I've been playing a cold wizard forever, so have experimented with a lot of skills. So all I can tell you is see my profile, as it's the best cold build I've ever run, pretty gear dependent though. Ignore the Pride's Fall in the helm slot, that's an experiment, i usually run with "The Magistrate" for frost hydra and APoC. Pride's Fall might work out better for AP regen though.
I think if you went for Sleet Storm rune instead of Snow Blast, you'd be fine with Winter's Flurry, but any other rune kinda does require Light of Grace for RoF.
Unless of course you're using Blizzard and Hydra to do most of your damage?
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And may the odds be ever in your favour. Emmo#2406
I run a cold wiz with Rimeheart and Frostburn (which Kadala finally gave up last night). Gear is not the best, so couldn't get much higher than GR26 before. Will have to see how much of a difference Frostburn makes. Using Tal's 4pc for the meteors - templar has Thunderfury for the lightning procs.
Basic usage: alternate between Black Hole and Frost Nova to keep mobs CC'd while you channel RoF: Sleet Storm. Ice armor helps with the Rimeheart procs and keeps pesky melee from beating you into a pulp.
LGems: Bane of the Trapped, Taeguk, Bane of the Powerful
Looks neat. Any sort of explanation for your setup maybe? Just wondering why you chose Winter's Flurry instead of Light of Grace for example
Sure, on Light of Grace, it's actually not as useful as people think. While the penetrating beam is better for generating AP and can be better against long rows of trash mobs, it's completely pointless against single targets which is where you really need to do the most damage. Ray of Frost has a natural AoE at the end of the beam, with Light of Grace you can't really control where the beam ends so it is wasted, with Winter's Flurry you can, and you get 20% more Cold dmg. So all I do is use Black Hole to clump up a bunch of enemies then the natural AoE on RoF is able to hit them all. And for single targets like Rift Guardians it's vastly superior.
Anyway, the main idea of the build is using RoF as an AP generator to give you AP for using Blizzard (Frozen Solid) to keep things frozen. With my gear i'm able to actually generate AP on a single target such as a rift guardian, not much, but enough to use RoF endlessly and the occasional blizzard. With more than one target it's basically impossible to run out of AP unless you spam blizzard constantly. Frost Hydra is mainly there to help generate AP on crit and add some damage while i'm channeling RoF. I've taken this build through Grift 30 so far, without unity, I imagine I could take it a little further with a Unity ring but it's no Firebird's and would probably top out in low 30's just due to not being able to do enough dmg.
Also, Sleet Storm is terrible =P. Unless you just like doing trial rifts...
Oh, not that actually makes a lot of sense. Light of Grace AOE always felt a bit strange to me, so that explains why. I know why you chose Snow Blast, but what is your experience with Black Ice? When I played RoF in the early days, I actually thought/felt like those 2 runes are really really close competition. In the end i went for Black Ice to be quicker on Trash mobs and mixed Trash/Elites... but I just had quarter your damage back then.
What about the Taeguk gem? The build kind of sounds predestined to go for a Taeguk tbh. Have you also tried out setups with Furnace or Wrath of the Bone King instead of 1H+Source?
I've never been a fan of Black Ice, mainly since it seems useless against Rift Guardians where you don't really have anything to kill and generate puddles, but you could probably go either way.
If I had a third socket available (need a SoJ that I don't have to remove crit hit dmg for a socket) I'd go with Taeguk or Zei's Stone of Venegeance. The Stun on Zei's is really useful in Grifts but the Taeguk would generate more damage.
Not a fan of Two handers so I never really try them, i doubt they would add much to the build. Faster atk spd means more RoF hits which means more AP generated so one hander seems the way to go.
Yeah, it's really useless against RG apart from Leoric, Saxtris and the Bone Summoner thingy. It's pretty awesome if you time your Black Hole and Blizzard really well though.
Well, atleast with Sleet Storm I used Taeguk and the damage and especially the survival gains are pretty substantial if you get it to atleast 30 while it stacks really quickly. I don't see how the Toxin gem could compete with that to be honest, we can always spam Magic Weapon when there are no enemies around. And you have some serious Elemental/Elite boni on your gear aswell. It's just an excellent gem and really well rounded
Just saw that even your Flurry is ancient, so I'd want to avoid 2H aswell Too bad about Rimeheart tho... you could probably jump some GR levels if they didn't nerf it to the ground. You've got a nice hero all around and deserve a big thumbs up for sticking to Cold through the Firebird monotony
Yeah I might try ditching Toxin for Taeguk, I just hate leveling gems and Toxin was one of the first I leveled up when the gems came out. Though probably not until Delsere's Set is available, as this character is semi shelved until then, hoping to integrate the set into the build and create something competitive.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sasquatch-1433/hero/3697344
Unless of course you're using Blizzard and Hydra to do most of your damage?
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
Basic usage: alternate between Black Hole and Frost Nova to keep mobs CC'd while you channel RoF: Sleet Storm. Ice armor helps with the Rimeheart procs and keeps pesky melee from beating you into a pulp.
LGems: Bane of the Trapped, Taeguk, Bane of the Powerful
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Rakescar-2208/hero/38234717
Anyway, the main idea of the build is using RoF as an AP generator to give you AP for using Blizzard (Frozen Solid) to keep things frozen. With my gear i'm able to actually generate AP on a single target such as a rift guardian, not much, but enough to use RoF endlessly and the occasional blizzard. With more than one target it's basically impossible to run out of AP unless you spam blizzard constantly. Frost Hydra is mainly there to help generate AP on crit and add some damage while i'm channeling RoF. I've taken this build through Grift 30 so far, without unity, I imagine I could take it a little further with a Unity ring but it's no Firebird's and would probably top out in low 30's just due to not being able to do enough dmg.
Also, Sleet Storm is terrible =P. Unless you just like doing trial rifts...
If I had a third socket available (need a SoJ that I don't have to remove crit hit dmg for a socket) I'd go with Taeguk or Zei's Stone of Venegeance. The Stun on Zei's is really useful in Grifts but the Taeguk would generate more damage.
Not a fan of Two handers so I never really try them, i doubt they would add much to the build. Faster atk spd means more RoF hits which means more AP generated so one hander seems the way to go.
I am experimenting with a cold wiz right now. It can run T6 but that may be partially due to the paragon buffs. Chech it out, its the wiz named Paige.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/pantherdane-1591/hero/39933784