[3.5] Scold Snap™ - a low-life league starter Cold Snap Occultist

Thanks, I'll give it a go. Looking forward to see how far I can take it!

Sitting in airport wishing I could be playing your build. Couple more hours!

Do you guys Kill all bandits? or Help Alira?

Hello ! Stupid question here...
Since we're not taking Malediction anymore, what's the point of Shavrone's ? I thought it was only useful as it allows us to use a curse aura with Blood Magic.
Or maybe I should be running blasphemy curse Enfeeble, with curse on hit frostbite and forget about the 3rd curse, Despair ?

Would it be worth it going full Energy Shield, with a build very similar to Low Life, but with CI until you get Shavs? Then you only re-spec a few points? Should this work as well?

I have a feeling that EE would be much of a hassle to proc the -50% cold res.

I might still go tri-curse with Blasphemy, Frostbite and Elemental Weakness, instead of Frigid Wake. The Malediction path would provide a much nicer clear speed. Thoughts on this? Would I be loosing too much damage against bosses?

How do you guys feel about this tree? https://pastebin.com/nbNuv9eK

Thank you very much

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cha_siu_bao wrote:

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GuyjinSan wrote:

Thank you for this wonderfully detailed guide! I'm considering using this as my league starter, do you think it is viable for SSF? I.E is the life + MoM version going to take me far enough to farm comfortably, and is getting the gear for LL version feasible without trading?

Life + MoM in SSF? For sure. EB + MoM should work too.
Will you be able to respec to low-life? It's possible, but the odds are not in your favor.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the point of Eldritch Battery? It doesn't seem like this build has mana issues, so why take the hit to energy recharge? What's the benefit over the life + MoM paradigm?

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GuyjinSan wrote:

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cha_siu_bao wrote:

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GuyjinSan wrote:

Thank you for this wonderfully detailed guide! I'm considering using this as my league starter, do you think it is viable for SSF? I.E is the life + MoM version going to take me far enough to farm comfortably, and is getting the gear for LL version feasible without trading?

Life + MoM in SSF? For sure. EB + MoM should work too.
Will you be able to respec to low-life? It's possible, but the odds are not in your favor.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the point of Eldritch Battery? It doesn't seem like this build has mana issues, so why take the hit to energy recharge? What's the benefit over the life + MoM paradigm?

Check the section about clever use of game mechanics, it's about Scold's Bridle interaction.

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GuyjinSan wrote:

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cha_siu_bao wrote:

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GuyjinSan wrote:

Thank you for this wonderfully detailed guide! I'm considering using this as my league starter, do you think it is viable for SSF? I.E is the life + MoM version going to take me far enough to farm comfortably, and is getting the gear for LL version feasible without trading?

Life + MoM in SSF? For sure. EB + MoM should work too.
Will you be able to respec to low-life? It's possible, but the odds are not in your favor.

Excuse my ignorance, but what is the point of Eldritch Battery? It doesn't seem like this build has mana issues, so why take the hit to energy recharge? What's the benefit over the life + MoM paradigm?

Good question! Feel free to disregard other guy's reply - he is either mistaken or misread "Eldritch Battery." The Scold Snap guide does not discuss EB at all.

Things you're right about:
-we don't really have mana issues on this build.
-it's hard to come up with useful ways to reserve ~100% of our mana pool
-ES recharge will be quite slow

I mention EB primarily because it allows a player to make use of the same ascendancy nodes as the low-life paradigm. The changes to ES recharge make me pretty optimistic about this build approach, but what's the benefit over life + MoM? Nothing substantial, other than saving 20 regret orbs.

Life + MoM, if you end up finishing Uber Lab before the respec, will leave you with a bit of a dilemma. Do we grab the ES ascendancy nodes, but not really make much use of them? Do we grab the curse nodes, and then eat 20 regrets when the time comes to respec?

So yeah, that's the point of EB. Try not to read too much into it - I just wanted to emphasize the fact that cold snap should be viable in a variety of flavors.

Ah true, I actually read it in the wiki and thought that is why you use EB.

"Eldritch Battery: When the Eldritch Battery keystone is allocated, any Energy Shield spent instead of mana does not count towards Scold's Bridle's damage effect."

Meaning with EB you can cast using Scold's without taking any damage from it.

There is more benefit to EB than what is mentioned above.

With MoM, damage taken is split between Life + Mana.

EB protects mana, which is effectively HP in this case. It is much easier to stack energy shield & es regen than mana & mana regen.

So we are not only able to reserve our mana pool for curses/auras without negatively impacting our EHP, but we are able to stack EHP and EHP regen easier than if we were just MoM or life.

I'm looking at about 5.5k life, 4k ES and 800 ES recharge rate on modest gear in PoB with a EB MoM setup slightly modified from Waggle (check his youtube).

https://pastebin.com/KTpBVtEG