[3.24] Frostbolt/Ice Nova Hierophant | 100m DPS | All Content

Hey, this is my current setup. I got Doryani and watchers eye in Passive tree.
(clarity MoM & zealotry=12%cst speed)
Now I got some Ex to spare and dont really know if its worth to buy skyforth which is super expensive. Got about 10ex, so either i buy a skyforth or i upgrade my gems to awakening ...
Or am i missing something?
And yes i know that there are soe empty ge-slots but i dont know how to fill em...
The Head is mirrored, so nothing to change there

Thanks in advance.

How do one deal with the boss damage when you dont have a life flask when fighting bosses?

First of all, thanks for the great build. Instantly kills conquerors and consistently does sub 2 minute A8 Sirus kills so if anyone is reading this and unsure if this build is worth putting together, it absolutely is.

Also, I'm really glad I read through the recent comments. Had no idea Awakened Spell Echo had skyrocketed to over 60 ex now and didn't even work properly for our build so I quickly switched back to 21/20 Spell Echo.

@staubsaugen
Get a cheap level 21 Vaal Ice Nova (can sometimes snipe 21/23 for the same price as 21/20 if you want to spend extra) and upgrade all the supporting gems to 20% quality (you're missing out on free damage keeping them at 0%). I'd also recommend finding a way to switch your links around so that you can socket level 1 lesser duration in your gloves. Lesser duration plus aspect of the cat means permanent power/frenzy charges which is huge. I'd also personally recommend getting tailwind boots instead of Skyforth. Also, try to get a similar rare ring that already has life on it and has an empty prefix so you can craft Adds _ to _ fire damage and Adds _ to _ cold damage. That damage applies to your Ice Nova and the fire damage will allow you to run Cinderswallow Urn for big damage and survivability gains. At some point you'll also want to upgrade your helm to one with -9% to nearby cold resistances (preferably with adds cold damage to spells or crit multi as well). I'd recommend downloading Path of Building, importing your build into it, and seeing how much DPS you gain from various upgrades to best figure out which upgrades you should be going for first.

@DevonX1
I'd recommend running a life flask up until you're at GG end game gear. I think I ran a Bubbling Divine Life Flask of Staunching but there are plenty of other good options. Once you're rocking end game gear, you'll instantly kill conquerors and instantly phase A8 Sirus so you can drop a life flask in favor of something like a Bottled Faith for even more damage (and you still get some life regen while on the consecrated ground).

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Paulst1ck wrote:

@xRoflcopterx I see you are running two curses at the time. How do you make them both trigger?

Awakened Curse on Hit allows you to apply an additional curse at level 5.

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DevonX1 wrote:

How do one deal with the boss damage when you dont have a life flask when fighting bosses?

I don't like not having a life flask vs. bosses either, so just replace your quicksilver with a life flask.

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Paulst1ck wrote:

@xRoflcopterx I see you are running two curses at the time. How do you make them both trigger?

Awakened Curse on Hit allows you to apply an additional curse at level 5.

Much appreciated mate, good to know.

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I'm going to have to disagree here. I am nonstop bosskilling as a service, and it's basically 99.9% uptime on nova overlap even with Conc Effect. The only time this may be untrue is if you are not close to the boss, but most bosses are significantly safer to tackle if you are close to them.

Here I show the first and last repeat of Ice Nova with Conc Effect/Intensify 4:

As you can see the overlap is very small, basically just a crescent. Now let's say you waited for the Frostbolt to travel a little farther before casting Ice Nova; that crescent would have moved up the screen a little and it would not overlap the original crescent. In order to get 100% uptime on novas hitting the target, your target would have to be in ALL the crescents. This is not possible unless you recast Frostbolt very often. More area would make the crescent bigger so you will be able to let Frostbolt travel farther before recasting.

That is just an illustration; it turns out not to be optimal to aim for 100% of novas hitting the target (it is something more like 80%). So we do not actually have to make sure the target is in the crescent. But you can still see how more area would make our life easier. The main points are: (1) 100% nova uptime is not really the goal, because there is a trade-off between nova uptime & time between frostbolt casts; (2) increased area on ice nova moves the curve of this trade-off; we can get more nova uptime with the same rotation, or we can keep the same nova uptime but cast frostbolt less frequently.

This would be more convincing with actual numbers, so here is a table.

The right column specifies the maximum # of Ice Novas per second hitting a stationary target with perfect play (standing at the optimal distance & casting the optimal # of Ice Novas between each Frostbolt. These parameters vary based on AoE radius). I am assuming Intensify 4. With Conc. Effect we have an AoE radius of 29, without it Conc Effect it is 35. Dividing the two hits/sec numbers, we get 13.5% more hits by removing Conc Effect, which is enough to offset the damage loss.

Sidenote: You could also put Slower Projs on Frostbolt to optimize single target. That is just not a fun playstyle though so I would much rather just increase area.

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Arcinde wrote:

With Conc. Effect we have an AoE radius of 29, without it Conc Effect it is 35.

I think this is why we are having different experiences; we have slightly different passive tree allocations. I'm at 35 AOE with Conc Effect, and I find it to be a sufficient AOE to get optimal overlap.

EDIT: At second glance, we should only have a 2 radius difference, which may be as low as 1 considering your higher mana pool. Why are you only at 29?

EDIT 2: I took a look at your PoB, and you're at 35 with Conc Effect. Is PoB's AoE Radius calculation off due to multiple rounding errors along the way or something?

I'm wanting to start an Assassin version of this, but I do not know if Pledge of Hands is still BIS for this build since the interaction with Ice nova was changed. And if there is a damage loss or AOE loss because of it.

Anyone tell me the Pros and Cons of the new interaction?

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staubsaugen wrote:

Hey, this is my current setup. I got Doryani and watchers eye in Passive tree.
(clarity MoM & zealotry=12%cst speed)
Now I got some Ex to spare and dont really know if its worth to buy skyforth which is super expensive. Got about 10ex, so either i buy a skyforth or i upgrade my gems to awakening ...
Or am i missing something?
And yes i know that there are soe empty ge-slots but i dont know how to fill em...
The Head is mirrored, so nothing to change there

Thanks in advance.

I second the poster above for getting a pair of boots with tailwind over skyforth. Tailwind/elusive boots are even better. The added surviveability from elusive has been great! This would be my first priority over awakened gems personally.

Get some life on your ring, mana on your belt and upgrade them gems.

So they announced the Nerf to pledge & ice nova + fb interaction was an intentional (but unlisted in the patch notes) Nerf in 3.10

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2817565/page/5#p23088769