[2.6] Flash Freeze Ice Shot Ranger

Enjoying the build so much. On act 2 Merciless and its doing well. I had 2 sockets left over in my gloves so i did a 4 link with: Blink Arrow, Faster Attacks, Portal, and Increased Item Rarity. I should put Vaal Haste instead of Item Rarity, i found one earlier, but i sold it so i could buy a Rat's Nest instead.

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RabzH wrote:

i thought blast rain works best with fire not cold damage, but idk can you explain what gives blast rain more power than barrage?

Nothing, the answer is a few posts above. Cognitive dissonance at its best =)

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Xenovenom wrote:

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Kostyan1996 wrote:

What about Doomfletch Prism as main bow? It looks like BiS bow.

This bow is kind of lackluster, it only works in builds that modify all elemental damage heavily where I only modify Cold heavily.

Given that this build doesn't buff fire damage, it would probably just be better to go with barrage since it scales with the # of projectiles, whereas blast rain doesn't. Just add a phys to lightning gem or switch to a xoph's with barrage to get 90% phys to elemental.
But, personally, I would just remove the cold nodes and replace them with "general" damage so that it would work with either barrage or blast rain otherwise the build loses damage when it needs it the most, ie. single target fights.

PS: I think people underestimate how hard it is to actually hit with all 4 of blast rain's projectiles against moving targets.

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dwau wrote:

I'm using the Raider ascendancy of this build, I'm just wondering if the weapons used here would be same as deadeye?

The only weapon I would stay away from as Raider is Slivertongue. It requires the free chain form Deadeye or you're going to be forced to use both Chain and Fork gems which would kill dps in two ways, once form the gem modifiers and again because you lost two sockets for dps gems.

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Zodr wrote:

Given that this build doesn't buff fire damage, it would probably just be better to go with barrage since it scales with the # of projectiles, whereas blast rain doesn't. Just add a phys to lightning gem or switch to a xoph's with barrage to get 90% phys to elemental.
But, personally, I would just remove the cold nodes and replace them with "general" damage so that it would work with either barrage or blast rain otherwise the build loses damage when it needs it the most, ie. single target fights.

PS: I think people underestimate how hard it is to actually hit with all 4 of blast rain's projectiles against moving targets.

I'm going to start on your PS first because it's the easiest to get past. I don't generally have a problem hitting targets with Blast Rain but I do understand that some might. The build is all about skill and some like it and some don't.

Now for the main section, which I had to think about how to answer because the logic was contradicting itself. Your idea was to swap Blast rain with Barrage and take another gem out for Phys to Lightning, Or using Xoph's Nurture (negating the use of Death's Opus or another bow) to get 90% conversion.

In the first scenario you are taking 50% fire and 40% cold and swapping it for 50% lightning and 40% cold which still leaves you with an unbonused damage type.

Second scenario you are using Xoph's Nurture for the 50% phys to fire which gives you 50% fire and 40% cold which is the exact same as Blast Rain. This does also make 150% conversion on Ice Shot, which I can only use the one way conversion model to assume the box takes no effect on Ice Shot.

Last part, you would remove all the cold damage nodes and put on bow damage or physical damage so you could use either single target skills for boss fights.

Yes this would be possible, but would you really want to reduce the builds purpose of clearing just to have a different skill for boss fights? Blast Rain still gets a bonus from the cold damage because of the conversion and its gets double bonus from the weapon elemental damage nodes because the cold damage didn't use to exist.

This heavy change just to use a different skill doesn't seem worth it to me but I would have to have a test done to see if you would gain anything from it.

Leveling this build in Legacy atm; going really well.
Chin Sol is clearing Dried lake really fast on a 5link with no ascendancy (will be going deadye) using the point blank keystone. (Iceshot - Gmp - CHain - Wed - Crit strikes)
I've found that shrapnel shot does amazing single target damage on a 4link with 2 of the new threshold jewels.
Have you actually tried slivertongue on this build or is that just hypothetical?

Also,
Have you tried hrimburn on this build? 50% conversion is pretty handy
Have you tested Added Cold support damage vs Cold Pen support?

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Leveling this build in Legacy atm; going really well.
Chin Sol is clearing Dried lake really fast on a 5link with no ascendancy (will be going deadye) using the point blank keystone. (Iceshot - Gmp - CHain - Wed - Crit strikes)
I've found that shrapnel shot does amazing single target damage on a 4link with 2 of the new threshold jewels.
Have you actually tried slivertongue on this build or is that just hypothetical?

Both in_your_FACE and I have used Slivertongue and it is amazing fun. I also posted a video of me using it with Rigwald's Quills on a Shaped Promenade on the bottom of the guide.

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Also,
Have you tried hrimburn on this build? 50% conversion is pretty handy
Have you tested Added Cold support damage vs Cold Pen support?

I'm in the process of testing lots of things while I take a short break from Legacy league. It is very difficult to get my hands on things during a league though because players either don't have their trades up in standard making things super expensive or they refuse to take 2 mins to trade me because they are in Legacy league.

Since we have 100% conversion to cold damage on the tree Hrimburn will do nothing, but maybe as a leveling unique.

Cold Penetration has always been and probably always will be a hot topic for the build, on one hand the build is mainly about quick clearing of trash mobs which have little to no resists where penetration will give you very minimal damage.

On the other hand you have boss fights where penetration is great but Blast Rain only has 40% cold damage and 50% fire which makes it a little useless as you can use the socket for something to give you more damage and just beat your way through resists.

Edited Ice Shot links, take a look if you are trying out the build. Also fixed the mess the gem links section was becoming and moved Slivertongue links to their own area.

Hello

Its great build and im using it for while. But i want to ask..
Why not Hypothermia?? i think its much better then Ice bite..
ty for answer.