[2.0 updated] Shmizz's hardcore perma-freeze guide

Hey there, very nice build . I am playing it atm but a little noob here, can you say your gem links ? How do you keep power charges up ?
Thank you sir

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Sachiru wrote:

Any ideas on using Glacial Cascade instead of Freezing Pulse for this build?

I haven't done any testing with glacial cascade so I can't say for sure, but my guess would be it cannot freeze mobs nearly as well as freeze pulse can. With the new changes to the way freeze works, it is no longer possible to freeze mobs with many small ticks of damage, you instead need to have a huge hit that does a relatively large chunk of damage to get any freeze effect at all. Also this build focuses mostly on elemental/cold damage which is not the best for scaling glacial cascade. Glacial cascade is part physical so the best ways to scale it are spell damage, crit, and cast speed, all of which scale both the physical and the cold.

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BigFuzz wrote:

can you say your gem links ?

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Shmizz wrote:

The ideal setup for freeze pulse is in a 6-linked +2 cold gems +1 all gems staff. This is obviously not possible for everyone so I would rank the skill gem priority as follows:
3-link: Freeze pulse - Spell totem - Hypothermia
4-link: Freeze pulse - Spell totem - Hypothermia - Cold penetration
5-link: Freeze pulse - Spell totem - Hypothermia - Cold penetration - Faster casting
6-link: Freeze pulse - Spell totem - Hypothermia - Cold penetration - Faster casting - Faster projectiles

This priority assumes that you have a relatively high quality freeze pulse gem. If you do not have a quality freeze pulse gem, faster projectiles takes priority over faster casting in your 5th link.

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BigFuzz wrote:

How do you keep power charges up ?

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Shmizz wrote:

I found it very powerful to run dual curse in a 5-link setup in my chest piece. My curse setup was
ball lightning - curse on hit - temporal chains - frostbite - power charge on critical... If you cannot afford the 5th link you can choose to either drop power charge on critical, or only use a single curse until the point when you can 5-link your chest.

Question:

Is there any sense to use FP with Rain of Splinters after shotgun nerf? As I understand, Freezing Pulse is affected by shotgun nerf so it can't do additional dmg but can still freeze the mobs?

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zaboleqqq wrote:

Question:
Is there any sense to use FP with Rain of Splinters after shotgun nerf? As I understand, Freezing Pulse is affected by shotgun nerf so it can't do additional dmg but can still freeze the mobs?

Rain of splinters is purely for the increase in aoe. With rain of splinters in you can easily hit the entire screen with two totems, without it it's a lot more difficult to position your totems to hit everything since they only fire in a line. I hit level 75 or so without having a rain of splinters at all and as I say in the guide it is definitely not mandatory, but it helps to freeze the entire pack of mobs. Rain of splinters is only a 30% damage reduction if you get a perfect roll on it which is next to nothing. If you include the opportunity cost of using a damage jewel instead of rain of splinters you still only lose about 50% increased damage and in return you hit the entire screen instead of half of it.

Have you considered running the Serpent Staff nodes instead of Storm Weaver?

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GriffoTEK wrote:

Have you considered running the Serpent Staff nodes instead of Storm Weaver?

That's definitely a good idea and it's probably better damage. I just crossed it out as a physical damage node in my head but now that I think about it I don't think there's a reason it would be less damage than storm weaver. I never got that far in the build since that's like level 90+. Good catch.

is best but
are cool too

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Shmizz wrote:

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Sachiru wrote:

Any ideas on using Glacial Cascade instead of Freezing Pulse for this build?

I haven't done any testing with glacial cascade so I can't say for sure, but my guess would be it cannot freeze mobs nearly as well as freeze pulse can. With the new changes to the way freeze works, it is no longer possible to freeze mobs with many small ticks of damage, you instead need to have a huge hit that does a relatively large chunk of damage to get any freeze effect at all. Also this build focuses mostly on elemental/cold damage which is not the best for scaling glacial cascade. Glacial cascade is part physical so the best ways to scale it are spell damage, crit, and cast speed, all of which scale both the physical and the cold.

I see. So you're essentially saying that Glacial Cascade is suboptimal on a totem then?

Sigh, the totem permafreeze dream is gone yet again.

Back in 0.11 I was running dual Ice Spear totems and was able to freeze the entire screen. I guess FP is the only way to do this then now.

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Sachiru wrote:

I see. So you're essentially saying that Glacial Cascade is suboptimal on a totem then?

Sigh, the totem permafreeze dream is gone yet again.

Back in 0.11 I was running dual Ice Spear totems and was able to freeze the entire screen. I guess FP is the only way to do this then now.

I'm not sure if glacial cascade is necessarily suboptimal on a totem, just that it is suboptimal in this specific build because we stack a lot of cold damage and elemental damage rather than things that scale glacial cascade. The best glacial cascade build out there just might be totems, I have no idea, but I doubt it will be able to perma-freeze as well as freeze pulse can right now and I think we all mourn the death of ice spear. Sad days are upon us.