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.
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.
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...
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 use to run with a Serpent Sparker, and the dual freezing hydras are nice if you make sure to cast them about 3 seconds apart to stagger the frost novas, but i got tired of counting to 3 every time i cast Hydra and really wanted to incorporate Rimeheart as well. I may try it again and see how far i make it on a Grift. I'm up to Grift 28 now with my current build, pretty sure I could get to 29 as well with my goal being to hit Grift lvl 30. I don't think a pure cold build would be very viable after that just due to DPS, looks like only FIrebirds and Mammoth Hydras can go much further. Though if anyone has a pure cold build and can break Grift lvl 30, I'd love to see it.
Thanks for the advice. The Hydra not proccing FB is something I did not know about, and it makes me a little sad.
Anyway, I actually ended up testing out Rimeheart vs Azurewrath for Ray of Frost DPS and with generally equal weapons (Azurewrath gave me 1.4% more sheet dps) Rimeheart came out on top almost every time. I won't go into details, unless you want, but i tested against Ghom since he is a nice stationary target I can stand in front of and just channel indefinitely. Azurewrath kills were all between 25-30 seconds while Rimeheart was anywhere from as low as 17 seconds to as high as 30 seconds, averaging right around 22-24. Now when you add in other skills like Hydra, blizzard, etc, the extra cold dmg from Azurewrath might make it come out on top, but I'm not sure how to test it well when adding in so many variables.
I ended up changing some gear around and removing teleport/timestop and adding in Blizzard - Frozen Solid and was able to easily get to G-Rift 27, I probably could of completed it had i not gotten such a low density rift, but it would of been down to the wire due to DPS.
Also, i tried out magic missile-glacial spike (with a mirrorball of course), and it is terrible compared to Ray of Frost, since it does not pierce. Even if Rimeheart procs 3x as much it still would not be worth using over RoF.
I would say it's more that I can't kill fast enough to get beyond Greater Rift 25 or so solo. But the best way I can increase dmg is to lose defensive skills which just gives me the opposite problem. It's getting hard to balance the two. =)
As for RoF, I'd like to keep it as my main skill, i just plain enjoy using it, though I have thought about a magic missile/blizzard version that might allow me to proc Rimeheart more...
And yeah, I've been upgrading a Bane of the Trapped but just have not found a good SoJ or RoRG to socket it into yet.
I've been running a cold wizard for a long time now and have no problems doing T6 Rifts, Ubers, etc but I'd like to try and fine tune my build to be the best it can be and push into higher greater rifts. Profile is below:
I'm mostly looking for skill advice as I've been experimenting with Ray of Frost-Sleet Storm + Winters Flurry vs. Ray of Frost-Snow Blast + Light of Grace and can't figure out which is a better choice over all to use with Rimeheart. I've also been trying out Slow Time's various runes vs Teleport and can't decide if the added defense and dmg from Slow Time is worth the loss of mobility of Teleport. Any advice from experienced players? Some specific questions:
What is the proc rate on Sleet Storm vs Snow Blast? Which ends up being better for the proc on Rimeheart?
Slow Time - 10% atk speed or 10% dmg? I've been running the 10% atk speed since it doesnt require the mobs to actually be IN the bubble to add dmg, but is it less efficient? Point of No Return is also a nice option, but with all the freezing im doing I'm not sure the extra stun is worth it.
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I read through the thread and did not see a definitive answer to this, but will the following skills generate stacks with Tals 6pc?
Storm Armor (Lightning)
Familiar - Sparkflint (Fire)
Frost Nova - Any rune (Ice)
Teleport - Calamity (Arcane)
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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.
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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...
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sasquatch-1433/hero/3697344
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Anyway, I actually ended up testing out Rimeheart vs Azurewrath for Ray of Frost DPS and with generally equal weapons (Azurewrath gave me 1.4% more sheet dps) Rimeheart came out on top almost every time. I won't go into details, unless you want, but i tested against Ghom since he is a nice stationary target I can stand in front of and just channel indefinitely. Azurewrath kills were all between 25-30 seconds while Rimeheart was anywhere from as low as 17 seconds to as high as 30 seconds, averaging right around 22-24. Now when you add in other skills like Hydra, blizzard, etc, the extra cold dmg from Azurewrath might make it come out on top, but I'm not sure how to test it well when adding in so many variables.
I ended up changing some gear around and removing teleport/timestop and adding in Blizzard - Frozen Solid and was able to easily get to G-Rift 27, I probably could of completed it had i not gotten such a low density rift, but it would of been down to the wire due to DPS.
Also, i tried out magic missile-glacial spike (with a mirrorball of course), and it is terrible compared to Ray of Frost, since it does not pierce. Even if Rimeheart procs 3x as much it still would not be worth using over RoF.
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As for RoF, I'd like to keep it as my main skill, i just plain enjoy using it, though I have thought about a magic missile/blizzard version that might allow me to proc Rimeheart more...
And yeah, I've been upgrading a Bane of the Trapped but just have not found a good SoJ or RoRG to socket it into yet.
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http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sasquatch-1433/hero/3697344
I'm mostly looking for skill advice as I've been experimenting with Ray of Frost-Sleet Storm + Winters Flurry vs. Ray of Frost-Snow Blast + Light of Grace and can't figure out which is a better choice over all to use with Rimeheart. I've also been trying out Slow Time's various runes vs Teleport and can't decide if the added defense and dmg from Slow Time is worth the loss of mobility of Teleport. Any advice from experienced players? Some specific questions:
What is the proc rate on Sleet Storm vs Snow Blast? Which ends up being better for the proc on Rimeheart?
Slow Time - 10% atk speed or 10% dmg? I've been running the 10% atk speed since it doesnt require the mobs to actually be IN the bubble to add dmg, but is it less efficient? Point of No Return is also a nice option, but with all the freezing im doing I'm not sure the extra stun is worth it.
Thanks!