Have we concluded which is better to use, between Ice and Lightning? They both have their advantages and disadvantages, but which is better to use overall?
The two elements are very close.
I personally favor cold because:
* There are 3 projectile cold spells (Arctic Breath, Ice Spear, Freezing Pulse) which means in a 6-link, all of your payload spells can benefit from projectile boosting nodes.
* If you take cold damage passives, they'll benefit all of your payload skills and will also benefit Herald of Ice.
* Cold is somewhat safer than lightning because mobs will end up frozen quite often.
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But, lightning will shock and may do more overall DPS as a consequence.
Last edited by hankinsohl#1231 on Aug 30, 2014, 5:44:43 PM
Have we concluded which is better to use, between Ice and Lightning? They both have their advantages and disadvantages, but which is better to use overall?
The two elements are very close.
I personally favor cold because:
* There are 3 projectile cold spells (Arctic Breath, Ice Spear, Freezing Pulse) which means in a 6-link, all of your payload spells can benefit from projectile boosting nodes.
* If you take cold damage passives, they'll benefit all of your payload skills and will also benefit Herald of Ice.
* Cold is somewhat safer than lightning because mobs will end up frozen quite often.
===
But, lightning will shock and may do more overall DPS as a consequence.
How does cold treat you endgame? Are you able to clear high lvl maps and such. Atziri?
Currently I'm level 72 and am really enjoying this build. I thought I'd share my experience to date; hopefully some will find this useful.
* Don't level as Spectral Throw. I made this mistake and had an awful time. My damage was terrible until I started running both Wrath and Anger, but with both Wrath and Anger up I couldn't run Grace or a high enough Clarity to support a decent Arctic Armor. I had no defense at all except DPS and running away until I switched to CoC at level 69. Needless to say, leveling was challenging.
* I've been running a 6-link COC as follows: ST - GMP - CoC - PCoC - Ice Spear - Freezing Pulse. For me, placing Power Charge on Crit in my 6-link made things much easier. I tried the separate ST-GMP-Faster Casting-PCoC 4-link to generate power charges but this seemed to go much too slowly. I found myself spending too much time casting my 4-link to build up charges and my DPS suffered. Also, I occasionally wasn't fast enough switching from my 6-link back to my 4-link and sometimes lost all my power charges in the middle of a battle.
* If you haven't tried Poacher's Mark I highly recommend that you do. I've got Poacher's Mark linked as follows: Ball Lightning-GMP-Curse on Hit-Poacher's Mark. To start a battle I cast Ball Lighting which puts Poacher's Mark up on most/all mobs. Next, I switch to my 6-link CoC. In no time I've got 6 power charges and, thanks to Poacher's Mark, 3 Frenzy Charges! The ensuing frenzy-driven CoC onslaught is simply awesome. And, since I'm using cold spells, most mobs end up frozen, doing no damage to me. This helps a lot since I skipped most of the survival nodes in order to get the power charge nodes (my defense is, shall we say, sketchy at this point). But frozen mobs do no damage, LOL.
Anyhow, thanks Mathil for sharing your build with us. I'm having a blast - this is the most fun-to-play build I've yet to try.
I'm using roughly the same updated tree that Mathil has posted, except that I bridge from Trickery to Coldhearted Calculation taking the cold nodes (2 8% cold damage and Freeze) instead of the lightning nodes (2 8% lightning damage and Shock).
Also, since all my payload skills are projectile, I plan to take the 8% projectile damage and Sniper nodes.
Last edited by hankinsohl#1231 on Aug 30, 2014, 11:01:31 PM
Running this in Rampage, I'm at level 77 now. Finally managed to 5L my Cloak and get some other minor upgrades, and it's starting to get a lot better. Using ST-CoC-GMP-Ball-Arc in my main link, I found it to be more effective than using Lightning Pen. I've tried several curses and Ele Weakness has worked the best for me so far (doing up to level 73 maps).
Gonna be a while till I can afford all quality gems, but I want to start getting some when I can. What do you guys think are the most important gems to get 20Q on, and which ones don't matter as much?
Last edited by Kelsier0#0451 on Aug 31, 2014, 9:18:27 AM
Running this in Rampage, I'm at level 77 now. Finally managed to 5L my Cloak and get some other minor upgrades, and it's starting to get a lot better. Using ST-CoC-GMP-Ball-Arc in my main link, I found it to be more effective than using Lightning Pen. I've tried several curses and Ele Weakness has worked the best for me so far (doing up to level 73 maps).
Gonna be a while till I can afford all quality gems, but I want to start getting some when I can. What do you guys think are the most important gems to get 20Q on, and which ones don't matter as much?
Is a 5L Cloak of Defiance really worth its money? I'm running tabula rasha still and its fun ;) (doing docks easy at level 64 with 50 cc without power charges). However, still squishy :( @ 2k hp and almost max res (need a new ring and shield).
Last edited by Llght#6743 on Aug 31, 2014, 4:11:35 PM
After reading the advice here, I'm assuming this one is fine for now? Could be faster, could have spell dmg - but so far the options one xyz aren't that great ;)
To be honest I was expecting to be able to mastercraft spell dmg onto it. Apparently that's not possible. The only option which is making sense to me is '1% of lightning dmg is leeched as life'.
Would that work / be worth it?
After reading the advice here, I'm assuming this one is fine for now? Could be faster, could have spell dmg - but so far the options one xyz aren't that great ;)
To be honest I was expecting to be able to mastercraft spell dmg onto it. Apparently that's not possible. The only option which is making sense to me is '1% of lightning dmg is leeched as life'.
Would that work / be worth it?
Yes, would be great and the dagger is great as well.
