[2.0.0] Ice Nova Snap Build

What skills you place in what equipment is only important as it pertains to sockets so you can link the skills with appropriate supports, otherwise put the skills wherever you wish. Skills have been listed in order of general importance and each skill’s support importance. For instance, on #1 if you only have a four socket, drop Hypothermia and Power Charge on Critical. In those areas where you’d have extra links available, use whatever you feel is best for your play style.

1. Ice Nova → Spell Echo → Increased Critical Strikes → Cold Penetration → Hypothermia → Power Charge on Critical

2. Cold Snap → Spell Echo → Vaal Ice Nova → Power Charge on Critical

3. Herald of Ice → Curse on Hit → Assassin's Mark (and/or Frostbite and/or Temporal Chains)

4. Arctic Armour

5. Ice Golem → Added Lightning Damage

6. Enduring Cry → Increased Duration

7. Flame Dash → Faster Casting (or whatever movement skill you prefer)

8. Clarity (only if needed)

From a gear standpoint, I largely play self-found and just use whatever I can get. Stack up Resistances, Life, and any extra damage you can throw in. For me, I was lucky to find three uniques that have really helped:

Windscream: This will give you the ability to curse an enemy twice. While there are other mechanics in the game from gear and the skill tree, finding this saved me a lot of skill points as well as currency and headache trying to obtain those. I highly recommend these boots unless you are planning to get an extra curse from elsewhere. In addition, it gives you some extra movespeed, elemental damage, and all resistance.

Heartbreaker: By itself, you are getting 40% Global Crit Chance and some high spell damage (in my case 42%) along with some much needed mana. But what I really like about this is that all of my skills get Culling Strike. This really made sped up my leveling and mapping, unfortunately it wasn’t until around level 70 that I found it. Prior to this, I was using a +2 Cold Gems dagger with 80% crit chance and had my Cold Snap, Spell Echo, and Vaal Ice Nova socketed to it. This worked really well too but the Culling Strike is much much better IMO.

Spine of the First Claimant: I really want to call this required but, like I said I don’t like required gear. This mace gives me 40% Increased Damage against Frozen Enemies, doesn’t get much better than that in a build with a goal to freeze monsters right? Well it actually can, because I also get 33% Increased Cold Damage, 8% Increased Cast Speed, and 5% additional chance to Freeze. Not to mention a small, but nice, 10% Elemental Damage boost from the implicit. This mace is amazing for cold builds.

A unique that I couldn’t find on my own but purchased after the Darkshrine event ended was Carcass Jack. I needed a 5 link for my build (6 would be nice but alas I’m pretty poor even in standard). This gave me some much needed defences but more importantly give me 20% Increased Radius of Area Skills and 12% Increased Area Damage (which all my skills use, except Flame Dash). Extra Gore is nice but unnecessary.

The rest of my gear is as follows, the life ring needs replaced for sure:

Nothing special about flasks but here they are:

Normal - Oak for Life
Cruel - Kill all for Passive point
Merciless - Alira for Power Charge

Note: I actually grabbed a passive in Merciless but will be respecting to the power charge. At the time I needed the mana regen but now realize the power charge would be nice (bringing me to 6 charges I think).

Technically this build costs nothing since none of the gear is required. The only pieces I purchased were the Carcass Jack after the league ended and at one point I had purchased a pair of gloves to help with early game resistances. At moment, only thing I’m wearing that I didn’t find myself is the Carcass which I picked up for about 2ex.

This will change some once the new patch goes live but this is what it looks like today
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMAAv4EBwSzBUIHHgj0DdEOSBEtEZYWQBZvFr8aOBzcIG4i9CaVJy8snDLROtg8BT1fQZZCw0SrRUdFnUbXSVFMs1AwUlNTUlVLVa5VxlnzXfJfKmHiY0NknWZUZp5o8mpDbAttGXBScNVxhXIPfEt8g3_GghCCm4PbidOMNo8aj6aP-pBVkyeUb5UulnSXlZf0mjua4J_foS-iAK6zsUK2hrzqvorAVMBm0B_Q9dq534TfsONq6-Tr7uv17DjvfO_r8B_w1fId8xH60g==?accountName=Bazkur98&characterName=Bazicle

I focus on Area Damage and Radius, Life/Mana, pretty standard I think. With this tree I have 3,705 life and 836 Energy Shield. With Arctic Armour and Enduring Cry, I find I can survive pretty well. Several jewels in place but nothing special either, just mana, cold damage, resist, etc...

Most of my deaths are from trying to kill Koam on Merciless except for a couple map deaths where I tried running mods I shouldn't have (such as blood magic). Needless to say I need some better gear or more levels to take out Koam. I actually haven’t tried in a few levels so I might be able to do him now but bosses are definitely my weak point.

If you have the offline skill tree, you can view what I believe will be my tree for 2.1. I might have to edit it slightly for Dexterity and I'll likely pick up MoM if I can figure out my mana management.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMA37CCEI-mRKtVriycBUIRLUGWfIOus9D16-5MszLRmuAgbtAfBAeXlUVHRZ1QMO_r6-SD21JTwGZTUl8qVcY9X5f0PAUEs20Zn9_vfKIACPQi9Jo78B_AVGwLgpto8rzqakOTJ-w4fEu-in_GOti2hpZ0oS8RlicvDkgHHpBVXfLjhJUuGjgqCxvIDdHw1VnzcFI2PWNDj_pJUXIPidOdquv1lG9xhWaejDZsjGSdZlTzERZAVUtirPIdsUKFfWHi2rkmlUbXFr8=