[3.20] Ice Shieldmaiden Scion Build

Hello! I was wondering your thoughts on this build but as ice crash.

Hi! Thanks for the great write-up! I’m playing this right now and really enjoying it. It’s different, yet smooth. Shattering is just so satisfying and this does it in BUNCHES. Thanks again! :D

I'm playing on SSF and I'm thinking of giving this build a spin, seems really interesting and I need some change of gameplay after playing Cyclone for the past God knows how many leagues. Do you think I can get away with an Aztiri's Mirror + Rotblood Promise (to self curse and get the +20% to spell block)? It's quite trivial to get 100% curse effect reduction or overcap on Cold Res (to compensate for Frostbite).

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Drakne514 escribió:

Hello! I was wondering your thoughts on this build but as ice crash.

I was thinking the same thing, and Ice Crash is definitely better for clear. Ive not looked at bossing though.

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Ayeartee escribió:

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Drakne514 escribió:

Hello! I was wondering your thoughts on this build but as ice crash.

I was thinking the same thing, and Ice Crash is definitely better for clear. Ive not looked at bossing though.

Man, I missed some stuff while I was away. Depending on what 3.20 looks like I might update the guide, but the build is pretty much the same even after the nerfs. The biggest problem is how much harder it is to get the shield because of the nerfs to harvest, and decisions involving the Eldritch influences for equipment (you can now sustain frenzy against bosses thanks to body armor implicits, all you need is the "gain a frenzy charge every X seconds while in the presence of a unique enemy").

Ice crash is an almost drop-in replacement for Glacial Hammer, with 10-15% drop in DPS but bigger AoE. I've been running some tests, and looks like IC for general use, and GH for pinnacle fights (without splash damage support) is the way to go. For Ice Crash you want to swap out Hypothermia support for Concentrated Effect, so you're going to need a white socket in your body armor; not a terribly hard thing to get. Also, to use both interchangeably you'll need to change the helmet enchant and go for either Frostbite or Elemental Weakness curse effect. Have a play in PoB and you'll find curse effectiveness really works wonders.

If anyone's curious, this is what my level 100 is looking like these days in Standard (using gear that's findable in any league, except for the scourged weapon): https://pastebin.com/c9rMfp2L

I found Unnatural Instinct from a Ritual and figured out it's actually a pretty good one to use near the Scion start area. It gets you the 9% block from the small passives, which allows for some extra point swapping. I think the next step would probably be to figure out how to drop Elemental Overload and go crit damage. There's substantially more upside but the cost is... phew. Also, the Doomsday Impossible Escape jewel would allow to allocate Breath of Rime, Heart of Ice, *and* Skittering Runes, for a substantial DPS boost.

Other upgrades: Incursion gloves with accuracy and attack speed, which would need harvest metacrafting. Harvest allows to swap out the element of the incursion mod (so if you find gloves with "lightning res and increased crit vs. shocked enemies", for example, harvest resistance concersion will give you the "cold resist and increased damage against chilled enemies", for example). And AFAIK attack speed is the only speed mod for the gloves, so it's not as impossible to get as it sounds, just expensive. Also, not influenced because the Eldritch implicits you can get for cold damage are astronomically better than any other influence.

I also found a synthesized ring with a max frenzy charges implicit, which would work great for this build, but I sold it for 200 Divine orbs LOL. Too tempting.

But really, gear upgrades with the current state of crafting are painful, sadly. The shield specially is going to be much, much harder.

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Obodongo escribió:

I'm playing on SSF and I'm thinking of giving this build a spin, seems really interesting and I need some change of gameplay after playing Cyclone for the past God knows how many leagues. Do you think I can get away with an Aztiri's Mirror + Rotblood Promise (to self curse and get the +20% to spell block)? It's quite trivial to get 100% curse effect reduction or overcap on Cold Res (to compensate for Frostbite).

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).

After reading the heaping serving of nerfs 3.20 brings, this build seems to still be kind of viable; but it's going to get ugly. I'll update the OP once I've digested all this.

Losing Replica Pure Talent and getting a severe nerf to curses (thanks to hextouch and the reduced values of Frostbite/Elemental Weakness buffs from Eldritch implicits and Lab helmet) is going to take a chunk of damage away and put more pressure on very high block values for all gear slots. It's also going to require more corruption, and it'll see the return of synthesized boots. Also, getting the shield is 100% Deafening Essence of Loathing + YOLO annuls, which isn't ideal to say the least.

Still, the build scales damage in more than one way (it's not 100% reliant on curses), so it can absorb these changes.

It might require a freaking totem though. And I tried to resist adding it for so long...

Well, 3.20 update. Big hit on damage from the Hextouch and curse scaling changes for general purpose, but a small buff for bosses; if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are correct, it's an extra 4 percentage points (or 15% relative) reduction in cold resistance from curses vs. bosses compared to how it is in 3.19, so not terribly mad at it. It does take a hit on mapping, specially the Humvee version - I was nearing 10M DPS with it.

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

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Neunzehnhundert93 escribió:

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.