

I started playing Path of Exile in August of 2018 and I really started diving in to making my own builds during 3.8. Which is when the original version of this build was put together. At that time PoE was a pretty different game in terms of monster damage and life. As well as the prevelance of Chaos damage in end game bosse encounters. During 3.8 GGG changed a node in the Elementalist ascendancy and a few nodes on the tree essentially creating the Golem buff Stacking play-style. At that time Golem stacking was actually quite strong and a bit underrated in my opinion. Sadly though after the changes to the atlas as well as monster damage and life values Golem survivability became a real issue making the play-style more trouble than it was worth for many players. I decided that I would put that effort in this league to see if I could push the Frost Nova Golementalist to new heights. The results of that effort are the complete reworking of this written guide here on the forums as well as a full video guide which should be posted within a week or two. A bit of a spoiler I still freaking love this build and hope you will too even though it might not be for everyone anymore.



Decent Mapping Speed

Active play style

Solid sustain

Elemental Ailment Immune

Golems can occasionally die while fighting Sirus

This build got really expensive $$$



I personally love builds that can be upgraded bit by bit over a decent chunk of the league. This build really scratchegd that itch for me! Even at level 94 im intensely excited to get that next skill point because it still has measurable impact on my character which is a bit of a rarity within PoE. My gear and tree have gone through multiple iterations while the build progressed, a new piece of gear or a few passive points can really shift what is efficient to grab on the passive tree. If you enjoy playing around in PoB or getting really invested into a character than read on this build is most certainly for you!



Every Golem in the game provides some form of bonus all of which except for one directly effect your character. Providing buffs such as % increased damage, Flat Life Regeneration, Cast/Attack Speed, Phys Damage Reduction, Crit Chance and Accuracy. These buffs are generally quite small and not super impactful especially beacuse Golems have a base summon limit of 1. This build focuses on getting +1 Maximum Golems wherever we can we also heavily take advantage of the stat "#% Increased Golem Buff Effect" making the Golem buff's anything but small.





Ice Nova and Frostbolt work together by allowing you to cast your Ice Nova onto an active Frostbolt. This is huge because it allows you to project your damage outward instead of localized to your character. BUT WAIT! THERES MORE! If you have at least two Frostbolts active Instead of Ice Nova just expanding from a frostbolt it will instead expand from two. Doubling your damage if the two overlap on a target. Believe it or not it gets even better because Ice Nova isnt cast on our characer the repeats from Spell Echo and Greater Spell Echo no longer locks your character in place. Instead all of the repeats happen on the frostbolt freeing us up to take huge advantage of the more cast speed multiplier from Spell Echo as long as we can sustain our mana that is. The current version of the build can cast over 7 times per second with buffs up all of which will be repeated upwards of 4 times. The amount of damage we can set up in one second is pretty nuts! ((7 casts * 2 Ice Novas) * 5 total repeats) = 70 Instances of Ice Nova that will take a few seconds to finish repeating. Against large bosses you can reasonbly hit with about 70%-80% fo those instances.





I chose to take the keystones Dreamer, Shaper and Deep Thoughts. Combined with a bit of mana on our gear, a level 20 Clarity, Buffs from Alira and Arcane Surge we get about 300 Mana Regeneration per second and reduce the Ice Nova mana cost to below 60. This puts in a place where we don't have to use a mana flask at all fixing the biggest issue with the original build.





The Corrupted Soul keystone provided by the Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel Has two effects The first is "50% of Non-Chaos damage taken bypasses Energy Shield" the second is "Gain 20% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield". This essentially allows us to treat life and ES as one continuous pool of HP instead of two independent layers one reduced to zero then the other. This jewel is one of the cornerstones of our defenses and provides a significant amount of our ES. For a Glorious Vanity to give you the Corrupted Soul keystone it must have the Name "Doryani" on the first line.





For Cluster Jewels I chose to specifically target the notable Primordial Bond. This node is only available to roll on Large Minion Cluster jewels limiting our access to the node. Using the Megalomaniac Unique Cluster jewels we can get more instances of Primoridial Bond along with any other useful node we can find but thats a luxury not a necessity. Currently I have 3 instances of Primordial Bond in the build.

Staff - Ice Nova

This is where our

setup Must be socketed so we can take advantage of

Gloves - Frostbolt

Body Armour - Golems



Helmet/Boots - Aura's

In one of our 4 links we will want to place our Aura setup.





Helmet/Boots - Movement

You will want one White socket with this setup because we swap out Blood Rage to Frost Bomb when fighting end game bosses like Sirus.



Power Charges



---We maintain these charges during mapping and boss fights



Frenzy Charges



---We maintain these charges while mapping because of Blood Rage but we will not have Frenzys while bossing



Onslaught



---We gain onslaught from our boots while mapping but again we won't have this buff while bossing.



Pendulum of Destruction



---We leave this at none as it cant really be relied upon.





Is the enemy Chilled



---We have a near 100% chance to chill on hit



Is the enemy a Boss?



---we select Sirus





Cast on Frostbolt



---We select this so we see an accurate AoE for Ice Nova's