[0.9.11] Ice Witch CI crit build

This is the build I am aiming towards on hardcore. Picked up a bit more survivability and tried to maintain a good balance of spell damage vs crit seeing as freeze duration etc is all based on damage dealt.

Cold/Crit

Why all of you dont pick Hex master or breath of rime? and that 6% es/6% evasion worth the points? because you guys go whith evasion/es equipment or pure es?

If you take a closer look you will notice that any ES nodes except the ones right at the witch starting point are 6%. Those ES/Eva nodes just give you a tiny little chance to evade, so why not take it? And Hex Master? Why should I? Why I didnt get Breath of Rime? I had the idea of getting so much crit that I keep refreezing them and see how it plays on higher difficulties.

But I also have a question: How important are the shieldblock chance nodes for casual league? I would have to sacrifice a lot of crit chance and general ES shield. So is it worth it if you dont have to fear getting your char kicked out of the league?

"

xXkoverasXx wrote:

Why all of you dont pick Hex master or breath of rime? and that 6% es/6% evasion worth the points? because you guys go whith evasion/es equipment or pure es?

I do have some EV on my gear, but regardless everyone should be running Grace, since there is no downside (very cheap mana reservation).

Breath of Rime is essentially useless it seems, because you're constantly chilling enemies anyways. And hexmaster is interesting but ultimately not worth it IMO, because casting two curses takes time you could spend simply mowing enemies down. A lot of white enemies I don't even bother putting 1 curse on because it actually slows my kill speed, since there's a good chance they will die in one freezing pulse regardless.

"

muccmaster wrote:

Does anyone here use both clarity and discipline with this type of build? I see people swear by clarity but honestly I dont notice a difference for how much mana it reserves.

Disc, Clarity and Grace are the three auras that should be pretty easy to run and give nice benefits.

"

Korgath wrote:

This is the build I am aiming towards on hardcore. Picked up a bit more survivability and tried to maintain a good balance of spell damage vs crit seeing as freeze duration etc is all based on damage dealt.

Cold/Crit

Take the Frenzy Charge passive since it's right there and you'll get 5% more ICS out of Bloodrage with it. A 5% ICS node is quite good, since the standard is 3% ICS.

Everyone is running Blood Rage right?

"

aimlessgun wrote:

"

xXkoverasXx wrote:

Why all of you dont pick Hex master or breath of rime? and that 6% es/6% evasion worth the points? because you guys go whith evasion/es equipment or pure es?

I do have some EV on my gear, but regardless everyone should be running Grace, since there is no downside (very cheap mana reservation).

Breath of Rime is essentially useless it seems, because you're constantly chilling enemies anyways. And hexmaster is interesting but ultimately not worth it IMO, because casting two curses takes time you could spend simply mowing enemies down. A lot of white enemies I don't even bother putting 1 curse on because it actually slows my kill speed, since there's a good chance they will die in one freezing pulse regardless.

Oh, i understand now, thanks so much, i have other question, everyone is taken more crit chance, but dont worth to take crit dmg too since the frozen duration is proportional to damage?

"

aimlessgun wrote:

"

Korgath wrote:

This is the build I am aiming towards on hardcore. Picked up a bit more survivability and tried to maintain a good balance of spell damage vs crit seeing as freeze duration etc is all based on damage dealt.

Cold/Crit

Take the Frenzy Charge passive since it's right there and you'll get 5% more ICS out of Bloodrage with it. A 5% ICS node is quite good, since the standard is 3% ICS.

Everyone is running Blood Rage right?

Looking at Blood Rage, doesn't it increase attack speed on low life? I read somewhere that chaos inonculation can never reach low life because it's always 100% at 1hp.

"

aimlessgun wrote:

"

Korgath wrote:

This is the build I am aiming towards on hardcore. Picked up a bit more survivability and tried to maintain a good balance of spell damage vs crit seeing as freeze duration etc is all based on damage dealt.

Cold/Crit

Take the Frenzy Charge passive since it's right there and you'll get 5% more ICS out of Bloodrage with it. A 5% ICS node is quite good, since the standard is 3% ICS.

Everyone is running Blood Rage right?

Shhhhhh!!!!

:)

"

aimlessgun wrote:

"

Korgath wrote:

This is the build I am aiming towards on hardcore. Picked up a bit more survivability and tried to maintain a good balance of spell damage vs crit seeing as freeze duration etc is all based on damage dealt.

Cold/Crit

Take the Frenzy Charge passive since it's right there and you'll get 5% more ICS out of Bloodrage with it. A 5% ICS node is quite good, since the standard is 3% ICS.

Everyone is running Blood Rage right?

And if all is for the frenzy charge, why is better to use blood rage and not frenzy?

ICS = increased cast speed hehe, no increased crit strike.

"

Whoaness wrote:

Looking at Blood Rage, doesn't it increase attack speed on low life? I read somewhere that chaos inonculation can never reach low life because it's always 100% at 1hp.

It's attack speed so it doesn't matter for witches anyways. What Blood Rage does is give you Frenzy charges, which give you 5% cast speed per charge. With CI, you lose no HP to blood rage, so it's basically free 15% cast speed, since it refreshes itself.

"

xXkoverasXx wrote:

Oh, i understand now, thanks so much, i have other question, everyone is taken more crit chance, but dont worth to take crit dmg too since the frozen duration is proportional to damage?

I think it's definitely worth it to take crit dmg, it's a big DPS increase. The crit dmg support gem as well (gives WAY more dps than the crit chance gem for me at least).