3.7 In-Depth Ice Golems Guide - Snowybois - On Hiatus for 3.8

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notzizka wrote:

I've been running this build this league, thought I would post some of my experiences and observations.

As of last night, have cleared Red Elder, Shaper, and Uber Elder in legion. Shaper is buggy in the Uber Elder fight and teleports around a lot, but it isn't too much of an issue for us. Had about 4500 life + 2000 mana MoM at the time of the fight.

I've been running no auras (auras in my links are just being leveled), no Immortal Call or Molten Shell. This has been out of sheer laziness, I was originally looking into pathing to Phase Acrobatics and using Immortal Call, but I believe I will instead try to stack a decent amount of armor and use Vaal Molten Shell.

MoM + clayshaper/victario's has been feeling good, my damage is more than fine. My biggest issue by far is mana regeneration, even running zero mana reservations. With the loss of the mana nodes behind MoM, we have 3 extra points to spend, so I put 2 into Dreamer for more regen. I think I may invest into the regen nodes by Templar start as well.

I have also been switching between Flame Golems and Ice Golems testing clear speed and ability to handle legion. Right now. I feel like I can break out many more legion mobs with flame golems, but I think that Ice Golems may pull ahead with the right gear and gem levels.

Overall, the build feels really good this league, the primordial cards have turned this into a very affordable league starter build (I leveled as Storm Brand + Lightning Spire and respecced mid saturday). This build can definitely now kill uber elder on a 1ex~ budget if you level your own gems.

If anyone has any ideas for improving the mana regen situation let me know.

edit: Wanted to add that Vaal Legion encounters feel severely overtuned especially on high tier maps due to the dreaded "red cloud" ability. It's not uncommon for all 9 of my golems to be instantly wiped out instantly when the mobs break free. I would expect this to get retuned in a week or two.

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notzizka wrote:

Nice to see other people are liking the cyclone CWC setup as well.

Last night I started using Flesh and Blood, mostly staying in sand stance for the extra defense, and using Vaal Molten Shell. Stacking golem buffs + MoM + fortify + blood and sand + molten shell feels amazing. I can just cyclone through packs on t15/16 maps and my life barely moves. At this point I barely have any armor on my gear, I think just about 11k buffed mostly from flasks, and Vaal Molten Shell gives me over 7k shield, normal MS around 2k. Just to test I ate a t16 volatile explosion to the face with VMS up and my life bar did not move, lost about 3k of my shield.
I would definitely say that VMS is worth it for any version of this build using at least a granite flask/Rumi's.

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notzizka wrote:

I am not using phase acrobatics, I'm not sure if it would be better to try and stack evasion of armor with phase acrobatics right now. In that situation Immortal Call might be the better choice just for a little extra damage reduction.
That being said, if you went as deep into armor as you reasonably can with Phase Acrobatics, I think you could still pull off close to 4k VMS and 1-1.5k MS shields, which is non-negligible.

I currently have VMS linked with increased duration, but I don't think it's needed if you're good with timing it. You also get a much shorter soul gain prevention period without it. VMS is a base of 9, and lasts around 16seconds with my current level increased duration. MS has only a 3 second duration, so it's more important to not use it mindlessly. VMS lasts long enough that you can use it far in advance when you know you're going into a bad situation, like a Betrayal or Legion encounter.

I do want to mention that I'm at a point where I'm not only socket starved, but keybind starved. My version of this build is complicated and far removed from a one-button build. I may end up using one, maybe two Unset rings just to free up some slots, and maybe try to stick convocation on a CWDT link. I prefer managing it myself, but I'm just out of buttons at this point.