My build vialbility

I wanted to make an ice mage thingamajig the other day and I was wondering if the following build (WIP) would be viable in the end game (even if not absolutely everywhere).

Please read the whole thing before commenting as I know that the amount of uniques (not top ones either) is probably an issue but I'd like to hear a constructive criticism and maybe idead on how to improve this build while keeping it's spirit alive.

Also, I don't know how to link items here so please, do forgive me that.

SKILL TREE IS HEAVILY WIP ATM

The idea is to use Ice Spear for single target and Ice Nova for aoe purposes.

I imagined someting like IS, Spell Echo, Faster Casting, Inc Crit Multi, Inc Crit Chance/Added Cold Damage, 6th slot open for something like Empower.

For Ice Nova I'd go with Inc Area, SE, Hypothermia, Added Cold Damage, 6th slot open.

Rest of gems would be probably something like:
Lightning Warp, FC, LD + Ice Golem
Blasphemy, 2 of the following: Warlords Mark/Assassin's Mark/Temporal Chains (all 3 if lucky Winterheart Vaal Orb magic happens)
Last item open for socketing. Maybe CWDT, Immortal Call + HoI, something?.


Now to the items:

Ice Spear setup would be held in a Taryn's Shiver
Ice Nova setup would be held in an Carcass Jack (hp, res, AoE inc)
For gloves I'd go with Southbound/rare hp, res
Neck would be Winterheart (chill immunity, hp)
Rings - Dream Fragments (freeze immunity) + rare
Belt - rare hp, res
Rare boots/helmet with hp and resistances.

As you can see it's an overall ice themed build with mandatory freeze and chill immunity, focusing on freezing things with crit/innate/added freeze chance and just having an icy blast.

Like I said, I'm open for ideas on how to improve my build (while keeping it's spirit) and constructive criticism as well.

Thanks in advance and have a good day everyone!.

Won't work. 111% increased life is laughable, and you won't have any life on your gear either, even getting maxed resists will be problematic. You also have no defensive mechanics to speak of.

Even 150-160% to maximum life with respectable bonus life on gear is glass cannon territory.

I've heard that it's at least 100% inc max life, 150% to be sure.
Ring, helmet and boots would have life - maybe I could replace belt since WM has survi build it - so 4 sources of hp (low, I'm aware of that).

Then again, since I'm pretty much overapped on cold res, I could get fire/lightning/chaos on the forementioned items so I don't think it would be that difficult to cap out.

As for defencive mechanism: chill to slow movement/attack/cast speed, freeze to render enemies completely unable to deliver damage and death by crit - that's for aoe safety and single target would be just IN to chill toughies and IS spam to keep them freezed and kite when needed. In theory, seems like sufficient defence mechanism although clearly not Argus/Atziri viable :)

150% life or bust as ranged character, 165%+ to be safe.
For melee it's 175% or bust and ~200% to be safe.

Anything below this is really glass cannon.

"

Mannoth wrote:

150% life or bust as ranged character, 165%+ to be safe.
For melee it's 175% or bust and ~200% to be safe.

Anything below this is really glass cannon.

Precisely. And that's assuming you have life on almost all of your items. A few uniques without life is OK, more than that and it starts getting problematic even if we ignore the problem with capping out resistances if your build is too unique-heavy.

Not to mention that you want 165% to all resists to be able to run elemental weakness maps if you are aiming for a decent endgame character. 135% to all is the minimum for capped resists in merciless but that's really just a short-term solution.

That's exactly what I said, this build can't even qualify as a glass cannon.

I took liberty of redoing your tree a bit. It's here.

Removed some inefficient nodes, fixed pathing a bit. It has 150% life and keeps the general theme, I believe. Also picked up a second curse, it gives you an option of running defensive curse along with your Assassin's Mark or Frostbite (if we're keeping with the cold theme). And some extra jewel slots. (It's not the only possible tree variant, naturally, just a bit more balanced, than your initial take)

Considering your gear, I would maybe ditch the southbound gloves and pick up a rare pair instead, since you'll really struggle to freeze some bosses/rares. Other than that you'll be weaker than a build, that doesn't use that many thematic uniques, but with some passive tree adjustments you'll still manage decently well in mid-tier (up to T9-10 I'd say) maps.

Edit: I would've also picked up Inevitable Judgement instead of Instruments of Virtue and just used Assassin's Mark as my offensive curse.

"

Mannoth wrote:

150% life or bust as ranged character, 165%+ to be safe.
For melee it's 175% or bust and ~200% to be safe.

Anything below this is really glass cannon.

I guess my info on this was outdated, thanks for clarification.

"

Deadpeng wrote:

Glasscannon?

I would not even consider this build glasscannon. Not only is defense completely neglected in this build, the damage is not that outstanding either. You are not exploiting any kind of mechanism to boost your base spell damage.

I may be mistaken but how is 115% increased cold damage and 126% increased elemental damage from the tree alone bad?. I mean, like I said I may be mistaken but with these numbers I don't see the need to boost spell damage since afaik 1% cold/elementa damage = 1% spell damage. 240% increased damage is really THAT low for a damage/control oriented build?.
Let's not forget that there's damage from items like Taryn and such (50% cold dmg 60% spell dmg 20% vs frozen).

"

PaperRat wrote:

I took liberty of redoing your tree a bit. It's here.

Removed some inefficient nodes, fixed pathing a bit. It has 150% life and keeps the general theme, I believe. Also picked up a second curse, it gives you an option of running defensive curse along with your Assassin's Mark or Frostbite (if we're keeping with the cold theme). And some extra jewel slots. (It's not the only possible tree variant, naturally, just a bit more balanced, than your initial take)

Considering your gear, I would maybe ditch the southbound gloves and pick up a rare pair instead, since you'll really struggle to freeze some bosses/rares. Other than that you'll be weaker than a build, that doesn't use that many thematic uniques, but with some passive tree adjustments you'll still manage decently well in mid-tier (up to T9-10 I'd say) maps.

Edit: I would've also picked up Inevitable Judgement instead of Instruments of Virtue and just used Assassin's Mark as my offensive curse.

I see I've forgotten to add Inevitable Judgement and remove few useless nodes between Templar and Witch, my bad. Although is Instruments of Virtue really worse than Augury of Penitence?.

I really like your changes in the tree but the loss of Throatseeker is... I think I'll withdraw points from Celestial Judgement (far left) in favor of Throatseeker as I'm concerned about IS crits.

Regarding Southbound - 25% increased freeze durarion on enemies along with 40-60% inc freeze duration from the tree and possibly Temporal Chains on top of IS crits going off left and right - I'm no expert but I see pretty nice Freeze uptime even on bosses. Even if not 100% uptime then still there's chill and temp chains to slow enemies into oblivion and kite till a freeze streak comes in. Obviously I'm not speaking of chill/curse/freeze immune monsters. Which will prolly make me hold another, rare pair in my inventory for these kind of nasties.
Let's not forget they give 12-16% increased maximum life as well. Not flat but still it's something.

Thanks everyone for usefull insights and if you have more of that - keep it coming, I'm grateful for that.