Taryn's Shiver or Pledge of Hands for cold snap

Hey guys,

So I plan on running a cold snap build and was wondering what would be the better choice for my weapon, Taryn's Shiver or Pledge of Hands.

Both are very different from each other...

Pledge of hands offers a lot more spell power, 10% more cast speed from spell echo and essentially a 7 link.

Teryn's shiver offers up +1 cold gems and more freeze chance.

Thanks :)

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Kartikdon wrote:

Teryn's shiver offers up +1 cold gems and more freeze chance.

seems you are missing the strongest mod on taryns, my friend:)

depends on other factors as well, but my personal preference would be taryns

are you referring to the 20% increased damage vs frozen targets? I checked out the details in the wiki after you posted to see if I was missing something and it looks like they consider the increased damage vs frozen targets a multiplier rather then additive which most "increased damage" modifiers are.

if this is true then yes, Teryn's would be better.

it is not 20% increased damage vs frozen targets, but frozen targets take 20% increased damage

it is additive with other damage taken on enemies mods, like shock

In my experience both a pledge of hands and a Taryn's shiver are viable. A third option you should consider a +3 cold gem levels staff (or a slightly more affordable variant, the +1 gems, +1 cold gems). The latters having the benefit of being able to pump the max out of an empower gem. In my opinion having +1 cold instead of +1 gems is a major disadvantage for Taryn's, even with the 20% bonus against frozen enemies. As follows are my takes on recommended gem setups for the three options as well as some thoughts based on personal experience. Note that these are valid for a CI or life/es hybrid build that sustain hit points using a combination of life leech from gear and life regeneration. For the record, the build I use combines CI with Zealoth's oath and Ghost reaver.

Pledge of Hands
My current setup is cold snap > cold penetration > concentrated effect > empower > increased area of effect > faster casting.

This setup ends up with a lower average damage and just about the same DPS as a "vanilla" +3 staff, meaning a copy without very good auxiliary rolls such as spell damage or cast speed. I personally like this since it's somewhat safer to use thanks to not being locked in place for very long times (current cast time is 0.29s). Essentially this is the only viable option if you want to have both spell echo and faster casting. Earlier on I used Elemental proliferation instead of increased area of effect for even more safety. It became obsolete after I started to effectively instashatter most whites. A big con with this one is heavy mana consumption. Currently my setup uses 144 mana per cast, meaning AA-tier mana regeneration is mandatory.

+3 cold gems/Taryn's
+3 allows for maximum average damage, especially if the auxiliary rolls on the staff are good. Here I'd recommend the same gems as in pledge, with the exception of swapping out faster casting for spell echo. In terms of raw DPS this one can be improved by removing the increased area of effect gem for a more damage oriented gem, such as added cold damage. If you go for that, however, a Carcass jack along with all the available area nodes becomes pretty much mandatory to overcome the low-ish area of cold snap and the penalty from conc effect. I'd also see swapping inc aoe for life leech and speccing Vaal pact as an option.

Same thoughts apply to Taryn's. I'd test added cold instead of empower, though, given the nature of Taryn's gem level bonus.

Summa sumarum
Pledge is better for high cast speed and easier handling, at the cost of heavy mana costs. Taryn's and +3 staves are better for high average damage, but will be a bit clunky to use.