[2.4] Crit Ice Nova Elementalist - <2 min Gorges, Freezes bosses
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Hello. Welcome to my guide for Crit Ice Nova Elementalist.
---Personal thoughts on the build--- The Bad: Squishy, not suited for the very hardest content (Malachai, Uber Atziri) The Good: Great clear speed, easy to play, actually freezes stuff ---Quick info on the state of my current character--- - lvl91 - 15-16ex overall cost - Ice Nova (6L): 61-70k dps, 88% Crit; Freezing Pulse (4L): 98-115k dps; 85% Crit - 4.6k life, 1k ES - Blasphemy Dual Curse (Ele Weakness + Temp Chains; Variants) ---Video--- Atziri Clear Conservatory Clear - Extra life, Boss life, Endurance Charges, -max, extra light dmg Gorge Speedrun 2 - 1:43, Vaal Haste and Silver Flasks Gorge Speedrun - 2:14, 1st attempt, no Vaal Haste or nuthin' Pre-Ascendancy: Plateau Clear ---Tree--- Tree At lvl91. With enough Dex on gear, finishes at lvl90.
Ascendancy
Elementalist is the only option, really. Anything else and you are one-shotting yourself to reflect. When lvling, pick Shaper of Desolation first, then Paragon of Calamity, then you can decide between Pendulum and Liege of Primordial. ---Gear---
Gear
Jewels
Consider getting jewels with resists to get yourself over-capped for ele weakness maps if your gear warrants it.
More detailed gear discussion
General requirements: Dex: 111 Str: Not important Int: Will always have enough --Weapons-- Should be daggers, ideally Demon Daggers or Krises, both for maximum crit consistency, as well as so you can use Whirling Blades for movement. Wands will give you potentially more damage, but are worse at everything else. Divinariuses would work if you can't or don't want to use Carcass Jack, but their damage and crit chance are not the best. --Chest-- Carcass Jack is BiS here. --Ring-- Need Doedre's Damning to run double curse. --Gloves-- Maligaro's are the best option. Facebreakers would work as well. --Everything else-- Rares with life and resists. Ideally enough resists so that your amulet has suffixes free for Crit Chance and Multi. --Luxury Items-- +1 Carcass Jack, +1 Boots for FP (probably Rainbowstrides), +1 Curse Amulet
Enchantments
Gloves - DGAF Boots - Leech (if you've killed recently) is the best option as you have no other sources of leech. CS/AS is not bad either. Helmet - Ice Nova Aoe would be the best, with Dmg also not being bad. Other good options are: Golem buffs, Golem dmg, Curse effectiveness and Reduced aura reservations. ---Gem Setups--- 6L: Ice Nova+Echo+Cold Pen+AoE+ICS+ICD 4L: FP+Echo+Cold Pen+ICS 4L: Blasphemy+Ele Weakness+Temp Chains+Clarity 4L: Ice Golem+Light Golem+Minion Life;? 3L: LW+Less Dur+FC 3L: WB+FA+Fortify
More detailed gem discussion
--Ice Nova-- Spell Echo, Cold Penetration and AoE are obvious choices. Increased Critical Strikes gets us enough crit so we don't have to rely on power charges. For the sixth link you have a choice between Faster Casting (better dps) and Increased Critical Damage/Added Cold (better freeze duration). Controlled Destruction would give more dps and duration than any of them, but I feel the loss of crit hurts the consistency too much (majority of mobs of any rarity die in one double-cast but only if it's a crit). Added Cold and ICD give roughly similar dmg, but a green socket gives you the option to use Mana leech for no regen maps (although War Mark could also be run instead). --Freezing Pulse-- Again, Spell Echo and Cold pen are obvious choices and ICS to give us the crit consistency to keep the freeze going. --Curses/Auras-- Elemental Weakness and Temp Chains is what I normally run, but there are many options. Ele Weakness+Ass Mark - for max clear speed and consistency Ele Weakness+Frostbite - for max dmg, EE/resist maps Ele Weakness+Enfeeble - maybe for some maps, or bosses that might one-shot you. Found Temp Chains to be generally better, though. Heralds and AA could be run in curse immune maps instead. --Golems-- Because of the Elementalist golem buffs, it's somewhat important to keep your golems alive and well. Hence minion life. Fortify is less important and could easily be replaced. Ice Golem you would want to use always, while Light Golem could be replaced if needed. I do belive Light Golem is overall the best option. --Movement-- Fairly obvious. You use Whirling Blades as your main movement skill and to apply Fortify, and Lightning Warp to get over obstacles. 3L might be an overkill for LW now. Running it un-linked would free you some gem slots without much downside. ---Stats---
Ice Nova DPS
 But if you are a retard, look at this dps pic instead:
Ice Nova Retard DPS
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Defense
 ---Bandits--- Normal: Passive/Oak Cruel: Passive/Kraitlyn Merciless: Passive Helped Merc Alira for power charge on my character (done before Ascendancy), which is now useless. ---Leveling--- Very easy. Can start using Ice Nova and FP immediately if that's what you wish, or you can use any other good lvling spell like Firestorm, or Searing Bond + Flame totems, since most of the nodes are of the generic spell/ele dmg variety. On the tree, you can choose to go either left or right, although left is slightly preferable and you can even pick up some good totem nodes on the way if you want to. Take the aura nodes once you have enough mana regen (and Doedre's Ring) to run Blasphemied double curse. ---Actually Playing--- What you need to remember to be successful with this build: 1. Watch out for ranged mobs at the edges of screen, they might not be slowed by Temp Chains and it takes a while for the Ice Nova wave to arrive to kill them. 2. The main safety comes from mobs being frozen. Care for enemies that cannot be frozen, like Atziri/Temple Trio, Atziri, Abaxoth, probably some others I can't remember. Similarly, care for map mods with More life mods, as well as Cold res, Chance to resist/Immune to ailments, Immune to curses and Ele Equilibrium mods. Depending on your lvl of gear, some bosses you might normally be able to freeze, might become impossible to. 3. Curses constitute a large portion of your damage. So be careful in Curse Immune maps (and of course against Curse Immune enemies like magic packs and totems). With a bit of gem color wizardry you might choose to run HoI/HoT instead. 4. Something, something... I don't know, this build is EZ to play :> Last edited by Cabesi#0949 on Sep 2, 2016, 7:39:49 AM Last bumped on Dec 7, 2016, 1:26:38 AM
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No offense but there's been some very popular and elaborate ice nova builds posted that perform much better than what you're displaying here.
Threads that are still ongoing with nearly 3 times the dps and better survivability. I really don't mean this as an insult. People should post their builds. It's just that this one specifically has been thoroughly explained by other very experienced players. Crit Shockwave Totem 650k +: #1657327 / Crit VMS (1 mil DPS): #1511368 / Crit self-cast spark: #1565708
1.3 crit firestorm: #1280086 / 1.3 crit Ice Nova: #1219809 / Flame Nova (sire of shards incinerate): #1359847 |
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" Right, so what is the point of your post again? And either way, I don't agree. This is a very different build from the one you are hinting at, with a different play style. Then, with regards to survivability and dmg, first off, you are comparing a build on Standard worth 50ex+ to a temp league build worth 7-8ex. And second, you can't look at just dps numbers to assess dmg and clear speed. I could easily literally double my dps by switching Cold Pen with Added Cold and AoE with Conc Effect. Together with Frostbite and Ass Mark (since I have a lot more crit multi) I would already do similar dps as the other build with just a 5L. I am not here to discuss that, though. If people don't like this build, or think it's shit after playing it, then fair enough. |
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Video up.
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Will you update the tree ?
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Updated Ascendancy style.
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Changes for 2.4: Shaper of Desolation has been nerfed a bit, leading to less reliable burn and shock, which might affect the clear speed slightly in some scenarios. Similarly, some weaker bosses that we were able to shock previously, won't get shocked each 8s out of 14, but again this doesn't really matter for the tough ones that we weren't able to shock anyway. Aditionally, the activation is not contingent on kill anymore, meaning it should be up for separate room bosses as well, meaning a potential buff even.
All in all, nothing in the way you build the character or play really changes and this is nothing more than a sneaky bump. |
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What if you'll change one of your dagger to Singularity sceptre?
Free hinder on nearby enemies and +80% damage on hindered enemies... Auctioneer House - is a MUST!
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" Wouldn't be terrible if you are looking to add some flavor, or for fun. In any other case, though, you lose too much crit and damage, and slowing enemies that are already chilled/frozen and temp-chained is a bit of an overkill. |
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Hello !
I have a question with this build. I'm really loving it currently(lvl 82) and having fun with it. My only problem is that I have mana issues. I finally managed to 6L my carcass (200+ Fuses) and at best I can cast like 4 Ice novas then I have to wait. How much would my mana effect if: -I'd have my gems 20% ? Currently lvl 19 and 0% qual -Clarity turns 20/20 -Maybe try to get 1 or 2 gems with mana reduc or item w mana ? Thank you for reading and answering ! |
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