[2.4] Ice Spear Theory Build
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I'm liking the new passive tree. I will be keeping an eye on this as this may be my first build of the new league. Also have my eye on a max block duelist. Last league I ran KB with OB wands and it was so fun. Clearing was a dream. But with the frost wall nerf it may become a secondary skill.
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" Yea, I was looking at a few max block builds, but the problem with them is usually they're incredibly safe, and incredibly slow. They're OK for farming bosses, but clearing maps is usually painful. I haven't found one that actually has decent clearing potential in higher maps. The frost wall change is also why I decided against a fireball build. Even with the damage increase to fireball, without the ability to shotgun against frost wall, I just can't see it being great. At least with Ice Spear we'll be freeze locking. Last edited by VapidActions#1355 on Sep 1, 2016, 12:22:50 AM
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" If you haven't seen this one yet https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1647240 it is the one I am testing on standard right now. Pretty versatile with skills and a few of the skills are getting buffed. So far Sunder feels the fastest out of the 4 main skills. Although the highest tier I have cleared so far was 7 but it was fast. |
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Blasphemy poses a huge problem. The good thing with Ice spear is that you can offscreen the mobs. Because of that, you are often hitting mobs outside of your curses range. I don't know how to improve that (maybe blasphemy with quality curse).
Also, I would go with Elementalist with Beacon of ruin, for the rest Liege of Primordial+Pendulum of destruction is pretty good, but a CWDT setup with molten shell paired with Mastermind of discord gives you 20% cold pen (good for endgame and bosses where cold res is a thing). The only thing I am worried about is mana, and maybe defense. Edit : Dexterity will also be a problem, but because of the rare items, you can also do some mastercrafting on top Last edited by bl00dbliz#4487 on Sep 1, 2016, 5:05:45 AM
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Hi really nice looking build, I want to try a similar one. Just one quick question: does pierce affects the second form of ice spear? with that sweet crit chance bonus if it also pierce can be really interesting if used with HoI+CoH+AssM and/or ProjW.
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" Pierce and fork affect the second form. Not the first one |
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Regarding curses, why not use Herald of Ice + Herald of Thunder + CoH to apply your offensive curse, and Blasphemy to apply your defensive curse? I'm also considering running Ice Spear and might even go tri-curse to run Blasphemy-Enfeeble-Temp Chains
And what are you going to do about single target? I ran an Ice Spear build a long time ago and the single target sucks ass. I ended up using a separate 4 link with Faster Casting for single target but it was still pretty meh |
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" Herald of Ice only applies curses on it's AoE, which would work, but only on tight packs, and couldn't be applied to bosses. Herald of Thunder is good for applying curses if you can regularly shock enemies (only procs AoE strikes upon killing a shocked target) and we don't have great shock application. We're depending on +x lightning damage to spells if anything. It's one of the things I've been considering that the build is currently missing reliable shock. " For single target I'll be keeping a Controlled Destruction gem on hand to swap out with GMP. At level 75+ we'll still have capped crit chance even with controlled destruction. " I completely agree. With blasphemy + star of wraeclast we should have pretty good AoE on those curses, but likely still won't extend to offscreening. One of the reasons I've been playing with it. In my current live tests, it reaches *just* past the edge of the screen, which "works", but maybe not optimal. We could also spend 5 points to go into Hex Master for +10% effect, and +20% curse radius if we need a bit more umph " Yes, While leveling you'll likely need to pick up a couple of the big dex nodes (there's two right off our main path), then drop them as you get appropriate rares to provide the necessary dex. " Sorry, I have to disagree with this. a.) Beacon of ruin doesn't do a "ton" for us, since all we'd be spreading is freeze, which we're doing 95% of the time on every spear regardless. And if we're applying shock at all, we're applying it as well at the same rate as we're critting almost every single hit. Not critting will be exceptionally rare. b.) Elemental Conflux is also offering little for us. The shock would be ok, but with the nerf, it would be extremely unreliable. The burn damage would be laughable since we don't have any +fire or burning, and again, we're freezing everything regardless c.) Leige of the Primordial is a good point, but it's just 40% cold damage, and we're already capped for crit, so doubling ice golem's passive is literally nothing to us. So all you'd get here is 40% additive cold damage, and maybe 4% physical damage reduction from the chaos golem. Completely not worth speccing for this d.) Molten shell is a horrible idea for this build. We're depending on things being frozen for our survivability, meaning you're waiting on the timeout for shell for it to do anything, and you're putting yourself at risk to get its damage off. Maybe if you linked it to increased area of effect, and reduced duration, but for 20% pen I'd much sooner sacrifice ICD on the 6l. e.) Pendulum of destruction is half an ability for us. We aren't using AoE abilities, so that swing does nothing for us, though the 100% additive elemental damage swing would be nice (40% up time, meaning 40% average + elemental damage). So really, this is just basically a "+40% elemental damage" node to us, that has a power swing. nothing to sneeze at, but doesn't really demand the ascendancy f.) How are you generating power charges?. The whirling blades link will do it, but that's a dangerous path. It's really just intended as a bonus, not the main point of generation. It also means you're delaying any sort of damage while you build charges. Assassin's mark certainly also augments this, but it's a much slower build up. It works, but not optimal. This also means unless you sacrifice a ring for doedre's, or go way out of the way for whispers of doom, you're lacking projectile weakness. Compared to: + Extra power charge + Power charge generation + 10% MULTIPLICATIVE damage + extra curse + 8% MULTIPLICATIVE +chaos damage + 20% chance for targets to explode for 25% of their life as chaos (A rare or boss will clear an entire pack with this, and better overall clear speed) To me there's just no competition in this build. Last edited by VapidActions#1355 on Sep 2, 2016, 1:47:21 AM
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Ok !
You conviced me. The only problem is the star of Wraeclast : it will take some time to get one... And I didn't really notice it, but for defense sake, why not just going hybrid life/ES ? Or even CI : It's not that far away, and being immune to chaos could help a lot. Occultist gives that chance. Moreover, the CI version wouldn't be totally different. Last edited by bl00dbliz#4487 on Sep 2, 2016, 2:03:06 AM
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Yea, That's going to be a small pain point. I'm feeling more and more that it's a core item. I think it will be what I sink my first exalt into (usually costs ~1 exalt). Crafting it on the other hand, the only hard part is the level 20 lightning warp, the rest of the recipe is dirt cheap.
CI would certainly be viable if you wanted to take that route. I simply don't because I like going down to the templar area where there's so much juicy HP. But this build could most certainly support a CI variant, absolutely. Last edited by VapidActions#1355 on Sep 2, 2016, 2:08:34 AM
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