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

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Vultighjime wrote:

Preferred gear

Chest: Cloak of Defiance (required)

Helmet: Mindspiral unique, or rare (life, mana, resists, ES)

Gloves: rare (life, mana, resists, ES, strength, dexterity)

Boots: rare (movement speed, life, mana, resists, ES)

Belt: rare (life, mana, resists, ES)

Shield: rare (life, mana, resists, ES, spell damage, mana regen)

Wand: rare (spell damage, cast speed, crit chance, cold damage)

Rings: rare (life, mana, mana regen (50+%), resists, ES, crit chance, strength, dexterity)

Amulet: rare (life, mana, mana regen, resists, crit multiplier, strength, dexterity)

Note about numbers of affixes: try to get items with 5 or fewer affixes, so you can craft onto them, and try to get 1% cold leech on everything (not sure which items can get this affix).

If going for block and spell block: use Rathpith Globe shield and Rainbowstride boots. These are kind of expensive so they are an optional luxury.

Finally keep in mind this is all off the top of my head so it's possible some of those affixes don't spawn on the item types.

[...]let me know if you have other questions, keeping in mind I'm yet to start playing this build!

I figured no one talked about the kind of defense on gear in general.
-> Which is your secondary defense besides of Life and the "manashield"?
Armor or Evasion?

CoD gives alot of Evasion so going in that direction would make sense.

However AA has a nice damage reduction that is calculated After Armor* and it motivates to stand still (unless having to evade certain spells/surrounds). Additionally Big Hits are not mitigated well by AA and should be important for Beyond, not somuch for Rampage. So here Armor would make alot of sense (for me personally).

Which have you chosen and for what reasons?

*source: http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1vm16h/question_concerning_mind_over_matter_and_arctic/

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rusher21 wrote:

Hey,

I figured no one talked about gear in general.
Which is your secondary defense besides of Life and the "manashield"?
Armor or Evasion?

CoD gives alot of Evasion so going in that direction would make sense.

However AA has a nice damage reduction that is calculated After Armor* and it motivates to stand still (unless having to evade certain spells). Additionally Big hits are not mitigated well by AA. So here Armor would make alot of sense (for me personally).

Which have you chosen and for what reasons?

*source: http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1vm16h/question_concerning_mind_over_matter_and_arctic/

I have been going Armour/Energy Shield. The defense in this build is all about mitigation of damage, not so much about evasion. Armour with AA works really well, as you mentioned. Mainly, if you go evasion there is still the chance for much larger spikes of damage and spikes can be dangerous.

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Svenn wrote:

I have been going Armour/Energy Shield. The defense in this build is all about mitigation of damage, not so much about evasion. Armour with AA works really well, as you mentioned. Mainly, if you go evasion there is still the chance for much larger spikes of damage and spikes can be dangerous.

Aight. Wouldn't it then perhaps make sense to get "Faith and Steel" over "Written in Blood" ? (both 4)

Besides I suggest Written in Blood might be less Efficient than "Melding" unless wanting to reach the PC node from Shadow. You need one extra Bridge-Node to reach Written in Blood, "Melding" lies just on the road (yes it's 5% weaker in %life but you save one Passive point which could be used to reach another Notable).


Others:
What about "Amplify", it costs 1 point and gives 12% increased area?

How important is the 2% Cold Penetration in the top?

What speaks against Power Charges with ice spear? The very high crit chance should guarantee decent maintenance, unless facing single melee bosses, or?

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rusher21 wrote:

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Svenn wrote:

I have been going Armour/Energy Shield. The defense in this build is all about mitigation of damage, not so much about evasion. Armour with AA works really well, as you mentioned. Mainly, if you go evasion there is still the chance for much larger spikes of damage and spikes can be dangerous.

Aight. Wouldn't it then perhaps make sense to get "Faith and Steel" over "Written in Blood" ? (both 4)

Besides I suggest Written in Blood might be less Efficient than "Melding" unless wanting to reach the PC node from Shadow. You need one extra Bridge-Node to reach Written in Blood, "Melding" lies just on the road (yes it's 5% weaker in %life but you save one Passive point which could be used to reach another Notable).


Others:
What about "Amplify", it costs 1 point and gives 12% increased area?

How important is the 2% Cold Penetration in the top?

What speaks against Power Charges with ice spear? The very high crit chance should guarantee decent maintenance, unless facing single melee bosses, or?

The problem with Faith and Steel is that there is no life on it. I suppose dropping life wouldn't be the worst thing since you've got your mana pool as effective health... but I was trying not to go too low.

Melding could work. It's 1 passive point difference for 10 intelligence, 10 strength, and 5% life. I'll have to look and see if there's something we could pick up that might make up for that.

As for the Cold Penetration... it's helpful against mobs with really high cold resist, but we do have Cold Penetration linked anyway. I think if you're going the Spell Totem route then stacking Cold damage is best, so definitely keep that. If you are going self cast Ball Lightning... then we might be able to drop that whole tree to pick up some more generic Elemental/Spell Damage and grab Freeze for some freeze chance.

Actually, since you mentioned crit... yes this build could work with crit. In fact, if you want to drop the Cold Damage specific nodes and pick up some Crit instead that might not be a bad idea. You could get some shocks out of Ball Lightning and more crits/crit damage from Ice Spear.

As for power charges: how are you generating them? You COULD link Power Charge on Crit to Ice Spear, but that's one less spot for a damage support on it and it's going to crit in second form pretty often anyway. Do you have a suggestion on a good way to generate power charges? We could potentially go for Annihilation, Arcane Potency, or Doom Cast in place of the cold damage then.

EDIT: Here's a build with crit in place of cold damage (ignoring power charges):

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Svenn wrote:

As for power charges: how are you generating them? You COULD link Power Charge on Crit to Ice Spear, but that's one less spot for a damage support on it and it's going to crit in second form pretty often anyway.

EDIT: Here's a build with crit in place of cold damage (ignoring power charges):
[..]

Thanks. Yes PCoC, building up the charges on Range, and even if monsters come close you will then have already built up PCs. Just a suggestion. The question is what is more damge in the result, since PCs also increase your chances to shock and you get 4% * 7 increased Spell damage with 7 PCs.
I mainly ask this, because every single PC-node is just 1 or 2 points away.

Unfortunately i have not much time to play, but I can look at the Passive Tree at work ^_^
Here is a small optimization for your crit build:
99 points (instead of 101):


or 101 points, but more values:


Here is a small optimization for original build on the first page -> 99 (instead of 100):

Incase you don't have enough Dex, grab Alacitry, and with 101 points you have +10 intelligence and +10 dexterity vs the old build.

Here is a 101 Suggestion with Power Charge: Note the +30% Shock Duration (costs 1 point)

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rusher21 wrote:

"

Svenn wrote:

As for power charges: how are you generating them? You COULD link Power Charge on Crit to Ice Spear, but that's one less spot for a damage support on it and it's going to crit in second form pretty often anyway.

EDIT: Here's a build with crit in place of cold damage (ignoring power charges):
[..]

Thanks. Yes PCoC, building up the charges on Range, and even if monsters come close you will then have already built up PCs. Just a suggestion. The question is what is more damge in the result, since PCs also increase your chances to shock and you get 4% * 7 increased Spell damage with 7 PCs.
I mainly ask this, because every single PC-node is just 1 or 2 points away.

Unfortunately i have not much time to play, but I can look at the Passive Tree at work ^_^
Here is a small optimization for your crit build:
99 points (instead of 101):

Spoiler

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAvYJXK_6z6QLfim0ZakPAVAj0vOofxy2LK3iCEN-wHNzbC4Ief8ZJUfDVBx6VLlXGg9s6WDbpFm8kqmHiJpVVS8u9UEItR4w242oRlipTYpWycLQMkycHYyycFr9Eq1Wuj6ZG113GtQThc-0gBVuLjGBt3fODOJ2AogAUTfAfAnEEsxps5CKYrSj6V8kNfOq6U1JFnZrg6-756ILHRUcy0biT0PVBlgVCTLMEB66zXyrr5Lb696aOZLjKO3wPxKKjwfNrF5Ug

or 101 points, but more values:

Spoiler

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAvYJXK_6z6QLfim0ZakPAVAj0vOofxy2LK3iCEN-wHNzbC4Ief8ZJUfDVBx6VLlXGg9s6WDbpFm8kqmHiJpVVS8u9UEItR4w242oRlipTYpWycLQMkycHYyycFr9Eq1Wuj6ZG113GtQThc-0gBVuLjGBt3fODOJ2AogAUTfAfAnEEsxps5CKYrSj6V8kNfOq6U1JFnZrg6-756ILHRUcy0biT0PVBlgVCTLMEB66zXyrr5Lb696aOZKKjwfNrF5UgDkhw1V3yidNwUg==

Here is a small optimization for original build on the first page -> 100 (instead of 101):

Spoiler

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAvYJXK_6z6QLfim0ZakPAVAj0vOofxy2LK3iCEN-wHNzbC4IewcV_xklR8NUHHpUuVcaD2zpYF1RMLRSwrJg26RZvJKoRD2HiJpVVS8u9UEItR4w2Xyp0Vd-EAv7jahGWKlNilbJwtAyTJwdjIoGeoVZKjjwsnBa_RKtVro-mRtddxrUE4XPtIAVbi4xgbd3zgzidgKIAFE3wHwJxBLMabOQimK0o-lfJDXzqulNSRZ2a4Ovu-eiCx0VHMtG4k58BoqPB82sXlSA=

Incase you need that Dex, grab Alacitry, and with 101 points you have +10 intelligence and +10 dexterity vs the old build.

Here is a 101 Suggestion with Power Charge: Note the +30% Shock Duration (costs 1 point)

Spoiler

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAVyv-s-kC34ptGb2CH8ctiyycK3jQ9UGWBUJMs66zBAdfKuvkVcaD22pDwFQI9Lzq2wuCHsHzjDZQQi1HHNx_xqKjy70HY2HiVUsmlRa_EZZJUfDVlS4HHg5IXfJwUonTcNUqU2KVsnC0DJMnDXzqupitKPpXyfnogsdTUkWdmuDr7kbXXca1BEVHMtG4k4uM4XPtIAVbYG3d86IAFE2DOJ2AAnEEs_Tp5CIabONqNukkqhZvaxeVIN-wghDbXlAwY0MpT4KbhX0WQA==

Thanks, those are some nice optimizations. :)

Here's an idea for building power charges:
CWDT->Ice Spear (a second one)->Power Charge on Crit

This will build power charges automatically without wasting a slot... but is a little bit less reliable.

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Svenn wrote:

Here's an idea for building power charges:
CWDT->Ice Spear (a second one)->Power Charge on Crit

I call that an idea! I assume you can let Icespear on level 1, PCoC on level 20, and then only need CwDt level 1 since PCoC is linked to Icespear (???), which will then trigger every 440 damage taken. I understood it's less unreliable and just an idea. The qustion is, it worth to skill PC-nodes if it isn't that reliable.
-Is there another spell that has a very high critchance?

ps: fixed a small error in the previous post: "original" is 100 points, so the optimization is 99

btw: Since the optimized build wanders to EB first, - incase you might not know - you can break links later on (when there is a new bridge else where), i tested it myself while people in the chat told new players that you can't.

btw2 Leveling: 3 Points into "Alchemy" (better Flasks) can really help over bad gear (remove them later), especially with MoM (cloak of defiance). This is regarding to "State of Exile Podcast Ep: 13"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whgCHQJSqjE

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rusher21 wrote:

"

Svenn wrote:

Here's an idea for building power charges:
CWDT->Ice Spear (a second one)->Power Charge on Crit

I call that an idea! I assume you can let Icespear on level 1, PCoC on level 20, and then only need CwDt level 1 since PCoC is linked to Icespear (???), which will then trigger every 440 damage taken. I understood it's less unreliable and just an idea. The qustion is, it worth to skill PC-nodes if it isn't that reliable.
-Is there another spell that has a very high critchance?

ps: fixed a small error in the previous post: "original" is 100 points, so the optimization is 99

btw: Since the optimized build wanders to EB first, - incase you might not know - you can break links later on (when there is a new bridge else where), i tested it myself while people in the chat told new players that you can't.

btw2 Leveling: 3 Points into "Alchemy" (better Flasks) can really help over bad gear (remove them later), especially with MoM (cloak of defiance). This is regarding to "State of Exile Podcast Ep: 13"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whgCHQJSqjE

Yeah, level 1 CWDT and whatever level Ice Spear is compatible, then max PCoC. It would have to be tested to see how often it can keep up Power Charges to see if the nodes are worth it. I can't think of another spell that would crit nearly as often.

I did know about breaking links. Thanks. :)

Ok, I didn't think it was possible to get PCoC max with Cwdt 1, so again really nice idea! Just a little sad, that space is sparce.

I don't know wether you now go with crit or not, but I thought I share a small improvement again:
You can save 2 bridges [ 10 int, 10 strength ], and get Freeze, but overall it costs 1 point more, however much more values [ 28% cold damage, 5% freeze ]. The tree is addicting

Ive been running this build for a little bit in beyond in a two person party. I have been running a 4 link with Ice Spear, Cold Pen, LMP and PoC(havent gotten Spell Echo yet). So far I am level 52 and things have been going pretty good. I am about to get EE and looking forward to messing with it as I've never played an EE character before. Currently I am holding off on EB until I can get some armor with more life rolls - currently have 600 ES and not looking forward to losing that with ~1600 life.

Does Cloak of Defiance make a significant difference in terms of survivability? Not sure i'll accumulate enough currency to get it. It looks like its just a quality of life equip to give you more mana with EB and a slight incoming damage reduction, but just wanted to make sure.