Got this to drop the other day and while it wasn't flat-out better than my Trium, I was determined to make it work.
For any of you who have gotten this, I have a build worth considering! It's been super fun so far but I cannot vouch for its effectiveness beyond T3.
"RAY OF FROST NOW PIERCES"
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZlkSf!YWX!ZcZZZcBUILD:Magic Missile/Glacial Spike - Clones will fire this and it will (almost?) always stun once per clone Ray of Frost/Snow Blast - Still unsure of the VERY best rune (would love black ice to work) Blizzard/Frozen Solid - Each of your clones will cast Blizzard. Huge coverage for stuns. Mirror Image/Duplicates - 4 clones = 4 blizzards + 4 glacial spikes + 4 cold auras for Cold Blooded Magic Weapon/Force Weapon - the damages! runes matter little here I think... Ice Armor/Frozen Storm - I am enjoying this aura a lot for the cold blooded proc and a little damage mitigation. Additionally it makes for a lot fewer things to break along my way. Great on clones. Passives: Cold Blooded, Astral Presence, Glass Cannon - besides cold blooded, the rest is up to you but I like having 150+ arcane power as Ray of Frost procs APoC a lot and in most fights you can RoF til they die.
PLAYSTYLE:
Clones are your "OH !@#$" button for Elites or huge groups of enemies. You never actually NEED to cast Blizzard yourself, your clones do that- they will cover a huge area and will defend you from tenacious enemies. If you'd LIKE to cast blizzard for extra deeps, it certainly works out well. You should never need more than one or two per engagement. Your clones provide an entire screen's worth of CC AND Cold Blooded coverage for the extra boost RoF will need.
Honestly there are a ton of other cold builds in this game but I really wanted to make the best use of this new source and when I saw my clones stun everything on the screen I felt like a proud father.
I hope some of you get a chance to try it or even propose your own build ideas here! Would love feedback if any of you have found it. It's definitely gimmicky moreso than "OMFG OP" but I think it has an edge over disintegrate builds just because of the cold damage boost and cc options.
I'm sure Blizzard is interchangeable with Hydra but they don't freeze things and their coverage is poo.
I dub this build: STUNNING RESEMBLANCE
TLDR:
Ray of Frost everything (have high apoc, legendary source, +% cold damage is nice) clones stunlock entire screen for you while providing Cold Blooded on all enemies. It's neato.
edit: lemme know if the link messes up for anyone...
Holy crap that's a nice idea! Have you tested how frequently the clones cast Blizzards and if their Blizzards freeze as well? That would be super OP! Man, now I want to get back home to try this out, I actually even have the Light of Grace in my stash plus the helmet that causes clones to multiply on death (and haven't found a real use for it yet).
Awesome concept, I need to try this! :-)
Regarding the build calculator, click on the 4th button from the right in the editor ("Insert/Edit Link") and just manually enter the link, it will override the editor's "link detection" feature (which stops parsing links after an exclamation mark).
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/item/light-of-grace
Thanks for the build. Sadly, I haven#t been lucky enough to get this item (or the hat that bagstone mentioned). But I'll definitly give this a shot.
Yes the reason I feel like Blizzard-Frozen Solid is best is because the clones' spells (ALL OF THEM!) freeze their targets 90% of the time. Their damage is negligible ofc so no point in much else in those categories. The utility is amazing! As far as I know each one casts 1 Blizzard per life BUT I think I may have seen some cast two on occasion (if enemies do not instagib them).
If you can test this build with me, definitely try it in Keep Depths of all places. Great place to farm, no chance of escaping a few freezes.
Also oh my god, that helm would probably make your freezes infinite. It's a nice variant of the Point of No Return build but with the added benefit of another damage skill (blizzard) and a much lower cd on the freeze effect than time bubble.
Really cool concept... can't wait to have that source drop for me so I can try it out.
I dunno if I'd go that far haha - it's worth noting that if you're up against any particularly difficult groups you are at the mercy of your Mirror Images cd. If you can get some CDR or if you want to replace Glass Cannon or Astral Presence with Illusionist it may help in higher difficulties.
What do you mean by "Would live black ice to work"
I remember that on PTR it worked quite well... (had this source back then).
Well back when I really enjoyed Black Ice it was good because you'd kill a bunch of dudes on the front line and they'd leave patches for the rest to die on while you kept shooting. Patches lasted a bit longer and you could only kill one dude at a time so this basically "multiplies" RoF's effectiveness.
Now you just hit everything at once anyways so no one is around to get hurt by black ice (except for the somewhat rare instance you're fighting an immobile champion pack with other smaller guys around who would leave well-placed patches behind).
Additionally the patch now lasts only 3 seconds. I just feel like with your increased AoE you may as well just have the BEAM do the most damage, you know?
Biggest pitfall with the build so far is that clone-ai is awfully stupid and will cast all their Blizzards on the same enemy.
It's not constant but it's really annoying when one fat, useless storm shows up in the middle of a huge mob pack.
Just looted this source, awesome build, lots of fun, thank you!
Black ice is excellent for soloing, but I tend to switch to something else when playing in a group, since you have to be the one killing the mob for black ice to proc.
Also, there is absolutely NO reason to screw around with Blizzard if your Mirror images will will cast Black Hole. If they can't, I'd go with Slow Time - PNR and pick up Illusionist. Blizzard is just quite lame all the way around.
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For any of you who have gotten this, I have a build worth considering! It's been super fun so far but I cannot vouch for its effectiveness beyond T3.
"RAY OF FROST NOW PIERCES"
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#aZlkSf!YWX!ZcZZZc BUILD: Magic Missile/Glacial Spike - Clones will fire this and it will (almost?) always stun once per clone
Ray of Frost/Snow Blast - Still unsure of the VERY best rune (would love black ice to work)
Blizzard/Frozen Solid - Each of your clones will cast Blizzard. Huge coverage for stuns.
Mirror Image/Duplicates - 4 clones = 4 blizzards + 4 glacial spikes + 4 cold auras for Cold Blooded
Magic Weapon/Force Weapon - the damages! runes matter little here I think...
Ice Armor/Frozen Storm - I am enjoying this aura a lot for the cold blooded proc and a little damage mitigation. Additionally it makes for a lot fewer things to break along my way. Great on clones.
Passives: Cold Blooded, Astral Presence, Glass Cannon - besides cold blooded, the rest is up to you but I like having 150+ arcane power as Ray of Frost procs APoC a lot and in most fights you can RoF til they die.
PLAYSTYLE:
Clones are your "OH !@#$" button for Elites or huge groups of enemies. You never actually NEED to cast Blizzard yourself, your clones do that- they will cover a huge area and will defend you from tenacious enemies. If you'd LIKE to cast blizzard for extra deeps, it certainly works out well. You should never need more than one or two per engagement. Your clones provide an entire screen's worth of CC AND Cold Blooded coverage for the extra boost RoF will need.
Honestly there are a ton of other cold builds in this game but I really wanted to make the best use of this new source and when I saw my clones stun everything on the screen I felt like a proud father.
I hope some of you get a chance to try it or even propose your own build ideas here! Would love feedback if any of you have found it. It's definitely gimmicky moreso than "OMFG OP" but I think it has an edge over disintegrate builds just because of the cold damage boost and cc options.
I'm sure Blizzard is interchangeable with Hydra but they don't freeze things and their coverage is poo.
I dub this build: STUNNING RESEMBLANCE
TLDR:
Ray of Frost everything (have high apoc, legendary source, +% cold damage is nice) clones stunlock entire screen for you while providing Cold Blooded on all enemies. It's neato.
edit: lemme know if the link messes up for anyone...
Awesome concept, I need to try this! :-)
Regarding the build calculator, click on the 4th button from the right in the editor ("Insert/Edit Link") and just manually enter the link, it will override the editor's "link detection" feature (which stops parsing links after an exclamation mark).
and here is the item
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/item/light-of-grace
Thanks for the build. Sadly, I haven#t been lucky enough to get this item (or the hat that bagstone mentioned). But I'll definitly give this a shot.
Yes the reason I feel like Blizzard-Frozen Solid is best is because the clones' spells (ALL OF THEM!) freeze their targets 90% of the time. Their damage is negligible ofc so no point in much else in those categories. The utility is amazing! As far as I know each one casts 1 Blizzard per life BUT I think I may have seen some cast two on occasion (if enemies do not instagib them).
If you can test this build with me, definitely try it in Keep Depths of all places. Great place to farm, no chance of escaping a few freezes.
Also oh my god, that helm would probably make your freezes infinite. It's a nice variant of the Point of No Return build but with the added benefit of another damage skill (blizzard) and a much lower cd on the freeze effect than time bubble.
I remember that on PTR it worked quite well... (had this source back then).
Really cool concept... can't wait to have that source drop for me so I can try it out.
Or get a hat that multiplies duplicates amirite?
Now you just hit everything at once anyways so no one is around to get hurt by black ice (except for the somewhat rare instance you're fighting an immobile champion pack with other smaller guys around who would leave well-placed patches behind).
Additionally the patch now lasts only 3 seconds. I just feel like with your increased AoE you may as well just have the BEAM do the most damage, you know?
It's not constant but it's really annoying when one fat, useless storm shows up in the middle of a huge mob pack.
*dies of excitement*
Black ice is excellent for soloing, but I tend to switch to something else when playing in a group, since you have to be the one killing the mob for black ice to proc.
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Taliesyn-2517/hero/66020932
Also, there is absolutely NO reason to screw around with Blizzard if your Mirror images will will cast Black Hole. If they can't, I'd go with Slow Time - PNR and pick up Illusionist. Blizzard is just quite lame all the way around.