[1.2][Beyond] Crit Ice Nova Build w/ Glacial Cascade (Work in Progress)

This is very interesting! Love the Glacial Cascade skill. Going to try this out when my ST Crit shadow dies :D

Enjoying it so far thanks for keeping us up to date

Yes, liking this a lot. My first ever crit build - and it's in a HC league wohoo :P
Anyhow, I'd appreciate a bit more info on recommended links for GC and Ice nova. I am currently only levelling with GC as I dont have the links for anything else.
Running GC - added cold dmg - added lightning dmg - faster casting.
I plan to replace faster casting with conc. effect, and at some time added cold dmg with cold penetration.

Also, what did you do for gearing? I can't decide which way to go. Armor/ES? Or pure ES? Or something else? I may have to go EB tho because I miss Arctic Armor so much.

Just a quick update. I made it to maps last night, so I'd say I'm officially ready to start focusing on the transition to ice nova. I'll add my experience and tips for leveling through merciless a bit later tonight probably.

Right now I'm running GC with only a 4L of GC + added lightning + faster casting + life leech. When I get a 5L, I'll probably add increased crit damage. I'm also considering swapping out added lightning for added chaos. I'm doing hybrid life/es with ghost reaver and the life leech is needed to regenerate es. I'm prioritizing ES and life right now although I may try to get some Armor/ES pieces later on. I'm at 3400 life and 2000 es and it's playing a lot like MoM except chaos damage is very annoying. I find the leech makes up for the fact that I'm not running AA although I'm leveling it in case I want to use it in certain situations.

Regarding reflect, I think life leech in combination with a sapphire flask will be enough to handle any reflect packs I come across. I may have to skip reflect maps until I can get a purity of ice leveled and swap out herald of ice for purity of ice. Even then, I'm not sure how enjoyable it will be to run ele reflect maps.

Here's my gear right now for anyone who's interested. It's pretty bad :)

Would you mind posting your current tree?
I'm lvl50 now in Beyond, and enjoying the build mostly. Using both GC and Nova at the moment.
I'm having trouble with nova playing like a melee though, obviously :P I just got a CwdT so that may help with phys dmg, but still, I need to make this a lot more tanky to be viable.
Hmmmm...

Level 27 with this build and its destroying everything. I also like the fact that it uses three skills. Glacial cascade is a monster at damage too.

What did you do for bandits in all difficulties?

hi....at least a nice ice nova build...im doing it now...level 20 right now...a few questions because im new in the ice nova things....
1)can you put a 5l or 6l support gems combination for ice nova for endgame?.....
2)these surprise me!....why dont you take more offensive nodes of ice spell damage?...you dont need it?...in the templar area theres a lot of ice damage nodes and elemental damage nodes....and in the north of the witch tree theres more ice nodes....in end game we dont need more spell damage from tree???

thanks....;)

Still running this? I took your build and modified it for Rampage slightly. It's pretty fun so far, but requires a lot of gear.

Trying this build in Rampage. Level 34 right now it's fun. 20 quality on Ice Nova makes it huge.