Wintertide brand and Spell echo?

Oh. you play self found. That's very hard!!!

Can I ask another question. It's about Arcane Surge. Many don't put this in the main support but why not? At level 20, you get 20% more spell damage and another 19% from Surge. That's 39% more damage isn't it? Isn't this better than Hypothermia? And more mana regen too as I use Mind over Matter.

I know Arcane Surge needs 400 mana to proc but if we constantly spasm brands, it should be easy? And it lasts quite a while with amount of skill duration I have.

Your thoughts?

Arcane Surge in the main link is very inefficient.

U're way better off linking arcane surge with an utility spell, that u frequently cast.
For example Flame dash, Frost Bomb, Curse, Brand recall.
U'll get almost the same amount of extra spell damage and manareg.

The difference between a lvl 20 arcane surge in the main link and a low lvl arcane surge on a utility spell isn't that much and so u get more out of another support gem, because u only lose around 22% more damage.

Also as a side note, I swapped Hypothermia for Bonechill and got a sizeable damage increase.
That's only temporary until I get a trigger wand, but right now it's better.

Oh yeah. I was looking at Bonechill as well. So the wording isn't very clear to me. The damage is increased by how much Chill we do??

Enemies Chilled by Supported Skills have Cold Damage taken increased by Chill Effect

I know we always Chill and it's 10% to start.

And what happens when you have a trigger wand? You cast a spell when you cast Brand? Which spell are you casting? Vortex?

The damage on bonechill is a little bit weird, because it doesn't tell u that it's capped.
But basically, the damage taken on the enemy gets increased by how much "increased chill effect" ur linked spell has. Bonechill itself comes with alot of increased chill effect and the gem is capped at 30%, so u're always capping that out.

So Bonechill gives 15% more damage to the spell and additionally 30% increased damage taken to the enemies when they are chilled by linked spell.

What I'm going to do is triggering either Vortex or Cold Snap or maybe both if the trigger cooldown is for every skill individually.
Cold Snaps duration is longer than vortex' and u can get some frenzy charges aswell, which comes in handy :)

Oh.. I see. So the Increase Chill effect for Bonechill is capped at 30%? I see there is a Divergent gem that increases Chill effect more. Not worth using it then?

As for trigger wand, each spell is on its own cool-down 8s. I've tried it.

I put Vortex on my "walk" button so I cast it every 1s when I walk. I find it so convenient. lol


I am running into a bit of dilemma. I now have more Brand damage from cluster jewel but my overall Cold damage is less. My Vortex is doing a lot less damage. ugh.

No, the increase chill effect on Bonechill isn't capped.
Only the "extra damage taken" from Bonechill is capped at 30%. So ur chill effects will become stronger with more chill effect on bonechill, just the damage doesn't increase any more.

Vortex on walk is nice, but I'm already using Steelskin there, bcz HC :D

The individual CD is nice and what I hoped it will be, so with 2 triggered spells linked to bonechill, I should have a very high uptime on chilling ground AoEs then.

I'm not sure how much u rely on the vortex damage, but I think higher brand damage should definitely be worth more. Vortex should only be a utility spell for chilling enemies and potentially applying Bonechill imo.
U can also link Arcane Surge onto ur Vortex, so u're having it up all the time basically.

Yeah. I link Arcane surge and Culling strike on Vortex. I do walk into the monsters a lot with this build. With my other brand build, I tend to stay away. I guess Brand Recall's extra damage for that 1-2s is too addictive. LOL


Oh. You play HC? That's hard!!! I don't know how many times I've died.

HC isn't that bad usually... although I have to say that Scourge is really dangerous :D

Died only once yet, at lvl 68 in Blood Aqueducts to Scourge :/
But I definitely have to treat careful with activating Scourge in some maps.

What do you think of Swift Brand??

Haven't tried it in a long time. Was going to do so, but as I remembered from the last time I didn't enjoy using it.

In theory I think u can get more DPS if u have the right stats, but the vastly lower duration is very annoying, because u need to permanently recast ur brands.
Brand recall is pretty useless there, which kinda destroys the flow of playing with brands^^

It might be good if u have enough damage that u only need to cast one brand to clear a whole pack.