POE 3.22 Frost Blades Raider Build Guide – Gear Choice & Discussion

Today I want to share with you a build I’m working on, Frost Blades Raider, a melee build. In today’s guide, we’ll take an in-depth look at Frost Blades with Raider Ascendancy and highlight a cost-effective way to build one. This method is perfect for map challenges where you farm Divine Orbs.

It has significantly improved Frost Blades with the introduction of Vengeant Cascade node. It allows your projectiles to return and hit the single target you are attacking. This effectively doubles your damage output and makes this build very effective.

Why Choose Frost Blades?

First, Frost Blades is in a great position right now. If scaled properly, it can deal high damage, but isn’t overly powerful. This is one of the most used melee skills in Trial of the Ancestors League.

Another reason is that it’s more experimental. Because its gear options are so flexible, there are many ways to approach this build.

Why Choose Raider?

I see many people using Slayer or Trickster as an Ascendancy for this build. But I wanted to do something different, so I chose Raider and buy POE Currency a lot.

Meanwhile, it also makes sense to go with Raider, as this build can scale with a ton of Frenzy Charges. Each of our Frenzy Charges will increase Avatar of the Slaughter’s damage, attack speed, and movement speed.

Although we didn’t get Raider’s Avatar of the Chase node during Onslaught, we can easily get it elsewhere.

On the other hand, Avatar of the Veil is also a good choice since it does more damage than Avatar of the Chase. And it also makes Spell Suppression chance and Elemental Ailment avoidance easier.

Weapons

In addition, Raider’s weapon slots also have a variety of options. You can use some rare Claws, Two-Handed Swords. Such as the new Rakiata’s Dance or One-Handed Swords like Savior.

Rakiata’s Dance is a good choice. The only drawback is that you can’t use a shield. I also feel it’s better suited for use with Slayer since it’s easier to access Two-Handed nodes at the bottom of the passive tree.

We chose Paradoxica because the sword node is close to Ranger. Paradoxica can also deal massive amounts of damage with its dual damage and elemental penetration mods. Meanwhile, the cost of only 8 Chaos Orbs also perfectly fits the low-budget requirements of this build.

Heatshiver is the best helmet option for this build, the damage it provides is unparalleled. Please note that you can re-roll Heatshiver’s value with POE Currency, but you cannot add new modes for every 1% cold effect on enemies.

Body Armor

As for Body Armor, Farrul’s Fur is a good choice because it’s easy to generate Power Charge with this Body Armor. But we abandoned this idea because it was difficult for this build to limit its own resistance.

Replica Farrul’s Fur is also a good choice since you can easily generate Endurance Charges.

If you play Slayer, then I strongly recommend you to use this Body Armor because it has Ascendancy passive skill, Masterful Form. When using Masterful Form, your maximum Endurance Charges amount is equal to your maximum Frenzy Charges.

This means that if you have 9 max Frenzy Charges, when you get Cat’s Agility, you will get 9 Frenzy Charges and 9 Endurance Charges, which is very helpful for defense.

The most defensive option for this slot is Lightning Coil, but we can’t use it for obvious reasons. Therefore, we chose Cutthroat’s Garb to limit our resistance and mitigate some physical damage. It’s also pretty good for a lot of dodging since we’re not using Grace in this build.

Gloves

For Gloves, I use Tanu Ahi for Onslaught and Adrenaline. I know many people use Kaom’s Spirit, but for Kaom’s Spirit to work, you need to stack Life Regen, whether it’s from Passive Tree, Gears, Vitality Aura or Enduring Cry.

Most people end up using Enduring Cry due to the extremely high recovery speed. However, if I want to use this, I have to go far out and grab Call to Arms, which lets me issue Warcry instantly. We may also have to give up some defense on gear to get some health regeneration.

Therefore, using Kaom’s Spirit is not worth it for this build. But if you’re playing this build as a Slayer, it would make more sense to use Kaom’s Spirit.

In order for Tanu Ahi to work, we have to have some Degens and Life Leech. But when we follow the original Passive Tree, we cannot trigger Onslaught and Adrenaline very often. Its uptime is also so bad that it’s only 10%-20% when drawing maps.

So, we did some testing. We discovered that in order for Tanu Ahi to work properly, you cannot gain any health source for hit or kill. Next, you must eliminate any sources of Instant Leech. Once this is done, Onslaught and Adrenaline buffs become very consistent.

Another way to get adrenaline is to spend POE Currency to purchase Death Rush Unique Ring. But, the problem is that you only get this buff on kill, which isn’t ideal for boss fights.

Once we get enough resistance, and properties on Passive Tree, I’ll use Circle of Fear. We tied this ring to Herald of Ice Skill, making it perfect for builds that need some extra Flat Cold Damage. For example, in this Frost Blades Raider, its modifier might increase Herald’s Buff Effect, Reservation Efficiency, Maximum Cold Resistance, Cold Resistance, or increased Cold Damage.

Boots

Darkray Vectors are perfect for this build. It gives +1 to maximum Frenzy Charges, and increases evasion and movement speed per Frenzy Charge. If you don’t care about evasion, Legacy of Fury is another good option.

Jewellery

For Jewellery, I chose Nimis, Ashes of the Stars, and Circle of Fear. If you want to use Nimis, Ashes of the Stars is the best option in the slot.

This is because if you want the returned projectile to hit the enemy, you need to spend more POE Currency to invest in projectile speed. But Frost Blades’ projectile speed can also be increased by improving their quality, which can be obtained from Ashes of the Stars.

If you don’t use Nimis, Yoke of Suffering is also a good choice. It’s also very cheap. Finally, I got a rare shield, Vengeance Badge, to limit my resistance and spell suppression.

Conclusion

This completes this extremely fast and cost-effective Frost Blades Raider build. Even though this build only has 3.7k of life now, it’s a Glass Cannon. But with layers of Evasion, Dodge, Block, and Leech, we rarely die. The only ones we need to pay attention to are Chaos Damage and Degens.

As always, don’t forget to tweak your build to suit your preferences and optimize your gear and gems over time.