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Vessel of Hatred

Faith Vs Ice for Frost Maden

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rev129

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Nov 17, 2003
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Faith Vs Ice for Frost Maden

I'm curious whats the better way to go. My plan is to use a Might Merc with either Pride or Infinity. The build I'm going for is a Frost Maid.
 
I dont know why you would want to use a faith or a frost maiden, look at ice and its pretty much specifically built for this skill build. For my merc though, im going to use an act 1 fire arrow with faith fortitude and andariels visage.
 
DamianM said:
I dont know why you would want to use a faith or a frost maiden, look at ice and its pretty much specifically built for this skill build. For my merc though, im going to use an act 1 fire arrow with faith fortitude and andariels visage.
Click to expand...

Well, the +5 Skills are nice as is the lev 13 Fant. Also, I guess I'm not going full out Frosty either, my plan is to freez um and then straf um.



 
The Arreat Summit said:
100% Chance To Cast Level 40 Blizzard When You Level-up
25% Chance To Cast Level 22 Frost Nova On Striking
Level 18 Holy Freeze Aura When Equipped
+20% Increased Attack Speed
+140-210% Enhanced Damage (varies)
Ignore Target's Defense
+25-30% To Cold Skill Damage (varies)
-20% To Enemy Cold Resistance
7% Life Stolen Per Hit
20% Deadly Strike
3.125-309.375 Extra Gold From Monsters (Based on Character Level)
Click to expand...

Those 2 things on the Ice runeword make it more powerful than just the +2 skills of Faith.

If you want to just freeze enemies and then Strafe them, then only put 1 point in Freezing Arrow. You aren't using it for the damage any more, so there's no point in maxing it. You wont technically be a Frostmaiden any more either, you'll be just a normal Strafer.

A Frostmaiden uses FA to do the most of her damage, and Strafe as a back-up skill to leech back mana, and trigger the Level 22 Frost Nova On Striking all over the screen for mass slowing.
 
Ya i cant wait to make my frost maiden, probably tomorrow or the next day, i just need bow gloves and 6 bow gcs. For ice i used a superior 14%ed 4 os grand matron bow, and i rolled a perfect +30% to cold skill damage :).
 
Eilo Rytyj said:
Those 2 things on the Ice runeword make it more powerful than just the +2 skills of Faith.

If you want to just freeze enemies and then Strafe them, then only put 1 point in Freezing Arrow. You aren't using it for the damage any more, so there's no point in maxing it. You wont technically be a Frostmaiden any more either, you'll be just a normal Strafer.

A Frostmaiden uses FA to do the most of her damage, and Strafe as a back-up skill to leech back mana, and trigger the Level 22 Frost Nova On Striking all over the screen for mass slowing.
Click to expand...

Damn, now I'm even more undecided as ever. Can an act 1 Merc use a FAITH in a GMB? I've already got a Faith GMB and would hate to not be able to use it now.

But now what do you use to break Cold Imunes if I don;t go with Might Merc and Infinity? ARG!!!! Can't decide now. My Bowazon is lev 29 so I got to figure this out soon.



 
rev129 said:
Damn, now I'm even more undecided as ever. Can an act 1 Merc use a FAITH in a GMB? I've already got a Faith GMB and would hate to not be able to use it now.
Click to expand...

Mercs cannot use Amazon-only bows.

Just make a normal Strafer, like you were originally going to do. Use the GMB on yourself.

Just get 1 point in FA, then use it to freeze enemies. Get some cold damage charms (any kind, doesn't matter) to increase your freezing duration, and use Strafe to kill everything.

@ DamianM: Did the bow have +3 bow skills on it? I'd rather have a +3 bow GMB than a Superior one with only +1 or +2.



 
ya it had +3, i actually made a game asking for someone to bring the right bow to make ice in, and actually someone from this site came to my game. His name is minionofboredom and he made a thread saying he traded for a +3 bow skills gmb fortitude, which i overpayed for. I just took out the runes and made ice. Also, can anyone give me advice on how much dexterity is necessary for a frost maiden?
 
Yeah I've been reading about the exploits of that little Fort bow in the Community Forum. Good stuff.

I guess there are 2 schools of thought on bowazon stat placement, one is the Glass cannon, the other Vita.

I'll be going an almost-full Dex build, I'll be placing a few in Vit, up to 50 or so, but I don't want to go too overboard with the life. I basically want to see if I can get away with low life and more damage, and still survive in Hell (with a Kuko Shakaku, no less :laugh: 'till I get an Ice GMB). I've got a really nice +2 zon +26 str 5%ml Circlet and a CoH Archon (+20 str) as well as a few decent ~+15 str rare rings waiting for me, so I can save on the strength. I guess I'd end up with over 350 dex in the higher levels.

Even though Ice has ITD, I'd prefer to have more AR (and damage) for bosses and champs and such. I believe AR is still factored in, even if the enemy's defense is 0.

If you like to play it really safe, then go with the Vita route. That's putting enough str/dex for item requirements, then vit all the rest. If you're crazy and stupid like me, and like your monster slaying faster paced, then pump that dex.
 
I used a fire arrow merc with a level 15 aura on a great bow first, then changed over to a might merc holding pride with a level 17 aura. I prefer conc aura over the fanatic aura using Ice. Using a pride act2 might merc I leech much quicker. Cold immunes die much faster with strafe(everything dies much faster). I don't mind the low AR as much now using the act2 merc.

Merc damage is a non issue. Cold immunes are killed using stafe far faster than the merc would. I cover the PI/Cold immunes with Atma's scarb.
 
This is only my opinion, but I will post it anyway :cool:

I think faith is far superior to frostmaidens who use strafe as a secondary attack. Ice has way too low physical damage to use strafe effectively, while using faith gives you huge ar, huge damage (leech, which is important!), and almost (if not all) the required IAS to get Strafe and Freezing Arrow running, not to mention that the Fana will boost your merc too, killing his attack speed tremendously.

Just put Infinity on the merc and you will be dishing far more damage than any other combination already mentioned, and Ice becomes fairly poor option from this view point. Granted, a rogue merc probably survives better, but still, infinity + faith all the way. This combination also makes you better suited to take on bosses, since ITD does not work on them. Using faith and Infinity makes your AR problems vanish in a heartbeat, even when using strafe and having just one point in penetrate. End of rant. :wave:
 
Millennium Falcon said:
This is only my opinion, but I will post it anyway :cool:

I think faith is far superior to frostmaidens who use strafe as a secondary attack. Ice has way too low physical damage to use strafe effectively, while using faith gives you huge ar, huge damage (leech, which is important!), and almost (if not all) the required IAS to get Strafe and Freezing Arrow running, not to mention that the Fana will boost your merc too, killing his attack speed tremendously.

Just put Infinity on the merc and you will be dishing far more damage than any other combination already mentioned, and Ice becomes fairly poor option from this view point. Granted, a rogue merc probably survives better, but still, infinity + faith all the way. This combination also makes you better suited to take on bosses, since ITD does not work on them. Using faith and Infinity makes your AR problems vanish in a heartbeat, even when using strafe and having just one point in penetrate. End of rant. :wave:
Click to expand...


Good info and from a seasoned HC player.



 
For frostmaiden i use ice mb + infinity merc. Infinity, really increases your kill speed. I use mb because ias is important for fa and the extra phys dmg from a gmb is not worth it. Your main source of dmg comes from fa.
Just keep a faith on switch for strafing.
 
Infinity with Faith. I lose 160-1007 damage on bow damage. Since I don't wait for the merc to engage mobs and cast the debuff aura-(decoy and valk almost always beat the merc to the mobs) the benefit for the debuff is....lost. It certainly is a better boss killer. With the merc behind me, I am in still getting the benefit of the conc aura. The advantage to me getting the aura instead of waiting for the debuff to happen is for razortail and atama's scarb to work their magic many, many mobs down the corridor.

For this bowzon Faith+Pride. I still had a decent roll on the Infinity, might find it useful for something else.
 
Because Freezing Arrow is better for PvM than strafe, espescially HC. It really does some nasty damage once you pump it up and with Infinity the damage goes Skyhigh it's insane. You'll kill a lot faster with Infinity than pride, as the strafe is only the backup.

Also that faith on switch is a great idea, while using Ice the main bow, if you don't happen to have Cta. That way you can have maximal FA, while still getting great strafe on switch.
 
Millennium Falcon said:
Because Freezing Arrow is better for PvM than strafe, espescially HC. It really does some nasty damage once you pump it up and with Infinity the damage goes Skyhigh it's insane. You'll kill a lot faster with Infinity than pride, as the strafe is only the backup.

Also that faith on switch is a great idea, while using Ice the main bow, if you don't happen to have Cta. That way you can have maximal FA, while still getting great strafe on switch.
Click to expand...


Ok, Infinity has Conviction, which lowers immunities, it has no direct effect on increasing damage. Pride carries Concentration which in turn DOES increase overall damage, so your statement has be a bit confused.



 
Conviction takes enemy resists to negative :wink3: (almost 100% damage increase in best cases!), and it also breaks immunities, like you said. That, my friend, is a huge benefit.

And it is a know fact (facet's for example) that "-" to enemy resists is better for damage than increased cold damage for example. Only deviation from this is cold sorc who already has cold mastery, therefore cold sorcs get better effect from, say +15% cold damage done.

Only benefit of using Pride is the increased damage to strafe (which, again, is only the backup skill), and that way you lose almost double damage from freezing arrow -> bad :lipsrsealed:

If you use faith yourself you get enough strafe damage from it alone, you get huge mana leech with items (needed!), you'll never ever miss your target, + skills (aids your survival in the form of dodge avoid evade valk decoy) and more. You'll also give your merc more damage (Leech! See where I'm goin here?), and way more faster IAS which will surely keep him alive better than some crappy stick like pride. After all, if your merc hits more times in a round the more he leeches.

Quite frankly, I'm a bit tired of repeating this stuff Ad Infinitum :rolleyes:
 
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