[1.3] Shock Pulse Shadow - 25k GMP tooltip Reflect Resistant Freezing Pulse

Pros:
-Great damage, even in groups
-Great clear speed
-Can be done relatively cheaply but scales well as you invest more currency and level up
-Very little/no micromanagement

Cons:
-Best damage comes at melee range
-Sometimes difficult to hit things in doorways if even a little desynced
-Not critting on several consecutive casts can feel pretty annoying

In short, increased damage of both cold and fire damage stack and elemental does not double dip. Three Dragons lets you shock with fire damage.
Example:
If I convert 100% of 100 Cold damage to fire damage, I have 100% fire damage. If I then have 10% increased cold damage, I have 110 fire damage. If I then add 10% increased fire damage, you have 120 fire damage. If you then add 10% increased elemental damage you have 130 fire damage. You cannot convert more than 100% of damage (by using Pyre + Avatar of Fire + Cold to Fire, for example).


Three Dragons mean the length of shocks will be based on fire damage instead of lightning. Luckily, all of our damage is fire, so shocks will be very potent.

Obviously, results will vary depending on gear/level/gem levels.

This makes the build and scales your effective damage way beyond the tooltip.

Obviously a 6link is nice, but the build is definitely capable of doing maps (although probably not 78s) with a 4link. 5link should carry you to end game just fine. 6 link is fun. If you only have a 4-link your setup should be FreezePulse-GMP-FirePen-ColdToFire, 5th link is Echo, 6th is Faster Casting.


10% quality Freezing Pulse gem. You might be able to make do with an unqualitied one but your clear speed will suffer. 20% means you reach the end of the screen. Obviously, the more quality the better.

You want mana regen on gear as Inner Force (buff effect nodes) also increase the mana degen from Arctic Armour and we're not running Discipline.

Would much rather have cast speed over fire damage for a suffix, and higher tier rolls, but for 100c this greatly out-performs a Catalyst (despite slightly lower tooltip) because of the Proj Speed for very little extra investment (or less investment if you play HC).


Super cheap, incredible damage scaling, free resistances. Do not run all 3 auras/buffs at the same time. During normal mapping you'll have Clarity, Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder up. During reflect maps you take off HoI and turn on PoF to help deal with double reflect.

Good life, ES (increases unres mana by almost 300), mana regen, resistances and some damage scaling on top of it. You could definitely get better ES on a shield and better damage scaling (multi, spell damage, cast speed), but this one has a nice combination of what you look for in a shield. Self found.

Not ideal, actually. Generally it would make life easier for you to get dex on the amulet, but I had it sorted on rings. Mana regen and life are a must, any damage scaling from there is a nicety.

Mana regen and grants like 1k effective life? BiS. Saves you 13 nodes that travelling to MoM would take. Anywhere between 10c-25ex depending on league/links.

No mana regen isn't great but gives us dex on gear which means we don't need to use a level on getting a 30dex node. Res and Life. 10c, I ran out of Blesseds :(

Mana regen (must have on at least 1 ring unless you get an insane shield), life, some damage scaling. Awesome fun, 1ex - not even half that if not on a Diamond Ring.

Dex and great damage. Voidbringers make mana sustain more trouble than it's worth which means that you lose survivability even though you end up with more unreserved mana (so effective HP). Again, prices vary a lot depending on rolls/league.

Belt is a great place to get your resistances sorted as gearing jewellery and shield is a pretty specific task on this character. I didn't go for Doryani's Invitation because of the immense loss of life and generally because I felt 1% leech is perfectly fine. Self found.

Unfortunately, you want an armour or armour/ES base so you can put your CWDT setup in there.

Instant flasks, everyone loves them.
Very important for boosting mana after a big hit.
Fast life regen and saves you from the pain of corrupting blood (you hit mobs up to 10 times per cast due to echo, this is necessary).
Gotta go fast.
Curse immunity is very important. You can get almost 100% uptime during fights on your 5th flask spot. I typically swap between sapphire/topaz/granite/ruby as necessary.

Level 91 - if you level beyond here just fill out life/mana and life nodes or get Soul Siphon (unreserved mana bonus is significant and even comparable to 2 5% life nodes, depending on gear).

Bandits: Oak, Alira/kill, Alira. I personally went Alira on cruel but you're close to both Mental Rapidity and Nimbleness, both effectively 4% nodes so it's really down to personal preference.

Avatar of Fire - this ensures we also deal no lightning damage from HoT as even that little bit would be dangerous on reflect (from experience without AoF when I was just running Pyre for 100% conversion)

Inner Force - amazing cluster, buffing both AA, Clarity and the flat damage added to spells via your heralds. It's significant DPS as well as survivability.


Can it be done with Witch? - Yes, just start on the spell damage side and take the spell damage nodes instead of Ele damage on Shadow, but I prefer cast speed (Shadow 4% vs Witch 3%), even at the cost of the 25% mana regen node as you can make up for that on gear. You could also start Templar.

HoT - Grants power charges as well as decent flat damage on FP. Also, free barrel destruction :D
HoI - Damage, both flat and % when qualitied. Not fundamental for the build but nice to have.
Clarity - must have for mana regen, higher level the better.
PoF - only on for Atziri/reflect maps to help with double reflect. Synergistic with 26% buff effect on tree as it means you gain 5% max res at gem level 20.
No Discpline - lowers unreserved mana for mana regen that's possible to get on gear. Not worth it for us.

When doing a reflect map I generally turned off my Herald of Ice and turn on Purity of Fire. This helps deal with double reflect, but you still have to lower your own damage by attacking further end of your Freeze Pulse when dealing with double reflect. I turn off HoI to not lower my effective life pool too much due to the extra aura.

Reflect mobs on their own aren't a problem, but large creatures (devourers, golems, the things that spit bugs out) can sometimes take the damage from different projectiles at the same time if you attack from very close, meaning you take reflect at the same time, therefore making AA mitigate a much smaller percentage. This can be dangerous, you can avoid this by standing even a short distance away from these monsters. I found that this really only occurs when you're pretty much on the creature.

I wouldn't recommend it on as an Atziri farming build as it's not the forte but it's certainly possible.

I personally decided to stick to my normal mapping setup (aura-wise) when doing Atziri. Take out CoH for the Atziri fight (avoiding curse reflection). Topaz + Quicksilver for Vaals, Granite + Quicksilver for Trio (Rain->Cycloner->FireThons, but Cyclone and Thorns order is down to preference/chaos res/AA level), Granite + Ruby for Atziri.

Video of boss fights - https://youtu.be/zV4y1ZOr8Bs.