[2.0 updated] Shmizz's hardcore perma-freeze guide

Hi there thanks for the build, its working great for me. But i started this build as Scion , im lvl 54 atm and im not sure if i should keep life and life regen nodes from the start of the scion tree or should i take mana instead OR should i take north root with cast speed and Path of Savant , then take left on ES. Plz help me !!! Thanks

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g0nefishing wrote:

Hi there thanks for the build, its working great for me. But i started this build as Scion , im lvl 54 atm and im not sure if i should keep life and life regen nodes from the start of the scion tree or should i take mana instead OR should i take north root with cast speed and Path of Savant , then take left on ES. Plz help me !!! Thanks

In the current state of the game, I would definitely recommend getting the mana nodes because they will enable you to run a higher level arctic armour and keep up with the mana cost of ice spear with gmp. Path of the savant is too many points to be efficient since you also need to go through the ES nodes, and life regen is nice but you already get a few % in the build, so getting an excessive amount is not necessary.

thank you very much for help!!!

I was fortunate enough to get a volls protector drop on my first character!
Should I use that instead of the charge on crit gems? Then I can use increasd crit chance/damage instead, right? Or are the stats on it too poor to use in the main build?

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Grimwhol wrote:

I was fortunate enough to get a volls protector drop on my first character!
Should I use that instead of the charge on crit gems? Then I can use increasd crit chance/damage instead, right? Or are the stats on it too poor to use in the main build?

Voll's protector can be extremely potent and really convenient in this build, but you have to be careful about how it affects your mana pool. Since maximum mana also gives you more mana regen, you won't be able to run as high a level of arctic armor and permanently sustaining a gmp ice spear might require more investment in mana on gear or in the tree. I haven't personally tested with it so I can't say for sure how much the downside hurts you. I'd say play around with it, if you can still easily sustain your mana, it's very worthwhile to save yourself the extra gem link on ice spear.

So you're thinking this might be better as a dual spell totem build in 2.0? It really becomes a different playstyle with totems.

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MrSparkle001 wrote:

So you're thinking this might be better as a dual spell totem build in 2.0? It really becomes a different playstyle with totems.

I've been doing a lot of testing. With the removal of shotgunning, your single target dps is so bad that your clearspeed becomes painfully slow. I haven't been able to find any way around this other than #1, spell totems with the rain of splinters jewel or #2, ridiculously good crit gear/ low life gear. One of my goals for the build is to be as cheap as possible and hardcore viable, so I don't want a ridiculous gear requirement, which pretty much eliminates self cast. The bad news is that ice spear is now just a straight up worse skill than freeze pulse. I've done much testing, I have a +2 cold gem 6link staff in the beta and I have tried so many gem combinations, but Ice spear does less damage than freeze pulse, costs more mana, casts slower, AND hits fewer targets. Even if you use rain of splinters to avoid using GMP, each freeze pulse still hits harder than each ice spear. It's also worth noting that ice spear totems are very difficult to place because positioning the cone that they shoot in is an extremely important part of the skill, but with freeze pulse you just stick it in the middle of the pack and keep moving. Unless I can find a way to make ice spear more efficient, I will probably have to end up changing the guide to freeze pulse. The goal is to perma freeze the majority of enemies, and the fact that freeze pulse both deals more cold damage and casts faster makes it significantly better for that purpose. There is absolutely no difference in skill tree between the two, and the only gem change is swapping out pierce for faster projectiles so it's even really easy to make the change.

Thanks for the reply!
I played with volls protector for an evening, and it was great. definitely worth!

I also have asenaths gentle touch with a perfect 4 link for the single target spear. Should I use that as well or would that be too much taken from my defenses?

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Grimwhol wrote:

I also have asenaths gentle touch with a perfect 4 link for the single target spear. Should I use that as well or would that be too much taken from my defenses?

As long as you remain capped on resistances asenath's is insane for this build. Definitely use it.

For me this is OP build. Bosses that can give u pain are academy boss, insta frozen but casting books, piety 77 is frozen 90% of time and 2nd form Merv resists cold and frozen 70% of time. Piety is immune and everything rest can be insta frozen (example, courtyard 2x bosses ... ). There is enough dps to solo 77&78s.



In fact, proli do the magic. On bosses I dump GMP and put cold pen. For curse, I use frostbite, it works "if" freeze fail. It sounds strange, but with proli u dont need AA or CWT combo. Everything is always frozen and only reflect can kill u.