Trying to get Herald of Ice sorted out in Doryani's....maybe...

Alright, this could get interesting, so here goes:

I'm playing as a Glacial Hammer based build utilizing stacked crit chance/multiplier, proliferate, and splash




I'm using Herald of Ice, Hatred, and Herald of Thunder. If I have Elemental proliferation linked to my main skill, which is already causing freezing/shocking to proliferate, then am I wasting mana reserve/gem slots (can replace Herald of Ice back into my boots with Hatred and Herald of Thunder as I had been using it prior) by linking Herald of Ice with Cold Penetration in my Doryani's?



My thought was that because a lot of mobs are shattering (causing the freezing proliferation of Glacial Hammer to cease), then the aoe cold explosion dealt from Herald of Ice would further proliferate to the surrounding mobs that become unfrozen/chilled and cause a chain reaction, providing further safety to my relatively squishy melee build (4.2k life and 42% shield block at the moment). Would I be better off using Increased AOE, rather than Cold Penetration in the Doryani's? I know that the amount of cold damage dealt to mobs determines the duration of the chilled/freeze status effects, hence my using Cold Penetration rather than Increased AOE, but where my misunderstanding lies is in exactly how Herald of Ice works (specifically the aoe ice explosion). I have the %increased aoe radius nodes in the witch area of the tree and the increased aoe from the Carcass Jack, but I am also under the impression that the %increased aoe from the Carcass Jack does not apply to Elemental Proliferation, which is where the Increased AOE gem might be more suitable. Thanks in advance for any input.

The difference doesn't seem to be game breaking, but the increased aoe gem does appear to be more useful than the cold penetration in this instance. Still interested in reading someone else's thoughts behind this concept though.

since your already using a cold penatration gem in your 5 link i would say using the increased aoe would help with herald of ice. since your getting penetration from your main attack and just using the benefit of hoi with the explosion. to spread it better. but if you were going to rely on hoi for the damage then penetrating would help.

it all depends on how you want it to work if you just want more damage that hurts more pen will, aoe only takes that damage and increases the range of it. so just do what you feel works.

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Phish wrote:

since your already using a cold penatration gem in your 5 link i would say using the increased aoe would help with herald of ice. since your getting penetration from your main attack and just using the benefit of hoi with the explosion. to spread it better. but if you were going to rely on hoi for the damage then penetrating would help.

it all depends on how you want it to work if you just want more damage that hurts more pen will, aoe only takes that damage and increases the range of it. so just do what you feel works.

Hey, thanks for the feedback. I did some trial and error testing at the expense of some chromatics and removed HOI from my Doryani's and replaced it in a shield with Reduced Mana and Increased Area of Effect. I'm already dealing 26k on my character's tooltip with Glacial Hammer, so damage isn't much of an issue (47k when I swap out Elemental Proliferation with Crit Multiplier and Melee Splash with Melee Physical Damage for bosses). I noticed that the level 20 Elemental Proliferation that Doryani's grants also adds to the mana reserved, so by doing so freed up about 100 mana from my mana reserve (I have about 400 or so mana left unreserved now while using Hatred, HOI, and HOT). I decided to give Cast When Damage Taken + Ice Nova into the Doryani's to profilerate some chilling effect between mob packs to provide some manner of protection while running in between mobs (some protection while Glacial Hammer isn't proliferating freezes), although I can't quite confirm that it's adequate yet. Since I've already got a bit of aoe from my combination of gear and skill tree, perhaps I might have better success using a higher level Cast When Damage Taken + Cold Snap + Cold Penetration in the Doryani's? Might test that out today...