[1.3.x] The Arctic GroundCoC

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Main idea

The build idea started from reading comments on reddit, posted by
bobthebastard with his Critlash GS CoC 2h staff build.

That sounded interesting, and I wanted to try it out myself after 1.3.0

In contrast to mainstream CoC builds which all scale damage with projectiole-based attacks and spells with the use of GMP, this build instead scales AoE to make Ground Slam and spells hit as many targets as possible, as well as spell crit chance in order to have better damage and elemental status effects.

There were a lot of problems at first, but most of them had been solved by now and I am quite happy how the build turned out.
It has both high clearing speed due to its massive AoE which hits most of the screen,
good singletarget / bosskilling ability with the use of Vaal skills, and fairly good survivability by being able to freeze most enemies before they become a threat.

Strengths & weaknesses

Strengths

- AoE radius is huge with over 110% increased AoE Ice Nova (20%q gem), this helps a lot with clearing
- freezing the whole screen on attack
- no problem with ele-resistant enemies due to Glacial Cascade dealing part damage as physical
- less spellspam than projectile-based CoC builds
- attacks are almost free with the manacost of less than 20, and can be made entirely free with Elreon jewelry
- more % increased spell crit chance than other projectile-based CoC builds (with gear and all crit nodes over 1000%)
- ability to use effectively any AoE elemental spells due to picking mostly spell / elemental nodes (with the exception of burn prolif due to the lack of fire / burning nodes)
- gear doesn't cost much, total cost is around 6-8 ex, can be started with a 4L
- a lot of free gem slots, can run something like 5 Vaal Stormcalls linked to Spell Echo and laugh at map bosses

Weaknesses

- somewhat low life, base Shadow variant can get 160% increased HP, more with some alterations. Witch / Tempalar will have significantly less.
- ele reflect can be dangerous, requires paying attention, especially in parties (increased enemy hp in a full party = more reflected damage)
- vulnerable when power charges are down (loosing crit consistency)
- not playable until lvl 60-65 (requires levelling with some other setup)
- in parties you are reliant on someone running Clarity, otherwise you end up out of mana due to missing kills / requiring more hits per kill. You can run Clarity yourself instead of PoI, but thise leaves you more vulnerable to reflect.

Map mods

Blood Magic - can be done if you curse with Assmark manually
Enemies are immune to curses - replace AoE gem with PCoC
-max res - not recommended as it means instant RIP on ele reflect
Ele Reflect - can't be done in a reasonable time
Half regen - annoying but doable. Not a problem with Elreon's jewelry.
No regen - doable if you bring manapots. Elreon's jewelry will also help a lot.
75% Cold res - equip Pyre ring, now all your damage is fire. If you can't equip it because of resistances, you will still be fine in most maps.

Build setup
Ice Nova is used as a main skill for clearing packs because of its huge AoE
Glacial Cascade is used as a second ice-based skill which scales with AoE in order to provide more directional damage and kill ele resistant enemies faster

The main skill setup:
4L : Ground Slam - CoC - Ice Nova - Glacial Cascade
5L : Increased AoE for clearing / Conc Effect for dangerous bosses
6L : one of Empower / ICD / ICS / LL

For bosses you can swap Ice Nova with Flamesurge, and Inc AoE gem with PCoC or Conc Effect
If you have any source of flat fire damage, no matter how small, it will still ignite enemies with Ground Slam, giving Flamesurge 50% MORE damage!

Herald of Thunder is used to deal damage and to dual-curse with an Assmark and Ele weakness.
Herald of Ice secondary effect of exploding shattered enemies is extremely useful - with increased AoE the explosion becomes large enough to affect many enemies at once,
sometimes exploding the entire pack in a domino effect after the first explosion goes off.

Herald of Thunder setup:
HoT - CoH - Assmark - Ele Weakness

Using both skills that deal cold damage allows to run Purity of Ice to help with ele reflect.
Ele reflect is dangerous, however you will not die to it if you see the aura / rare first.
Generally speaking, hitting Sapphire + Atziri flasks should be enough,
but you can manage without Sapphire if you try to attack only 1-3 enemies with reflect at a time.

You also have 4 + 3 gem slots which can be used for anything you wish.
I chose to dedicate them to Vaal Skills, and my personal setup can be seen in the gear section.

Skilltree

* Shadow - final
* Shadow lvl 90
* Shadow lvl 80

* Shadow - final - alt version with -5% life, -100% spell crit chance / +50% global crit chance, +15% crit multi

Gear selection

Helm - Rat's Nest - has everything needed for CoC build
Armour - Carcass Jack - we need as much AoE as possible
Doryani's Invitation - cold version. Needed for the 1% cold damage leech, plus a lot of ele damage.
Rings - Diamonds if possible, otherwise look for the ones wioth highest life and resists
Amulet - ideally with crit multi + high life rolls

For Gloves and Boots there are 2 variants:
1) Levelling (up to 85 or so)
Gloves - Maligaros - crit chance / multi / dex / ASP - everything that we need.
Boots - rares which can roll 4B colours, needed for HoT-CoH setup
2) Endgame
Gloves - rares which can roll 4B colours, needed for HoT-CoH setup
Boots - Atziri Step. Extra spell dodge helps against reflect, pushing spell dodge to 46%, and combined with Vaal Grace can give you 80% spell dodge, allowing to dodge almost all spells for a shot time.

Weapons
Main weapon - a scepter with Vagan's signature mod "Hit's can't be evaded". Ideally mastercrafted with Elreron's mod.
Offhand weapon - a dagger with 80% implicit crit chance, 80+% spell crit chance and some spell damage if possible.
Divinarius is an option but I decided against it because 10% increased AoE don't really make up for the loss of crit.

Weapon crafting

* Temporary weapon (cost 4 alc + aug + regal)
First, get any scepter with Vagan's mod, preferably the one with 1.4 APS.
Aug it, then regal. Now you have a scepter with some 2 random mods which can be useful or not.
After that, mastercraft local weapon crit chance on it. Done!

The weapon I used up to lvl 80:

* Properly crafted weapon (cost is many regals + 2ex + some alcs and a few chaos)
Get as many scepters with Vagan's mod as possible. Buy them from other players for a fusing or two each.
Regal all of them. Yes, regal, don't aug first.
Now, look if it has exactly one or two of the following mods:
Increased Spell damage / Increased Critical Strike Chance / Increased Attack Speed
If it doesn't - its bricked, vendor.
If the sceptre has one mod from the list, and some other random mod - its bricked - you may dispose of it.
If it does have exactly one or two mods from the list, decide if you are happy with the roll(s).
I was fortunate to roll 19% attack speed, which is higher than what can be crafted with masters, so I used that scepter as a base.
For example, if it rolled something like 10% increased spell damage I would have vendored it.

Now, when you have the scepter with 1 / 2 needed mods, first apply Elreon's "Can have multiple crafted mods" metamod.
Next, craft all the missing mods from this list:
- Increased Attack Speed (Vagan's crafting bench)
- Increased Critical Strike Chance (Vagan's crafting bench)
- Increased Spell damage (Alira's crafting bench)
- 1% of Cold damage leeched as life (Alira's crafting bench)

You should end up with something like this:

Stats

Defense

Offense (7 power charges, HoI, HoT)

Ground Slam

Glacial Cascade

Ice Nova

Vaal Stormcall

Vaal Flameblast

Vaal Molten Shell

Current Gear

Possible alterations to play on HC (untested!!!)

- always carry a Sapphire flask for reflect
- use Saffel's Frame shield on offhand instead of dagger
- if possible, corrupt a PoI to lvl 21 and use a lvl 2 Empower with it in order to get 1% more max cold res
- use Belly of The Beast instead of Carcass Jack (somewhat hard to chrome though, needs 3 off)

Bandits

Norm: Oak
Cruel: Krait
Merc: Alira

Videos

* Dry Peninsula (lvl 73 map)
* Precinct (76 map)

F.A.Q.
- Why not just use a Doryani's Catalyst / *insert and other weapon name here*?
- "Hits can't be evaded" mod is essential to have 100% chance to hit without any accuracy

- Why not use a Divinarius?
- You can use it, but in my opinion 10% increased AoE is not worth loosing crit chance compared to a good rare dagger.

- What about using Cold Snap?
- it consumes power charges way too fast, leaving you with no charges most of the time, which makes it incredibly dangerous to run with

- How do you run on mana without any mana regen?
- "x mana gained on kill" mod from jewelry. Yes, I am serious. For low cost attacks it is actually very useful and covers all your mana needs. Alternative approach is to use Elreon's jewelry - this will allow you to get free or almost free attacks, but is somewhat expensive to craft.
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If you have any questions / suggestions / critique feel free to share.