[Beyond] K19's CI Crit Ice Spear - Perma Freeze Bosses (10k+ ES)

Damn dude this is an awesome build. Been thinking about running Ice Spear for a few weeks and seeing this pushed me to actually doing it. Don't have any questions yet just wanted to say thanks for the guide!

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Dmillz wrote:

Damn dude this is an awesome build. Been thinking about running Ice Spear for a few weeks and seeing this pushed me to actually doing it. Don't have any questions yet just wanted to say thanks for the guide!

No worries, Hopefully I will be adding more detail soon - might finally record a video tonight of me freezing bosses and clearing maps.

If you have any questions you can drop them in here so everyone can see the Q/A, or PM me :D

K19

Updated with personal freeze information.

Videos are being added

I laughed so hard watching those videos. That's ridiculous. Also great music BTW!

I'm doing a similar build, CI ice spear

I'm only level 50 right now but it's a lot of fun, 3400 ES in A3 Cruel

You should try using Blood Rage. Free 15% cast speed!

Running a crit ice spear life build mom/aa, no power charges and it still owns. Love ice spear and freeze is OP.

I like running cold penetration constantly instead of increased critical damage.

The breakpoint varies with resistance but multiplier diminishing returns eventually kick in and cold pen will provide longer freeze - useful for hexproof monsters/maps if you rely on curses.
(approx breakpoints: 200% increased multiplier for 0% resistance, 60% increased multiplier for 50% resistance)

Only downside is an additional green socket instead of blue, added cold (HUGE damage boost) is the lmp/gmp switch in for bosses.


Suggestion to players for reflect:
- cast slower
- Q10 freeze pulse + echo + faster cast + iir. If you can spare the slots, this is where FP's fading damage actually helps prevent one shotting yourself, finish off frozen unique monsters with it for bonus iir
- Saph flask

Suggestions for leveling: don't forget the freeze duration nodes, they are important.

freeze = 10sec * (1 + freeze_duration%) * [baseDMG * (1+dmg%) * 1.5 * (1+mult%) / monsterhp] * (1 - monster_resist% + coldpen/ele_weak/frostbite%)

if freeze < 0.3sec then no freeze occurs
if freeze occurs, multiply duration by 1.4 if using temporal chains
monsterhp value doesn't change with party size ftw

-After some dmg% and multiplier% increases, you'll get diminishing return.
-You can get dmg%, cast speed, crit chance, and multiplier from gems/gear - you can ONLY get freeze duration from tree. (EDIT - correction per k19: You can also get freeze duration from quality frostbite, quality ele prolif and from the catarina craft (10-20%) on chests)
-The equation can be helpful as general guidance for weighing which element to increase next.

Helpful notes:
Freeze immune: Atziri, Abaxoth, the gmp ice spear beyond a-hole
Temporal chain provides 1.4 freeze multiplier at any level thus could be linked to a lvl 1 cwdt for some auto cursing
Chance to freeze is worthless, don't waste 2 skill points completing fingers of frost cluster

Thanks for the input icemltr, but I really have to disagree regarding break points, freeze duration is based off the proportion of the monsters HP you deal in the hit, more damage = longer freeze, obviously if no-one in your party curses then cold pen is multiplicative, and would be better than other supports. But with a high quality ele weakness you take 50+ resistance (use enhance lvl 2-3) so the need for cold pen is pretty redundant when one curse is twice as effective.

Crit multi is pretty much where damage is scaled off for this build, as assassins mark also multiplys your multiplier by 1.4 at lvl 20.

Regarding reflect. Maybe with a life based build this is important , but the whole point of going ci is that this becomes a mild annoyance rather than a big issue.

You can also get freeze duration from quality frostbite, quality ele prolif and from the catarina craft (10-20%) on chests

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Dmillz wrote:

You should try using Blood Rage. Free 15% cast speed!

Thanks, I'll add this to guide. I personally don't need it due to conduit party members!