(Updated!) [1.2] EE Ball Lightning/Ice Spear Build with AA/MoM (Cloak of Defiance)

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rusher21 wrote:

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Svenn wrote:

So, is there anything you would drop to take any of these instead?

Good question. I didn't find optimization, i was just curious on what to prefer - you made it clear.

"Frost Walker" instead of "Freeze" would give +"3% increased Cold Damage" and 8% "increased Spell damage" for Lightning in addition (instead of only 8% increased Cold Damage) , but you lose 5% freeze.

By the way: "Fingers of Frost" would be bad considering a spammed Ice-Spell, correct?
(unfreezed mobs will become chilled)

You are right about the Frost Walker vs Freeze thing. The main reason I kept Freeze instead of Frost Walker is because of the freeze chance, actually. I wanted at least some freeze chance for non-crits so I kept just one of the nodes with that in it (the easiest one to grab at only 2 points). Hard to say if the freeze chance is going to be worth it or not right now. Now that you've brought that up I'm wondering if adding some crit chance would be a wiser investment, especially given the high crit chance of Ice Spear, or even going up for Breath of Rime instead.

Fingers of Frost would be less useful on spammed Ice, correct. Likely you'll kill the enemy before the freeze ends in most cases, or probably just re-freeze/chill them again anyway if it does wear off.

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Svenn wrote:

Slower Projectiles is necessary for Ball Lightning if you are self casting it. I'm running Spell Echo on Ice Spear so my attack speed is really fast on Ice Spear and without Slower Projectiles on Ball Lightning I can get maybe 1-2 hits in before the Ball Lightning passes through enemies (even far ones).

Thanks for the update. Could you please clarify if you mean you can cast once (meaning 2 hits with echo) or twice (4 hits with echo)?

And could you please tell us your tooltip cast time on Ice Spear without Spell Echo?

My thinking is that if you can cast twice and hit 4 times before Ball Lightning passes through, that might be ok, especially as you get more cast speed.

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Vultighjime wrote:

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Svenn wrote:

Slower Projectiles is necessary for Ball Lightning if you are self casting it. I'm running Spell Echo on Ice Spear so my attack speed is really fast on Ice Spear and without Slower Projectiles on Ball Lightning I can get maybe 1-2 hits in before the Ball Lightning passes through enemies (even far ones).

Thanks for the update. Could you please clarify if you mean you can cast once (meaning 2 hits with echo) or twice (4 hits with echo)?

And could you please tell us your tooltip cast time on Ice Spear without Spell Echo?

My thinking is that if you can cast twice and hit 4 times before Ball Lightning passes through, that might be ok, especially as you get more cast speed.

Once (2 hits with echo). Ball Lightning travels pretty fast on it's own. You might be able to get 3 total hits (1.5 casts with echo), depending on the mob distance from you. With higher level Slower Projectiles/Increased AoE it might be better. I'm still leaning towards Spell Totem since that's simply drop it once for a pack and spam Ice Spear rather than alternate myself.

Maybe I'll try streaming what I'm doing with this shortly.
Twitch: www.twitch.tv/svennethir

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Svenn wrote:

Now that you've brought that up I'm wondering if adding some crit chance would be a wiser investment, especially given the high crit chance of Ice Spear, or even going up for Breath of Rime instead.

Thanks alot. I think crit chance is worth a thought especially for "Beyond". But I suppose a bit extra freeze is still helpful since only the second hit from IS has a high cc%!

Btw for Beyond I personally would prefer "Breath of Rim"e for the extra 5% freeze for just one point more. (Either way with 3 points available you can have 10% freeze on both and 20% cold damage on both, but 20% "increased freeze duration" with Breath of Rhyme).

As for the killspeed with all the extra % spell/elemental damage and basic high cc%, a bit cc%/cd% complement the damage for IS (but I haven't actually calculated if it's more!)*, not to forget the higher chance to freeze, not to forget the higher damage for BL and thus still having killspeed (as Vultighjime mentioned on Page 1 already). I personally would take "Arcane Potency" - but for Beyond "Annihilation" would probably be better.

I can only suggest on what to drop for possible cd% / cd%! For Beyond I would imagine dropping a few damage nodes (like 2x 10% or 8% spell/elemental, and perhaps that single 4% life node in the bottom left), here is the suggestive change (100 points):

ps: While in the passive-builder I calculated that crit % is slightly worse than 3x %Spell damage nodes,it didn't take the second hit of IS into account, with the much higher crit chance. I guess that would have to be calculated manually.

So, I did a short video to show off where I'm at with the build right now. This starts out with me at level 38 before I've taken EE. I show off how fast Ball Lightning is and how the alternating works, then I level up and test it with EE.

http://www.twitch.tv/svennethir/c/4966220

I'll leave my stream running while I'm playing for a bit if anyone wants to jump in and watch/ask questions/give suggestions.

rusher21, I think I like the Breath of Rime over Freeze. I'm not sure how I feel about dropping 10% life, but I'll definitely experiment with that. I do like the extra crit there.

So after some testing I might just drop the Spell Totem idea. It's slow to drop and you can't control the direction in packs so it sucks for regular mobs. It's really nice for bosses... when they don't kill it.

With a quality Ice Spear and a leveled Slower Projectiles I think self cast should allow plenty of time for damage. Currently regular and blue mobs I can usually kill with only 1 cast of Ball Lightning pretty easy. What I am considering trying instead is using Knockback with Ball Lightning. That'll keep them in the Ball Lightning longer and put them in range for Ice Spear 2nd form more often... with the side benefit of being slightly safer as well.

Testing continues! I'm hoping to get to maps this weekend and see how well this shines there. So far I absolutely love this build though! It's a ton of fun to play.

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Svenn wrote:

So after some testing I might just drop the Spell Totem idea. It's slow to drop and you can't control the direction in packs so it sucks for regular mobs. It's really nice for bosses... when they don't kill it.

With a quality Ice Spear and a leveled Slower Projectiles I think self cast should allow plenty of time for damage. Currently regular and blue mobs I can usually kill with only 1 cast of Ball Lightning pretty easy. What I am considering trying instead is using Knockback with Ball Lightning. That'll keep them in the Ball Lightning longer and put them in range for Ice Spear 2nd form more often... with the side benefit of being slightly safer as well.

Testing continues! I'm hoping to get to maps this weekend and see how well this shines there. So far I absolutely love this build though! It's a ton of fun to play.

Great, thanks for the updates! Glad you're enjoying it and I'm eager to see how it turns out as I'm not getting much time to play and try it myself atm. Really good idea about knockback, hope that works out.

I am currently trying this build out and loving it. I am using curse on cast with ball lightning increased aoe and assassin's mark. I like the curse a lot but without slower projectile on ball lightnings I am finding myself having to cast ice spear and ball lightning alternating one for one. So I am thinking of dropping the curse.

My question is, what are you looking for gear-wise? I have only 4 link chest so far, but even when I get a 5L or 6L the extra links will go toward buffing ice spear. I am using wand and spirit shield as they have bonus to spell damage. If I switched to a 2h wep with 5L or 6L I can add the curse to ball lightning while not having to sacrifice slower projectile.

Also, on gear, what are you looking for Def stat-wise? Evasion and es?

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cadderly19 wrote:

I am currently trying this build out and loving it. I am using curse on cast with ball lightning increased aoe and assassin's mark. I like the curse a lot but without slower projectile on ball lightnings I am finding myself having to cast ice spear and ball lightning alternating one for one. So I am thinking of dropping the curse.

My question is, what are you looking for gear-wise? I have only 4 link chest so far, but even when I get a 5L or 6L the extra links will go toward buffing ice spear. I am using wand and spirit shield as they have bonus to spell damage. If I switched to a 2h wep with 5L or 6L I can add the curse to ball lightning while not having to sacrifice slower projectile.

Also, on gear, what are you looking for Def stat-wise? Evasion and es?

I am running Wand and Spirit Shield as well. I am running Armour/ES gear. One thing I was considering was trying to get Pledge of Hands to run Ice Spear in and then have a 5-6L chest for Ball Lightning which would allow you to run a Curse on Hit. You lose out on some of the stats from a Wand/Shield, but not much since it has 120-160% spell damage and 100% increased mana, and you end up with a very powerful Ice Spear.

Otherwise, things to look for on gear are Mana, Mana Regen, Spell Damage, Cast Speed, and of course resistances/life.

Awesome! Thank you for the advice. I will check out the pledge of hands and check up on armor/es ggear