Cold Chronomancer Megathread. T16 (+2) video added.

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Casia#1093 wrote:

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Madlancer#7814 wrote:

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Casia#1093 wrote:

However, Chaos damage/poison bypass it. (bleeding as well, but that can only happen if the physical hit made it past the ES in the first place.)

Oh god I forgot about that, its been years since I played a caster in POE 1. Usually stick to Ranger/Duelist lol

I've seen people say that is wrong. in poe2, chaos does not bypass, it only deals double damage to ES. I don't know which is correct.

I could have sworn it was bypassing. however I may simply have had too little ES to notice.

I've seen the poison at least with a full energy shield a few times now, but I haven't noticed the tick, most likely due to Health regen for now.

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Casia#1093 wrote:

instead of cold pen on freezing shards, could be running lighting exposure.
(edit, nope. needs a lighting skill)

Just tested. I put both cold and lightning exposure supports in Freezing Shards, and it applies both.

Proc rate is very poor for both gems bc FS have very low crit rate. So I just put Controlled Destruction instead of Cold Pen.

Arcane Surge on crit is...ok.
This node is perfect for spammers, but I mostly cast a few hard-hitting spells. Having 20% chance on crit on a rare spell that has 35% chance to crit isn't that good. Not always I have it up after killing a pack.
For now, it feels like a nice qol but not worth 10 points.
I will get it later tho.

Anyway, I'm dead set on using Heavy Frost area for now instead of playing around with double exposure. It gives 80% inc Crit Chance, 60% Inc Damage, no problems with resistances for multi-element damage, and, most importantly, 40% freeze build-up. For 12 points it's a steal to me.

To sum up, respecced out from Exploit the Elements and Adverse Growth for the Desensitisation and more crit chance/damage for the 1st weap set, and more cast speed for the second weap set.

Hit tooltip 120k Comet under mana storm and sigil of power. Was about 80-90 previously.

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monik390#5560 wrote:

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Casia#1093 wrote:

instead of cold pen on freezing shards, could be running lighting exposure.
(edit, nope. needs a lighting skill)

Just tested. I put both cold and lightning exposure supports in Freezing Shards, and it applies both.

Proc rate is very poor for both gems bc FS have very low crit rate. So I just put Controlled Destruction instead of Cold Pen.

Arcane Surge on crit is...ok.
This node is perfect for spammers, but I mostly cast a few hard-hitting spells. Having 20% chance on crit on a rare spell that has 35% chance to crit isn't that good. Not always I have it up after killing a pack.
For now, it feels like a nice qol but not worth 10 points.
I will get it later tho.

Anyway, I'm dead set on using Heavy Frost area for now instead of playing around with double exposure. It gives 80% inc Crit Chance, 60% Inc Damage, no problems with resistances for multi-element damage, and, most importantly, 40% freeze build-up. For 12 points it's a steal to me.

To sum up, respecced out from Exploit the Elements and Adverse Growth for the Desensitisation and more crit chance/damage for the 1st weap set, and more cast speed for the second weap set.

Hit tooltip 120k Comet under mana storm and sigil of power. Was about 80-90 previously.

yeah. I thought it was refusing to let me place it in frost bolt. and I saw the lightning tag. But also tried, and it worked fine.

I think I have a solution.

I was testing icicle on Frostwall. previously I was just running the passive. but with both. frostwall only has 788hp atm. does explode much faster. enabling frost bolts alone to pop them, and kill faster.
without having to rely on the slower frost bombs.
(freezing shards ought to work well)

but I was testing eye of winter, and finally got it to do something worthwhile.
Critical weakness on hit. .5 added chance to crit per hit. stacks to 20.
Also, procs hits and crits on Frostwall itself. Just casting it into frostwalls, can proc arcane surge, even with no enemies. significantly higher arcane surge proc rate.

The bad, chain/fork/pierce hit the walls, and don't continue. and it doesnt freeze as fast/reliably as frostbolt.

Im following Act 2 Cruel (lvl 56): at lvl 54 and i feel like my survivability is gone is my gear just shite

750life
250 sheild

just kinda not sure where to go
https://ibb.co/jv2Tc2f

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Bubz#5858 wrote:

Im following Act 2 Cruel (lvl 56): at lvl 54 and i feel like my survivability is gone is my gear just shite

750life
250 sheild

just kinda not sure where to go
https://ibb.co/jv2Tc2f

thats definitely low.

you'd want over 1k life. 1200+ ideally.
50-75% resists.
400 es+ as well, if going es. maybe armor instedsad.

gear really.
focus on HP on gear. And resist.
Use Artificer orbs to +rune socket on any armor you have, to add runesockets, and then slot in resist runes as needed. note, those can't be undone.

my gear is pretty bad, and not really map ready.. but this is the kind of thing you are locking for by that level.


poe trade of course helps. SSF and self crafting is much rougher. I don't have good advice for that in poe2. essances to "target", or building good ones via bases, blue orbs, and upgrading.. reforging..

Check the vendors every chance you get. pretty sure they seem to have better, more frequent rares then in the wild. .

CoF Frostwall seems great, but I have done very little testing.

I got through cruel act3 swapping between comet for bosses and cold snap to clear. Running a build close to chobi0ne. That was working fine but I'm lazy and I noticed my frostbolts and cold snaps were pretty much 1 shotting frost wall at this point.

So my new strat:
- lay down a frost wall (icicle/tempo/deep freeze) manually
- shoot frostbolts through it, that will blow up these weak wall and freeze everything
- frost walls start filling the area (impetus/spell cascade)
- cold snap (mag effect, considered casting, arcane surge) which will detonate walls

The clear is fast and extremely safe, especially in confined maps.

Anyone have advice on how I could improve this? Support/passives I want? Or just tell me I'm crazy and this won't work in the long run.

I'm curious, would "Triggered Spell Damage" enhance the Ice Crystal damage?

I'm using Unleash on Freezing Shards. Seems to be the best skill to use the support gem on for more consistent instant freeze. Is there a better skill to use the support gem on?

Been wanting to ask this too: How do we increase the radius of Blasphemy curses like Temporal Chains? I feel like the 1 meter radius is too close. Do passive nodes increase it? Magnified support doesn't seem to work. Tested it on a time stopped mob, placed the gem and took it off. No difference in the reach. Anyone tested this more extensively?

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Casia#1093 wrote:

I was testing icicle on Frostwall. previously I was just running the passive. but with both. frostwall only has 788hp atm.

but I was testing eye of winter, and finally got it to do something worthwhile.
Critical weakness on hit. .5 added chance to crit per hit. stacks to 20.
Also, procs hits and crits on Frostwall itself. Just casting it into frostwalls, can proc arcane surge, even with no enemies. significantly higher arcane surge proc rate.

The bad, chain/fork/pierce hit the walls, and don't continue. and it doesnt freeze as fast/reliably as frostbolt.

EoW noted. I respecced out of Surge for now, need 10 more lvls to get it. Probably, can fit it instead of Cold Snap later.

About frost wall. It has more life with more +x cold spell gems. Atm, Freezing Shards take a few casts to break a wall, with icicle and passive. Frost bomb and Comet are the only reliable Wall destroyers for me.

And I don't consider using low lvl of the gem bc it's a very strong shotgunning skill against big bosses. I consider adding damage supports to it later.

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Foronine#0290 wrote:

Anyone have advice on how I could improve this? Support/passives I want? Or just tell me I'm crazy and this won't work in the long run.

I'm curious, would "Triggered Spell Damage" enhance the Ice Crystal damage?

Idk, if it works for you now - it's good, so just do what you are doing.
Personally, I can't advise on things I didn't see by myself.
I dropped CoF for now and never tested Wall on it.

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Bakokang#3499 wrote:

I'm using Unleash on Freezing Shards. Seems to be the best skill to use the support gem on for more consistent instant freeze. Is there a better skill to use the support gem on?

Been wanting to ask this too: How do we increase the radius of Blasphemy curses like Temporal Chains? I feel like the 1 meter radius is too close. Do passive nodes increase it? Magnified support doesn't seem to work. Tested it on a time stopped mob, placed the gem and took it off. No difference in the reach. Anyone tested this more extensively?

Whether to use Unleash on Shards or not is up to you. Strong burst vs stable damage/freezing, whatever you prefer.

Magnified works with Blasphemy: https://youtu.be/I_WuCU3Jaso

Yes, it would help if you had an area of effect passives. Zone of Control is a must. Roil is good. Its downside (reduced area damage) is not noticeable at all.

For anyone interested in CoF-Snap variations - I just discovered that Cold Snap from CoF doesn't really consume freeze from the target it gets triggered from...
I recorded a video where I used Freezing Shards with Glaciation only, just to make sure it freezes instantly and tested it with and without Spell Echo.
https://streamable.com/jh37mj

The only reason why this build "kind of works" for me is because I'm using Spell Echo in my CoF+Snap and Frostbolt (Unleash + Scattershot) as my main ability to freeze things. Frost Wall is being insanely helpful to burst things as well.

So, when I cast Frostbolt on a pack, this happens:
1. Frostbolt launches 3-9 projectiles.
2. Upon reaching the pack, these projectiles pierce targets and start freezing them. If first projectile doesn't freeze it, then second or third might.
3. When CoF reaches max energy, it instantly triggers Cold Snap. This Cold Snap will explode the following:
- Nearby targets which were previously frozen
- Nearby Frostbolt projectiles
- Nearby Frost walls icicles
4. The target which triggered CoF will not be exploded directly with that Cold Snap, but it will most likely die due to area damage from everything else.
5. After small delay it will trigger echoed Cold Snap, which will now explode any remaining frozen targets, frost bolt projectiles and frost wall icicles nearby.

I'm not sure if it's a bug or intended behavior, but this build would be a bit better if CoF Cold Snap consumed that freeze it got triggered from in the first place.

Few notes:
- Spell Echo sort of "fixes" the problem, but at the cost of double mana spendings. Since it's very easy to get CoF-Snap proc on big packs - you run out of mana very fast, even with EB and Inspiration.
- Spell Cascade is an alternative to Spell Echo. I tested it on single target and can confirm that cascade Cold Snaps reach frozen target and explode it too. This costs 0 extra mana, but Spell Cascade on its own has negative effects: reduced damage and reduced area.

Added link to the post above ^ to the guide. Thanks.

Tried fitting CoF-CS to my setup, but drains mana so fast that I had to opt out T_T, and I can't fill it with a mana flask (2.6k).

Atm I seriously considering making a Freezing Shards clearing tree. Sort of.

I tried to run it on my crit tree, saw some 70k shotguns on crit (w/ leverage + supercritical). It definitely has damage potential and is spammable.

The problem is, I must get both freeze build-up and critical nodes. Not sure how to balance it.