I’m enjoying this season even though I’ve only gotten a small handful of ethereals that are actually useful. Part of the fun is getting an ethereal and putting together something that I wouldn’t normally play because it’s too underpowered but with the ethereal damage buffs, is now somewhat playable.
I created a Wiz in SC hoping to replicate my Firebirds Twister build in HC but have yet to get good rolls for my gear. But I managed to make this Firebirds EB build that I’ve cleared GR100 in 5-6min so a bit of room to push still:
I’m enjoying this iteration of EB with Firebirds compared to other variants I’ve played in the past… the channeling with Disintegrate means I can use Taeguk and the mobility of FB after the rework makes the build a joy to play even if it’s not competitive at high GRs.
Well it isn’t exactly that far from meta, but I’m running GoD with Frostburn’s/RoRG over the standard CoE. It’s about 2 maybe 3 GR’s weaker than CoE but still I am attempting a 140 with it.
I did 139 with CoE about 400 paragon ago but I’m on the cusp of getting 140 with Frostburn with a little luck.
Ethereals haven’t really changed the builds much. Buriza with the Frozen power, of course, was a significant upgrade. I think WD’s ethereal was a significant upgrade as well.
I hope some of the legendary powers on Ethereals become affixes, like +100% more damage to single target (I’d put this on Skorn?) and Always critically hit frozen enemies (rimeheart).
yes. It uses the same defensive items and skills as standard GoD CoE. But with increased freezes, you get a decent defense from that in mid tier Grifts like in the 120-130 range. After that it plays a lot like CoE except your managing mob immunity instead of a 20 sec cycle. It’s a bit harder to play the higher you go but once you get used to pulling good sized packs and blasting one side of the pack for 5 or so seconds, then moving to the opposite side and do the same to it, back and forth till the pack is dead. They won’t build up immunity as quick doing that and so you get tons of free crits.
This is a terrible plan though. Frostburns are pretty awful; Significantly less powerful then CoE, I’d say. CoE is one of the most powerful affixes in the entire game.
There’s discussion in the thread of using Mantle of Channeling/RoRG over CoE as well.
Last night, I did some tests running the different set ups in sets of 5 in GR 120, 125, and 130.
Mantle of Channeling does better in the small sample size at 120 than Frostburn and CoE.
Mantle of Channeling pulls even with CoE in the 125’s.
And in 130’s, Mantle of Channeling and Frostburn are even at around an average of 7:20 with CoE being a little under a minute faster at 6:35.
Buriza is powerful enough to make all three builds perform in a range of 2 to 5 GR’s even in 140+.
Edit:
That’s not to say that CoE isn’t the best. It is. That’s why everyone plays it, but Mantle of Channeling and Frostburn aren’t so far from it that it isn’t worth running with those builds.