Ice/Fire PVE Build help

[Hobbes]

I couldn't decide which way to go and now I've got a muddled mess.  What should an Ice/Fire be building to? 

 

My current unsatisfactory attempt. 

 

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Frostburn Witch - Brute (Ice Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

Edited May 27, 2023 by Hobbes
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[Hobbes]

Slightly mo' better?

 

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Frostburn Witch v 2- Brute (Ice Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

[Spaghetti Betty]

Doesn't look too bad to me! I would probably swap out the RES IOs in Healing Flame though. It only buffs Toxic RES for a short duration after you click it. You'd be way better off ED capping it for Healing and Recharge. I also wouldn't focus so hard on proccing Blazing Aura. Toggles only check for procs every 10 seconds. If anything, you should be using it for set bonuses or drop a FotG: -Res in it as a 1 slot wonder.

 

I also like your choice of Intuition Radial as your alpha. It gels well with Ice Melee. But if you ever want a more defensive option, I would recommend having Vigor Core in your pocket.

 

Here's a couple of alternative slotting ideas.

 

And I'm stealing your idea of adding the Totals window to the screenshot!

 

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This is a little bit squishier than yours but has better damage and capped Slow RES. Slow RES is important when playing a RES-based armor since you're more or less facetanking everything including debuffs. This is will at least make you immune to -Recharge.

 

Hope this helps!

 

P.S. Try this combo on a Tanker! It's 3x as durable while losing almost no damage output!

[Hobbes]

Thank you, I have not been keeping up on proc math changes. 

 

Minor tweaks made:

 

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Frostburn Witch v 2- Brute (Ice Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

[Sovera]

Not taking Frost is close to sacrilege. All cones aspire to to be as good as Frost is. You are also doing a disservice to Burn by not adding procs to it, even post procs-in-Burn nerf. Freezing Touch is your heavy hitter and you want it loaded with procs as well and just enough recharge that you can make a gapless chain with it up as often as possible.

 

The weak point of Ice Melee is the ST damage. Greater Ice Sword is bad enough- and Frost is good enough - that Frost is my go to choice for ST filler. Pylon tests showed no difference between using it and using Greater Ice Sword so might as well skip one extra power pick and five slots.

 

Anyway, here's an old thing I had. I tweaked it for the 'new' level changes.

 

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[Hobbes]

Frost is a good cone, but I don't currently miss it.  Had it for the first 27 levels, and respec'd out of it.  Still leveling so haven't dialed it up to +4 yet, at +1 Burn/Frozen Aura/Blazing Aura clear out the riff raff just fine.  I'll see how it plays at 50, +4/*8.  I can always drop Phoenix Rising for Frost, but a two minuet self rez on a Brute makes me giggle.

 

I currently value the additional resists over more proc damage in Burn, and I don't know where else to stick Unrelenting Fury.  If the Brute ATs sucked less, that would be nice, but here we are.

 

Drop Phoenix rising, take Frost, put Unrelenting Fury in Frost, Proc out Burn?  Will tinker, thank you.

 

Here is the Frostless version after some more small improvements.

 

 

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Frostburn Witch v 2- Brute (Ice Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

[Hobbes]

Version with Frost and more proctacular Burn.  Probably the way to go.  Le-sigh.  *contemplates dropping Weave for Phoenix Rising*

 

 

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Frostburn Witch v 2- Brute (Ice Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

[Hobbes]

...and the Weaveless version with Phoenix Rising, which is what I'll probably play.  88% S/L Resist on a Fire Armor Brute? 

 

 

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Frostburn Witch v 2- Brute (Ice Melee - Fiery Aura).mbd

[Sovera]

You will (probably) have Barrier which will be giving a permanent 5% to defense and resists, so I would not aim for more than 40% defenses and 85% resists. The argument to keep frost is that the alternative is so mediocre:

 

- Frost does 289 damage, recharges in 3.6 and takes 2.5 seconds to animate.

 

- Greater Ice Sword does 373 damage, recharges in 3.8 seconds, and takes 2.5 seconds to animate.

 

Frost's cone is so forgiving it is easy to align and hit more than one enemy and only in the most strict one target scenario does GiS come out ahead for 30% more damage. In either case the rotation is Freezing Touch, Ice Sword, Frost/GiS, Ice Sword, repeat.

 

 

GiS does proc out better since it is an ST attack unlike Frost, so adding a second proc it goes to 407 making it 40% better than using Frost. For the sake of argument a second damage proc in Frost makes it reach 309, still a -24% damage compared to two damage proc GiS... as long as it is purely single target. A scenario with two targets makes Frost do 618 opposed to GiS. This only matters in a build that has to choose between one of the two. In a best timeline scenario the build has both.

 

So now it starts to feel like the swap is worth it strictly comparing it against Frost though 407 is weak for a 2.5 second animation. Looking at Crippling Axe Kick for example, it does 391 damage but on an 1.84 animation and only one proc. With a second damage proc it goes to 412.

 

Regardless GiS is what Ice Melee has so if you'd rather keep and use GiS then:

 

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Edited May 29, 2023 by Sovera