I was planning to league start Glacial Hammer, but after the threshold jewel nerf, I canned the idea. After completing 40/40 on my Hiltless Viper Strike and saving up some currency, I decided to revisit Glacial Hammer as a sort of late-league project. Here is my assessment for those with ideas of their own:

Concept:

Can I create a well rounded Glacial Hammer build without dedicating Melee Splash or Ancestral Call in the 6L setup?

The build:

https://pastebin.com/W1GCq2Bh

Video Clips:

Sirus (Last Phase)

City Square Alch N' Go

Frozen Cabins Alch N' Go

Maven Invitation: The Atlas

Frozen Cabins With Melee Splash (for comparison)

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Core Features:

1. Slayer with Frostbreath / Shield for a balance of damage and survivability.
2. 4L Herald of Ice setup for AoE
   1. Herald of Ice, Increased Critical Strikes, Bonechill, Ice Bite
   2. I needed Circle of Fear for the reservation efficiency
3. Hatred, Tempest Shield, Summon Skitterbots, Precision, Defiance Banner
4. +2 Strike Gloves
5. About 2M Shaper Guardian dps

Pros:

1. Able to clear basic endgame content with average speed
2. Capable of doing most map mods
   1. Cannot do "no leech" map mod and "ailment reflect" altar mod (permanent freeze lol)
3. Average survivability

Cons:

1. Setup not sufficient for full Autobomber awesomeness
2. Needs tons of investment before it doesn't feel like complete shit
3. Too squishy for Aspirational Content
4. Could not fit in Determination

Assessment:

I would not recommend this build. For the investment, there are much better builds out there offering much smoother gameplay.

While the 4L HoI setup didn't provide full pack clear with HoI explosions, it did sufficiently augment the total 3 Glacial Hammer strikes with enough explosions to provide decent clear. However, even the 4L setup required fairly significant investment which I'm not so sure was worth it in the end.

Just added one last video showing the clear with essentially the same build but replacing Hypothermia with Melee Splash. The clear is much better, but you can feel the single target falling off. The DPS goes from ~2M to ~1.5M.

I'm fairly happy with the attempt though. If anyone has thoughts or suggestions, I'm all ears.

Edit: Future tests:

1. Swap Headsman out for Endless Hunger (and spec out of Stun Immunity and into corrupted blood immunity).
2. Get new boots