[2.1] Whaitiri's Blood Magic Cold Snapper

@malboro_urchin: That +2 minion helmet idea can work if you got no 5L, and mentioning it also reminded me i forgot Empower in the golem setup, which is of course way better than Culling Strike.

I did not test Rime Gaze directly, but i suppose the additional link would outperform the +1 cold gems in a 4l taryns.

@agustinaakk: That's interesting, always good to see people trying out things :)

I've been trying out the Ice and Chaos Golems. I had the Ice Golem in a 4L with Fortify, Minion Life, and Minion Damage. It sucked. Damage was negligible at best. The gem was a bit underleveled though, as I bought it from a vendor. I should try it again with an on-level gem.

I've had much more success with Summon Chaos Golem->Fortify->Minion Life->Blind. The thing currently has ~13k life, per the tooltip, and does a pretty good job of taking aggro. He's not always the center of mob attention, but he certainly gives me a chance or two during bossfights to just stand there and cast. I do have to recast him, but not nearly as frequently as I had to with the Ice Golem, who had half the health. If I had a 5L for my Chaos Golem, I'd have Minion Speed as the fifth link, as more attacks = more blinding.

My damage output is okay, I think. It kills packs in 2, maybe 3 casts. Certain rares also fold very easily, but others, and pretty much all bosses, take a while to kill. This is my current Cold Snap setup (char is lv 66-67):
It gets me ~3900 damage per snap, at 1.39 casts/sec that comes out to 5400 dps.

Current tree at lv 66. I have almost 3k life and 1.3k ES with Discipline (950 ES without). Planning on getting Arcane Focus next, possibly Faith & Steel after that, and I"m considering Practical Application, cause I have been getting stunned more often than I'd like.

I still have yet to try out Rime Gaze, hopefully I can make up for my current helm's life & res with some gear upgrades. I'd like to see how Taryn's increase in base damage (+1 to gem lvl) stacks up against Rime Gaze's pseudo-5L & 30% inc cold damage.

thx for build)) its so cool))

Updated the build & overall write up of this guide. Most changes were made to the gem setup, which feels well balanced now. There was also a minor change to gearing by using Asenath's Gentle Touch.

No changes have been made to the passive tree, if you were following this build you don't have to respec anything.

I enjoyed working on this build. It is solid; not as fast clearing as some other builds I've seen but fast and (this is very important) safe.

I have one suggestion; it might have been made before.

One unique item that might work for this build is Geoffry's Great Crown.
The pros for this helm?
+1 to all slotted gems. That's a huge buff to this build, it gives better DPS for Cold Snap than a 5 link at a very reasonable cost. In addition it has decent resists, including chaos resists.
The cons?
The helm is armor and energy shield. For this build a pure energy shield helm would probably be preferable.

What are your feelings about this?

Joe

@JBN001: Thanks, glad you enjoy this build and hopefully also the newest update! :)

Geofri's Crest, aswell as Rime Gaze can be good budget options, but eventually yoiu will want to upgrade to a good ES + Life helmet. I'll put a mention about them both in the gear section.

I've started playing this build before the author updated it. Luckily I had a bit of psychic powers, so I leveled with Glacial Cascade :)

I recently hit level 60 and equiped Romira's and oh boy I had fun. I used Cold Snap as secondary leveling skill and I saw the potential all the time. While not the most effective skill, it sure is fun. I've been playing in party with my friend, who uses melee character, so I have at least some sort of meat shield between me and enemies.

Personally I've incorporated elements of old and updated build. I use Flame Dash as movement skill, because I feel Lighting Warp is quite unreliable skill. Sometimes warping doesn't work and it is quite slow, unless you have lots of quality in it, which I don't have.

I also buffed my Flame Golem with Minion Damage and Minion Life. I presonally feel that Golem can be quite valuable extra damage sometimes and extra life means that I don't have to be summoning it all the time.

I settled with old aura setup, four sockets with two two links. I use Clarity and Discipline on other sockets and Herald of Ice with Ice Bite. Sometimes those Frenzy charges can be quite fun.

One question remains: How to do you sustain your mana? I'm quite sceptical about leveling Clarity to max level. Will I even have enough mana for that? Guess I'll have to get some mana from my gear more.

@RaivokasMagma: Hey there, glad you enjoy this build :)

With Ice Bite on HoI, you will most likely need a high level Enlighten or the Sovereignty cluster to sustain a 5L+ Cold Snap. A good amount of mana/regen on gear helps too, but i doubt it'll be enough.

Is this HC viable?

@Papernoob: I've heard of some people succeeding with this build in HC, however i haven't tested it myself. Playing the main role as freezer in a good party should safely get you far in HC. solo may be more challenging.