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

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oregoncrete wrote:

I think if Aegis is cheap, it'll be an easy option to slot in unless you get a better rare. As for Rime Gaze, you'd also lose the QOL from Scolds autocast. I think Rime is solid for Life-Mom before going LL.

Agreed on both counts. Fingers crossed that the shield doesn't spike in value again, for more reasons than one.

Solved my question (im an idiot)

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iantsu wrote:

Cold snap: 3 seconds cooldown
Vortex: instant cast but 1.8 seconds cooldown (at Lv1 but i don't think it gonna improve massively to make it comfortable at lv20 )

Now it's maybe clunky. and much more downtime

Probably. I predict not caring about Vortex as supplemental damage in 3.5, and instead using that 4L for utility.

Arctic Breath - GMP - Hypothermia - Bonechill
Vortex - Inc AoE - Hypothermia - Bonechill

Spine of the First Claimant and Rime Gaze are looking really good for the build, but we probably won't be able to fit both spines since it leaves us with very few slots to get resistances and energy shield on them.

I don't think Fingers of Frost is too hard to get (by just pathing through the Written in Blood cluster, since we want Growth and Decay anyways). Even with the two travel nodes (assuming we'd want the Written in Blood cluster anyways since it's slightly more efficient than going ES travel nodes) it's more damage-per-node than the Spiritual Aid cluster.

This is where I'm at, using OP's gear (-10 ES on boots for the nerf, using exactly half-range rolled new uniques): https://pastebin.com/YhhEieHi
Tree level 100, it's sacrificing 1k ES to almost double the DoT DPS.

Surprisingly enough, according to PoB going Malediction over Frigid Wake results in higher DoT DPS.

Thoughts on going for a +3 cold bow and soulstrike instead of 1hander and shield?

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Maxpoggi wrote:

Spine of the First Claimant and Rime Gaze are looking really good for the build, but we probably won't be able to fit both since it leaves us with very few slots to get resistances and energy shield on them.

I don't think Fingers of Frost is too hard to get (by just pathing through the Written in Blood cluster, since we want Growth and Decay anyways).

I agree about the items - both look good, but with distinct drawbacks.

Fingers of Frost will cost me 6 passive nodes, and I get 22% cold DoT multi + 20% inc damage. I'm not saying it's terrible, but it certainly doesn't sound great to me - 6 points is a lot to spend on just damage, especially given that it doesn't connect me to anywhere else on the tree.

Once we've dived down that rabbit hole, it makes me wonder if we shouldn't just cut out the left side of the tree entirely, excising Zealot's Oath for more points. (PoB pastebin link)

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Cyas wrote:

Thoughts on going for a +3 cold bow and soulstrike instead of 1hander and shield?

If we can make up the lost resistances elsewhere, sure! I'm not a big fan of that "quick to start, slow to finish" thing that Soul Strike does to ES recharge, but you can play around it for sure.

The coolest thing about two-handed weapons is that they enable us to have two 6L setups (or wear a Kaom's Heart on other builds)... Any thoughts on how you'd use this to your advantage? Maybe even forget about a 6L chest and vaal a bunch of Shavronne's Wrappings for the max resists?

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Maxpoggi wrote:

Surprisingly enough, according to PoB going Malediction over Frigid Wake results in higher DoT DPS.

Curses are absolutely insane for this build, unless you're fighting Shaper/Elder/Guardians. You can take it even further by switching the Blasphemy - Enfeeble out for Frostbite or Despair. But again, it all falls to pieces once you're fighting a mob with high reduced curse effect.

Part of the massive damage swing is the loss of the tri-curse setup. And don't forget that we'll also be applying Bonechill with a support spell, so we can't be too precise about our DPS estimates just yet.

Switch the "Is the enemy a boss?" to Shaper/Guardian and let me know what you think.

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cha_siu_bao wrote:

Switch the "Is the enemy a boss?" to Shaper/Guardian and let me know what you think.

Yeah that fixes it, and makes Frigid Wake about a 10% increase over Malediction (granted that yes, we can't really calculate exact DPS figures yet, but it's nice to have a ballpark estimate). It's probably still worth it to go for the curse setup just to have Profane Bloom for clear speed, but it does put things in perspective.

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cha_siu_bao wrote:

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Maxpoggi wrote:

Surprisingly enough, according to PoB going Malediction over Frigid Wake results in higher DoT DPS.

Curses are absolutely insane for this build, unless you're fighting Shaper/Elder/Guardians. You can take it even further by switching the Blasphemy - Enfeeble out for Frostbite or Despair. But again, it all falls to pieces once you're fighting a mob with high reduced curse effect.

Part of the massive damage swing is the loss of the tri-curse setup. And don't forget that we'll also be applying Bonechill with a support spell, so we can't be too precise about our DPS estimates just yet.

Switch the "Is the enemy a boss?" to Shaper/Guardian and let me know what you think.

Seems like +1 curse corruption on amulet might be pretty strong option.
Or hope that somehow old uniques(shavs) have chance for veiled mod for +1.