Ice Nova + Crits

Hi, can you show me your idea for skill tree for me ? :)
Shadow 77 lvl - Ice Nova + Herald of Thunder + Herald of Ice + Whirling blades(movement)

nowadays I need 151 INT, 120 DEX and 151ST(just because I have Immortal Call, but I think to change it) and I'm using just ONE CURSE(so I dont need any support for curses)

My def(ofc Merciless)


My skills now(99 skill points)

My gear(I never got any other armor with 5-6L so I'm using this one)

Tree looks ok to me but you need more life on gear.

I would use another gem setup:
1) Spell echo instead of faster casting (faster casting just ruins your mana pool)
2) Cold to fire is a bad choice for ice nova imo as have to get close to mobs to use the spell (especially with concentrated effect). Despite acrobatics, chilling and freezing stuff is your most important defensive layer. Damage conversion hurts that part as it will be more difficult to get pats the chill/freeze threshold.
Use 100% cold and cold penetration instead. It won't show in the tooltip but it gives more damage (especially against mobs with elemental resistance) than cold to fire.

I prefer the following setup:
Ice nova - spell echo - cold penetration - increased critical damage - hypothermia.

The last two are open for discussion, but spell echo and cold penetration are must haves imo.

BTW immortal call is pretty much useless without endurance charges (which you can get either by using enduring cry or by cursing warlord's mark)

Now I see, spell echo is better :) thanks
about armor. Now I want to buy Carass Jack 5L, but my endgame armor will be Infernal Mantle 6L because:
6th gem "must" be Empower, Empower is fire(looks like fire :S) gem so all gems will get 1 lvl more(Cold to Fire +2)

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seba11pl wrote:

Now I see, spell echo is better :) thanks
about armor. Now I want to buy Carass Jack 5L, but my endgame armor will be Infernal Mantle 6L because:
6th gem "must" be Empower, Empower is fire(looks like fire :S) gem so all gems will get 1 lvl more(Cold to Fire +2)

Empower is not fire. It will not get an additional level from Infernal Mantle's +1 to fire gems. Empower also only affects skill gems (ice nova) but not support gems (won't affect cold to fire gem). As your main spell (ice nova) too ain't affected by the mantle it would be a bad choice wearing it. You would only suffer from more spell damage taken when on low mana.

Carcass Jack is a much better choice.

On a sidenote: I switch spell echo for concentrated effect in my setup above (both blue sockets) when facing bosses as it can be dangerous standing too long in one place because of the spell repeat. Usually one needs higher damage per cast, not cast speed versus bosses as one is constantly repositioning.
The other option of course would be to level arctic breath along and switch ice nova for arctic breath in boss fights.

Thanks a lot :)
It's time to change build :D