Velyna's Ice Crash Raider (PoE Necropolis 3.24)
Due to the Raider ascendancy getting reworked to Warden, this build is no longer playable and will only serve as a refrence point on how this skill could be build.
Introduction
This hard-hitting melee Raider stacks Dexterity to scale damage using Hollow Palm Technique, gained from One With Nothing. With enough DPS for all bosses and several layers of defense, this build can carry you from leaguestart through endgame!
Overview
Pros
✔️ Easy leaguestart and scaling – Just leaguestart as normal melee using the provided PoB, buy a few uniques and basic rares, then save for One With Nothing. Scaling then becomes very easy because you just GET MORE DEX!
✔️ Strong and Safe Melee – This build is Ailment Immune with 100% Spell Suppression, Phasing, Fortify, Endurance Charges and 15k+ Armour and Evasion. We also freeze/chill, a massively underrated defensive layer.
✔️ 3 Button Gameplay – All we do is dash-slam-dash, maybe drop a totem sometimes. We need nothing else besides flasks.
Cons
❌ Stat Budget – Hollow Palm will struggle more than other builds to cap resistances because we cannot equip gloves, weapons, or shields. You will want to go big on belt/rings/jewels to fix this at first.
❌ Chaos/Degens – For the same reason, it’s hard to fit chaos resistance into the build. Also a small life pool can make degens scary.
How Does it Play?
Ice Crash is an AoE skill centered just in front of our character, meaning we don’t have to aim our attacks at all. With the chance to freeze from Frostbite most mobs will be slowed or stopped while we move through the pack with phasing, dropping a few crashes to finish it off.
Damage and Defensive Scaling
For every 10 Dexterity we gain 14-20 flat physical damage which Ice Crash fully converts to cold. This is the core of the build. Cursing with frostbite is also very important, increasing damage and allowing us to freeze without critting. Cold Penetration, Elemental Damage With Attacks, Attack Speed and % Cold Damage are all good choices as well.
On the defensive side we have Armour, Evasion, Fortify, Spell Suppression, Ailment Immunity and Reflect Immunity. Impale immunity or Corrupted Blood immunity can be obtained on the tree.
Resources
Crafting and Upgrading for Beginners
Using this Guide
For build imports head to the PoB and Skills page.
The build is designed to work through stages, explained next to the imports. The same page contains leaguestart tips and gem setups for leaguestart and endgame.
The gear page contains info about the endgame setup, links to help you search for items, and sometimes crafting tips as well.
Leaguestart
- My Leaguestart PoBs go step-by-step to place your talents during act 1-10.
- There is also an act-by-act guide for which gems to use, you can find it on the Skills page.
After the campaign get your lightning/cold/fire resistances to 75 and get life on every slot. You can wear a blue ring if it has life and resistance, that’s fine. Also start shopping for uniques.
The leaguestart is meant to grind out immediate upgrades in early maps, some builds can push into reds immediately and some not. Grind where you are cozy while upgrading.
When you can easily farm low maps, start looking to buy items for the next stage.
Midrange/Transition
Some builds require a transition stage because levelling with our desired skill is not viable. If transitioning is required there will be a list of items to gather before doing it, and then you build towards the next PoB like always.
You will probably unlock most of your atlas while gearing out this stage, so don’t be afraid to spend on incremental upgrades. The faster you kill monsters the faster you make money.
Midrange will add more expensive uniques and any build-defining items. Usually not much crafting yet, but all rares should have the required life/resists/attributes plus good other mods. Flasks should also be decently rolled.
Check the gem setup in PoB, it usually changes slightly from leaguestart.
Endgame
Pushing past the final atlas bosses and into the post-campaign content, this is where you add those final millions of DPS to finish off the build.
Upgrades will become more expensive overall, and may require some basic to intermediate crafting. If a difficult craft is required, instructions will be given on the Gear page of the guide.
The cost of this stage is different for every build and changes with every patch. If a build is generally very cheap or very expensive I will mention it in the Pros/Cons section.