Freeze Build questions (for my merc) - very preliminary

Hi guys,

I'm not sure if this is the proper forum/thread for PoE2 Build inquiries...but please let me know if there is a better place for this...or perhaps another place.

In short, I'm still new to PoE2 and not that many hours in but currently just trying to cook up a build. It's for Merc. So I thought I stumbled on something when I noticed a nice stat on a unique armor set piece for "freeze". It may not be the ideal chest piece for Merc but I thought maybe can actually do something w/ it. So I looked into gems for Freeze Buildup, passive nodes for ailment, and more gear for Freeze Buildup. And also I'm trying to use Mace for Merc (hybrid). Yes, I'm not sure how well melee will hold up late game (my merc's like lvl 24/25) but I'm trying mace for now, but I can change to crossbow later if I can't get the build to work well (or maybe both [currently, I kinda swap between both]). So long story short, I test a very bare bones configuration on mobs (the passive nodes are out of whack still, was respec-ing the nodes back and forth between strength/dex, etc) and I begin freezing the mobs quite well actually like a pack of em, and I'm using Leap. I was quite surprised but of course late game will have to optimize the heck more but I digress.

Anyway, long story short, I stumble upon this 1 gem called Ice Strike -- it's a built-in gem for Monk at Early Access. I read online that it basically just Freezes mobs. I have yet to see YouTube videos on this Freeze Monk Ice Strike. Point here is -- for my above config for merc (using ~4+ gems/supps, extra passive nodes, and specific gear for freeze, etc) -- is it just basically equivalent or can be replaced by a single Ice Strike gem on Monk? Is this actually true... (because it obviously won't be worth it...kinda like how a unique chest piece on ranged class for convert phys to fire damage can replace ~20 armor passive nodes for melee)..? Any thoughts/ideas...? (just thinking now I'll add I will just try this Ice Strike gem on Monk later perhaps and that will help give some more insight on the matter. though I never got around to re-rolling Monk really [not really my class/char])

Any additional feedback would be much appreciated thank you - or any additional info on the matter - or steer in right direction.