I’ve been running a Frost Bolt Basic build. Has actually been pretty fun. Not perfect, But I have been enjoying it. Just wanted to share it. Since some basic builds had popped up this season, I wanted to try with other classes that didn’t seem to have any. I landed on the Sorc. Anyways if you like it, give it a shot.
Hotbar Frost Bolt Blizzard Ice Armor Deep Freeze Frost Nova
Enchantments Fire Bolt Frost Bolt
Passives Elemental Attunement Align the Elements Protection Precision Magic Icy Veil Cold Front Permafrost Hoarfrost Icy Touch Key Passive - Avalanche
Aspects Control the moonrise Conceited Frozen Memories Adaptability Shared Misery Snowguard Hectic Might
Uniques Paingorger’s Gauntlets
Main Tempers
Chance for Frost Bolt projectiles
Cold Damage or Damage to Frozen
+Cold Front passive
Other Tempers are more preference.
Could take more CC/CC Duration to frozen.
Frost Nova Size/CD can be useful.
Overall it is pretty squishy, but I’ve kind of reorganized to add a bit more DR onto it. So it can take quite a few hits. But the main goal is to spam Blizzard onto groups and then pelt them with Frost Bolt to trigger Paingorger’s Gauntlets. With Ice Armor up you get more Chill Application and can keep most mob groups frozen. With Deep Freeze and Frost Nova for a tough situation. I’ve only ran a few pits with it so far. But I’ve been using it the entire time for my Sorc. Currently 94. Fun to use in Helltides.
I kind of wonder how to fit in Vox Omnium. The new Unique Staff. “Casting a Core Skill additionally fires 2 instances of Fire Bolt, Frost Bolt, or Spark, matching the elements of your last 2 non-Core skill casts. These projectiles deal x30-90% increased damage.”
It seems the shots get fired at an angle. Which could make actually hitting things difficult if you aren’t directly in their face to hit with both shots.
The shots seem to match based off the element you used with non core skills. So you could shoot frost bolt with a fire core skill. I wonder how this would function with incinerate? like a double shot per second ticking with incinerate maybe? Could be interesting to lean more into the burning side of the build.
The real question is why would you even want to use that piece of trash staff?
It’s a staff… you’re giving up a precious 2H aspect slot for the ability to… cast basic skills with a core skill.
That doesn’t even begin to make any kind of sense. You are 10x better served just putting Rapid Aspect on your staff, and firing two basic skills off faster, at no mana cost. If you want 90x damage increase, Adaptability already gives us 120% bonus dmg, dwarfing this crappy staff’s damage bonus.
I suppose you could try using Adaptability on Amulet and this staff, but the 90%x dmg is still outdone just by using Moonrise Aspect on your staff, which gives your basic skills a whopping 160%x damage bonus, a 20%x attack speed bonus, and 15% movement speed as gravy. That’s what every sane basic skill focused build does, and it is far more effective.
It’s another garbage Sorc unique from a long and distinguished line of them.
Someone at Blizzard seems to get off on the idea of making us alternate spenders and generators because there’s a ton of stuff in the game that seems to want you to do it. Too bad it’s all garbage.
There is only one possible application for this Staff, and it is to combine it with Flameweaver to generate clouds of Firebolts (assuming the extra casts can even proc Flameweavers… which is somewhat doubtful since they seem to hate giving us synergies like that). That said, I highly doubt such a build would be easy to use or work better than the current Firebolt build with a regular legendary staff.