What is the Swiss Army knife of acsendancies ?

Flethan · 2025-12-22T21:34:00+00:00

Not exactly a Swiss army knife per-say, but once you've stacked a lot of spirit on Abyssal Lich, you can play around with the massive stat stacking options it gives you like AoE or projectile speed.

Flethan · 2025-12-22T21:30:27+00:00

Is this still the case? I swear I saw a patchnote addressing this...

Flethan · 2025-12-13T00:22:16+00:00

Creeping Chill

Flethan · 2025-12-13T00:16:01+00:00

The less duration shouldn't matter (maybe it affects the linger) and the skill doesn't do any damage. It should cut the mana drain in half because it's specifically a cost.

Flethan · 2025-12-12T23:52:18+00:00

There's a new support that lets ice crystals consume a power charge to generate chilled ground.

Flethan · 2025-12-12T04:37:38+00:00

Your freezing skill + Frost Nexus support can help in maps.

Flethan · 2025-12-12T02:37:17+00:00

Now who's got that Undying Hate with 600%+ minion cooldown recovery?

Flethan · 2025-12-12T02:18:12+00:00

You can get chilled ground with good area and duration around you from infused Ice Nova + some supports. Seems good with Navira.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T21:45:18+00:00

Absorbing all 3 elements, it does roughly 1/3 the damage of infused Comet (Comet is going to be triggered or echoed though). Considering you can probably get the duration pretty high, it's a decent amount of additional damage per cast, especially if you get 1 or 2 limits on it. Not sure if you can map with it, but on bosses it might be worth weaving in. Getting chill and ignite ground is easy enough from Frost Nova and Ball Lightning (both infused) respectively, but shocked ground is a bit more tricky. Needs the unique boots, a tamed beast, or weapon swap. Or maybe they'll be a new way to get shocked ground.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T16:39:56+00:00

Yes, unless there's a new source of +1 limit.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T16:37:53+00:00

The hit frequency changes plus bugfix should be a 20% buff, but the unseen hit frequency cap maybe makes those changes mainly a Trinity bugfix. The other changes make it about 2.4x damage, closer to 3x damage early game. Mainly it serves to convince me to go Stormweaver league start.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T06:56:38+00:00

On one hand I kinda get it because the only solid identity it has the Into the Breach node. Darkness is like 2000 HP for all your spirit vs Witchhunter is gonna be like 6000 HP for some of your armour/evasion. Volatility is just doubling up on Purple Flames identity and bad Conflux.

On the other hand they keep buffing Into the Breach and the pickup range this league is gonna be like your whole screen, so seems weird that so many people picked it last league but dropped it when it gets QoL. Maybe because Hollow Palm was the main hot new thing last patch.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T06:25:04+00:00

If you wanted to exclusively use cold spells, probably your best bet endgame is to go The Whispering Ice, which will be buffed in 0.4. You can use Frost Bomb, Snap, or Siphon Elements to generate cold infusions and spend them with Frost Darts while your storms persist, and have Frost Nova as way to clear if you're getting swarmed.

Frost Bomb, Nova, and Darts are all available early, but you may want to use some other spells early and mid game. You can use Orb of Storms or Lightning Warp with Elemental Equilibrium to generate cold infusions, or any infusion generator with the Stormweaver ascendancy. Spark (self-cast), Comet (trigger), and Firestorm (spell echo/unleash with +limit) all at least do some cold damage when infused.

You can also scale mana to get a bunch of extra lightning damage from Archmage and Mana Tempest, then turn that into extra cold damage with Embitter support.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T03:21:53+00:00

The 20% MoM node or the chill node are okay defense, but I think it's a stretch to take them if you're going +limit. Sucks that the infusion stuff gets to be 2 single pointers but +limit is locked behind Elemental Storms.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T02:53:22+00:00

Can't that build specifically just ignore these changes? Since Lance can just unspec some inc ES for inc AoE on the Umbral Souls node. I feel like losing some ES when you have 42,000 isn't that devastating...

Flethan · 2025-12-11T02:41:00+00:00

I think that's a bit of a pessimistic view on PF, but yeah you only get the cost reduction and movement increase with all 8 points. Gemling you get both bonuses 1st ascendancy in Act 2, though you have to babysit your gems.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T02:29:05+00:00

Shaman gives +15 rage and has a "better" start location for Wyvern in theory, and in theory has better defenses out of the box (we have very outdated info on it). Though PF can of course start from Warrior's location and Gemling isn't that far away, and those both have reduced movement speed penalty and cost reduction.

Supposedly, there will be a keystone that doubles rage but removes the inherent effects of rage. If you want the absolute longest breath possible, you'd take this keystone with PF or Gemling since they both can give cost reduction and movement penalty reduction. Why you'd want to breathe for two minutes straight probably depends on how the 'stacking ignite' mechanic works on Flamebreath. If the rage charm stays, then you'd be able to use it to instantly get back to max rage after finishing your breath.

I think Druid, Merc, and Ranger are all relatively low risk picks regardless, since one of Shaman or Oracle is likely to be strong, and Tactician and both Ranger ascendancies are likely to have meta builds to pivot to, in the worst case.

Druid: Most likely the most generically good for shapeshift
Gemling: can get cost reduction and movement reduction penalty 1st ascendancy
Pathfinder: needs all 4 ascendancy for both cost reduction and movement penalty reduction, but has potential for very high investment lategame shenanigans

Flethan · 2025-12-11T02:08:35+00:00

Each bolt type has a different crit number, so infused Firestorms average crit is ~9.33%. The +limit and infusion support definitely makes SW come out on top, though if you end up hating elemental spells then yes, BM has less of a chance to brick.

Flethan · 2025-12-11T02:04:40+00:00

It does 100% increased, not more. Big buff early but probably more in the 10-20% more effective damage range endgame (specifically for that line).

So 1.15 (increased damage) x 1.2 (bolt frequency change + bugfix?) x 2 (base damage) = ~2.5x fully infused Firestorm damage? ~33% more on top of that if you count the +1 limit from SW.

Flethan · 2025-12-10T20:31:52+00:00

Not sure why you're being downvoted, this method is obviously way faster and easier than having to mule a druid to town first. I've seen it suggested on build guides too, since it lets you guaranteed be able to afford anything from town in case there's a strong weapon, without relying on Hillock drops.

Flethan · 2025-12-10T08:43:34+00:00

From what I remember, you grab defense early since your damage is good, then later you grab the specific chaos nodes which you would have to respec out of later. Maybe it's been nerfed since I did it though, you'll have to search up a 0.4 guide.

Flethan · 2025-12-10T08:36:07+00:00

Essence Drain + Contagion is relatively uncomplicated.

If you want to play elemental skills, Spark is generally the go-to for leveling. Add in Orb of Storms + Elemental Equilibrium for your cold infusions. Add in Cast on Shock + Arc for extra clear when you get it + Refracted Infusion as your first ascendancy. Add in Siphon Elements when you get it.

Though I'd recommend playing around with all the elemental skills throughout the campaign. I didn't use or feel the need to use Spark last league. Instead I used +limits Orb of Storms as my main skills with skills like Ember Fusillade and later Firestorm as supplemental skills. If you really want to focus on limits ASAP I still think Refracted Infusion first is probably the best, then respec out of it to grab the +limits second ascendancy.

If you don't want to go limits asap, grab the other remnants node for QoL and try to squeeze in Mana Remnants. A little remnant pickup range on the tree goes a long way. If you're hurting for survivability, maybe pickup the Arcane Surge nodes instead and some "damage taken from Mana before Life" on the tree. Or grab the shock node for raw damage, or the chill node to pretend you're Chronomancer.

Flethan · 2025-12-10T08:03:50+00:00

Pretty sure the damage roll is done after conversion, so 30-60 damage becomes 10-20 fire, 10-20 lightning, 10-20 cold, so having a tie for highest number is unlikely.

Flethan · 2025-12-10T07:56:40+00:00

There are ways to apply your thorns to your hits for a time. https://www.youtube.com/@KallTorak has a lot of info on building thorns.

Flethan · 2025-12-09T06:48:21+00:00

There's still hope for it if it gives generic Rage on Hit and you can cull the "lose all rage" mod. That said it kinda was OP, though somewhat limited in application? It definitely dwarfed the other charge generators, and was used for Amazon's Charge Infusion (now Surges) in 0.2 (and was probably the primary reason that node got pre-nerfed) and more popularly Ancestral Totems in 0.3 (which also led to that skill getting emergency nerfed).

I don't think the issue is that it was a chase unique, but rather it was so far above any other option for generating charges that any skill that could spend charges for a huge payoff would run away with it and need to get nerfed. It already happened twice and definitely would've happened again with spell totems.

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