[1.3 Bloodlines] Karsey's Level 90 CI Crit Ice Spear Witch
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Welcome to my CI Ice Spear guide!
I'm currently playing this build in Bloodlines and have reached level 90 so I figure I must be doing something right. I plan to push this character as far as I can until the league ends. It's a very safe build to play and it's always nice to freeze and shatter everything! I am mostly a solo player so this guide will be geared towards that but I guess you can throw in a prolif here or there if you want to be more supportive in a group.
Pros
- Active gameplay. You will constantly be repositioning, and managing flask use. - Very safe. you can freeze most dangerous enemies and mobs can't hurt you when they are frozen. - Immune to chaos in a league where certain mods which add chaos damage can absolutely devastate life based characters - No Corpses because you'll shatter 99% of your enemies - Ranged. Due to the nature of ice spear it is in your best interest to remain ranged from your enemies. This can prevent a lot of 'surprise' death moments such as discovering those 30 mobs you just instantly killed were sprinkler totem mobs or frost/storm/flame bearers, and you are smack dab in the RIP-zone. - Empowered + Inner forced Arctic Armor. It's really really good.
Cons
- May be considered point intensive - Being CI you are dependant on gear and nicely rolled gear can get pricey. If you find this discouraging, know that I started this character with 13 chaos and a few stacks of assorted low currency and worked my way up to being able to afford some nice pieces of gear. The build doesn't have to be expensive, but well rolled high level gear can absolutely take this build to a whole other level and can have substantial impact on your over all defense and DPS.
Offensive Ice Spear Damage
Defensive Stats
Videos
More are on the way!
Level 75 Plateau Map
Level 78 Courtyard Map
-------------------------------------------------------- 1. Passive Tree I left 3 points out of this tree, 1 to account for the power charge from Alira for the merciless bandit quest reward, and 2 left over that would be designated based on what was needed most out of: Mana/ES/Crit. -------------------------------------------------------- 2. Bandit Rewards Kill All/Help Alira* Kill All Help Alira *The flat 40 mana from Alira can be extremely helpful later on if you're having trouble sustaining your AA or spell casting. Because this build gets so much % inc. mana from the tree, that 40 flat mana turns into much much more. I personally recommend going for gear that has flat mana rolls on it, as it will be very very beneficial for you, however, don't rule out this reward as an option if you need it. -------------------------------------------------------- 3. Gem Links Ice Spear - Faster Casting - Spell Echo - Greater Multiple Projectiles - Power Charge on Critical - Increased Critical Damage\Elemental Proliferation Reduced Mana - Clarity - Purity of Ice - Discipline Reduced Mana - Herald of Ice - Herald of Thunder Cast When Stunned - Cold Snap - Frost Wall - Cold Penetration Arctic Armour - Frostbite - Empower - Enhance Lightning Warp - Faster Casting - Reduced Duration Sounds like you need a 6L and 2 rare expensive gems right? Not necessarily. This is an ideal setup but I will elaborate on what you can do to build to this and it works very well with a 5L. --------------------------------------------------------
Detailed Gem Breakdown
Main Skill:This will be for the most part what makes everything shatter. Quality on these gems will substantially increase cast speed and damage, but it's not necessary. I leveled mine all to 20, did the GCP recipe to make them all 20% and I'm currently releveling them. You can replace increased critical damage or faster casting with Elemental Proliferation if you want dem prolifs or you are fighting an annoying invulnerable group mob like phylacteral link and you want to freeze the whole group safely. It also helps make a few boss fights much safer, like the Jungle Valley boss. You prolif your freeze off all the junky baby spiders and you can pretty much eat burgers with one hand and cast ice spear with the other until they're all dead. For general mapping I find the above posted setup to be the most useful. I highly recommend you use Ice Spear in at least a 5L (you can trade for a white 5L for about 4c now in bloodlines) but if you're extremely hard-up for currency and need to make a 4L work, I would use Ice Spear - Spell Echo - GMP - PCoC. You can compensate for the loss of faster casting by using an alternate gem setup in... This is a powerful setup. Sufficiently leveled Arctic Armour will pretty much make you immune to voidbearers, SRS, TittyBitches, and provide serious mitigation towards spells like Firestorm, and any physical/fire damage which is afflicted in a small/medium hit in high speeds. It is extremely valuable to the defense of this spec as we do not have any passive ES regeneration or flat armour and this will help mitigate so much damage, you pretty much have to have it. Frostbite is empowered to increased the amount of resistance removed from enemies, and enhanced to increase the duration of the freezes you inflict on enemies. We do not use a cold penetration gem in our main setup and this curse will help you to freeze or just kill cold resistant mobs/bosses much easier. I debated using a cold penetration gem in the main setup instead of increased critical damage but I found that it's overall better just to gain crit multi for every attack, and self cast frostbite when the cold resistance penetration is needed. ALTERNATIVELY: If you are using a 5L, but still want that juicy crit multiplier gem in there and drop faster casting, and/or you can't afford / are leveling empower and enhance gems, or only have a 4L, I personally used Increased Duration and Blood Rage in their place (Same colours even!). The frenzy charges from blood rage are a free 15% increased cast speed and since we are CI, the chaos degen does nothing. You won't benefit from the leech but hey, free cast speed! The increased duration will make blood rage last longer than the annoying 10 seconds it starts with and also increase the duration of your curse, AND it will make AA super OP by making the ice trail you leave behind last long enough for you to draw inappropriate designs on the ground with it in your friends hideout. I know what you're thinking. CwS? No Cast when Damage taken + ec + ic + inc dur? What is going on here??? Trust me, You don't need it. Since we are CI, we will be getting stunned. We take the Practical Application nodes in the witch start area for 55% chance to avoid the effects of stun while casting, and damage taken to energy shield already grants a 50% chance to avoid stun. This means that as long as you aren't standing in enemy territory twiddling your thumbs or scamming noobs in trade chat, you have a very high chance to avoid the effects of stun. Which is pretty much the same as not being stunned, except that it still procs our CwS setup. Cold Snap with this build will have a high chance to crit, and a separately rolled high chance to freeze the target that 'stunned' us. This means that as soon as something rolls a stun on you, it is practically guaranteed to be frozen or shattered which interrupts the attack that stuns you or kills the enemy. Frost Wall is our defense against herds of bone rhoas/blackguards which probably snapshotted their charge from offscreen subphys+haste shrines and you can't freeze intime before they get to you. The first hit that procs the frost wall will block the rest of the herd from pummeling you to death if they weren't getting frozen in the first place. Ice Spear also pierces the wall at close/mid-range so you don't have to worry about it blocking your attacks. It does happen on occasion but its benefit far outweighs the rare instance it does happen to block an attack. Pretty self explanatory, movement skill. You can use it to reposition yourself and keep range from the enemies, get away from opened strongboxes, move to the other side of your frost wall. It's a lightning warp with support gems to make it faster. This isn't rocket surgery. These will be your main aura gems that will be put inside of an Alpha's Howl Helm - the only required unique for this build. Discipline will provide us with a little over 2k ES with the aura nodes and Inner Force. Purity of Ice is for reflect by raising our maximum cold res while also providing us with a huge chunk of cold resistance. Clarity will provide us with much needed flat mana regen which will scale very well with % increased mana regen. The higher level these gems are, the more benefit you will receive. We will use these self buffs. Herald of Thunder will be used to shock our enemies so that they receive 50% increased damage from us. It's also pretty nice for opening barrels. Herald of Ice will make every enemy you shatter do an AoE cold damage explosion that is really great for clearing tight packs. It also lets herald of thunder apply cold damage to it's lightning bolts which can freeze the enemies. -------------------------------------------------------- 4. Equipment This section will be the most difficult especially if you are a new player because it takes a little bit of effort, knowledge and understanding of what type of rolls can appear on what gear. There is only one unique item I would say is required for this build and that is Alpha's Howl Sinner Tricorne. The +2 to aura gems and 8% reduced mana reserved and freeze avoidance is perfect for this build. Our discipline will provide more ES, our Clarity will provide more mana regeneration, and our Purity of Ice will provide more cold res and a higher Max Cold res. You want to manage your gear with these attributes in mind: Energy Shield Elemental Resistances Mana Regeneration Flat Mana Spell/Cold Damage Global or Spell Critical Chance Global or Spell Critical Strike Multiplier +Strength and +Dexterity and +Intellgence Stun Recovery This might seem vague, but you have to keep in mind many of these stats can roll on multiple types of gear. Mana Regeneration can roll on wands, shields, rings, and amulets. Crit Multi can roll on wands, and amulets. Elemental resistances can roll on pretty much anything. Energy Shield can roll on rings, you get it from +Intelligence, amulets, and obviously on shields/gloves/chest/boots. Flat mana can roll on nearly any piece of gear (and if you manage to find a nicely rolled carnal armour, it's flat mana implicit will be extremely beneficial). Anyways, I'm sure you get the point here. There isn't a find gloves with x, boots with y, a chest with z, etc., way of gearing this character. It's a balancing act. Here is the gear I am currently using at level 90:
Spoiler
I use a high ES chest armour and a high ES shield because along with rainbowstrides and a moonstone ring, they are practically my only significant sources of ES. This is because I chose to use maligaro's virtuosity deerskin gloves for the critical chance, multi, and +dexterity. Alternatively I could find an amulet or a better wand with crit chance/multi on them and just use a pair of rare ES gloves for more ES, but I had a very great mana regen. amulet I chose to use instead which pushed me into getting crit multi on the gloves. I use doryani's invitation heavy belt for the +35 to strength, increased cold damage, resistances, and 1% leech along with an additional 10% chance to freeze during flask use. I realize this item is quite pricey for most players in a HC league, and you can feel free to replace this with any useful belt you find but I would then recommend using Catarina to master-craft cold leech onto a wand. I use rainbowstrides because they are an all-around good item for this build. Flat mana, decent ES, decent res and movespeed, and some spellblock. I really appreciate the flat mana on these boots so I don't think I'll be replacing them any time soon, however if I find a better pair of rare ES boots I will probably use those instead. Keep in mind, any attributes on gear will help you greatly with this build. You will need lots of Dexterity and Strength on gear if you want to avoid taking the +30 str/dex nodes in the tree and Intelligence will give you more mana and energy shield.
Flasks
These are the flasks I use. It is important to have a bleed removal, curse removal, shock removal, and burn removal rolled on your flasks. Since you will be hitting with critical strikes almost all the time, surgeons prefix works great but I find it's not necessary. Taste of hate is not necessary but since one of the weaknesses of this build are large physical hits, it helps defend against those and reflect along with a granite. You can use a blue sapphire flask in it's place if you don't have a Taste of Hate but it's a great addition. -------------------------------------------------------- 5. Leveling Leveling with ice spear is a pain in the neck. It casts slow, and doesn't seem to be worth it. I leveled with freeze pulse + gmp + spell echo + pcoc until I bought a 5L for 4c at like level 50. I also switched to CI at level 70 and used all the respec nodes you get from quest rewards. I took the life and energy shield nodes in the shadow/witch area along with the chaos res + hp nodes in the templar area by sovereignity. When I switched over I had about 6K Energy Shield. I can't guarantee because it, but I'm pretty sure my tree looked something like this: -------------------------------------------------------- 6. Gameplay Keep your distance, shoot spears at the bad guys, reposition as necessary. Curse cold resistant mobs and bosses. Use your flasks often. It sounds simple fundamentally but it does require effort and an awareness of the map and the surrounding enemies. You want to remove any status ailments and bleed as soon as possible with flasks. 1% Leech I find is sufficient enough for this spec with enough crit multi. Most mobs will be frozen in place when you are fighting them. If you find you can't freeze a certain boss, feel free to grab the cold penetration gem from your cast when stunned setup and replace your greater multiple projectiles gem. It should solve any non-freezing issues vs bosses or curse immune + cold resistant rares. Reflect only becomes a minor issue when you start getting into serious amounts of crit multi. With your sapphire flask up it barely tickles. The most damage I ever did to myself with reflect was about 30% of my ES when a mob of ele-reflect spitters rose up from the ground right infront of me in a -max res map and I didn't have my sapphire flask popped, and I instantly shattered the whole group in one shot. That said, ele reflect maps are kind of annoying because you can't passively regen ES and attack enemies at the same time if you need to. Which you usually don't because you're leeching. But still. I usually roll over them if I don't feel like being annoyed. Your biggest weakness will be large physical hits. Small physical hits will be mitigated by Arctic Armour, but you will want a granite if you know you are going to take any significant physical damage. Anyway, if you're taking big physical hits, you're doing something seriously wrong, probably breaking the number one rule with ice spear, which is keep a distance. This build can will require some special attention to map mods:
Mapmods
Elemental Reflect: Like mentioned above, keep your sapphire up. Don't fire into humongous packs if you're taking huge chunks of damage. Go slower if you need to. Use your head.
+x Cold Resistance: This is where that empowered+enhanced frostbite really shines. Use it and laugh at the free IIQ. Immune to Curses: Don't waste your time applying curses here. Usually not an issue at all. Elemental Equilibrium: Again, not usually an issue but it can slow you down. Use your curse and sometimes herald of thunder makes it easier for you on some mobs. -max Resistances: Watch out for reflect and use your flasks as much as you can. Blood Magic: We are CI. You can't do this mod. 50% Regen: You won't be able to run your Arctic Armour. This is a very dangerous mod and unless you're doing low level maps, I recommend skipping it. It's also a pain in the ass for casting your spells too. No Regen: I recommend skipping this if you can.
Bloodline Mods
For all unlisted ones applies: keep range and kill them.
Bearers of the Guardian: The guardian is quite weak. Pop your Granite Flask, curse him and he will be frozen. You can dance around as you kill his blue mob bum buddies to avoid his spectral throw. Corrupted Bloodline: Staunching Flask Use it. Flame/Frost/Storm Bearers: Keep Range. Lightning/Quicksilver out of the explosive areas. Heralds of the Obelisk: Respect this mod or it's a one way trip to standard league. I almost always pop my immune to shock flask immediately upon killing one of these mobs. Keep your distance if you can, dance to avoid the storm calls and lightning warps. Legacy of Vigor/Zeal//Shared Boon: I feel like the zeal ones have a stun bonus or something but I could be wrong. They aren't much of an issue, you'll freeze them 99% of the time. Living Blood: Huge joke. Not only is the chaos one, which is regarded as the most dangerous, completely mitigated by us being CI, most of the time when I kill the pack, I freeze the sea witch before it even rises out of the ground. I just see the name in the top center of my screen and after attacking for a second there's a loot explosion. Mark of the Cannibal/Necrovigil: No corpses because you shatter. HUGE QOL for this spec. Seriously. Otherworldly: CI mitigates all their bonus chaos damage. Curse them and freeze'em. You'll prob still take a few shots to kill them unless their buff wears off then they shatter like every other mob. Phylacteral Link: This will be the most dangerous for you. If it's a particularily dangerous or large pack, I seriously recommend retreating and replacing your crit damage or faster casting gem with elemental proliferation to keep the pack frozen while you spend the time dealing with them 1 at a time. It's not always so bad but depending on the type of mob, the mob density, and the locations of the mobs, it can be super super super annoying. Voidspawn of Abaxoth: Bameth: Hold down your attack and face tank him. Try not to stand on a pile of desecrated corpses. Your AA will block most of the damage from his arrows and corpse explosion and his zombies are weak. He's really easy. Ephij: Keep moving to avoid his storm calls, keep distance, and if you can't outleech his constant vaal storm call hits just run away for a bit to regen your ES before re-engaging. He gets frozen very easily when cursed. Tzteosh: He is also easily frozen while cursed but usually not for that long and since you have to keep moving to avoid his vaal flameblast, it's a little bit of a kite. Just keep your distance and attack while moving out of the explosive areas. His SRS minions can be ignored, your Arctic Armor makes you immune to them. Haast: His Glacial Cascade can be quite dangerous and this is where you will find Taste of Hate really makes a significant defense. Keep range. Retreat to regen your ES when Needed. Keep defensive flasks up. You won't freeze him so you just gotta keep at it until he dies. Na'em: You can usually curse and freeze him but if the map mods are defensive for him at all, it's usually safer to sub in an ele prolif gem and prolif off his skeletons or other mobs to freeze him. His spear can wreck you. Be careful. Abaxoth: I only faced him once when I was like level 76 and I ran like a scared little child. If I get an update I'll let you know. He seems dangerous though -------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for reading my guide and post any questions or comments below! Also shout out to Enki91 for providing me a solid build guide template to rip off 8D Last edited by karsey on Mar 2, 2015, 3:21:55 AM
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Nice guide karsey!
We used to run a few maps together, can confirm this build is a beast. twitch.tv/enki91
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very well done karsey looking forward to the video's --MrKracken
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Uploaded a new video! Make sure to check it out!
Also got a new toy to play with that is a nice end-game addition to this build! I ended up speccing out of the 4 skill points that worked towards "Breath of Rime" north of the witch starting point and instead took power charge in the templar area and used the leftover point to take the +40 flat mana from Alira in act 2 normal difficulty. If anyone needs that tree to clear things up for them just click in here Last edited by karsey on Mar 1, 2015, 1:53:59 AM
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I'm guessing u also use frostbite and bloodrage or u dont think its worth it ? (Sry if i missed it being written in the guide)
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" Blood rage seems very unecessary using faster casting + spell echo in the main links. You already have plenty of cast speed you don't need the extra 15% from 3 frenzy charges and it would strain the already huge mana drain. Frostbite is used. I mentioned that it might be worth it to use bloodrage instead of enhance in the gloves if you are using a 5L (with no faster casting) or you want to use elemental proliferation instead of faster casting in the 6L setup. | |
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can this build do atrizi ?
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are you planning to update this sexy ass build for act 4? if so that would be perfect to respec my witch into this
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Ahhh my first char was and still is a CI Ice Spear witch, always happy to see more around since they are rather rare, keep em comin! Excellent guide +1 <3 hope to see an update for 2.0
Last edited by Evangela on Jun 16, 2015, 1:15:54 AM
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" I had a lot of fun with this character and I think at one point I will be redoing this guide for 2.0 when it is released. One item I plan on working into it is the chaos golem that's been introduced. Physical damage was probably this builds biggest problem and I can't wait to see how the chaos golem's buff interacts with that. The aura reservation will also be changed, might not need alphas howl for the extra 8% aura reservation reduction which means an ES helm could be used. I don't think the freeze protection is a huge deal now that flasks can provide immunity for a time period, and with the witch flask nodes it would further improve the utility of a heat flask. I will be trying this build in 2.0 and making an update once I figure out what things work best for me. Thanks for reading though, hope it was a helpful guide! |
