[3.0] Balance - A CwC Frostbolt EE MoM VP guide

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Gaidin85 wrote:

Why do you socket in increased critical strikes if using controlled destruction means we have 0% crit chance?

Ugh nevermind, cannot reduce below 5% and I am guess increased critical helps offset it?

Welp, you partially answered your question. It's true, you cannot lower a spell gem's crit chance to below the innate crit value (Unless you use Resolute Technique).

I put ICS as an option for 6 link, but moving forward with the build I believe that empower is best. Simply because 5 blue and 1 red sockets allows us to swap out a life leech gem for reflect content / hard content. It just gives the build more flexibility, and the damage loss isn't so bad.

Always have options!
Cheers

So one more question, looking at the tree you take Vaal Pact but where does the Life Leech come from?

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Gaidin85 wrote:

So one more question, looking at the tree you take Vaal Pact but where does the Life Leech come from?

We run a CwDT with Warlord's Mark most of the time, meaning that we leech whenever we take any damage. This has felt good enough for me and I haven't felt the need to improve on that.

And again, when we decide to swap in Life Leech.

Hey, first off: nice build. I'm enjoying it mechanically and enjoy the interaction with Frostbolt/Storm Burst/EE.

That said, I was looking at your tree to find where I can squeeze in more life (because I suck and die), and I noticed that if you took out 4 of your 5% nodes from the Constitution wheel, you could pick up the four nodes in Written in Blood and you end up with more health (and energy shield and strength).

4 5% nodes = 20% increased maximum life.

vs

3 Life and Energy Nodes (4% increased max life, 5% increased ES) = 12% life, 15% energy shield
+
Written in Blood = 8% Life, 10% ES, +10 Strength
=
20% increased Life, 25% ES, 10 Str (which is +5 base life)

So it's a little more life because of the strength, and if you're using any ES then that's a bonus as well.

More life seems good. I also wonder if you could stack Energy Shield instead and go with Chaos Inoculation?

Been curious as well as to why we stack crit in this build vs staking more +% to elemental damage?


Thanks for responding to us by the way, that's pretty cool and this build has been great for me so far!

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Gaidin85 wrote:

More life seems good. I also wonder if you could stack Energy Shield instead and go with Chaos Inoculation?

Been curious as well as to why we stack crit in this build vs staking more +% to elemental damage?


Thanks for responding to us by the way, that's pretty cool and this build has been great for me so far!

CI is significantly harder to do now with Vaal Pact changed to no longer work with ES leech.

Crit + Crit multiplier adds more bang for your buck than straight damage. Assuming you can get your crit chance high enough (which this does; especially on a 6l)

Oh I did not realize Vaal Pact no longer worked with Leech. Interesting. Good to know about Crit as well. Thank you! :-D

Pyro, thanks for answering some questions while I was away...

Vaal Pact does not work with ES leech anymore, that is correct. However I do want to note that thee is at least 1 interaction that would enable ES leech still, and that is Soul Tether. However, that is a different build for a different time.

As for Written in Blood / Constitution, yes you can certainly pick it up and at one point in the build I favored it (Because I wanted to pick up Doom Cast as well), but I opted out of traveling through there for crit and instead chose to pick up the Whirling Barrier / Counterweight cluster. For me, it was either/or, but in some theoretical optimized build both are completely viable and could be in the build.

For the PathofBuilding pathing percentages, every point beyond the Devotion wheel amounted to a 1.7% increase in damage, which looked like this:

+10 Strength (5 hp, EHP 13)
+12% Chance to block
26444.3 Total DPS
7.47% Effective crit chance
30% crit multi

Versus the written in blood route:

80 Total life
+10 Strength
+10 Intelligence
188061 Total DPS (1.1% per point)
5.68% Effective crit chance
15% crit multi

In the end, I favored the 12% block chance (Didn't factor in power charges at all tbh) as it provides more 'estimated hit points' overall to the build than flat percentages. In your comparison, you considered constitution wheel points versus written in blood, and I totally agree that works also. Building though, I held the two crit clusters against each other.

Dropping 4 points in constitution for written sounds fine.

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Gaidin85 wrote:

Been curious as well as to why we stack crit in this build vs staking more +% to elemental damage?

What elemental increases to damage that make sense to pick up have already been incorporated into the build, however nothing scales as well as crit multi. In order to see this build become viable end-game, it has to have high crit. Since we're not assassins, we don't get a bunch for free. And devoting more energy into acquiring power charges was really expensive build budget wise, I didn't see a really good way of doing so automated. My builds always try to make things 'flow' well, I don't care if a build does 10 million damage if it's clunky and terrible to play. Counter-point, it also has to be capable of clearing most of the content or else what's the point. Especially for casters, one-button gameplay is ideal, two at most. I don't see us running assassin's mark anytime soon, however if I could that would be the first thing I would achieve.

I initially ran whispers of doom, but getting a +1 amulet was easy enough. those extra 4 points were really handy. Heart of Flame, Storm Weaver, and the Celestial wheel were all considered for budget / damage ratios. My tree was the product of testing those and how much they cost, and this was the result that made the most sense to me. Of course you're welcome to experiment. Take the build in new directions if something suits you, by all means.

Cheers

Does anyone have a good feel for the ceiling of the build. Does it have good enough single target and defenses for guardians and shaper (w/o spending more than 3 ex)?