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They are making changes to Rimeheart in 2.5.0!! What's changed so far? It now has 20% chance to hit on frozen targets. What does that mean?

I'll start off with Bagtone's recent explanation of the Rimeheart proc mechanic

Quote from Bagstone»

Rimeheart has a 10% change to proc on frozen enemies.

Frostburn have a 50% chance to freeze enemies; I see you added Azurewrath and Ice Blades, so you're at a higher proc chance (I'm not sure if they stack multiplicatively or additively, but it doesn't matter). Also note that for Ice Blades the enemy needs to be chilled first. The problem is that all those are CC effects, and as such they trigger the diminishing returns on CC and make the mob virtually CC immune after a few hits. So adding just more and more won't help you past a certain point.

Those procs have to be multiplied with the proc chance of the skill/rune you chose - in your case Ice Blades (31% proc coefficient). I'd strongly recommend to switch to Magic Missile, as most runes have a 100% proc coefficient and you already have the Mirrorball which helps tremendously as well.

So let's picture the fight: first hit either freezes (yay!) or doesn't. If it doesn't, not only will Rimeheart have no chance to proc, it's also getting increasingly difficult to freeze due to CC resistance. If it does, you still will only see a proc in approx. 1 of 32 hits (10% Rimeheart proc chance, 31% Ice Blades proc coefficient). And that certainly feels like "never".

Also another word about Rimeheart. I love this sword and would love for it to be useful. I've tried to create builds for it for a long time. But Rimeheart is incredibly underpowered and useless - it was right from the start. 10000% damage with a 10% chance and a requirement for the target to be frozen means that even if all mobs were frozen, it would only be 1000% weapon damage (which is nothing), and due to the recent CC changes it's impossible to keep mobs frozen for more than a few split seconds in any longer fight. Add to that the many low proc coefficients... effectively, even useless weapons like Stalgard's Decimator or Fulminator have a higher "real" damage output than any Rimeheart build.

So right off that bat, using Bagstone's maths, we can say RH is now 1/16 vs. 1/32, simply because of 20% vs 10% chance.

One of the other changes they've talked about, is making making Rimeheart proc on the front of a freeze, rather than after it, similar to what they've done to strongarms. This would mean that the enemy doesn't necessarily have to be frozen to recieve damage. Anything at this point is speculative, it could be huge (think manald), or it could still be severely limited by its internal cooldown. If they turn it into manald, it's going to be extremely powerful. I don't know how they would balance for that (possibly making other weapons legendary affixes not garbage might be a good start [read: 4000% fulminator is what it would take to compete with a 50% furnace]).

In testing, I've found Azurewrath is by far the best weapon to pair with Rimeheart (roll off the cold % and it is compatible with MH builds as well). The baked in 25% freeze on hit does in fact both proc Rime AND Ice meteor from the 2-piece Tal Rasha's (which leads to further RH procs). The enchantress and the templar can both wear this weapon as well. The scoundrel can wear buriza. Weapon, belt, and offhand can all roll a total 10.3% freeze on hit, possibly making Rimeheart or Starfire the best weapons for MH builds, if you were to find the insanely hard to find ancient/primal QUINTFECTA (fuck) freeze items. Furthermore, chill on hit can proc the 2 Pc TR Ice Meteor, But cannot proc Rimeheart on its own. Weapon and shoulders and can roll chill on hit. Eun Jang Do also has a very good interaction with Rimeheart, and allows for more leniency with cooldown/attack speed breakpoints, if you were to use a dagger as a weapon.

Rimeheart currently isn't working as intended (as has been stated in multiple blue posts). It still has the same ICD as it did before. The changes have not gone live that will affect the item. HOWEVER, even with that, at high GRs, the huge proc can help take out squishier enemies much faster than it's other counterparts. In solo, this means you have an oculus ring proc (from your follower) on the ground faster. Arguably, this means you will be doing more damage faster, getting more stacks on archon faster, and therefore doing much more overall damage (might even be working on live 2.4.3 right now, in this fashion, how that compares to pig sticker/starfire, I don't know).

I've had Rime proc on entire groups of enemies before. Whether this is a bug or intended, it has happened. I don't know if this is an area damage interaction or not. I don't know if this is just something that happens. Boom everything poofs. It is in no way reliable.

Like manald, I believe archon's exploding blast is interacting with RH's procs (or snapshot mechanic). I've had it explained (I could barely understand what he was saying). Here's the point, however: Do not use Archon EB or Archon Strike while in archon. It will negatively affect RH/MH procs. It's the truth. Test it for yourself. (If someone can offer a proper explanation I will edit it in).

Familiar - Icicle adds both a freeze AND a proc coefficient. Hydra with the Magistrate cubed or worn is arguably the best way to proc RH. I ran pure cold Archon in V6 utilizing this mechanic with serpent sparker and tasker and theo. It was able to do thru 85 quite ok (albeit way slower than MH), but just wasn't putting the numbers on the board to be competitive at higher GR (bummer). Winter flurry is worth looking at, as well.

Things I don't know:
Does Area damage affect RH?
Does CHC from conflag, EA, etc. affect RH dmg?
Does ele cold% affect RH dmg?
Does damage from alternate sources, (ie Shard of hate lightning) proc RH?

If you guys can answer questions or have some more that need to be addressed, here might be a good spot to start this up.

I am sorry to come in like this.

I was wondering if you have some spare time, since i really dont have time to waste, so if you can/want

try channeling build ( disintegrate ) or frost

something with frozen orbs ?

if it can work for greater rifts.

So basically, no archon build, with any set ( i guess since wizard just dont work without set at all, lmao )

I am asking for information, because in case it does work, i might come next season a bit to play.

They should make it proc on everything CC'ed... kind of like how APD procs on stun/freeze just with slow/chill/stun/freeze whatever. Maybe then it will be good...

Quote from Bagstone»

I think Blizzard's idea about this was:

Manald Heal worked great, it's a great success, so let's do the same here. MH has 14000% dmg on a 15% stun chance of Paralysis, so they thought that 10000% dmg on 20% chance on frozen is about the same.

But it's not.

First of all, Paralysis proc chance and duration is not diminished by other CC effects. Secondly, Paralysis itself is the "proc" that counts; Rimeheart has a 20% chance on top of a CC effect. If Rimeheart ever works, it'll only be for solo wizards, probably combined with Halo of Arlyse. Since I don't care about solo builds, for me Rimeheart is still dead.

I'd love to see them rework Rimeheart completely to something that doesn't make it subject to CC effect gambling. Something like gaining a debuff after being hit by cold spells or so. But if they just tweak the numbers, they'd have to make it crazily overpowered for solo before it becomes even remotely useful for groups.

The devs have commented on it working as strongarms work in the future, if they put it on the front end, it will essentially be manald. I addressed this. But, for me, you are disregarding the fact that those initial huge numbers (because it hits in one shot vs. manald pseudo dot) are extremely helpful in 90+ because the squishiest white enemies drop really fast. This helps you ramp up archon faster. I honestly think it can compete. Primals are going to be rare enough that you're going to be going after whichever archetype fits in with the highest dps weapon you find. Which I actually think is cool, because it's going to subsequently force people to try build variations, like substituting azurewrath/rimeheart for whatever/starfire, rather than people having access to everything instantly and just putting on whaveter the people on the top of the leaderboard are wearing.

It's also worth mentioning that the current manald archetype doesn't require anything in particular on the mainhand, as long as starfire is cubed. Swords and daggers are both very nice, depending on which cooldown breakpoint you are sitting at, getting back into archon could be a matter of a split second. That means that Rimeheart is one of the options for mainhand, if you are looking for something for free (and happen to have 2-3 freeze on hit rolls on wep/oh/belt). Finding (primal) gear for this isn't going to be easy at all. But for a good percentage of high paragon grinders, this will be a viable option.