[0.10.1] Fife's EB Ice Shot Cold & Static Crit Shadow! (With Video Series)
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Main Concept
Build to see for yourself. So I would be lying if this build wasn't inspired from builds such as Kripps Freezing Pulse or other Elemental specs as I found them both to be very entertaining. I found that if you are able to induce multiple status ailments on an enemy then it should be taken advantage of. The overall idea behind this build is to create a viable build, which takes the defensive properties of Ice Shot and adds Static Debuff to it, increasing the damage taken. My secret plot behind this build is that I am aiming for it to be used by players that play solo, thus why I chose to use EB and stack auras onto myself. This build can be used in group play, giving your group great advantages with the auras. Overall I hope you enjoy it and if you can leave some helpful criticism I will be sure to address it! __________________________________________________________________ Pros/Cons Video Series (Will be updated to Level 70) Videos are up to Level 60.
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__________________________________________________________________ Defense Idea behind this build is to be as defensive as possible, my main skill gems of choice to achieve this will be. Ice Shot (Interchangeable with Lightning Arrow) Decoy Totem/Skelly Totem Bear Trap Ice Shot
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With Ice Shot, it creates a powerful cold trail which chills the targets that are standing in it. Not only this but, if you are to crit with it (which is what this build is based around) then you will Freeze the target immobilizing it in place. The powerful Freeze status affliction is triggered when your target is hit with Crit with Cold Damage or has a 5% chance from the Freeze Passive Point.
The duration of freeze is based on how much Cold damage the target is hit with vs. how much life it has. This is the reason why Ice Shot is our main skill for the defensive side of this build. Now in order to amplify this freeze effect I also run with the aura Hatred. Hatred takes how much physical damage you do, then multiplies it by 15% up to 24%, and adds that damage to all of your shots. Decoy/Skelly Totem
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Decoy Totem or Summon Skeletons + Spell Totem can be major defensive totems that if you aren't already using one, will be a major increase on your survivabilty.
Decoy Totem is a standalone skill, which for this build is very important, as running so many Auras and linked gems can make you run out of socket space fairly fast. In the early levels of Decoy Totem with 0% quality it has very very little life and will be one-shot by practically everything, the higher in levels and quality your Decoy Totem becomes, the more resilient it is. Skeletal Totem on the other hand is another great skill gem + support which will increase your survivabilty right away. The major drawback to using Summon Skeletons and Spell Totem is that it reserves at least two links, not to mention if you go all out and get Minion Life and Faster Casting with it, that is four gems which are socket colors are very hard to roll on Evasion/Armour gear. Although if you make it work, great job. Bear Trap
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Bear Trap is one of those abilities that, if you have enough room on your Skill lineup, and a green socket available on your gear, its a no brainer.
Bear Traps defensive capabilities, being incredibly powerful, is stunning a mob in its spot. This allows you to Trap those nasty mobs that deal tons of damage and have life leech on them, never getting close to you. Now Bear Trap is also one of the most single target offensive skills that this build has, scaling off the added Cold Damage from Hatred, and the already incredibly overpowered physical damage it already does. Leveled up Bear Trap can almost guarantee a one shot on a rare mob. __________________________________________________________________ Offense Now while being defensive you still have to be able to kill the targets, this build also excels at that. Skills Used Ice Shot Interchangeable with LA Frenzy Fire Trap Ice Shot & Lightning Arrow
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Now for offensive use this is going to be your crowd control, your AoE that is linked up with Lesser Multiple Projectiles, Chain, Increased Crit, and Life on Hit.
I made this build interchangeable with Ice shot or Lightning Arrow but I personally believe that this build is better with Ice Shot, due to the fact we grab the freeze node You can easily adjust it to suit Lightning Arrow. So Ice Shot for offensive use, impossible no? It just chills and freezes targets. Well I am going to introduce you all to Wrath and Static Blows. Wrath is an Aura that uses X amount of mana and provides you with added lightning damage. Static Blows is a passive point which if you hit a mob with lightning damage adds the shock debuff to the target, increasing damage taken by 40%, and stacks up to 3 times. This is the reason why this build is so powerful, with passives such as Inner Force, increasing the effect of Auras on yourself lightning damage is easy to come by. Of course you will be able to shock a mob normally with a crit. Frenzy
Spoiler
Frenzy is a fairly standard single target attack, it is basically your default attack with a twist. Each mob that gets hit by Frenzy, you receive one Frenzy Charge which increases your attack speed (min 5% per charge up to 10%) which depends on the level of Frenzy. Frenzy can be affected by all support gems that would normally effect a shot, that being Culling Strike (kills the mob if it has less than 10% hp), Weapon Elemental Damage, Increased Critical Strike... ect.
Fire Trap
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Fire Trap is another great AoE trap that if you aren't using Bear Trap for whatever reason, Fire Trap is a great second trap to use.
What Fire Trap does is after it is sprung, deals Fire Damage to every mob in its radius. This is great for clearing up packs of zombies that are resistant to cold/lightning damage. I recommend if you throw one Fire Trap to throw the other 2 with it, with stacked Fire Damage on the targets they will die very very fast. __________________________________________________________________ Auras Auras are the reason why we chose to go EB, it increases your mana by a ton and allows you to run at least 5 different Auras, making you very powerful in group and solo play. I am just going to cover the mandatory Auras for now that you need to make this build work. NOTE - RUN ALL OF THIS WITH THE SUPPORT GEM REDUCED MANA Hatred
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Hatred is an Aura which I discussed earlier that takes the amount of physical damage your skill does, and increases it by 15%-24% cold damage. Essential for a long Freeze duration on the enemy plus a boost to DPS. Clarity
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This is a very simple aura that uses up a base amount of mana granting you mana regen, this is also essential to a certain degree if you don't want to run with mana potions.
Wrath
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Wrath is another fundamental aura in this build, it with the passive Static Blows allows you to shock an enemy without using Lighting Arrow, this Aura actually makes Ice Shot the same as Lightning Arrow with all the benefits of it being Ice Shot
Grace
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Grace is an aura that can be optional for those playing on Softcore BUT if you are playing Hardcore I highly recommend using Grace as it increases your evasion rating by a ton leveled up, increasing your survivabilty even more with this build
Discipline
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Discipline is an aura that actually reserves a portion of your mana and grants energy shield. This is very very good for EB. Discipline scales off of your Int, Increased Energy Shield Nodes and Inner Force. It will grant you more mana than the amount it reserves so and in the late levels can help you reach 2000 mana.
Last edited by TheFifeNation on Mar 1, 2013, 8:34:29 PM
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Hey Fife :)
I posted on your youtube video, thought I would also post here. I'll show you my EB Shadow Lightning Arrow build that I've had much success with, just as a reference point or maybe some sort of inspiration. Even maybe just to pop some ideas in your head based on what I came up with. It could easily be converted to an Ice Shot build EB Shadow Lightning Arrow Bows FTW ! I originally didn't invest in the mana regeneration nodes, but I found that even with EB, Discipline, and Clarity I struggled with maintaining steady mana. I felt it was necessary to constantly be firing shots to keep my life gain active, and was unable to do so. Soul Siphon has been very impressive, but is a convenience rather than a necessity in my opinion. I run with: Lightning Arrow - LMP - Chain - Weapon Ele Dmg - Life on Hit Ranged Attack Totem - Ice Shot - LMP - Chain Elemental Hit - Weapon Ele Dmg - Faster Attacks - Additional Accuracy and then of coarse as many beautiful auras as I can afford Reduced Mana - Discipline - Clarity - Wrath - Anger Reduced Mana - Purity As for the last 15 remaining points, I have considered either going for Elemental Adaptation and continuing down the Marauder tree to get Diamond Skin and some more HP Or I may dip down and pick up Iron Grip IGN: Dosro Last edited by Droso on Feb 19, 2013, 10:44:56 PM
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"Hiya! I appreciate the insight, our builds are very similar although I went and grabbed the freeze nodes and took the high route. Although I recommend against Iron Grip, LA is elemental damage and won't be effected by Iron Grip. |
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So far I am at level 20 currently my build is setup with This So far (22 Points Spent)
As I get higher into the levels I will update the main post with more information on every 10 levels as I do in the videos. Speaking about Videos the 1-20 Pro/Con is up which is more or less a showcase of the Shadow starting point and quest rewards. View that Here |
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I am currently level 40 on the Shadow and made the switch to EB and have started using a few more auras.
If you are interested the 20-30 Video is also up, pretty much the same as 1-20, although I am dealing a lot of damage with poison arrow, the level 30 build is up with 33 Points Spent |
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Spent the last hour updating the main post, now hopefully more will recognize the potential that this build has.
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surprised nobody's posted on this thread yet so thought I'd just let you know I'm watching this build. Recently lost another melee to HC so I might try this out to break the LAbow/Freezepulser meta
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" Thanks I worked pretty hard on it, but the idea of being a Freeze & Static user isn't new. |
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Why you took that Deep Wisdom and Arcane Focus nodes in the middle of the tree, in my oppinion its a waste of points, and why you didnt take the Prestigitation node from templar tree is you dont go for blood magic or something else and the 16% Chaos resistance in the witch tree(chaos is very hard to get in gear for a new player) ?
This is what i was thinking Shadow Ice shot And was thinking of running IceShot- LMP- LifeOnHit- BloodMagic (to run more auras)-WeaponEleDmg (to mitigate de LMP) Last edited by laZzybAd on Feb 26, 2013, 4:30:55 AM
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" Okay so the way that EB works (I believe) is that it takes the amount of energy shield you would have, and then gets multiplied by the ES nodes and then converted to mana. Grabbing Deep Wisdom increases the amount of ES you get from Discipline and then that gets multiplied from Inner Force. This gives you an insane amount of mana as Discipline levels up, which you need to run multiple auras. |
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