Hi all,
I am noticing a lot of guides out there are switching from Shatter too Avalanche on their Ice Shard builds.
Is this because of Malignant hearts in season 1?
p.s I don’t play the season.
All the best
Oatie
Shatter is near useless on bosses. If u r blizz build, ice shard wouldn’t do as much dmg, if u r ice shard build, u can’t freeze that well. Better to get additional cast since ice shard eats up so much mana.
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Yeah I think it’s because of one of seasonal hearts. In eternal and if you use ice shards avalanche is better.
Caged Heart of The Barber: Critical Strikes and all subsequent damage within 2.0-4.0 seconds is absorbed by your target. Then, the absorbed damage erupts onto surrounding enemies. Stored damage is increased by 10% per second.
Pair it with shatter and you will see like 10mil + crits, there’re a couple of videos on youtube.
Tbh I’m running blizzard with ice spikes and I dislike both frost key passives so much that I’m using vyr’s mastery for the little damage reduction it gives, admittedly, I will probably switch to esu’s ferocity instead(with the aspect to get 50% attack speed while active) If you found perfect mana regen stuff I’d say it’d even beat Avalanche for Ice Shards, 50% speed after a kill or critting a boss > than a 40% increased damage twice on proc, maybe?
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Never thought of that, that’s genius.
edit: ohh… Esu’s says it only applies to fire dmg crits. Too bad for me, i’m frost sorc. Will try out Vyr’s
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This is what i was using before season 1 and the nerfs:
(Shatter) Ice Shards > FrostNova > Teleport > Meteor > Ice Armor > Flame Shield
Firebolt + Ice Shards enchantment
This is what i am using now:
(Shatter) Ice Shards > FrostNova > Teleport > Deep Freeze > Ice Armor > Flame Shield
Firebolt + Ice Shards enchantment
So just a change from Meteor too Deep Freeze and i changed my Paragon Tree around.
My build: h ttps://d4builds.gg/builds/1aa03fce-44e5-4bf7-b75c-b731cd345e98/
It’s pretty much a like for like build from Maxroll
I don’t play on a season, I’m concentrating on this build, it’s around 90% maxed out.
Looking at it i can’t see why most are using Avalanche over Shatter…i must be missing something 
ah yeah the crit and crit dmg the key passive gives is useless unless you run a fire spender but the attack speed from the aspect will still work on any build 
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Shatter is almost useless against bosses. Ice wizards have no problems dealing with trash in general, it’s bosses you need help with.
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Very strange as i don’t have any problems with bosses as they seem very easy.
Maybe because i have:
36% CHC
224% CHD
185% Vulnerable Damage
And lots of other damage modifiers.
BUT i don’t do high tiers, i prefer 55-60 NM’s, maybe bosses are much harder at higher levels.
A lot of sorcerer builds have most of the damage multipliers linked to crowd control.
Impressive on the trash and elite packs where they probably didn’t need the extra damage but drops away to almost nothing on the boss fights where they do need the extra boost.
And on the main topic I run avalanche with the aspect and dark dance malignant to provide me with as much time as possible above 100 mana for the +40% crit chance and the x20% damage multiplier aspects.
What even is a good 2nd enchantment to help do more dmg against boss. Can’t find one that have an significant effect.
I have similar stats. I do not run into issues either. Though at 80+ it can be a pain.
There are options against bosses but it depends if your build can support them.
Elementalist (+40 crit chance) and Edgemaster (x20% damage) if you can keep the mana up.
Storm Swell (x20% vulnerable) and Conceited (x25% damage) if you can keep a barrier up.
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I have all those. The only thing that truly makes a difference is barber. Rolling 1 big attack is worth much much more than many small attacks even if the sum is the same. I guessed it’s because the boss defense only proc once on 1 big attack while it procs every time on small attacks.
But as I heard, the drop rate have gone to zilch. So good luck to any aspiring sorc.
Irrelevant. Shatter is still useless against bosses no matter what your stats are.
I have something like 300% chill dmg, 370% Cold dmg, 150% close dmg, 120% Vulnerable dmg etc., Avalance is still more useful against bosses than Shatter ever will be.
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I use both. I just keep an off hand with each. Then swap out the skills real quick depending on the content I’m playing. Same for the unique pants vs a defensive pants.
Barber is busted and pretty rare.
Do your paragon glyphs and paragon board nodes work against bosses?
I’m lvl 85 and can’t go beyond T37 so i don’t feel qualified to answer end game content. But at where i am, i can kill bosses within seconds with ice shard build.
The reason i’m stuck at T37 is higher than that trash mobs 1 shot me.
@Mochan
I would of thought Shatter would be better as 99% of a dungeon is mobs, the other 1% is the Boss 
Unless I’m missing something here.
I’m using avalanche key but not using the aspect this season. I want to do some comparative testing of the avalanche aspect vs prodigy for sustain once I get to 100 and have slightly more mana. Avalanche should do more damage if it procs enough.
Take off your uniques other than raiment and run the damage absorb heart. Sorc basically just needs paragon and barber for damage. You can go very very defensive in the skill tree and still hit 30m plus with barber.
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