3.0 | Morphyne's Arctic Breath Elementalist [SC/HC Viable]

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Kwitch wrote:

I'm planning on looking at my Freezer Burn AB build a bit for next league, as I was inspired a bit after thinking about AB again with you.

With that stated, how often do you 'feel' Shaper grants you good elemental status effects? I love mastermind, but I may drop it and test w/ shaper.

Also, I had a fun/foolish idea of running this as a scourge build. Just so we can whirling/shield charge and still get the double damage effectiveness for burns (As I am 100% fire conversion). Still thinking about it.

would love your input on those two items, thanks.

I feel that if you're going to run Elementalist, her ascendancy is setup for you and whatever build you're going to run. I personally like Shaper only because the conflux adds that little bit of ignite damage and the shocking for extra damage especially in boss fights when I need that little bit to carry my damage. Since I'm not running a secondary fire damage skill, I felt mastermind to be a little pointless, so I just put the point in Shaper. However, if you're going to go the freezer burn build and you're focusing on penetrating resistances, I highly recommend mastermind. It would be that perfect icing on the cake and you could run a Pandemoneous Amulet and EE to further lower that resistance and shred through bossses. Something to definitely think about.

I'm not against the idea of running a scourge build lol. Would be interesting to watch.

I will admit, I have been a little distracted well with school in all, but GGG just buffed my favorite shield in the game and I'm focusing on a double dipping trickster poison build for the new league. I will however keep updating this build as it's one of my favorites. I did normal Atziri the other day with this build, couldn't use AB to kill her, so I unfortunately had to change over to ice nova, but I ended up taking her down. Fun experience.

Is it just me or does the link to the passive tree no longer work?

Greetings fellow Arctic Breath aficionados! Nice work on the guide.

I have played arctic breath characters in almost every league for quite a while now, and am playing an AB build in 3.0 beta currently (Templar hierophant for the Super MoM), which is a totally different build, but I have done it before and quite liked it even before the hiero bufs. I just took a quick read through your guide (work lol), so I apologize if you cover some of this, but just wanted to share some quick thoughts from my experiences with AB:

1) Positioning of your enemies is super important. Decoy totems and something like a Flame Totem or a Ball Lightning Spell totem with knockback can be amazing at luring/shoving pesky high-hp mobs up against walls.
2) I saw you mention EE. Do not use EE with AB. Each separate projectile counts as a separate hit, so you're nerfing any shotgun damage you may get horribly. Similarly, it's why Hypothermia is so amazing... the second hit on counts as chilled, even from the same GMP blast
3) Freeze chance doesn't need to be very high to freeze with huge reliability. Each separate AB Skull applies the chance to freeze separately
4) I personally hate chain/Pierce with AB. I want it to explode when it hits something for max shotgunning. I don't think Touch of ANguish is very helpful compared to a weapon that gives raw damage.
5) Reflect maps are totally doable with AB, at least with a Templar. I run an Empower in my AB links (corrupted level 3s are cheap and are fine for our purposes). For ele reflect maps, I just swap Empower out with Spell Totem and call it a day (but I have 3 totems from Templar Hierophant, which helps lots).
6) I really like Pledge of Hands with arctic breath. The extra mana and the baked-in spell echo is fantastic. Can't go wrong with Dual doryani's catalysts either.

Also, yes, the passive skill tree link isn't working, which makes me sad :(

One thing I'm curious about is leveling tips. I'm pretty bad at leveling, so I'd be happy to hear any tips you have that makes it so easy for you.

Always had a soft spot for Arctic Breath :)

Looking forward to trying this out. I assume Slower Proj in place of Hypothermia for Chill Immune bosses?

I'm not OP, but I definitely swap in Slower Projectiles for Hypo on unchillable bosses, yes. I also swap it in for GMP sometimes for pesky single-target bosses that I can't get next to a wall. Really helps with damage.

Also, for fast targets, when swapping, consider swapping in Added Cold damage or even Faster Projectiles instead of Slower Projectiles if missing your target becomes an issue.

Awesome, thanks :)

Hey I just got back into this game after a few years break, but I'm confused how you're saying to gem your items. My understanding is you posted the main ability followed by a '>' which is supposed to represent the support link gem?

Thanks in advance!

Welcome back to the game (again not OP).

Yep, those are gem links. You can usually assume that they are listed in order of priority also... the last gems in the list are usually the list powerful and the ones you should leave off if you don't have enough links in your item.

Quick question, having a lot of fun with the build in 2 week league, but why exactly do you choose lightning golem instead of ice golem? With Liege of the Primordial, we get "40% increased Damage of each Damage Type for which you have a matching Golem".

So isn't the ice golem a lot better than the lightning golem?

How it go with 3 00 now with freez changes ?