Cold Chronomancer Megathread. Fully updated.

Lightning Warp + Life Drain is pretty fun. Easy addition to the build to give you some mobility when you get awkward wall placement and gives you a way to create shocked ground for more damage.

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Casia#1093 wrote:

updated tree theorycraft.


ES is terrible. EB is all but required as I noted in that other post. for all witch/sorcs.



https://imgur.com/a/FWuW4OY

please tell me what is EB?

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myxaell5#2046 wrote:

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Casia#1093 wrote:

updated tree theorycraft.


ES is terrible. EB is all but required as I noted in that other post. for all witch/sorcs.



https://imgur.com/a/FWuW4OY

please tell me what is EB?

ES=Energy shield

EB=Eldritch battery


Energy shield as a defensive layer is very ineffective in poe2. not enough support to make it regen fast enough, or through damage to make it viable.

so, the superiour option is to take eldritch battery, which converts energy shield into mana. A large boost to mana.
Then, that mana can feed more damage via many skills or passives. As well as directly provide a defensive layer via, "damage is taken from mana" nodes, or Mind over matter aka "mom". which you will see mentioned often.

Act 2 Cruel gameplay and twin bossfight:

https://youtu.be/_Dvsxqwq5_M

Passive tree:


Ascendancy: Now and Again - Unbound Encore

Skills:

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Casia#1093 wrote:

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MagicznyAdi#5221 wrote:

Slow is basically action speed reduction from POE1.

Present of the Moment passive from ascendancy stacks with other slows so I put Temporal Chains + Magnified Effect on Blasphemy to slow enemies by 47%.

Then I some AoE nodes and Zone of Control on tree to have bigger curse AoE and hinder by 15%.

Present of the Moment has 6m radius, Blasphemy now has 5.7m radius.

I'm now in maps and mobs can't even attack me, if they somehow get to me I use Temporal Rift and escape. Too bad it doesn't slow projectiles.

Interesting. there are reports of Apex of the Moment not working.

I did see Zone of control. did you also grab Hindered Capabilities right next to it?

I did try Blasphemy_enfeeeble and was not impressed with its default size, even with magnify.

Very interesting.

You're not the only one that had this idea. FO Sorc is always going to be my goto because it was my favorite in D2 Original (no bloody LoD, D2R .. Original)

So far I managed to get Frost Bolt up with some really nice fast cast passives, but the Frost Bolt kind of sucks compared to Arc. And then I realized putting points into Energy Shield as probably a really good idea.

Maybe it will unwind at higher levels but right now I'm only 24 but for right now I have ditched the cold and gone with lightning.

We need something viable with a virgin character. Not a twink.

Introduction
When the PoE2 reveal trailer came out, I fell in love with the idea of a Chronomancer. Through gameplay hours, I naturally arrived at this build. I think this is one of the most "fun" builds there is. I say it's "fun" because this build allows one to avoid almost all the pain points in this game. Let me list them:
- Normal mobs are too fast and get up in your space
- Mobs can circle block you to death
- The map is huge, and slowly fighting to clear areas is a pain

The Cold Chronomancer Solution
The Cold Chronomancer fixes all of the above. With Cold abilities, all non-fast mobs eat your dust. Fast-moving mobs can be blocked with ICE WALL. Additionally, TEMPORAL RIFT is a great utility spell - one of the few "movement" skills. I can easily speed through areas, and when stuck, just activate TEMPORAL RIFT to escape death.

For boss fights, this is a great utility spell. With some support gems, you can tank hits and come back unscathed. Even if you're not taking damage, with its low cooldown, you can use it to get mana back. I believe it gives invulnerability when activated, as I've used it to dodge boss attacks.

Trash Mob Clearing
Fighting trash is boring - I think it's the worst part of the game. Usually, this isn't bad in ARPGs, but this game has zero loot, so boss fights are the only interesting part for me. Enter CAST ON FREEZE + COMET: with an energy increase support gem plus one of the node of energy increase in the tree, a single freeze can summon a COMET. With the SPELL ECHO support gem, you can reliably one-shot all non-rare monsters.

My game plan against trash mobs is simply to freeze them with FREEZING SHARDS, triggering COMETS that clear the whole area. This lets me basically zone out until reaching boss areas.

Boss Fights
It's pretty "slow" - I have 2-5 minute boss fights compared to others who kill them in 1-2 minutes seconds. Boss fight speed depends on their size. Large bosses die quickly because of ICE WALL. Small bosses take longer as I can't reliably break ICE WALL. I have both the Icicle support gem and the Shattered Crystal passive skill point. The funny part is small bosses can be somewhat ignored due to ICE WALL - I just surround them at the edge of the boss arena with SPELL CASCADE support gem. It's hilarious watching them get stuck at the edge (excluding act bosses, they float through).

Damage comes from spamming FROST BLAST on cooldown, keeping distance with ICE WALL, then spamming COMET. Remove COMET from Cast on Freeze, as it's only semi-useful due to difficulty freezing bosses. I get about 5 freezes before killing them, but that's double the COMET damage when using it manually rather than Cast on Freeze.

The original build suggests using FREEZING SHARDS, but given the state of gear ("HAHAHA"), I can't upgrade my FREEZING SHARDS, so I'm stuck with a +3 cold spell staff from Act 3. Also, FREEZING SHARDS don't synergize well with ICE WALL.

Chronomancer Comments
Besides TEMPORAL RIFT, I've had mild success with Quicksand Hourglass. You can develop a rhythm:
ICE BLAST -> HYPOTHERMIA -> EYE OF WINTER x3 -> ICE WALL x4
This gets you the buff, then spam COMET. Usually manage 3 COMETS: first COMET+ICE BLAST causing freeze, then 2 COMETS during freeze. Rinse and repeat.

Ascendancy Tree Comments
For the other stuff in the ascendancy tree, I couldn't find much use. I was very hyped for TIME SNAP branch, but there's nothing in this build except for ICE WALLS (again, only useful during giant bosses). There are support gems that add cooldown for damage, but the point is counterintuitive - "I can't reliably cast this because it's slow, so let's trade on-the-spot damage for cooldown utility." The cooldown increase is 8 seconds for a measly 40% damage increase. And there are better support gems to choose, like Spell Echo, Arcane Tempo, Concentrated Effect. Might change when 6 linking.

As a Chronomancer with +8 second cooldowns, you can't reliably deal damage, and TIME SNAP has a 35-second cooldown. I can get all my ICE WALL charges in about 9 seconds. The only interaction is with FROST BOMB, which is a good DPS alternative since it was balanced with cooldown in mind. However, FROST BOMB is unreliable for bosses since they don't stay still, and the 0.8s cast time means having 4-10 FROST BOMBS at once takes forever. You might as well spam COMETS which are more reliable with short delay after casting and dodge roll capability. Imagine getting those lucky resets for 10 FROST BOMBS just to have the boss move away!

You could use it with ICE WALL - it has 4 charges, and TIME SNAP resets all of them, so you can get up to 8-16 walls. This obliterates giant bosses - I used this before getting COMET. The caveat is it has to be a big boss; small bosses make this useless.

TIME FREEZE spell initially seemed cool but kind of sucks - 59 seconds cooldown for a 3-second screen-wide 100% action slow. I only used it twice per fight. Three seconds is nice, but I'm playing a Cold Chronomancer - I get 3-second freezes every 10s minimum. I thought it would synergize with freeze, like TIME FREEZE -> COMET, where the freeze duration would pause for effectively 6 seconds of freezing. But the freeze just expires during TIME FREEZE, so for 60 seconds, you get barely anything useful.

For maps, it's even more useless against trash mobs. The trailer showed TIME FREEZE plus COMET, but with CAST ON FREEZE for instant COMET, why bother? It's useful against rare mobs, but at *59 seconds* cooldown, I meet the next rare mob in 20-30 seconds at my speed.

APEX OF THE MOMENT feels broken - I took it for fast mobs, but it doesn't seem to work. If it worked, I'd instantly pick this because the mobs are too fast!

The life recoup is questionable - theoretically getting 100% life recoup in 3 seconds sounds nice, but it gimps all damage, and getting max life is unreliable. Without damage nodes, you can't clear white mobs. Plus, TEMPORAL RIFT exists as a semi 100% Life, Mana, Shield recoup every 6 seconds with all the benefits mentioned earlier.

Future Plans
I'm planning on going for TEMPORAL RIFT (amazing utility), QUICK SAND HOURGLASS (decent DPS), and TIME SNAP tree (to enhance TEMPORAL RIFT - imagine having 5 rifts for endless tanking, plus beefing up ICE WALLS for giant monsters).

I feel this might get tuned (decrease in cold aliments?(Fire and Lightning doesn't seem fun.)) since GGG wants players doing skill combos, not speeding through everything. Before CAST ON FREEZE and COMET, I used FROSTBOLT -> ICE NOVA -> COLD SNAP. Though combo-worthy, it's not like the instant kill of FREEZING SHARDS -> CAST ON FREEZE -> COMET.

This build focuses on being super un-interactive - avoiding mobs, instant-killing fast and weak mobs, and running through maps. If you mess up, either freeze everyone or go back in time with TEMPORAL RIFT.

TL;DR
In conclusion, I am having fun blasting through everything and summoning comets everywhere.

Has anyone test Exploit the Elements? Does it worth it for the ice build?

I think i'm trying your cold build. I try fire chrono but GGG don't make fire spell deal dmg :(. I just need some gems and gold to respec

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Casia#1093 wrote:

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MagicznyAdi#5221 wrote:

Slow is basically action speed reduction from POE1.

Present of the Moment passive from ascendancy stacks with other slows so I put Temporal Chains + Magnified Effect on Blasphemy to slow enemies by 47%.

Then I some AoE nodes and Zone of Control on tree to have bigger curse AoE and hinder by 15%.

Present of the Moment has 6m radius, Blasphemy now has 5.7m radius.

I'm now in maps and mobs can't even attack me, if they somehow get to me I use Temporal Rift and escape. Too bad it doesn't slow projectiles.

Interesting. there are reports of Apex of the Moment not working.

I did see Zone of control. did you also grab Hindered Capabilities right next to it?

I did try Blasphemy_enfeeeble and was not impressed with its default size, even with magnify.

At first I also thought that Apex of the Moment is not working, but after unspecing it I've definetly seen a difference.

As for Hindered Capabilities I did not take it because I somehow didn't see it, now I'll probably path to it (well, I would if Map Device was working, now I'm replaying as fire Stormweaver).

For AoE I took Roil to have Blasphemy radius similar to presence.

we haven't discussed weapons swaps.

Press G.
to the right in the DPS menu. hit the Arrow.
this new menu, gives a detailed damage breakdown.

At the base of the damage breakdown, we have:
"always attack without moving" which lets us set this skill to stand in place when used. skill by skill specific.

then, "used in weapon set 1, set 2"
by default both are checked.

skills that are weapon tied, like freezing shards, or leapslam, automatically swap.

so we can set frost bolt to weapon set 1.
And, frost nova to weapon set 2.

an example of wanting to do this is, Frost bolt benefits from faster cast.
cold snap, frost bomb, frost wall, frost nova don't benefit as much from faster cast.

or... lets take this further.

passive tree weapon set 1 and 2. (I couldn't actually get this to work correctly.. )
We can while placing passives, choose weapon set 1, and weapon set 2.

and do something like, weapon set 1, our freeze buildup/cold passive tree.
but, for weapon set 2, instead of choosing Endless winter, etc... we could go right next door and select Power conduit, and other SHOCK nodes.

And thus, let us weapon set A, have +cold spells, and ccold cast. and weapon set b, have +shock/lit spells, and cast ball lighting. and it will automatically swap weapon AND passives to let us do it.

or, we slot leap slam or other movement.
Or, we can slot quarterstaves and use monk attacks easily.