[1.2][Beyond] EB + CoD + 4 curse Crit Ice Nova

Hi everyone
I'm attempting the following build in upcoming Beyond league:

Main idea:
1. Deliver 4 curses with 2x4 links Ice Nova + Curse on hit + (Temporal Chains + Warlords Mark) / (Assasins Mark + Elemental Weakness)
2. Freeze & kill everything with 6 link Ice Nova
3. ???
4. Profit

Explenation:
Eldrich Battery + Cloak of Defiance provides a lot of mana - so I'm able to run AA and my life pool is efficiently 66% higher
Curse on hit now curses with 100% frequency so the strategy is as follows: run near mobs, cast defensive Ice Nova + CoH + WM + TC, cast offensive Ice Nova + CoH + AM + EW.
Proceed to freeze + kill everything.
Warlords Mark (patch notes say the leech affects all damage) + Catarina craft "1% of Cold Damage Leeched as Life" = Maybe I'm able to drop life leach gem.
Assassins Mark (now grant's power charges) = no need of power charge on critical
Temporal Chains = Additional defense
Elemental Weakness / Enfeeble = offence or defense

Tree:
Need input on that:

98 point build + power charge

Final 119 points + power charge

Core items:
Cloak of Defiance
Windscream
Dodre's Damning

Additional items:
Doryani's Invitation
Doryani's Catalyst

Links:
4L: Ice Nova 20q + Curse on hit + Temporal Chains + Warlords Mark
4L: Ice Nova 20q + Curse on hit + Assasins Mark + Elemental Weakness/Enfeeble
4L: Reduced Mana + Discipline + Clarity + Herald of Ice
6L: Ice Nova + Concentrated Effect + Spell Echo + Life Leech + Added Cold Damage + Increased Critical Damage (test if can drop life leech)
3L: AA + Enhance + Empower
3L: CwDT + Enduring Cry + Immortal Call

Please critique this build! :)

Very cool idea. My biggest concern is the lack of life. It looks like you're close to some life nodes, so you could consider dropping breath of rime and fingers of frost for more life. I'm not sure how useful the freeze chance is with a crit build (15% chance to freeze is 7.5% additional freeze chance when you already have 50% crit chance) and if you're using temp chains I don't think the freeze duration is necessary. On top of that, you're going to struggle to get life on gear by running CoD, Windscream, and Doedre's.

What are your thoughts on the new poacher's mark and would it be worth considering for one of your 4 curses?

Cool idea with the curse on hit, I might steal that one : ), I'd suggest using a cold pen on your main ice nova spell though. Perhaps something like ice nova/cold pen/added cold/faster casting/spell echo/xx for 6 link (maybe crit damage if you're going that route). You won't see any dps increase when using cold pen, but the mobs that are really hard to kill like rares/resist ele etc will go down much faster using this gem over any other gem in the game.

I think conc effect is highly over-rated on ice nova. All the other gems I listed will be similar dps, maybe conc effect adds 500 more damage or something over added cold, but you lose so much aoe. I think pre spell echo conc effect would be better but now theres so many good gems with faster casting/echo/cold pen/added cold etc.

I generally think regular ice nova is a lot better than crit ice nova. Crit ice novas main weakness is vs reflect. Because you are hitting so many enemies at once, and if you crit and you just crit like 30-40 enemies whatever you can literally one shot yourself on reflect. The damage may be slightly better with crit but the down side is so huge that I generally stay away from it.

For reference, I've played ice nova the past 3 ladder seasons all the way up to 75+ maps. It's a pretty good skill but I think this season it may be one of the best, mostly due to how the new skill tree is designed with all those cold nodes/easier to access double curse and herald of ice.

Hope some of this information will help you with your build for the new season, and good luck!

One more thing, what do you have in mind for single target? Killing bosses with ice nova is probably going to make you want to quit the game.

Quick notes from testing in standard:
5 link 84lvl, mediocre items: ice nova has 7k dps with:

+ Items that contribute to dmg:


First what I think is wrong:
- Casting 2 separate ice novas for cursing. I'm thinking of dropping Warlord's Mark and Windscream for Maligaro's Virtuosity corrupted with Elemental Curse on hit.
- Why dropping Warlord's Mark - you sometimes don't have time to cast 2 ice novas and than start leeching, so you can't drop life leech from main spell (can't check Catarina leech craft yet). Also this would free one 4 link.
- Concentrated Effect makes Ice Nova radius too small for comfort. And play style is awkward if you have to run inside a group of mobs.
- I have too little life. Got 1 shot on 71 lvl map by Brutus boss.
- Had to freeze a group of mobs than run around towards rare with "alies cannot die".

Pros:
- Everything melts fast. Even bosses - and you can almost freeze lock them.
- No need for PCoC - Assassins Mark work's great.
- I don't think I need Cold penetration because: monsters have less resistances, and curses provide penetration (especially with CoH and passives boost)
- Tried running into middle of reflect pack, no flask up, no purity - didn't die but it was close.

"

DucksHaveLowAPM wrote:

Quick notes from testing in standard:
5 link 84lvl, mediocre items: ice nova has 7k dps with:

+ Items that contribute to dmg:

Spoiler

First what I think is wrong:
- Casting 2 separate ice novas for cursing. I'm thinking of dropping Warlord's Mark and Windscream for Maligaro's Virtuosity corrupted with Elemental Curse on hit.
- Why dropping Warlord's Mark - you sometimes don't have time to cast 2 ice novas and than start leeching, so you can't drop life leech from main spell (can't check Catarina leech craft yet). Also this would free one 4 link.
- Concentrated Effect makes Ice Nova radius too small for comfort. And play style is awkward if you have to run inside a group of mobs.
- I have too little life. Got 1 shot on 71 lvl map by Brutus boss.
- Had to freeze a group of mobs than run around towards rare with "alies cannot die".

Pros:
- Everything melts fast. Even bosses - and you can almost freeze lock them.
- No need for PCoC - Assassins Mark work's great.
- I don't think I need Cold penetration because: monsters have less resistances, and curses provide penetration (especially with CoH and passives boost)
- Tried running into middle of reflect pack, no flask up, no purity - didn't die but it was close.

curses don't provide penetration vs the mobs that actually need it unless you are cursing a shit ton. Resist elemental mobs have 120+ resists so its hard to break through it. Cold pen automatically penetrates the resist no matter how high they are. Basically put any support gem in, does it add 35% more damage? if not then cold pen is better. Like I said its not going to make your tooltip dps higher but who really gives a shit, its 35% more damage which is pretty much unmatched by any other gem you could put in, AND it helps vs those annoying resist elemental mobs.