[1.2.0] [Standard] Hrimsorrow/Nycta's Lantern GC Build (Updated for 1.2.0)

Hi,

Introduction

Well, I once found two unique items which seemed pretty interesting but didn't have any very good use at that moment. I wanted to use them so badly so I am glad GC was implemented.



Concept

In short

Do elemental damage as well as physical damage with GC and that fast. Kill stuff before it kills you.

Longer version of the concept



Items


Passives

The main passives are for cast speed, AoE/AD, spell damage and elemental damage. The Chance to Freeze node is useful in combination with Herald of Ice.

It is by no means a Hardcorebuild and/or defensive. I play Softcore and I generally do not care about deaths that much.



Arch Enemy

Thistlesage, the Unique Monster of the Imperial Gardens will kill you though.

Suggestions are very welcome.

Greetings,
JoBilly

Allways cool to see people use underused items. I had used the Nycta's Lantern, Hrimsorrow gloves, and chernobogs pillar with Avatar of fire. This gives 100% of physical and cold damage to fire.

I had socketed Ethereal knives, Chance to ignite, and Elemental Proliferation in the Lantern. I didnt grab any cast speed nodes because that would just detract from the burning between spell casts.

Very interesting build, but you should decide whether u are going full crit or not. So far u have only few crit nodes which dont basically anything. U also dont have any(!) life node, how much HP / phys reduction do you have? I think you should definitely add at least one cwdt setup - enduring cry, enfeeble or something similar to survive in maps. I remade the skill tree to have much more life nodes, removed some weak nodes and added Eldritch Battery to have much more mana+mana regen and you can also run Arctic Armour and higher level Clarity to be much more safe.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUABVuLjJ_fPAXvfIM4FE2dgASzogBgbfAfAnHd813GtQRFR-QiMtEabLiTGYXz3acIzfokqtrdj0Z8gzbp0NARLeNqz2WOvlXGLJxJslWuAuOX9Aell5WCEFJT37A9X4-mLR9tGcHzoqOCHn_G2wsc3CepflkvnZMnLUdabRbztAzcV1BCJDwmPIVtRnEelIw2p1wjGIMJrD8C_nOzSVGNHN-E8GsV59VP3neOPBdUIoFG1w==

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Shade444 wrote:

Very interesting build, but you should decide whether u are going full crit or not. So far u have only few crit nodes which dont basically anything. U also dont have any(!) life node, how much HP / phys reduction do you have? I think you should definitely add at least one cwdt setup - enduring cry, enfeeble or something similar to survive in maps. I remade the skill tree to have much more life nodes, removed some weak nodes and added Eldritch Battery to have much more mana+mana regen and you can also run Arctic Armour and higher level Clarity to be much more safe.

Skilltree suggestion

I now added some screenshots of the Skills, Damage & Defense. Actually AA is a very good idea, why did I not think of that...

anyway...

As you can see all my Mana, Life and ES are around 650-700. 270 Mana gets reserved with Clarity which gives me 91 Manareg which is actually quite sufficent atm. I want to keep my ES to give me at least some tiny bit of survivability. I also want to keep my Area & Faster Cast nodes as they allow me to make a tiny stunlock with GC at certain enemies and use Shockwavetotem to keep them at a good distance from me, eg. Voidbearer. 12% inc AoE does quite a bit. Shaper gives 40% Manareg and 1% Lifereg which I quite like too.

I will definitely use AA in the future.

Update:

-Updated for 1.2.0

Neat concept. The multi-scaling should create some nice damage. Going to be making my own passive tree for it though, I like not dying alot ;).

edit: here's my mockup passive build I laid out in PST: Nycta's Sorrow Glacial Templar Mk. I

So I'm building armor, purely because I have some good armor pieces already. Taking moderate life, bit of ele resist, some shield nodes for block and the spell block by Witch, and bunches of elemental and spell damage(since GC in this will be doing cold, fire, and physical, it scales best with 'spell damage' and second best with 'elemental damage'- third best would be cold damage since the fire damage scales on that)

Going to use your faster casting-spell echo-GC(picked up a 14q for cheap) as my main attack, I'll probably slot in lightning warp, CWDT-skeletons-totem-curse, aura-aura-reduced mana-curse, and maybe cold snap or something to give me another damage option.

I'll be taking this guy to 65, and I'll report back.

edit 2: Level 30 tree, just killed normal vaal

I leveled up to and beat merveil with Spark and then switched to GC. I used a blue quartz sceptre and a rare spirit shield both with spell damage. Other notable items, I have an elreon's ring with -8 mana cost that is helping a lot, a wurm's molt belt for leveling and I just picked up a basic stone of lazhwar for 5c. I'm using zombies/skeletons/vaal skeletons as extra defense, and have leap slam for movement. Damage is starting to get low; my next move on the tree is to tag the spell damage nodes next to the witch start. Then I'm going to branch out to the flat health/regen and ele resist nodes near warrior. I'll probably tag shaper before I switch to nycta's.

edit 3: While I'm thinking of it, there's something that's worth mentioning. Any choices related to area of effect should be considered carefully. Glacial cascade can hit the same enemy multiple times. Look up Ziggy D's video on it for more info but basically, GC drops overlapping circles in a line. This means most monsters standing on that line will be hit twice- large mobs, *three* times. Increasing the size of the circles also moves them farther apart, making it easier for enemies to slip through the cracks and only take one hit. Put simply, you're sacrificing your potential single target dps in order to increase your crowd control and pack clearing ability. Concentrated effect does the opposite, making the skill much smaller but creating a sweet spot where a large mob could be hit four times per cast. I recommend keeping both increased AoE and conc effect gems slotted in your alternate weapon set, to swap in certain situations. For example you might wish to use conc effect on Piety since it's a 1v1 fight and her alternate forms are definitely large enough.

edit 4: level 44 52 points a2c, using nycta's but using a lot of mana pots: link

73 points. Level 58, Merciless oversoul down, no deaths so far. Using Stone of Lazhwar+Titucius' Span with tempest shield. Mana is no longer an issue; Since I'm taking so much strength I'm using iron will instead of FC. Need more health, armor and damage. It's a bit challenging, but I'm also using very few links, and four cheap uniques. I have definitely picked up more currency leveling this char than I spent on gear. Because of the multi-strike nature of GC, reflect is not much of an issue; but resist mobs take forever to kill.

At level 61, an interesting possibility opens up; another cheap unique, chernobog's pillar, which has 25% physical-fire conversion. I could also swap a ring for pyre, I hadn't thought of that until now for some reason. Add flammability to that and this starts to get interesting, making use of pyre's unique passive.

Well, here's the result:

screenshot
That's piety dead, level 65, no deaths. My first piety kill on this char was 61, a personal best. Took it for a spin on some 66 maps without any trouble but I seriously doubt it's good for much past that to be honest. I feel like the damage isn't what it could be- Nycta's is technically a 6-link, but if you have a real six link, use that!

I'm satisfied with how this build cleared the main content, and its ability to make use of a number of cheap uniques. It took some fancy footwork to stay alive sometimes, but that just made it more fun to play. In total, I ended up only using 4 3-link sets.

final tree, 84 points

Here's my ending equip:


As you can see I did have a few good armor items beforehand so a brand new player might not be so lucky. Still, the gems and uniques involved cost very little, so I think this would make a good second character.

Two other cheap uniques are compatible here: hrimnor's resolve gives fire damage and good armor; gang's momentum gives ignite chance and extra damage against ignited targets. But it might be a stretch to fill your resists.

Since my approach to the game is very, very different from OP's, I might make my own thread after the league ends and I have time; but I have to say thanks for a fun idea.

Very nice build idea im gonna try it.
I tought about some modifications:
Looking at reave, or glacial hammer:
Reave, a claw in main hand would had some tankyness.
3 dragons for max shock stack.

The pyre option is good but do not synergize: you loose the cold to fire boost.

But the more insane idea is glacial hammer with, why not think about mjolner!

Cold to fire for herald of ice is a free boost!


More seriously im gonna try with a good physical claw using dual wield and crit scaling, actually a " simple" 2L ligtning strike is enough to clear 74 maps with a good claw and a lesser offhand one.. the build is mostly critt scaled for dual wield and can perform very well as cast on critt

Thanks for the Idea, I had a bunch of unused uniques that I wanted to use and my build was fairly similar in type to your guide.

I corrupted a pair of hrimsorrow to have ele weakness and also had a defiance and aegis aurora collecting dust.

I threw 'em all together and ran GC on a character I needed to respec anyway and I have been very pleased by how it turned out.