Cold Chronomancer Megathread (WIP). CoF nerfed. Very slow gameplay now.

ha. yeah. had a real hard time with act1 boss too. he has high ice resist I think. so, either you need some pen before you get to him, or don't try relying on ice.
I was using frostbolt/ice bomb, primarily. had to try flamewall, and cold snap spam as well to get him down. were wolf add phase, was chipping me down badly. fb/bomb was not doing that phase well at all.

support gems are a bit stingy, so can't quite playtest/try out as much as I'd like. I have seen others say unleash nova is good.


Ok, back to theory crafting.
Slow again... so, Slow stacks, but is still capped at 50%. Which makes me think, a cold Chronomancer is not going to want it. they are going to hit 50% slow too readily even without it.


Ice bomb as the primary for CD reduc. yes. this is looking like the ideal for me at. the shorter CD is actually good. far more consistent. with some nice double, or triple casts.

my tree is a bit of a mess. too many travel nodes, not enough notables.
bee lining for breath of ice probably makes the act1 boss far more tolerable for an ice sorc.

Hey, thanks for the updates. Been trying to make ice work and was getting filtered at the wct 1 boss. Followed some of your suggestions and am making my way through act 2 now. I feel very fragile though, something looks at me and I'm chugging potions.

ive been playing cold myself, just found this write up
act1 boss is def hard mode if you are all cold lol

anyway, my cons is that it feels slow.. but that could just be poe2 in general.
frost bolt just takes sooo long to fly im like z.z.z

Guess, slow frost bolt is not bad as it gives me proper window to press and hold Ice Nova targeting any of projectiles. Ice cream blast in mob's face, true. Mad Wolf went down on 2nd try and I have invested heavily into crit and penetration. Worked good for me. With non stop evasive rolls, of course :)

yeah,default frost bolt is +proj/slower proj, to use it as an unleasehed frost nova, and cold snap device. that does work too.


tested skeletal frost mage.
command:ice bomb did not proc 33% chance a single time over 100 casts.
so, either incredibly bad luck, or it does not work.

Opinion on making use of the quarterstaff cold skills?
Been using them and have quite comfily gotten through act 1 and 2 on chronomancer.

What do you think about grabbing crit nodes? I noticed people playing bloodmage took crit nodes instead of spell damage.

Act 2 finished.

Passive tree:


Closer to act 2 boss I started to feel I was doing smth wrong bc I was lacking clear, and gave another shot to cold snap. Yep, I could 1-shot freezed magic monster most of the time.

So, back to 1-2-3 punch described in the post. It was a really smooth sail until Act 2 boss (killed him in 5 tries, was getting used to the second phase in a hard way).
Completely removed the flame wall and freezing shards by then.

Skill gems:

"

SynikallyInsane#9508 wrote:

Hey, thanks for the updates. Been trying to make ice work and was getting filtered at the wct 1 boss. Followed some of your suggestions and am making my way through act 2 now. I feel very fragile though, something looks at me and I'm chugging potions.

Oh, bad news here. Everyone is struggling atm. Dodge roll is the main defensive mechanic now.
Good job making it through act 1 =)

"

Eastmann#2612 wrote:

Guess, slow frost bolt is not bad as it gives me proper window to press and hold Ice Nova targeting any of projectiles. Ice cream blast in mob's face, true. Mad Wolf went down on 2nd try and I have invested heavily into crit and penetration. Worked good for me. With non stop evasive rolls, of course :)

Good job making it on a 2nd try =) I'm a bit envious =)

"

PrimalLord#6999 wrote:

Opinion on making use of the quarterstaff cold skills?
Been using them and have quite comfily gotten through act 1 and 2 on chronomancer.

Never considered it. Can you show me a demo so I can compare? I have no problems going quarterstaff if it would look better than what I have on my screen =)

"

kiplingfinch#5221 wrote:

What do you think about grabbing crit nodes? I noticed people playing bloodmage took crit nodes instead of spell damage.

Bloodmages have a crazy bonus to crit damage, that's why they are after crits.
Usually, switching to crit builds take some time (and gear).

"

PrimalLord#6999 wrote:

Opinion on making use of the quarterstaff cold skills?
Been using them and have quite comfily gotten through act 1 and 2 on chronomancer.

haven't tried it yet.

was giving minion stuff a shot first.
they don't seem to be helping. just get in the way.

herald of ice is martial only.
I don't think any of the melee attacks have cooldowns? except for hammer of the gods right? so, sure, why not? but, I dont think there is any specific synergy till that.


overall on chronomancer... not a lot of confidence. if we are relying on ice bomb chains to do anything... stormweavers 20% added exposure just flattens us.
their ice bomb is 40% without any addition exposure effect.
nevermind the arcane surge and max mana for MOM. g


I was originally going to go crit due to ice having 12% crit, and the arcane surge on crit nodes. but, passives are so starved in poe2. probably not viable.

edit: lets look at the skills.

quarter staff skills with cooldowns.
tempestbell. .5s cd

mace skills with cooldowns.
shield charge 3s
inferanal cry 8s
seisemic cry 8s.
hammer of the gods 24s.


bow.
barrage 2s. (+skills attack timex1400)
snipers mark 6s

xbow
explosive grenade. 3s (3 uses)
flash grendade 4s
gas grenade. 3. 3 uses. (man that would combo with explosive grenade..)
volx grenade. 3s 2 uses.
oil grenade. 5s. 3 uses. also combos with explosive.
emergancy reload. 45s.
cluster grenade. 10scd

you know... Im thinking those grenades might be right choice.

editx2.
yeah, just tried explosive grenade and gas grenade alone. unsupported. no support gems. without any fire damage passives, etc.. it was impressive.

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