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

Scepter/foci seems like the obvious correct choice.

I can't believe I skipped over that when reconsidering foci versus scepters.

Whats a good wand?
using moniks..

gain 25% of damage as extra lightning.
28% inc spell damage.
+56 mana

+4 to cold spells.
94% crit hit chance.
29% cast speed.

ALL the wand base skills suck. Manadrain/power siphon could be something, but actually using them is horrible. if we could cast on x them, that would be something.. but we can't.

whats the best version of a wand?

+179mana.
+45 mana/49% spell damage.
gain 30% of damage as extra lightning or +119% to spell damage.

+4 to all spells or +5% to cold spells.
+109% spell crit
+39% crit damage or +35% cast speed, or 33 int, or 69% mana regen.

some of those, I'm not certain which is completely the best stat..
I do think ALL is better then cold spells, especially for us with time freeze, temp rift, and time snap potentially.

224 base max mana potentially.


what can a sceptre get?
first, rattling minions, and malice aura ARE both useful.

inc spirit 65%.
inc spirit 38%/max mana +44
+179 max mana

+33 int.
69% mana regen
+5 to minion, or +33 str, or +22% mana regen/15% light, or 30% presence aoe.


103% spirit, for 244 with quality.
224 max mana.
+5 to minion buffs soul offering, and rattling minions. str would be good for stat reqs, and just be 66 life as it is. presence aoe for slow aura.

What can a foci get?
63 base ES implicit.

+90 Es.
+100% es
+42% Es/39mana, or +119% spell damage, or +179 mana. not sure which is best atm.

+2 to all spells.
99% spell crit
34% crit damage, or 32% cast speed, or 69% mana regen, or 33 int, or resists all 4..

1 rune, or corrupted for 2.
either 40% increased es, or 4% max mana..

63 base es+90= 153 20% quality = 184.
100% increased for 367 ES.
if we took 2 20% runes, and es/mana, instead of mana, that would be 518 ES on shield.

but lets run with +179 mana, and 4% max mana instead.

so, we need scepters for op spirit. and thus the comparison should be WANDS versus foci. not foci versus sceptres.
And foci can get +2 to all spells, which ain't not bad, compared to +4 wands.
Huge amount of ES.
1 or 2 runeslots.
similar spell crit/damage/cast speed, regen etc.
loses the gain damage as x, and the spell damage for the ES.

how much mana would that be for monik?
367 base es, and 4% max mana. he has 56% increased, so 60%? 587 mana from the shield es alone? +104 from the 4% max mana?

691 itself isn't enough to hit 7, but it should with his 4031, hit 4722.
so archmage 9x7=63% damage gained as lightning.

so, the defensive value is high without EB. and with eb/archmage the raw mana/damage gain also ends up winning.

added benefits: not swapping for soul offering is much faster. doesn't require 2 hits. minions adding a small bit of distraction/tanking.
killing your own minions to fill up grim feast on call is nice too.

We would need to run some tests and see what the trade off would be for losing +2/+3 to skill levels since most of the damage in this game comes from levels to gems.

Decent take, Casia.

Here are some CoC-Comets:

1. Wand+Sceptre: 4k mana, Snakepit, 493k.



2.Wand+Sceptre: 4,6k mana, No Snakepit, 540k.



3. Sceptre+Focus (380 ES, 170 mana, 90% crit chance, no +lvl to all gems): 5.5k mana, 375k.



24-31% less damage, but I got that focus for 100ex, which is pretty cheap.

Decent +2 foci are extremely expensive. Way more than a decent wand.

yeah.
and, your wand doesnt have a ton of mana on it, thats why its a 900 mana shift. your sceptre does.

900 mana should also be about 22% more mana regen for you too.


personally, I had two foci sitting around.
1 was that crit one I linked a while back.

175 es, 45 mana, 93% crit, 29% cast speed, 27 int.

other was a
65es
+2 to all skills.
25 mana.
20% mana regen.
52% spell damage
68% chaos damage
10% lt resist.

using the crit es atm. (partially just because I needed the int. ha)

my wand actually had way more mana.
121 mana
+2 to all spells
13 int
51% mana regen
40 spell damage
gain 16% as cold damage.

so yeah, experimenting with the first shield.
socketed it with 7% chaos resist.
did lose a chunk of damage, but gained 500 final es, and 93% crit.

First of all, thanks for the build!

I am having lots of fun and this one became my main character!

What is the reason for Icicle gem socketed in Frost wall? I think it is there to make sure that we break wall with every Frostbolt cast, but I did not notice any difference if i socket it out. Thanks in advance!

Edit. Now i realized that Icicle support gem is not in your version of the build!

After further testing, Spark is 100% better for me compared to Frostbolt. It clears just as fast but offers these additional benefits, which feel subjectively better:

1. More Mana: Leads to more EHP and damage gained, making your overall defenses and damage more solid.
2. Easier Gear Management: It's simpler to hit your resistances and other necessary stats, which makes gearing less of a headache and more affordable.
3. Ingenuity Ring Synergy: If you're willing to spend more, you can run Ingenuity and actually benefit from it by dropping Snakepit and using two Breach Rings.
4. Lower System Resource Usage: Spark consumes fewer computer resources, resulting in no FPS loss, unlike Frostbolt which has noticeable FPS drops. (This is partially a hardware issue, and also GGG's optimization of the game.)
5. Efficient Mob Clearing: Spark fills your screen and travels quickly to the edges (and even off-screen), allowing mobs to die rapidly even from a distance, reducing projectile death risk.
6. Breaches Feel Great: Spark clears Breaches effortlessly and feels amazing in those encounters.

yeah, theres a few choices that kind of push the boundaries of the original intent.
spark/fireball. even eye of winter, etc. in that, at some point, just roll a stormweaver.. it's tough to justify the concept sometimes.. not making use of much of the chronomancer aspects.

EoW starts terrible. but, high enough crit, crit damage, frost nexus, it does well. but at that point, you're just better off a coc stormweaver..


Aside tried 4th floor trial. had terrible rgn. first room 40% less water...
then got stuck with 25% slow, and enfeeble..

you might guess how that went.
boss dps was terrible. was taking forever. but, 25% reduced slow, no blink and the hourglasses spawning on opposite ends, wasn't even close.

We’re already stacking a lot of Lightning damage, and honestly, I love the Chronomancer. Stormweaver would probably do more damage with the whole setup, but this build has like 25% of the deaths compared to my other ones. It’s super safe, especially when bossing. Never died in a boss room except in Simulacrum, but that’s cause of the beefed-up white mobs, not the boss. Thinking about running this in HC; having a build that can safely do pinnacle bosses in HC would be amazing. Plus, Temporal Rift resetting me to full life with just one button press is crazy good. The build doesn’t need the extra damage from Stormweaver. Bosses melt in seconds, trash dies fast and the survivability is way better than Stormweaver's and that’s huge! I think I have 20 deaths on this Character. My friends Stormweaver has almost 200.

For anyone curious what a spark version of this build may look like. Here's a snippet of a T16 that I was doing with the changes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MzJhHbA2LQ&ab_channel=Valqor

"

valqor#0701 wrote:

For anyone curious what a spark version of this build may look like. Here's a snippet of a T16 that I was doing with the changes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MzJhHbA2LQ&ab_channel=Valqor

Care to share more details about the build? I would like to try spark version also.