[2.4] Ice Spear Theory Build

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bl00dbliz wrote:

Also, wouldn't the second form of the spear be crit capped ? We could spend more points into crit mult.

I have been thinking of doedre's ring, but i believe that taking Malediction + Vile bastion coulld be better than the power charge generation. +1 curse, and you add an assassin mark as a curse. For map clearing, it will be enough.
The +1 power charge is good, but instead of Kratyn bandit, you take Alira

The +1 power charge on the ascendancy node is just the cherry on top of the fact that 10% power charge on crit basically mean you can skip assasin's mark completely, going for a more defensive setup.

As you stated crit shouldn't be an issue, especially fomr afar, when the ice spear is in it's second form and it's piercing through multiple enemies so having assassins mark only to generate charges feels like a waste especially since few things will get close enough to you to be cursed from blasphemy.

At this point i'd rather focus on something that will render those few things that reach me as weak as possible.

TC could be a good thing, it would increase the duration of freeze and chilled unique and rare mobs that survive your ice spears as well as making them go in superslowmotion. Enfeeble could also be nice.
Warlord's mark for the manaleech and life leech.

Taking malediction would save you 5 points(you want to go up there for the ES nodes at least) but will force you to use assassin's mark. Considering we cannot squeeze 3 curse into this build unless you go lowlife it feels like a waste.

Also the more i think about this the more the name "void battery" keeps popping into my mind like a very annoying fly :P

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bl00dbliz wrote:

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100.45% chance to crit, before ice golem, or assassin's mark (so you could certainly sacrifice a lot of crit chance there, hard cap is 95%)

How did you calculate the chance to crit ?

{CriticalStrikeChance} = ({{BaseCriticalStrikeChance} + {AdditionalCriticalStrikeChance}) * (1 + {IncreasedCriticalStrikeChance}) }

Base crit of ice spear = 0.07
Additional crit from second stage = 6
Crit from passives = 3.85
Crit from golem = 0.30
7 Power Charges = 3.5
Crit from assassin's mark = +9

Crit chance = ((0.07 * (1 + 6 + 3.85 + 3.5 + 0.3)) + 9) * 100
111.55% crit chance without any crit chance on gear


Assasin's mark also offers life on kill, mana on kill, and 20% crit multi. Though it would certainly be open to a more defensive option. Warlord's mark would probably be nice, just for the extra 16% physical damage reduction and leech. Comes down to if you happen to need more damage or a bit more toughness.

Also note projectile weakness is already offering 50% pierce, and 44% (54 with quality) increased damage taken by cursed mobs, which would be multiplicative with our damage given. So I'm not sure I'd be so ready to give up projectile weakness.

About curses I have been thinking : isn't for offense purposes frostbite+assassin good option. Not sure if PW is better for close range : you have better chances to freeze mobs with the first form if you use frostbite, thus being more defensive.

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bl00dbliz wrote:

About curses I have been thinking : isn't for offense purposes frostbite+assassin good option. Not sure if PW is better for close range : you have better chances to freeze mobs with the first form if you use frostbite, thus being more defensive.

By default, you'd have roughly 58% (slightly more in the discussed CI build) chance to crit on first stage with each projectile, with spell echo giving two chances. So you already have a *very* good chance to crit & freeze on first stage.

Though the -44% cold resistance is extremely juicy, I'd rather give up assassin's mark than projectile weakness as previously mentioned. Though I think survivability will be an issue in the end more than damage, so I'm really considering warlord's mark over assassin's mark.

That would also solve the mana issues.

Anyway, any build that goes above 80k tooltip is having overkill dps. But I believe that our adventure with this build is only starting...

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bl00dbliz wrote:

That would also solve the mana issues.

Anyway, any build that goes above 80k tooltip is having overkill dps. But I believe that our adventure with this build is only starting...

For the suggested CI build? No, those mana issues would be far from solved. Warlord's mark would help certainly, but with those exact talents, you're still only getting one cast off before waiting on regen, and mana leech takes time to kick in. You would at the very least need to look for a larger pool somehow.

Also of note, we don't know this league how much damage is enough. The patch notes claim mobs have had their health increased in T7+ maps, but we don't know how much. Considering people were popping mobs in T12+, I expect mobs to be a *lot* more tanky this league/patch.

Assuming you are using a 6L, which does take time. At this point, we (or someone else) will have figured out a solution..

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VapidActions wrote:

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bl00dbliz wrote:

That would also solve the mana issues.

Anyway, any build that goes above 80k tooltip is having overkill dps. But I believe that our adventure with this build is only starting...

For the suggested CI build? No, those mana issues would be far from solved. Warlord's mark would help certainly, but with those exact talents, you're still only getting one cast off before waiting on regen, and mana leech takes time to kick in. You would at the very least need to look for a larger pool somehow.

Also of note, we don't know this league how much damage is enough. The patch notes claim mobs have had their health increased in T7+ maps, but we don't know how much. Considering people were popping mobs in T12+, I expect mobs to be a *lot* more tanky this league/patch.

Yeah as i stated on my first post the upkeep of both mana and ES are the things that concern me most and other than spending points in %increased mana and regen i can't figure out a decent solution atm. Warlord's mark surely cannot sustain it by itself.

I didn't exactly calculate the crit chance, thank you for doing that for me i'm actually terrible at math, maybe drop snowforged that does not give multi?

About the freeze duration nodes i haven't played a cold build since closed beta but afaik the duration is affected by the amount of damage you inflict with the spell itself and according to wiki if the duration is below 0.3 the freeze won't be applied at all.

This mean bosses could potentially avoid freeze completely(except for the 0.3 duration applied from the crit) depending on the amount of damage you inflict.

Now this build should have trouble on single target high life bosses by itself but if you could mantain permafreeze on them, who cares if it takes a little bit longer, but i doubt you can cast 4 times per second and maintain that cast speed up to avoid the freeze effect to end

The reasoning behind those nodes is that i do not know at the moment if the sheer damage of the crit ice spear is enough to mantain this permafreeze effect on bosses(to be honest i don't even know if it is possible at all, but i'm pretty sure i've seen this mechanic being used by someone during my time spent playing this game).

If this is achievable whitout the duration nodes by all means remove all of them and spend those points into ES or mana or even reduced mana reserved to maybe squeeze an herald or just have more unreserved mana.

Feedback is always appreciated!

If Mana is an overwhelming issue (It seems to be on my quick standard test with badly optimized gear), then how bad of a dps hit would trading of the 6th gem slot for a reduced mana or mana leech?

Also since we're throwing around 100+ mana spells like candy, would the new helmet that triggers spells when you spend 100+ mana be a decent defensive option?

Or use a vaal clarity with inc duration