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High Damage Ice Elf Build


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I'm interested in this build as well. I'd like to know about eating runes. Which CAs do you leave at 1 and which do you pump? Anything need to be kept at focus limit or can you just go hog wild on some of the buffs?

 

Thanks for the detailed guide, as well.

 

The overly simple answer - keep ALL of your CAs' regen times within reason. That is, if you go nuts eating runes, your regen time will be so high the CA will be kinda worthless. The ONLY buff in the entire game you can go "hog wild" with is Grand Invigoration. And that is because it doesn't add to your other Combat Arts regen woes. In fact, it will help keep them under control.

 

Your best bet is to keep the regen times for stuff you use frequently (like Ancestral Fireball, Frost Flare, Glacial Thorns, Blazing Tempest and Cobalt Strike) to less than 3 seconds if at all possible. Stuff like Raging Nimbus - which has a long duration - you can let that go to be no more than a few seconds longer than the duration of the spell.

 

There's no hard or fast rule on this - if you find yourself getting killed because your CAs are taking too long to regen, you will want to cut that regen time down to size. It's a matter of your comfort zone and what you can get away with.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just wanted to say THANK YOU. This is possibly the best guide I have ever followed, for any type of character. I just finished killing all four guardians in record time with out even breaking a sweat. My HE is at level 48 right now, partly because I wasted some time finishing the office quest for a weapon she doesn't even really need. :D It was great not having to really worry about wether or not my character was up to par with killing the guardians or not. Now I can go on to gold feeling confident about the future.

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Just curious, using cascading shroud only lasts 20s or so, with a 60s cool down.

 

Maybe one can also make use of shadow step using the silver mod vanish, and according to the wiki ((9.9 sec + 0.1 sec per CA level) and with a cooldown of 15 seconds , will it not be possible to extend the 9.9 close to 15s, meaning you can stay invisible for longer. But will one stay invisible if you use combat art during that time, I have not played my elf to high enough level to mod shadow step and test.

 

Any ideas ?

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I tested with my level 72 and Shadow step was at level 38 and choosing the second mod vanish I could hardly see that the toon was invisible at the end of the teleport. Or perhaps the vanish doesn't work quite the same as the Shadow Warriors shadow veil.

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I tested with my level 72 and Shadow step was at level 38 and choosing the second mod vanish I could hardly see that the toon was invisible at the end of the teleport. Or perhaps the vanish doesn't work quite the same as the Shadow Warriors shadow veil.

IMO, it works better than Shadow Veil! Except that it takes some work and management to stay invisible all the time, but from what I remember when I used it, it works great! I am unsure about the "stealth" vaues (ie from SV). The real way to tell if she is invisible is if the ranged enemies stop firing at you when you 'port. They should stop and either stand idle or just walk around waiting for you to immolate them :evil: or freeze 'em :smart:

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I tested with my level 72 and Shadow step was at level 38 and choosing the second mod vanish I could hardly see that the toon was invisible at the end of the teleport. Or perhaps the vanish doesn't work quite the same as the Shadow Warriors shadow veil.

IMO, it works better than Shadow Veil! Except that it takes some work and management to stay invisible all the time, but from what I remember when I used it, it works great! I am unsure about the "stealth" vaues (ie from SV). The real way to tell if she is invisible is if the ranged enemies stop firing at you when you 'port. They should stop and either stand idle or just walk around waiting for you to immolate them :evil: or freeze 'em :smart:

 

Yeah, your toon doesnt actually turn invisible, she just doesnt get seen by anything until the timer expires.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I just started this build yesterday and I love love love it! :heart: I was kind of skeptical about the damage because I thought pyro would be more but I'm not having any problems taking down a ton of mobs :viking: thanks for the time you put into this! :thumbsup:

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Hey there Gogo, got some questions for you. I've recently resurrected my own Ice Elf, and find that she's almost identical to the one you've build up here, except I swapped Combat Discipline for Shield Lore. I'm a wimp. :)

 

Question 1:

 

At level 92, the main problem I'm having so far is defense. Even with lots of Anneal runes socketed, my defense is a paltry 1500 or so. I have tons of physical armor from Crystal Skin, and am getting by with relics for other elemental damage. But I'm getting hit a LOT, and feeling rather squishy. I'm on the way to mastering Constitution as you suggested, but any other suggestions in the meantime?

 

Question 2:

 

Do you keep all your attacking spell Combat Arts at level 1? Flare, Nimbus, and Thorns? I found the damage on Flare was getting a little low so I pumped a few runes into it, and regen is still ok - about 1.4s with a level 55 or so Flare (that's mostly +CA from gear and socketed Niob Flare runes, not all read) and that's working well. Just curious what your CA levels are now at character level 122+, and how many of those are read runes.

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Hey Cheese!

This was a really hardy build, but Constitution was what really locked in a lot of breathing room at an early level. I was carrying around armor to boost the levels of all my buffs...significant I think. I remember wanting regens absolutely as low as possible...I think I never purposely ever ate a rune unless it was an accident.

 

I was doing a TON of socketing, resocketing...and then more testing and resocketing after. Some of the damage from rings/ammies started petering out at a certain point so I had to keep switching around to keep damage going up.

 

You can get the download for this build though, and check out the gear, I think that will really give idea, also remove equipment to see how much is native to her at her level with skill choices and runes eaten.

 

I still love playing this build, she's so safe and strong

 

:)

 

gogo

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello everyone, I'm quite new to the game, and I made this build now, I was wondering is Delphic arcania lore necessary? And what does it do? Since I dont use any Delphic spells that does damage. Thanks for your responses in advance :)

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Welcome aboard, fellow Finn!

AFAIK DA Lore affected the regeneration from Grand Invigoration in this build. Important factor to keep your lady in good health.

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Welcome aboard, fellow Finn!

AFAIK DA Lore affected the regeneration from Grand Invigoration in this build. Important factor to keep your lady in good health.

 

Ok, thanks :) Was afraid to take it, am now 51 level and took bargaining until I could figure out the reason why to take DA lore :) I dropped off the "combo" skill, cause I'm not tired of pressing one button to use Clacia Thorns yet, so I could take bargaining. Besides, Raging nimbus takes care of groups so I can level in peace :)

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Stormwing's right about the hp. HE's at around niobium can take some REALLY nasty damage.

 

Nasty

 

 

I took DA Lore for synergy with Con Mastery.

 

The boost to HP Regen is HUGE. I was also lucky and had a trading network setup. Because of this, I didn't have to choose EP or Bargaining..basically the trading network worn me a free skill slot. Because I wanted this build to be expert at taking out Guardians and the challenge was

 

 

No Weapon Lores. No weapon Combat Arts. No Tactics Lore ...just a plain old Purely Magical build.

 

I decided to use skills almost to max out her viability, and let damage mostly to sockets. That free extra choice because I wasn't worried about equipment came in handy, and I was able to get the DA Lore in which helped with regen (that impacted the combo for damage faster plus massive hp boost) and the combo skill also damage and regen on the shards. That poison is guardian is menace, and had me sweating a few times. Even with all the damage this build can put out, taking out a million hp is scary, specially since he can do that dang additive damage leech which is enough to have your heart jump out your throat.

 

Oh, and hey Jyrki, welcome to DarkMatters!

 

:)

 

gogo

 

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Thanks for the responses :) This HE is my second 60+level character at the moment, and I still dont have the bargaining char, as I found out how easy this build is to level up, I decided it would become my buyer. I'm not even sure if I dare to even try at niobium, when I reach there :P Just reached 65lvl and now I'm starting Gold campaign, so far it's been pwnage with this gal :)

 

Oh, and I'm scared shi**ess that I'we ruined this character, I have been eating runes to get my Combat Arts up, cause I dont have any nifty +all skill stuff yet :/ Though I quess most of you started without the too at some point :P

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Gotta say, Gogo. She's one nasty sorceress. ^^ Got one to 60'es and gotta say, I love every inch of my icy gal. :wub: Hoping to rush her to Plat today to see how she fares.

So far so good, sporting over 14K armour and scrapping all that comes on her way. Deffo one of my fave spellweavers so far. :oooo:

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Glad yer having fun with the Agent! She was the safest magic user I've played in this game, and her thorns make mincemeat out of bosses. My only critique is that I wish the thorns could have looked as good as they did in the original game!

 

:)

 

gogo

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Here's how you mod it:

 

Frost, devastation, fusillade

 

I am sure that many will have their own versions and for different reasons. But I had just wanted to make the most powerful blast powerful, and had tried out two variations with this one winning... it follows what I believe to the the Ascaron Dev's basic gaming philophy...always build in variety... and that's why I think my hand was "guided" into not taking any of the thorn mods twice.

 

Gogo, any chance you can elaborate on this decision? Did you and Schot crunch the numbers or was this just the gut feeling you describe? That first bronze mod is what I'm curious about really. The ice damage and more thorns both sounds so good, which one to pick :D

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Here's how you mod it:

 

Frost, devastation, fusillade

 

I am sure that many will have their own versions and for different reasons. But I had just wanted to make the most powerful blast powerful, and had tried out two variations with this one winning... it follows what I believe to the the Ascaron Dev's basic gaming philophy...always build in variety... and that's why I think my hand was "guided" into not taking any of the thorn mods twice.

 

Gogo, any chance you can elaborate on this decision? Did you and Schot crunch the numbers or was this just the gut feeling you describe? That first bronze mod is what I'm curious about really. The ice damage and more thorns both sounds so good, which one to pick :D

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Hi Ryan,

About your question as stated in gogo's linked about shard mods actually gogo's right about this I tried some number crunching and it seems getting the frost mod rather than fussilade is better why? cause the damage you can achieve with 55 thorns at any current level is less than you can achieve with frost mod, cause if you'll try some experimenting if you chose fussilade the base damage of each thorn is lowered by the game.

If you take frost mod:

50 thorns with lets say base damage of 60 dmg/thorn = 3000 dmg pts. if you add the frost mod it can become: 50 thorns x 65 dmg/thorn =3200 dmg. pts.

 

whereas if you take fussilade:

50 + 5= 55 thorns x 55 = 3025 dmg. pts.

 

as you can see its better to have higher base damage early in the game its not a big increase in damage but it can help flatten some unsuspecting kobolds.

 

Any way this calculation is based on experimenting on seven different Ice Elf builds I made corresponding to different theoretical builds by other players but I think gogo's and schot's the best and safest builds anyways its my opinion cheerio! :D

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