover some build mechanics. Creeping Frost launches projectiles at your cursor that explode when hitting the ground or colliding with an enemy. These explosions can shotgun. Having a source of pierce always adds one extra hit on bosses.
Early on, run Pierce Support and then drop it after Mystic Refractor as it disables the interaction. A distant mouse cursor increases area coverage, great for mapping, while a nearby cursor increases the number of shotguns, excellent for bossing.
Overloaded Intensity & Nadir Mode
Overloaded Intensity combined with Nadir Mode is a massive damage multiplier for creeping Frost. It essentially doubles the base crit chance and grants a massive amount of critical multiplier. The overloaded intensity buff lasts for 10 seconds and can be refreshed. The goal is to prevent the buff from falling off while mapping. After refreshing Winter Orb, Creeping Frost should be your go-to skill for the next 7 seconds or so. Drop spell echo once you run this combination, as it only grants one stack of Intensity. It can sometimes be useful to pre-stack overload intensity for difficult encounters.
Gluttony
Gluttony increments a counter on each cast of Creeping Frost. After reaching 10 stacks, we gain a Disgorge. Disgorge causes Creeping Frost to fire projectiles in a circle and adds seven or eight extra projectiles. It's a huge damage gain for bossing and is also really nice for mapping with the 360° of coverage. It also perfectly synergizes with Convergence during downtime or before a difficult encounter. Consider sitting on nine Gluttony stacks to unload enormous burst damage.
Winter Orb
Winter Orb is a spell that lingers for up to 10 seconds and automatically bombards nearby enemies. The more stacks of Winter Orb you have, the longer it lasts and the faster it fires. These projectiles can shotgun. It usually caps out at about four overlaps. Winter Orb's specialty is map clear. It's our delivery system for explosions, which shines with our large area of effect.
Herald of Ice handles early and midgame explosions, and then late game Oriath's End takes over. More Duration is quality of life, damage, survivability, and sustain. Power Charge on Critical and Ice Bite guarantee maximum power and frenzy charges while mapping. Winter Orb doesn't add much boss damage, but it should still be cast occasionally to maintain power charges.
EB + Mom
This build runs Eldrich Battery combined with Mind Over Matter to solve mana cost and split damage between life and energy shield. The damage split also makes it easier to sustain Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion for extra cast speed. DS recovery comes from passive tree leech, the instant leech mastery, and optionally Vaal Discipline. Activate Righteous Fire at the beginning of each map. Avoid activating righteous fire during pinnacle bosses with long periods of downtime. The energy shield pool comes from high-defense body armor and this mastery. Winter orb is the primary engine for leech. The long Duration provides a lot of room for area.
Leveling
Leveling with rolling magma is a thing of the past. This build can level with Creeping Frost right away at level 12, and it's surprisingly good. Creeping Frost with volley or greater volley handles single target.
For clear, weave in Cold Snap for frenzy charges. Then later in the campaign, with a bit more cast speed, swap out Cold Snap for Winter Orb. Golems ensure plenty of damage, speed, and sustain. Leveling is covered in the written build guide and Path of Building.
Ascendancy
For the ascendancy, we go Elementalist:
1. First, Liege of the Primordial is a large power spike of damage, speed, area of effect, and sustain. Flame, lightning, and stone golems are no-brainers. For the last one, it's situational between ice, chaos, and safeguarding.
2. Second, Mastermind of Discord is a solid single-target damage boost.
3. Third, Heart of Destruction for a large area of effect while mapping and even more damage for single target.
4. Last, Shaper of Storms is another massive damage boost, applying a 50% shock to anything you touch.
As for potential alternative ascendancies, a similar setup could be played on a cultist or inquisitor, poison on Pathfinder or Assassin, or Chaos Hitbase on Pathfinder. With deep pockets, Original Sin could also be very interesting.
Uniques
Here is a list of uniques to keep an eye out for:
1. Mystic Refractor is our endgame wand. It's only worth using with three projectiles. There are two ultra-late-game options here. A corrupted wand with one or two of these implicits or a Mystic Refractor that's been Volatile Vaal Orb to four additional projectiles. For each attempt, there's a roughly one in 15 chance to hit four projectiles.
2. Nadir Mode is a powerful jewel that drops in heist.
3. A well-rolled Rumi's Concoction can be a nice source of early block chance.
4. The Red Nightmare can be placed at Templar along with fire resistance tattoos for roughly 20% attack block.
5. A cold Light of Meaning is a solid chunk of damage. It can be placed at either witch or templar.
6. Dying Sun is incredibly strong and synergizes perfectly with the build.
7. Oriath's End is a fantastic source of endgame mapping explosions.
8. Rational Doctrine provides permanent consecrated ground and profane ground. Strength and intelligence must be balanced to get both. As an added benefit, golems very rarely die with lingering consecrated ground.
Tips
1. Here are a few quick tips to gauge winter orb stacks:
- Pay attention to the size of the orb above your character.
- Trying to find it on the buff bar at the top is bait.
- In maps, cold exposure on gloves is always the first priority with Eldrich PoE currency.
- During boss downtime, continue casting Creeping Frost to maintain overloaded intensity stacks.
2. If you need to deal damage from range, swapping in Greater Volley is a good option. Keep it in your inventory and swap out Gluttony for Greater Volley when needed.
3. Dropping the life flask is a late game option. Here's what's needed for the swap:
- A corrupted blood immunity jewel
- The Ralakesh pantheon
- Rational Doctrine and Elemental Life Leech are also recommended.
4. For winter orb, infused channeling is a decent option instead of more Duration. Alternatively, swap out ice bite and instead run militant faith with inner conviction. While channeling Winter Orb, frost blink can be used without interrupting the channel. Use this to your advantage to avoid taking damage or for some extra mobility while mapping.
Conclusion
Arctic Salvo Elementalist remains one of the most enjoyable cold casters in Path of Exile. With the updated leveling path, you'll have a smooth campaign, explosive mapping, and powerful endgame scaling. If you enjoy freezing entire screens and shattering enemies into glittering ice shards, this build will feel amazing from day one of 3.29.
