[3.21] ShakCentral's Cold DoT Elementalist For Everyone

"

teyjinshen wrote:

Does any of our spells proc the on hit effect or does it require an auto attack?

Afaik Orb of Storms, Storm Brand, Frost Bomb and Cold Snap all hit.
Frost Bomb can only hit once on explosion. Orb of Storms can hit multiple times.

Cold exposure from Eye of Malice is -10%.

Example calc for my setup without Elemental Weakness:

50% BOSS resistance
-50% from Elemental Equilibrium
-20% from Void Beacon
-44% from Frostbite
-10% from Cold Exposure
-------------------------
-74% all together

Eye now multiplies this by 1,5 so we end up with: -111% if I did not make any mistakes.

Hi.

I guess im a dunce.

I just converted from leveling build to vortex at level 74. My gear is pretty bad, to be sure. I get that. But I guess i'm still a bit underwhelmed? The damage seems pretty dull to me.

I guess i just simply must have that trigger mod on my wand or the build is just bad? Seems like a harsh requirement. I don't know how people are blasting through content right after converting unless they have that. For me it usually takes a long, long long long long time to get enough syndicate encounters to get a specific crafting mod I need. The chances I would have that after act 10 were essentially 0%.

Well, right now it seems like I can do low tier white maps. I just flame dash into a pack and drop vortex. If theyre white they die instantly, but blue packs live long enough to possibly hurt me and vortex chews on yellow mobs or worse for entirely too long. Havent tried a map metamorph encounter yet but I bet those things will eat me alive.

Your guide is very detailed. Almost too detailed. Its hard to comb through and possibly find something I missed. I'm not giving up on the build. Just a little disappointed at the amount of pain im going to have to inflict on myself to get it where it needs to be.

I guess people have different ideas of what a league starter is.

That or I am missing something huge and am a dunce.

Man, you are on a four link with support gems level 6, 4 and 4.

Get a quartz flask (phasing).

Try to get a 5L chest, and level up these gems. Or get corrupted lv 20 gems for quite cheap (failed vaal attempts at lv21) if you have the budget.

Get Elemental Equilibrium, and cast storm brand manually until you have the craft.

I see you speced out CI for now (or you never took it). It's a shame because except a ring, all your gear is ES. This hybrid situation (where you took some life node in desperation) is not the best.

If you have enough regret orbs, go full CI. Spec out Arcanist dominion, Heart and soul (connect the tree through the top, only 1 node), the quick recovery wheel, the devotion branch, blood drinker. Get Unnatural calm, arcane focus, essence surge, fingers of frost... well follow the tree from the guide ^^

tl, dr: quartz, 5L + gems, EE, CI.

"

Nonsensei436 wrote:

Hi.

I guess im a dunce.

I just converted from leveling build to vortex at level 74. My gear is pretty bad, to be sure. I get that. But I guess i'm still a bit underwhelmed? The damage seems pretty dull to me.

I guess i just simply must have that trigger mod on my wand or the build is just bad? Seems like a harsh requirement. I don't know how people are blasting through content right after converting unless they have that. For me it usually takes a long, long long long long time to get enough syndicate encounters to get a specific crafting mod I need. The chances I would have that after act 10 were essentially 0%.

Well, right now it seems like I can do low tier white maps. I just flame dash into a pack and drop vortex. If theyre white they die instantly, but blue packs live long enough to possibly hurt me and vortex chews on yellow mobs or worse for entirely too long. Havent tried a map metamorph encounter yet but I bet those things will eat me alive.

Your guide is very detailed. Almost too detailed. Its hard to comb through and possibly find something I missed. I'm not giving up on the build. Just a little disappointed at the amount of pain im going to have to inflict on myself to get it where it needs to be.

I guess people have different ideas of what a league starter is.

That or I am missing something huge and am a dunce.

First of all your gem levels are way too low. Ideally you want to level them up while leveling with other spells/support gems so when you transition you start with decent gem levels. 4-Link is your second problem, 5-link with decent ES comes cheap so you should consider buying one for dps increase.

The transition from life to CI can be tricky but you work you way with new ES gear until you feel confortable with only ES. Respec can be expensive if you have a lot of nodes to remove on your skill tree, try to anticipate and buy the right amount of regret orbs.

Then your next big DPS upgrade is Elemental Equilibrium:

I strongly suggest you buy a cheap wand with "trigger socketed spell when you use a skill" mod even if you don't have any over good mods. Alternatively you can cast Storm brand manually until you can afford the wand with the right mod. (if you do that you will want to get rid of your wand as it have a source of "cold damage to spells" which you don't want on any gear as it messes up with Elemental Equilibrium).

Then try to get 7K+ ES, at least gem lvl 19 and decent flasks for immunities and defense. You can look at my profile I didn't change my flask since lvl 75.

Next big big DPS upgrade is the transition from CI to Low Life. It is expensive right now as you need to buy Presence of Chayuala and Shavronne at the same time. You can try your luck with fusing or buy a 5/6 link one. I do recommend sticking with CI, farming until you manage to 6-link or buy a 6-link Shavronne, buy a Presence of Chayula and then transition to Low Life.

After that you start min-maxing your gear towards more defenses, ES or DPS.

Tips to save time:

- Try to level up your gems before you need them (using your secondary weapons for example). The gems you won't rly use before Low Life are the curses, blasphemy, blood magic. Same for Swift affliction if you don't have a 6-link.

- Gem level is much more important than spell damage or any additive mod. The only really juicy mod is "cold damage over time multiplier".

- DOT gameplay is more like a running simulator, you dot and run, if the target is tough, run in circle around it trying to avoid all the shit, this is how I play it so far and apart from some one-shot mechanics and heavy degen, you won't die. Flasks management is important for boss fight, you don't want to die from ignite or bleeding because your flasks are empty.

nvm

Alright I've got a bunch of currency saved up and will likely be trying to upgrade my gear a bunch.


I plan to grab a timeless jewel (3.5 ex about) to help smooth the damage.

I was also going to buy about 1k alterations and also try to roll a wand for the +1 to cold gems and hopefully another good rolls before I craft trigger on it. Is that a good strategy?

Will likely grab a 200+ ES shield with +1 to cold gems too, but may also look into if it's better to get a corrupted prism to really boost the auras..


I believe I will still have a few ex left and may look into replacing my helmet or gloves next. Any opinions? (Really want to know about the wand crafting/ which shield you think would make more sense).



Edit: Bought the timeless jewel now and have glancing blows.


Just need more information on the wand crafting before I begin, also opinions on the shield.

I figured if I grabbed a prism shield I could drop my level 21 blood magic and won't require so much strength that I need the node currently on my tree. Which could be a potential jewel socket node once I level.

"

frost21 wrote:

Alright I've got a bunch of currency saved up and will likely be trying to upgrade my gear a bunch.


I plan to grab a timeless jewel (3.5 ex about) to help smooth the damage.

I was also going to buy about 1k alterations and also try to roll a wand for the +1 to cold gems and hopefully another good rolls before I craft trigger on it. Is that a good strategy?

Will likely grab a 200+ ES shield with +1 to cold gems too, but may also look into if it's better to get a corrupted prism to really boost the auras..


I believe I will still have a few ex left and may look into replacing my helmet or gloves next. Any opinions? (Really want to know about the wand crafting/ which shield you think would make more sense).



Edit: Bought the timeless jewel now and have glancing blows.


Just need more information on the wand crafting before I begin, also opinions on the shield.

I figured if I grabbed a prism shield I could drop my level 21 blood magic and won't require so much strength that I need the node currently on my tree. Which could be a potential jewel socket node once I level.

Lethal Pride is great, it made a huge difference for me.
And what I didnt even think about before: You get a ton of strength from it, so you basically dont have to worry about strength on your equipment anymore, very convenient.

I think Prism is the way to go. Yes, you lose quite some ES but the damage gets buffed so much. And you can also decide to include a defensive aura like Flesh and stone if you feel too unsafe.
And the dex and resistences on Prism are also nice to make gearing easier.
I don't think a corrupted prism makes that much of a difference, would be really low on my priority list.

Grabbing some nice fingerless Silk gloves for higher damage and more ES should be easy.

No idea about wand crafting, sorry.

"

Laxxus wrote:

"

frost21 wrote:

Alright I've got a bunch of currency saved up and will likely be trying to upgrade my gear a bunch.


I plan to grab a timeless jewel (3.5 ex about) to help smooth the damage.

I was also going to buy about 1k alterations and also try to roll a wand for the +1 to cold gems and hopefully another good rolls before I craft trigger on it. Is that a good strategy?

Will likely grab a 200+ ES shield with +1 to cold gems too, but may also look into if it's better to get a corrupted prism to really boost the auras..


I believe I will still have a few ex left and may look into replacing my helmet or gloves next. Any opinions? (Really want to know about the wand crafting/ which shield you think would make more sense).



Edit: Bought the timeless jewel now and have glancing blows.


Just need more information on the wand crafting before I begin, also opinions on the shield.

I figured if I grabbed a prism shield I could drop my level 21 blood magic and won't require so much strength that I need the node currently on my tree. Which could be a potential jewel socket node once I level.

Lethal Pride is great, it made a huge difference for me.
And what I didnt even think about before: You get a ton of strength from it, so you basically dont have to worry about strength on your equipment anymore, very convenient.

I think Prism is the way to go. Yes, you lose quite some ES but the damage gets buffed so much. And you can also decide to include a defensive aura like Flesh and stone if you feel too unsafe.
And the dex and resistences on Prism are also nice to make gearing easier.
I don't think a corrupted prism makes that much of a difference, would be really low on my priority list.

Grabbing some nice fingerless Silk gloves for higher damage and more ES should be easy.

No idea about wand crafting, sorry.

Oooo huge point on the jewel also giving me strength, didn't even realize either. That lets me drop my strength node,so now I can grab another jewel socket once I level.


Hmm, with a corrupted prism can't you get +2 to AOE gems or whatnot, boosting your aura gems by another +2, I thought that would be huge?

I really didn't think a regular prism would be worth going but I may try it out initially before I even considering buying a corrupted (If prism seems to be the play).


Alright I'll look at gloves/helmet next likely. Just trying to figure out the rest first before messing around with my resists.


Thanks for the help.


Hopefully someone else is more knowledgeable in terms of wand crafting.

"

frost21 wrote:

Hmm, with a corrupted prism can't you get +2 to AOE gems or whatnot, boosting your aura gems by another +2, I thought that would be huge?

I really didn't think a regular prism would be worth going but I may try it out initially before I even considering buying a corrupted (If prism seems to be the play).

Not sure if everyone does it but I have Discipline, Hatred and Malevolence in Prism.
Hatred going from 22 to 24 is no difference, 23 to 25 1% more cold damage, not big.
Discipline is a little bit over 100 more ES for me with 2 extra levels.
Malevolence no damage difference from 22 to 24, from 23 to 25 1% more DoT, sso again no real difference. (and 1% increased skill effect duration I think).
So it really doesnt matter...maybe the 12% all res might be even more interesting ;-)

@Laxxus

True, I didn't realize how little it'd do. Guess thats mainly for MIN-MAXING when you have plenty of currency leftover.

I will likely try out the regular prism setup later today and see how I like it.

I'll probably use the same setup you're using with the hatred plugged in there alongside Disc/Mal.