[1.3] The Frozen Shotgun - Ice Shot, HoI, shatter the world

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Serkr wrote:

I can't level up Ice Shot after a certain point if I don't have enough dexterity. Excuse my ignorance, I'm just a noob, but is there an item that deals with this problem? I'm very poor and only have items I've found so far.

If you haven't picked them up yet, the two +30 Dexterity passive nodes on the skill tree (Agility and Alacrity) can help you out a lot until you find better gear that has some extra Dexterity on it.

Eventually, Rashkaldor's Patience amulet will give you some more when you can afford to buy one, but otherwise just keep an eye out for nice rares with life, resists, and some dex on top.

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seasage wrote:

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Serkr wrote:

I can't level up Ice Shot after a certain point if I don't have enough dexterity. Excuse my ignorance, I'm just a noob, but is there an item that deals with this problem? I'm very poor and only have items I've found so far.

If you haven't picked them up yet, the two +30 Dexterity passive nodes on the skill tree (Agility and Alacrity) can help you out a lot until you find better gear that has some extra Dexterity on it.

Eventually, Rashkaldor's Patience amulet will give you some more when you can afford to buy one, but otherwise just keep an eye out for nice rares with life, resists, and some dex on top.

Does this mean I should get some Dex from the skill tree and then use the respec points once I get the gear I need?

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Serkr wrote:

Does this mean I should get some Dex from the skill tree and then use the respec points once I get the gear I need?

Yep, that's exactly right :)

I liked the look of the play style of this build so I tried it out. It's really powerful. Everything stays frozen except for a few specific situations. For example if you come across a very high level Rogue Exile you need to switch to your single target Ice Shot nonstop on him to keep him stunned/frozen nonstop but also need to occasionally shoot the aoe Ice Shot at the large groups to keep them cc'd for a while. Some map bosses can't be frozen nonstop, but that's to be expected.

My only real issue with this build is it's still possible to get one shot even resistance capped. I have not gotten all the HP nodes I can get yet but I hope to have those soon. Even noting that, I don't think defensively this build holds up to some of the others and I'm not sure how well I'll do on Atziri as I've not had the chance to attempt yet.

Seasage is correct in noting that the tooltip does not show this builds true damage. He is also correct in noting that this build does especially well against large groups but takes a longer time to kill single targets as he's explained in the build synopsis.

I did want to note, that in groups, with the help of some additional aura's you bump into quite often when doing maps your dps on this build can go up significantly. I've attached a screenshot of my character sheet from a group I ran with last night where I had a few dps aura's not included in the build.

I just wanted to show that this build has the potential to have very good dps and when in a group fighting large packs of mobs you will really shine because of all the herald of ice explosions. You can go from shooting a single mob 10 times just to kill it to turning around and firing a single shot into a group of 30+ mobs and watch them all die instantly.

I don't see the reasoning not to grab sniper and quickness.

I would even go down and allocate Blood Drinker, Acro, Survivalist and Herbalism to have at least some kind of defenses.

Ohjeah, would you mind throwing together a passive tree on poebuilder so I can see how far off I am from what you're suggesting. I would be interested in sacrificing some damage for more defense. This is my first build I have taken this far and started really tinkering with so more advice is always welcomed.

This Build seems amazing, I'll give it a Try. Any idea to have more defense? I find it quite weak in terms of survivability.
Thanks in advance for your answer.

Happy to see some more people enjoying the build!

Ohjeah, you're right about Sniper (and Quickness). They're just less "essential" to getting the build up and running. The build I posted has points allocated through something like level 83--after that you can easily start putting in points into more pure Ice Shot damage nodes. I could have left Catalyse out of the tree for the same reason I guess :)

I'd love to see your take on a version of the tree with Acro and that sweet, sweet +1 max cold res.


XxKandenzaxX, you might also be interested in what Ohjeah comes up with, especially if you're looking to try this in HC. It's worth noting that the CwDT+IC combo protects you from most of the really dangerous situations, except elemental reflect, but I was definitely playing in a non-hardcore league.

Also, Murdurface: dat 10k top end cold damage on the single target...yum.

This is what I would do if the templar area is really necessary: with templar.

Sniper and Quickness bring much more to the table compared to Catalyse: 1% more dmg per point, proj speed and some juicy movementspeed!

I have somewhat in my mind that you cannot evade the cone damage of ice shot (because it always hits). Thus reflect is an issue even with ice shot. A herald of ice explosion cascade just makes it worth.
On the current live servers I would not play ice shot with out vaal pact. To achieve that, one obviously needs to drop the templar area.

On another note: if you don't convert 100% of your damage and have a slow phys bow, 2% mana leech is enough to sustain your mana.



I am a bit biased towards the chin sol dot ranger version which also was using ice shot as a main skill. Very similar to your concept is also a cold snapper. Those builds have a similar tree and they also need to grab VP.