Tri-Hex Ice Nova Cold Lich (updated for 0.3) [PoE 2 Beta]

>>>>> TABLE OF CONTENTS <<<<< I - Concept/Playstyle II - Before you start / Info about the Skill Tree & PoB III - Gear & Runes IV - Jewels V - Campaign Rewards (added as custom mods) VI - Ascendancy VII - Crits VIII - Gem-Setup/Options & Mana Cost Handling IX - Power Charges, Cold Infusion & Ice Archon X - Additional Information & Tips XI - Expensive endgame upgrades (didn't include in PoB) XII - List of Desecrated Mods you can look for I - Concept/Playstyle We're using three curses of which only one is self-cast to create a curse-zone. Ice Nova is used as our main skill to clear and trigger more skills and explosions. It has a huge freeze buildup multiplier but damage needs to be high enough to meet the ailment threshold. In the latest 0.3 patch, it got a slight base damage buff (~3% more) but now has a second damage source via cold infusions and creates chilled ground which makes it more usable for bossing. Lich also got changed, so curses can't affect hexproof monsters anymore but have infinite duration instead. At first, I thought it was a nerf but it turns out that this actually feels much better. Not a single unique is necessary or build-enabling, you can also use rare items instead. They're just a huge QoL. Requirements such as attributes and spirit are relatively easy achievable. Res-capping is also very easy. Simple Playstyle: for mapping, when you see a pack, activate the curse-zone and start casting. If you're in the middle of many mobs (like in Breach or Ritual), keep casting Ice Nova to freeze everything. For single targets, we additionally use Frost Darts. Activate Sigil of Power + Curse, then rotate between Frost Darts and Ice Nova. Frost Darts creates Ice Chunks when hitting a chilled/frozen enemy which deal extra damage. And even more after consuming a cold infusion. It also is a good option to deal damage at distance against annoying mobs such as the mana draining circle one. Pick up remnants from the ground to boost your damage. If ES is going down, use Convalescence to immediately recharge and also gain Ice Archon. This builds strength is mapping. It really shines when there's a lot of mobs on the screen. II - Before you start / Info about the Skill Tree & PoB - Do not go after the calcs as they're incorrect. There's a lot of stuff that currently isn't supported and I also didn't activate. - You really want gem levels, high ES and mana regen to feel comfy while mapping. This means you need some currency to get started - not a starter build! - Level-wise, you want to be 90+. I made two trees: one for Lv 94 and another one to see where you can put additional points. III - Gear & Runes Some of the PoB gear pieces have desecrated mods (such as spirit reservation efficiency on helmet). You don't necessarily need them! As for Spirit, you need a minimum of 310 if you drop Clarity. Get as much as you can on the Sceptre and the rest on your Amulet (or Body Armour if necessary). You can find a list with useful desecrated mods at the end of the notes. 1. Rare Wand: +4 all spells or +4-5 cold spells > high crit chance > high cold/spell dmg > cast speed > extra dmg > mana 1.1 Runes: +1 to all spells or spell crit chance if needed (budget/alternative: damage / ES recharge / stun threshold / chance for additional power/frenzy charge) 2. Rare Omen Sceptre (for Malice): High Spirit > Presence AoE > Mana > Mana reg > Int/Str 2.1 Runes: Attributes (alternatively Presence AoE or Spirit if needed) 3. Rare Chiming Staff (Weapon Set 2 for Sigil of Power): +all spells > cast speed 4. Rare Helmet: 2 sockets > high ES (350+) > res > crit chance > mana (hybrid) 4.1: Runes: AoE (or cost efficiency if needed) 5. Rare Body Armour: get a base with "faster start of ES recharge" or "mana regeneration" implicit, high ES (850+) > faster start of ES recharge > res 5.1 Runes: %ES or ES recharge 6. Gloves: Nightscale with high rolled stats and 2 sockets 6.1 Runes: Curse Magnitudes or cast speed 7. Rare Boots: high MS > high ES (200+) > res 7.1 Runes: %ES or MS 8. Rare Amulet: +3 all spells > spirit > mana (or % mana) > mana regen > spell damage > ES or %ES > crit chance > crit bonus > cast speed > res (get a good base) 8.1 Anoint: Hastening Barrier | Alternatively: Lasting Incantations or Chronomancy for skill duration to get to max CW stacks. If you're missing some Spirit, you could also get Profane Commander. 8.2 Catalysts: Neural (Mana) 9. Rare Rings: Mana > Mana reg > cast speed > res > cold damage > attributes (get a good base) 9.1 Catalysts: Neural (Mana) 10. Rare Belt: Charm slots > res > mana > reduced flask charges used > mana flask recovery rate > str IV - Jewels Rare Jewels: High Crit Chance + Crit Bonus are must-haves. For the 3rd stat you either want %ES or spell/cold/ele damage. One of your jewels also needs 'recover 2% of mana on kill' (see 'Gems' for further explanation). Good 4th stats: curse magnitudes, aoe, presence aoe, additional stun threshold, %damage for triggered spells, ES recharage Prism of Belief: +2-3 to Ice Nova (or Frost Darts if clear is fine / if you want more single target damage) Put your best jewel in the Phylactery socket. In late game, you can use a Megalomaniac (didn't include in PoB, just an example). For more details see endgame upgrades below. V - Campaign Rewards (added as custom mods) A2 Valley of the Titans: Charm charges gained A3 Venom Crypts: Mana regen A4 Abandoned Prison: Mana flask recovery A4 Halls of the Dead: Resistance tattoos Interlude 2 Qimah Seven Pillars: Global Defences VI - Ascendancy We go Lich because of the curse nodes and explosions. Blood Mage would probably be the stronger option but locks you out of running CI. Price of Power is really strong but power charge generation (esp. during boss fights without adds) is pretty ass. Converting frenzy to power charges via Resonance isn't worth it anymore imo due to the changes of marks. You could use Voll's Protector but this body armour doesn't offer anything else and will cost you a ton of EHP. That's why we rather go with Necromantic Conduit. Necromantic Conduit is only active while you're not on low mana (>35%), so keep an eye on your mana pool. Ice Archon has the following line "cannot deal non-cold damage". To make the extra chaos damage from Necromantic Conduit usable, we use Embitter support. Eldritch Empowerment isn't an option because we can't comfortably compensate the constant ES loss. VII - Crits Aim for ~50% crit chance on Ice Nova (check tool tip). We use Ambush, so our first hit is almost always a crit while mapping. 1-2 stacks of CW are pretty much always inflicted, you can include that when planning your gear/tree. You can also take small crit chance nodes instead of crit bonus if needed. One of our auras is Malice which inflicts Critical Weakness (CW) stacks. During boss fights we get up to 16-18 CW stacks in combination with Temporal Chains (which is around 85-90% crit chance). For even more crit chance: - We sometimes get a power charge and more crit chance bonus from Charge Regulation - Anointing 'Lasting Incantations' or 'Chronomancy' increases skill effect duration. This brings you up to the maximum of 20 CW stacks - Use Inevitable Critical support for boss fights instead of Ambush VIII - Gem-Setup/Options & Mana Cost Handling With the new changes to the gem system, we can't use 2x CoC anymore, so we run 1x CoC and 1x CoEA. As bosses can take a while to get frozen and our curses have infinite duration, we put them into the CoEA setup. They'll still get triggered very often during mapping. CoC is used for triggering Frost Bomb and Comet for extra damage, cold infusions and exposure. The new keystone 'Ritual Cadence' and lowered mana cost help a lot with FPS and mana sustain. While mapping, mana can get drained fast because we freeze a lot and trigger curses. This is why it's important to have one jewel with mana on kill. During boss fights you maybe want to pay a little more attention to your mana. Nigtscale prevents you from regenerating mana if you haven't crit. You want to avoid going down to 0 mana at all cost. If you then also have no flask charges, you won't be able to cast! If this happens to you during a boss fight, take off Nightscale for a few seconds. This means, you really want flask charge regeneration on your mana flask and should always have a couple charges just in case. If you struggle with mana cost, use Efficiency II for Ice Nova or drop Heightened Curse in the CoEA-setup. Embitter Support is important to convert any extra damage to cold damage as Ice Archon prevents you from getting any other extra damage than cold. This means we can run Extraction, which - in combination with CI - is basically a free damage gem as we don't lose any life (you don't need life regen) and it doesn't have a cost multiplier. Ice Nova: - For tougher/longer boss fights (Pinnacles), you can replace Ambush for any damage support (such as Inevitable Critical, Cold Mastery or Considered Casting). - You can also take out Magnified Effect for bosses if you want. Stay close and run around in circles. - Don't use Biting Frost as this will consume any freezes and stop freeze buildup - Don't use Spell Echo. It gives a lot of AoE and casts the spell twice, but will make the build feel clunky/less flexible and also comes with a 150% cost multiplier meaning the initial cost will be very high. - If your clear damage is high enough and feels fine, you could also run Mobility to go faster. Optional: Sniper's Mark + Cooldown Recovery II + Profusion II + Mobility for extra single target damage & frenzy charge generation. But you either need an Unset Ring or give up any skill for it. Personally I'm not running it because I'm not much of a bosser. We also already have 5 skills to cast and I'm fine with a frenzy charge from Combat Frenzy every few seconds. >>>>> IMPORTANT <<<<< - Don't forget to assign Skills to Weapon Sets (see 'Skills') - Use high level Curses and Frost Bomb because low-level debuffs don't affect enemies in high level areas IX - Charges, Cold Infusion & Ice Archon Frenzy charges get generated via Combat Frenzy. Breath of the Mountains also procs sometimes. Additionally, Charge Profusion (support) has a 15% chance to grant a random charge. This is why we run Charge Regulation to sometimes get the boni. Elemental Infusion is a new mechanic similar to charges. You pick them up from the ground and some skills gain a bonus. Cold Infusions are generated via Frost Bomb and Siphon Elements. Ice Archon is also a new buff. It grants 25% more cold damage and 100% more freeze buildup and is granted whenever ES recharge starts. Get as much "faster recharge" mods as possible to trigger Ice Archon faster und more often. It also can be forced by using Convalescence. X - Additional Information & Tips - Can play every map mod. Look for the following mods and play a little attentive (especially with increased mod effect): Temporal Chains, less curse effect, less ES recovery, monster stun buildup - If you have additional Spirit, you can add more supports like Clarity, Cool Headed etc. to your auras. - It might take a while until you get a feeling for Nightscale and mana handling. In terms of mana regen and crit chance, Nightscale is best in slot and nothing comes even close. Keep an eye on your mana pool as Necromantic Conduit is only active while you have >35% mana. - Presence AoE should be equal to Ice Nova AoE or higher (easily achievable). - Investing in res pen isn't really worth it as we bring every monster into negative res (even with the 50% penalty against unique monsters) and you can't pen below 0. Heavy Frost (ignores res) also helps with that until curses get triggered in boss fights. If you're bossing a lot, you can self-cast Elemental Weakness and put Temporal Chains in CoEA as Spell Cascade can miss the boss when triggering. - FYI: I tested the new 'Frostwalker' notable and it doesn't work with the Chilled Ground from Ice Nova, so ignore this one. XI - Expensive endgame upgrades (didn't include in PoB) 1. Dialla's Desire - this is a very strong support gem, giving +1 to skill gems, 10% quality and a 0.9 cost multiplier (replace Cold Mastery). 2. Corrupted gear with good implicits or extra sockets. 2. You can replace one jewel for a 2-3 stat Megalomaniac. Only do this if you find one that has at least two strong or three good mods and and it's clearly better than a rare jewel. If you find one with the notable you've anointed, just get something else on your amulet. Same goes for skilled passives; respec them and put the points elsewhere. Below is a list of all usable notables. Some of them are only good as a 3rd filler stat. Use the "count" feature on the trade site and search for at least 2. Invocated Efficiency Deadly Force Conservative Casting Ether Flow Throatseeker Potent Incantation Ruin Energising Archon Hindered Capabilities Heartbreaking For the Jugular Shredding Force Cooked Dependable Ward First Approach Spiral into Mania Spiral into Depression Sigil of Ice Eldritch Will Adverse Growth Inner Faith Mental Alacrity Spell Haste Infused Limits Frozen Limit Dynamism Arcane Intensity Chronomancy Lasting Incantations Lust for Power Efficient Inscriptions Acceleration Frenetic Exploit the Elements Hastening Barrier Profane Commander Repulsion Exploit Climate Change Arcane Blossom Glaciation Aspiring Genius Barbaric Strength (if you can handle the mana cost increase) XII - List of Desecrated Mods you can look for (source: poedb) - Curse Magnitudes - Global Defences - Spirit - Elemental Damage - Invocated Spell Damage - Spell AoE - ES from Body Armour - Spell Damage per 100 Mana - Max Infusions - Cold Damage + Freeze Buildup - Spirit Reservation Efficiency of Skills - Reduced Curse Effect on you - Skill Effect Duration - Max Res - Archon buff duration - Hindered enemies take increased damage - Mana cost efficiency - Elemental damage recouped as ES - Chance to gain an additional infusion - Recover mana on kill - Skill quality - Skill speed - Level of all skills - Hits against you have reduced crit chance / crit bonus