(HC) Cold Crit Tank Shadow
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Other Guides: Facebreaker Cyclone Duelist
What is this guide about? This guide starts picks up plenty of critical strike chance nodes, and uses them with the Freezing Pulse and Ice Spear skills to permanently freeze-lock enemies. By the end of this build, you will be able to permanently freeze almost anything in the game, while also being able to take a few hits from them. When facing elemental reflect, it is recommended that you use a Sapphire Flask to boost your maximum resistances to the point where it will not hurt you very badly. Note that this guide will be altered when the Power Charge on Critical Strike support gem is released. The Mechanics of Crit/Freeze
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- Enemies will be frozen every time you crit.
- Freezing Pulse and Ice Spear will be affected by Global Critical Strike Chance, Critical Strike Chance nodes on the passive tree and Spell Critical Strike Chance, but NOT "Increased Critical Strike Chance" on weapons. - The duration of freeze is based on how much damage was dealt in relation to enemy health. The more damage you deal in the critical strike, the longer the freeze will last. - When using Freezing Pulse with Lesser or Greater Multiple Projectiles, either none of the projectiles will crit, or all of them will. - Ice Spear has a 600% Critical Strike Chance when it has traveled a certain distance. Faster projectiles on ice spear is a bad thing for this build, so do not use a quality Ice Spear gem. Pros of this build - Very strong in solo play - enemies have less health so you will freeze them for longer. - Very helpful in group play - you will be the crowd control for your party members. - By the end of this build, you will have little problems with elemental reflect. - A good build for PVP, as Ice Spear will lock down your opponent. - Counters annoying enemies such as Necromancers, as corpses are frozen and shattered. - Not very gear dependent. Cons of this build - Until you get Purity+Inner Force and Elemental Adaptation going, elemental reflect may be an issue. (Use Sapphire flasks) - Must invest a lot of passive tree points in to critical strike chance. Passive Skill Tree Progression 30 points 60 points 90 points 120 points (End-Game) Skill Gems
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These are the bare minimum combinations that you should strive for.
Freezing Pulse - Lesser/Greater Multiple Projectiles - Increased Critical Strike Chance (Power Charge on Critical Strike will be added to this when released) Ice Spear - Spell Totem - Lesser/Greater Multiple Projectiles - Faster Casting Discipline - Purity - Clarity - Reduced Mana Curses of choice are Critical Weakness for offense, Enfeeble for defense Gear Choices
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For your two weapon slots, you should aim for two Copper/Golden/Platinum Kris. These have an implicit +80% global critical strike chance. Try to roll Spell Damage and Global Critical Strike Chance on it for the perfect weapon for this build.
As for your other gear slots, you can focus those simply on giving you health and resists. Flask choices are quite straight forward. You will want 2 life flasks, 1 mana flask, 1 granite flask and 1 sapphire flask, all with the Surgeon's prefix. Since you will be critting plenty of mobs, your flasks will refill very quickly. Notable Uniques
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While none of these are required, they do work quite well for this build.
Voll's Protector, Holy Chainmail (Grants a Power Charge on Critical Strike) Maligaro's Virtuosity, Deerskin Gloves (Huge crit chance/multiplier increase) Divinarius, Imperial Skean (Can be a good replacement for Kris if you don't have them) Recommended Bandit Rewards Normal: Help Oak for +40 health. Cruel: Kill all for 1 skill point. Merciless: Kill all for 1 skill point. (May Change to help Alira for +1 power charge) Last edited by EndOfEnds#7547 on Mar 29, 2013, 1:19:59 AM
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hey,
first of all thx for this post. I love this concept. i'm trying this build out on sc before i go hc, atm at a2 cruel with zero deaths tho i have some problems (almost died which seems bad for my test sc run :P) fist of all - god dame archers/spell casting skellys :) before i make it to them a) they nuke my ice spear totem b) they nuke me, i can try to freeze them with freeze pulse and ofc i can dodge attacks for a while and avoid getting hit but still my shadow feels very squishy compared to some of my other chars. could you give me some tips for a gear up for cruel a2/3? i went armour/es with hp and res, i have quite moderate gear tho i managed to farm on my other char two 80% kris with spl dmg bonus but dps + survival seems to be lacking especially for hc build :) any tips are much appreciated. |
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