Cold Chronomancer Megathread. All content cleared. Leveling guide added. Low-budget build added.

Bit of luck today, was just doing Trialmaster for fun and had this little beaut drop:

If I can find a buyer, my budget issues are resolved for once. Too bad it's at the end of the league haha.

edit: image embed not working. 94% Adorned.

So here I am now. I found myself doing breaches recently. Killed T2 Xesht. Unfortunately T3 run was kinda wacky. Because after two rotations that thing is still alive but I have 0 mana so I've been forced to endure boss mechanics for certain time xDDDDD

I've also done T17 60% delirius map with breach without any problem. My balls of steel letting me move forward without any hesitation. Countering projectiles with Frost Wall, 6% mana on kill, Praise for Holy Grim Feast.

After few upgrades I haven't done Simulacrum yet. My first try last week ended with failure after 9 out of 15.

So I sold that Adorned for 450 div -- nearly 100x richer than I'd ever been before, haha. What a stroke of luck that find was.

Spent a good chunk switching over to no ES and Spark. Grabbed Dream Frag, Ingen, +3 amulet, etc. Spark is undoubtedly way better for mapping, and now there are some maps I used to hate that are no problem (ones with small corridors where Frost Wall didn't work well). I really like it in this sense. I'm still running Morior; may consider switching to a high ES chest eventually but don't feel like trying to balance res again currently. The difference in mana won't be huge anyway, less than one cast.

As you've noted, though, monik... the Spark play style is way less fun. I'm holding onto all my old gear just in case I feel like switching back to Bolt/Wall. There was just something so satisfying about that style of play. I also don't quite like the feeling that having CoC deplete my mana instantly could result in a death.

Still plenty of room for improvement on this build. My Spark DPS without any enhancement is 31.5k. Still way more than my Frostbolt was (believe it was around 20k) but feels a bit low. Comet up to 215k and I don't have the +3 Prism of Belief yet. That feels much nicer than the ~75k I was at before.

I'm sitting at 5225 mana, but regen is only 434. 52% Dream Frag and 81% breach ring, plus 78% Ingen. I am hesitant to swap out my amulet since it has pretty nice stats (wild storm, 200+ mana, 27% rarity, +3 spells, 16% all res) but does NOT have mana regen... wish I had realized that before I shelled out for it. Still, pretty strong one otherwise so will hold onto it regardless. May have to look for some passive changes to make up the difference.

Grim Feast is useless to me now, making switching to a chest with +spirit even more tempting so I could move Conductivity to Blasphemy.

Thanks once again to everyone.

edit: just tried a group Simulacrum run. Not a great idea -- too hard to see what's happening, and very little mana regen from kills. Mana drained and then I got popped, not sure what killed me.

edit2: solo Simu runs aren't too bad, just have to keep a close eye on mana when bosses appear. Died on my first solo run, learned this, then did two after without issue. I happened to go back into the Simu after finishing, and a new tier 16/15 appears but is not clickable. Anyone else noticed this?

yeah Simulacrum is kinda wonky. especially with tiny mobs that shoots very very tiny lightning bolts. I can barely see those. It stuns crazy hard

I think you guys need more mana =)

Also, as always, be sure to play with bludgeon support in frost wall at Simulacrum. It's a gamechanger for Frostbolt/wall, and just good for spark versions.

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Hugh_Jaynus#9160 wrote:

As you've noted, though, monik... the Spark play style is way less fun. I'm holding onto all my old gear just in case I feel like switching back to Bolt/Wall. There was just something so satisfying about that style of play. I also don't quite like the feeling that having CoC deplete my mana instantly could result in a death.

Actually, I played quite a lot of low and medium-budget bolt/wall builds before I decided to get a rest from the game. I definitely had more fun with them than with both Spark toons. Spark is super efficient, but damn boring to me.

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monik390#5560 wrote:

I think you guys need more mana =)
...
Actually, I played quite a lot of low and medium-budget bolt/wall builds before I decided to get a rest from the game. I definitely had more fun with them than with both Spark toons. Spark is super efficient, but damn boring to me.

Indeed. Having a hard time getting more mana as there aren't any high ES chests with spirit these days. Nothing over 900. Not quite sure how else to go about getting significantly more. All I can think is maybe slightly higher ES boots, maybe a new wand (current only gives 174, but wands with similar stats are rather pricey now). Can't see myself getting more than a couple hundred more mana from those changes, though. That said, now that I'm more used to the glass cannon build, 5200ish does feel sufficient, especially with Melting Maelstrom.

What's your mana regen rate? I did try a different amulet with 80% but that only brought my total to <550/s. Ended up switching back because again, that flask makes up the difference.

I only need 12 more spirit to put Conductivity in Blasphemy, but cannot find gear to support that lol. Pretty annoying. No sceptres, no body armor. Haven't seen a comparable amulet that I can afford yet. The hunt continues.

edit: new gear for reference https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/v35tu0d6
From Nothing doesn't seem to be working on the passive tree so I couldn't update that properly.

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Hugh_Jaynus#9160 wrote:

Indeed. Having a hard time getting more mana as there aren't any high ES chests with spirit these days. Nothing over 900. Not quite sure how else to go about getting significantly more. All I can think is maybe slightly higher ES boots, maybe a new wand (current only gives 174, but wands with similar stats are rather pricey now). Can't see myself getting more than a couple hundred more mana from those changes, though. That said, now that I'm more used to the glass cannon build, 5200ish does feel sufficient, especially with Melting Maelstrom.

What's your mana regen rate? I did try a different amulet with 80% but that only brought my total to <550/s. Ended up switching back because again, that flask makes up the difference.

I only need 12 more spirit to put Conductivity in Blasphemy, but cannot find gear to support that lol. Pretty annoying. No sceptres, no body armor. Haven't seen a comparable amulet that I can afford yet. The hunt continues.

Everyone is just waiting for the fresh restart. The end of the leagues is always like that.
I have ~604 mana regen, 6k mana. Pretty good. Mana pool gives a lot of regen itself.
I have just 850 ES on my chests tho (with spirit on it). Quite good helmet (170 mana, ~370 ES), boots with 180 ES, 2% mana soul core, and 170 mana, amulet with 220 mana, ring I can't recall, but it's more than maxroll shows for sure, since it has >100% mana regen in-game.