[3.20] Ice Shieldmaiden Scion Build

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Walkiry wrote:

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Neunzehnhundert93 wrote:

You have any video footage of the build especially with Ice Crash?
Played Str stacking Ice Crash Inqui in 3.18 and had a blast and want to play Ice Crash again. Atm I'm torn apart between Berserker and your build and curious how you define "a bit slow" :p

Berserker is undoubtly the faster option but Scion the way more tankier one and I suck at bossing so I need the defenses lol

Just recorded a bit to show it in action: https://youtu.be/cXgKbkFmI8Q

360p at the moment, YouTube takes a hot second to process HD video LOL.

If bossing is what you're after, it's very smooth once you're putting the finishing touches on the build. For pinnacle bosses, specifically, the changes to curses does see a small bump in total curse effectiveness, despite the Hextouch nerf and the curse effectiveness mod reductions - and it gets even better if you use curse-on-hit rings.

Just be mindful of ground degens. Those can't be blocked.

Thanks for the footage!
Thats much faster than I thought it would be. Guess I found my starter thx mate :)

Is Chilling Presence useful here?
With Frostbreath it's always double damage, right?

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Canuberon wrote:

Is Chilling Presence useful here?
With Frostbreath it's always double damage, right?

Indeed, any chill guarantees double damage with Frostbreath. However, you're constantly delivering chill via Vortex already (which should be constantly being cast since it has a cast time of zero), so it's of limited usefulness.

Could be used to save the Vortex+Bonechill sockets if you want to use something different (say, a totem or something else).

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Walkiry wrote:

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Canuberon wrote:

Is Chilling Presence useful here?
With Frostbreath it's always double damage, right?

Indeed, any chill guarantees double damage with Frostbreath. However, you're constantly delivering chill via Vortex already (which should be constantly being cast since it has a cast time of zero), so it's of limited usefulness.

Could be used to save the Vortex+Bonechill sockets if you want to use something different (say, a totem or something else).

Thanks for the quick reply!
Makes sense, I would probably prefer the jewel and have some free gems.
That's personal choice, like you mention. Thanks again!

How big a change or rather how hard/expensive will it be to say go from the tank to the humwee?

I rather like the chonky and immortal builds though, if the tank can do everything without "much" trouble Ill probably stick to that.

Though it would be fun to try the humwee build at some point.

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lordcake wrote:

How big a change or rather how hard/expensive will it be to say go from the tank to the humwee?

I rather like the chonky and immortal builds though, if the tank can do everything without "much" trouble Ill probably stick to that.

Though it would be fun to try the humwee build at some point.

To go from Tank to Humvee requires six items:

1. A second cluster jewel for attack damage while holding a shield (not terribly expensive, but a well rolled one usually sells for a div+; might want to roll it yourself though).

2. A Circle of Fear ring - a top one with two Herald of Ice damage buffs can be a little pricey depending on the implicits. You ideally want "Increased Cold Damage while affected by Herald of Ice" and "Herald of Ice has #% increased Buff effect" for the explicits, and whatever implicits you can find that you like :)

3 and 4. Two good jewels to fill the extra slots you've just opened thanks to your new cluster.

5. A good quality Stygian Vise. This is typically a Hunter item with chunky +life and %life. Those are common through all leagues but, understandably, never cheap. It's not a cheap craft after all.

6. An Abyssal jewel for your belt. With flat cold damage, accuracy, and life. Circle of fear rarely has accuracy unless you hit the right implicit, so you lose a ring slot to carry accuracy for your build. This is where you compensate for it.

Also about... 20 or so orbs of regret, at a quick guess.

Not the most expensive switch in the world, but adds up to some Divines for sure. The Circle of Fear has the potential to be the most expensive item in that list.

I guess ill start out with the tank and get some currency/have some fun before i decide on what to do then.

This build looks cool as hell (pun intended), but some of that gear intimidates me as a casual player... How well does the build play while gearing up? You've got a section there but it isn't all that indepth.

You seemingly take no damage AT ALL, and when you do it comes back instantly, even against some hard content... a lot of builds claim to be tanky but very few actually look it.

I'd like to try this build but getting to a point where I can enjoy it worries me a bit!

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Pathological wrote:

This build looks cool as hell (pun intended), but some of that gear intimidates me as a casual player... How well does the build play while gearing up? You've got a section there but it isn't all that indepth.

You seemingly take no damage AT ALL, and when you do it comes back instantly, even against some hard content... a lot of builds claim to be tanky but very few actually look it.

I'd like to try this build but getting to a point where I can enjoy it worries me a bit!

Thanks! Before completion, the build plays the same but slower. Basically, you can max block with the tree, and you have life nodes accessible that the final form of the build doesn't use (the big, big wheel by the Scion start). If you max the defenses first, it plays the same, just takes longer.

With lower gear you have less reservation - don't run blood and sand or the banner.

With lower gear you have less block - allocate more of the many, readily accessible block nodes.

With lower gear you have less life - allocate more life nodes.

With lower gear you don't have the high-end jewels, including the clusters - so get what you need from the tree, there's plenty of survival and damage wheels readily available.

Frostbreath is all you need to get started at ~1M DPS. Pinnacle fights will be longer and more lively, but you'll do well. In the first incarnations of this build I did not use cluster jewels or the high end jewels, and still facetanked Sirus :)

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Walkiry wrote:

Man, this was back in July. Did you ever give it a try? There's plenty of ways to get extra block at the bottom of the tree (and if all else fails, there's the three nodes by the Scion start that give 3% block each), so it should in principle be completely possible.

Not so sure what else you lose with that setup in terms of gear, the ring slot is flexible enough and you get plenty of resistances from the shield. Mana reservation might be an issue, but that'll just mean dropping the banner (as in placing it fast, or even leaving it out completely).

Turns out I never got around it, but I think it wouldn't be as good as getting a decent block shield anyway.

The reworked Heatshiver should be a blast for this build, don't you think? Basically doubling our damage again against frozen enemies.

I also wonder if Glacial Hammer could be replaced by the new Frozen Legion skill. Should be fun, hitting with a bunch of clones, every one of them dealing double damage. I'm gonna try to tinker with it as soon as all the quirks of Frozen Legion are discovered.