[1.2] Three Dragon's Spear Tentative Build, Post for Reference

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So I am doing this as a shadow, am Lvl26 with following tree:



Links are Ice Spear + Added cold + LMP.

Having some mana issues, but using a dagger and pretty much crit freezing/shattering everything. Freezing pulse has more dps (145vs185) but I love the extra range on Ice Spear esp to dogdge the sword guys from the portals. Have a Cold Snap to lock in Bosses.

Am enjoying the power of this build and its freezing locking mob ability. I have taken Oak and dont run any auras yet but thinking Herald Of Ash.

I found a pyre so rerolled to try out this build, its very interesting.
Only low level and no prolif yet so leveling with FP and its funny burning stuff instead of freezing

Welp, found a possible problem mechanically. If you kill a target outright, it doesn't leave a body to proliferate from, since mechanically, apparently the attack doesn't proliferate anything.

Will update when I resolve and get my hands on a pyre ring (why are these things so expensive and selling like crazy?)

Just saw your update, and I demand that you NUT UP. Not trying to restart so I want to make this build work, I'm hoping you'll work with me.

Did you try:

Replacing Inc Crit Multi with GMP? Increases AoE, reduces initial damage.
Replacing damage in the tree(maybe more crit multi) with some health/beef? Replacing auras?
Playing in a group? You won't 1 shot mobs in a 6 man party.
Using freezing pulse? Less crit, but more base damage/aoe.

Yeah, Pire's corpse removal kills this. I have been having success with a variant that uses Ice spear + Cold to fire + Avatar of fire. 100% cold to fire conversion = big burns, + corpse death.

Sadly it also means no shock, and therefore less ability overall, but it does work.

Well, the plan is either Avatar of Fire or Three Dragons. Three dragons allows you to keep EE and doesn't take a gem slot (cold to fire) like Avatar of Fire does. The downside is, you can't get fire nodes to double dip, so the only good nodes any more are Elemental Damage nodes. Basically, the build would NEED double Doryani's to keep it's damage up.

I'll be back to streaming it as soon as I get over this freakin' cold. I'll be able to keep you guys more up to date then.

So with three dragons, no shocking anymore from ball lightning, so no point taking static blows?

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Terrornoid wrote:

Well, the plan is either Avatar of Fire or Three Dragons. Three dragons allows you to keep EE and doesn't take a gem slot (cold to fire) like Avatar of Fire does. The downside is, you can't get fire nodes to double dip, so the only good nodes any more are Elemental Damage nodes. Basically, the build would NEED double Doryani's to keep it's damage up.

I'll be back to streaming it as soon as I get over this freakin' cold. I'll be able to keep you guys more up to date then.

If you take the Cold nodes, those buff your fire damage prior to conversion, but doesn't double dip for burn. I think maybe abandon the idea of burn, and just embrace cold since with Herald of Ice, you get something similar to Burn with the cold damage from shatter. You'd use G/LMP instead of Proliferate as well. The shatter damage isn't dependent on the attack but is effected by cold/spell damage nodes. This also allows you to keep EE, but with this style I prefer to take the Blast Radius nodes.

I never intended to use Pyre so I tried to work it out with both AoF and Three Dragons, and this was the conclusion I came to anyways.

I updated the Google.doc with the recent info and adjusted skill tree. I'll update this guide as soon as things settle; its too much to constantly update both!

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BrownKnight wrote:

Yeah, Pire's corpse removal kills this. I have been having success with a variant that uses Ice spear + Cold to fire + Avatar of fire. 100% cold to fire conversion = big burns, + corpse death.

Sadly it also means no shock, and therefore less ability overall, but it does work.

I can confirm this, my level 76 in Beyond is using this exact same setup and it's absolutely destroying up to level 70 maps. Avg clear speed is 8 or 9 minutes with a 4 link setup:



Mind, with just a 4 link burn damage kills any trash AND magic mobs pack in a single ice spear

I think that my actual offensive ice spear stats are:

1600-2000 basic damage
566% crit multi
400% crit chance, 1000% if on second form (means 35% chance first form 77% second form)

If i crit i deal an avg of 1800*6,6 = 11880 fire damage with a total of 75% increased burning damage from tree, this suffices to burn entire packs.

Basic strategy is first curse with assassin's mark to have axtra crit chance and damage, and then curse with ele weakness to increase burning damage (it works!)

The idea with OP's build using pyre is cool, but the corpse destruction totally kills this build since most of ice spear crits will oneshot trash mobs which will not then proliferate the burning...