Crit / meteor build

[MonTy]

I use this CM/Meteor build

The build looks like it can dish out a ton of damage but not sure if I can pull it off in Hardcore. I'll try it out in Act 1 Monster Power 0.

Also, that gear looks like the gear I'd get after a year of farming :P Some really nice stuff there.

I will try Comet for the synergy with Cold Blooded.

Let me know what you think of Comet. If you get them with bone chill their health drops so fast. It really does a lot of damage.

Have you considered using Ice Armor in combination with Cold Blooded?

I've thought of it, but the dps output of storm armor looked more enticing. But perhaps I can drop out Blur passive with Ice Armor on. I'll certainly give it a try.

Hope the patch gets released soon :)

[Spangles]

Have you considered using Ice Armor in combination with Cold Blooded? I had been planning to use Crystalize for the armor bonus, but perhaps Chilling Armor would be the most sure-fire way to make sure that all nearby enemies are chilled for any damage you deal. Plus, Ice Armor will give an 8% reduction to melee damage and slow enemies down a bit if you need to beat a retreat.

This comment is for Monty, but I am always looking for better lockdown and I will switch in Chilling armor and see what happens.

Spangles, I noticed that you've been using Explosive Blast a lot. How has that been going for you? To me, it seems like it's redundant with meteor, and I would rather use Teleport or Magic Weapon instead. But perhaps there's something I'm missing about it. Is its CM proc rate any good?

Storm Chaser / Explosive Blast was a standard CM build back in 1.03. So much has changed all at once that I can't tell if Spectral Blade / EB works equally well, but it certainly works well enough to use as a primary attack up to MP5 in 1.05.

I think that the 1.05 CC buff compensates for lower proc rates reasonably well, most of the time. Can't be more specific without a combat log.

Meteor isn't my primary attack, it is a finishing move and a ranged attack for kiting. I lock down a pack with Frost Nova and wear them down with Spectral Blade and Explosive Blast, then cast Meteor on my head to speed things up.

I can one-shot myself with a Meteor if the pack reflects damage, however, so I wouldn't do this in hardcore. Better to lock them down, start a Meteor, and teleport out, I suppose.

The build looks like it can dish out a ton of damage but not sure if I can pull it off in Hardcore.

The build has no escape route, I either live or die, so I wouldn't try it hardcore. Not without a lot more LoH, which doesn't heal reflected damage as well as it did before 1.05, or more lifesteal, which is very expensive.

Let me know what you think of Comet. If you get them with bone chill their health drops so fast. It really does a lot of damage.

I did use Comet and the mobs do die faster. But three 20 AP Star Pact casts are more useful than two 40 AP casts with any other rune, to me at least.

[MongoJerry]

Storm Chaser / Explosive Blast was a standard CM build back in 1.03. So much has changed all at once that I can't tell if Spectral Blade / EB works equally well, but it certainly works well enough to use as a primary attack up to MP5 in 1.05.

It may have been standard on some other boards, but as you can see in the history of this thread, it wasn't standard on this board. I quickly chose not to use those options in 1.0.3, because the proc rates on Spectral Blades and Meteor were so much better and didn't have those spells' limitations. I'm thinking that perhaps you should forgo Explosive Blast altogether for Teleport or Magic Weapon.

Your gear's pretty crazy from a hardcore perspective. I get why reflect damage is hard on you, since it looks like you forgo most defense for pure unadulterated offense.

[Spangles]

It (the CM/Energy Twister build) may have been standard on some other boards, but as you can see in the history of this thread, it wasn't standard on this board.

Which is why I read this board. Pittising is my melee enchantress and Spangles is my kicksin in D2/LOD, non-standard builds that I read about here (or the Amazon Basin bulletin board, perhaps, it was that long ago).

With the 1.04 nerf to Wicked Wind and the obvious followup nerf to Storm Chaser incoming, I came here looking for a non-standard alternative to Energy Twister, and found Spectral Blade / Deep Cuts, which works very nicely on the 1.05 PTR. Using a signature spell also allowed me to replace two pieces of AP on crit gear for a large DPS increase.

I was also looking to replace Blizzard, my ranged / kiting attack and found that Meteor obliterates mobs instead of melting them away. The 2 second lead was awkward for me previously, but the shortened cast in 1.05 seals the deal.

Your gear's pretty crazy from a hardcore perspective. I get why reflect damage is hard on you, since it looks like you forgo most defense for pure unadulterated offense.

Since Energy Armor / Prismatic is also nerfed in 1.05, I was looking to replace it with Magic Weapon, perhaps, or Storm Armor, or Ice Armor.

The problem is that LoH doesn't scale with DPS, and lifesteal does, and I reached the crossover point at a time when proc coefficients that drive LoH were nerfed. So, testing on the PTR shows me that this is not the time to replace a damage reduction skill with more DPS.

The Prismatic rune increases my damage reduction from 57% to 64% in 1.05, which allows me to operate safely in MP4 and with difficulty in MP5, which is good enough for now.

I have settled on the following build:

LMB: Spectral Blade / Deep Cuts
RMB: Meteor / Star Pact
1: Explosive Blast / Chain Reaction
2. Frost Nova / Bone Chill
3: Diamond Skin / Crystal Shell
4. Energy Armor / Prismatic Armor
Critical Mass, Cold Blooded, Blur.

It is interesting how much more smoothly this build works on the PTR than in 1.04. Also, farming keys throughout the game and fighting uber bosses is more fun than running Act 3 day after day. Good reasons to "test new builds" until patch day.

[MonTy]

Which is why I read this board.

Even though the build may be different, I enjoy your posts on them. Keep us updated how your Wizard is doing.

But I'm thinking that Diamond Skin won't be as useful in higher Monster Powers, due to a set amount of damage being negated. I may try playing without it and going Cold Snap on Frost Nova. While the following build may still be risky in Hardcore due to no teleport, I've found myself in dangerous situations before and as long as I stayed calm and kept on casting spells for Life on Hit and Critical Mass effect, I made it out. This is what I'm thinking of: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wi...ZXg!aZbZcZ

I'd love to drop Astral Presence for Glass Canon to help out with Hydra DPS, but if I don't go with Diamond Skin I feel like I'm playing a bit too risky. What are your guy's thoughts?

[Spangles]

I quickly chose not to use those options (Energy Twister / Explosive Blast) in 1.0.3, because the proc rates on Spectral Blades and Meteor were so much better and didn't have those spells' limitations.

For the record, this table is what I use to compare proc coefficients for spells / runes. Wherein we learn:

Every time you use a skill in order to proc an effect (fear on it or bleed for example) you have to multiply the probability given in the description of the effect by the proc ratio of the skill you use to have the real probability that the effect occurs using that skill.

and

dot : damage over time
tick : one damage of a damage over time
speed coef : you have to multiply your attack speed by this value to know the number of tick/cast per second. by default it is one. (but we believe that is not so simple : see page 4-5 )
no anim : the spell could or could not trigger an animation but does not need one.
channel : mean that you can maintain the incantation of the spell
the text in italic concern point that need more testing.

and

Energy twister cast speed coef : 1, tick speed coef : 2
Rune 0 : 0.125 [1/8] per tick (stack)
Rune 1 - Mistral Breeze : 0.125 [1/8] per tick (stack)
Rune 2 - Gale Force : 0.125 [1/8] per tick (stack)
Rune 3 - Raging Storm : 0.125 [1/8] per tick (stack) - big twister : 0.125 [1/8] per tick (stack)
Rune 4 - Wicked Wind : 0.125 [1/8] per tick (stack) *
Rune 5 - Storm Chaser : 0.500 [1/2] per tick (stack) - purple tornado non dependent of the number of stack : 0.500 [1/2] (no anim)

Spectral blade
Rune 0 : 0.222 [2/9] (3 time)
Rune 1 - Deep Cuts : 0.222 [2/9] (3 time) - dot : a unique roll 0.222 [2/9] for all 12 time over 3 seconds. LoH, AD and CM is proced by the initial roll wich occure at the first of the 12 time, CM is also proced by all other 11 time. However you still have to roll a critical on each time to trigger CM
Rune 2 - Impactful Blade : 0.222 [2/9] (3 time)
Rune 3 - Siphoning Blade : 0.222 [2/9] (3 time)
Rune 4 - Healing Blades : 0.222 [2/9] (3 time)
Rune 5 - Thrown Blade : 0.111 [1/9] (3 time)

Meteor
Rune 0 : 0.250 [1/4] - dot* : 0.250 [1/4] (3 time over 3 seconds stack)
Rune 1 - Molten Impact : 0.250 [1/4] - dot* : 0.250 [1/4] (3 time over 3 seconds stack)
Rune 2 - Star Pact : 0.250 [1/4] - dot* : 0.250 [1/4] (3 time over 3 seconds stack)
Rune 3 - Meteor Shower : 0.100 [1/10] per small meteor (7 meteors) - dot** : 0.100 [1/10] (2 time over 1.5 seconds stack)
Rune 4 - Comet : 0.250 [1/4] - dot* : 0.250 [1/4] (3 time over 3 seconds stack)
Rune 5 - Liquefy : 0.250 [1/4] - dot* : 0.250 [1/4] (3/8 time over 3/8 seconds stack)

These values are current as of 1.04.

I copied all the coefficient nerfs I could find in the 1.05 patch notes:

Energy Twister
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.25 to 0.125 (1.04)
Skill Rune - Wicked Wind
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.5 to 0.125 (1.04)
Skill Rune - Storm Chaser
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.5 to 0.125

Meteor
Proc coefficient (base skill + all other runes not listed) reduced from 0.25 to 0.125
Skill Rune - Star Pact
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.25 to 0.10625
Skill Rune - Meteor Shower
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.1 to 0.05
Skill Rune - Liquefy
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.125 to 0.10625

Ray of Frost
Skill Rune – Sleet Storm
Proc scalar reduced from 0.25 to 0.1875

Spectral Blade
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.222 to 0.14
Skill Rune - Thrown Blades
Proc coefficient reduced from 0.111 to 0.08

Comparing proc coefficients alone doesn't seem to tell the story. What is the algebra that makes the distinction among Energy Twister / Storm Chaser, Spectral Blade / Deep Cuts, and Meteor / Star Pact, when proc coefficients are updated, as to which is best (mathematically) for CM builds in 1.05?

[Concillian]

Last couple days I decided to just clear Inferno before the 1.05 patch. It was fun, and I learned some stuff.

I had been having some difficulty in Act 3, but would farm it regularly since it wasn't as lame as Act 2. I really don't like some of the monster types in Act 2.

My link is what I settled on, but initially I had a much higher DPS wand without LoH, only having ~500 from other items. I hit a brick wall at Rakinoth, I just didn't have enough healing, even with ~1000 resists and 7700 armor with the enchantress. I ended up clearing Act 4 with a mace I had stashed that had 666 DPS and LoH and Crit damage (no socket). Kinda cool to kill Diablo with a 666 DPS weapon.

Seeing how much that improved my survivability, I bought a <500k high LoH wand to play with, which is what is currently equipped. Man, Act 3 is much easier now. My offense is pretty low, but now I can survive just do not die anymore. Gemmed int instead of VIT had me about 43k life and I would get stuck occasionally, but I haven't died since I re-gemmed VIT at 50k+ life. Screen DPS is under 20k, but with so much AP on crit and using the Prism rune, I VERY rarely use spectral blades. I've actually considered trading that for Ray of frost with the low resource rune for some of the more annoying ranged opponents.

With high AP on crit, the meteor coefficient reduction should be fine, as the faster landing should increase it's efficiency and have it hitting more often. I think even some other meteor runes become viable due to the difference in coefficient... though if I stick with Prism rune for Diamond Skin, the Arcane meteor is still going to be the best, I think. The spectral blades nerf is going to be rougher though, I'll see how it plays out. At 1200+ Life on Hit, I'm pretty committed to proc coefficients for survival. I don't see my DPS being high enough for life steal to be a viable alternative for a while.

I did have to give up Prism for the extra health amount on Diamond skin, I just couldn't hold up to Diablo with only 10k DS, 20k DS gave a lot more breathing room. He ran around so much that prism wasn't really doing much for offense anyway. I don't think I'd have to do that with my current weapon though. The extra LoH is a pretty big boost when you have ~1000 resist and almost 8k armor.

[MonTy]

Last couple days I decided to just clear Inferno before the 1.05 patch. It was fun, and I learned some stuff.

Grats on clearing Inferno before the patch. I would have liked to make more Act 3 progression with my Meteor Wizard, but I had too many close calls for comfort. I'm now doing full clears of Act 2 as you can only do so many Butcher runs, and it's going well besides the Bee champion packs.

While running Act 2/3 I switched to the passive Galvanizing Ward (Life Regen) and Blood Magic on Magic Weapon. While it would be more effective to get those life stats on items, it's easier said then done while juggling the other stats I need. So giving up a bit of DPS is making the playthrough much more comfortable on the hardcore mode end. If I ever find a 900+ dps wand with at least 500 LoH, APoC, +AP then I'll go back to Astral Presence and Force Weapon.

But anyhow, nice job on clearing Inferno before the patch. I'm a little bit sad it won't be the same accomplishment clearing Inferno now, but after playing on the PTR the game flow does feel better.

*edit - Nevermind about not using Astral Presence. It's just too good. Not having it severely limits the number of Meteors which in turn does a lot less DPS and less Critical Mass procs. I got some decent Life regen boots instead. I was noticing a significant slowdown in killing speed when playing without AP.

[Spangles]

... I'm thinking that Diamond Skin won't be as useful in higher Monster Powers, due to a set amount of damage being negated ...

I agree, so I replaced Diamond Skin with Magic Weapon and made up the durability loss by replacing Spectral Blade / Deep Cuts with Healing Blades:

LMB: Spectral Blade / Healing Blades
RMB: Meteor / Star Pact
1: Explosive Blast / Chain Reaction
2. Frost Nova / Bone Chill
3: Magic Weapon / Force Weapon
4. Energy Armor / Prismatic Armor
Critical Mass, Cold Blooded, Blur.

I used this build on live 1.04 Act 3 and found a marked improvement in killing speed. I can survive in massive packs of white mobs that I had to kite previously. I can demolish most champ packs. Reflector / desecrator combos are still troublesome but I can usually avoid one-shotting myself by not meteoring until I kite them apart and can attack individuals.

Act 3 1.04 with the new build now feels like MP3, downgraded from MP4.

I put a cheap subspec Windforce on Scoundrel to experiment with knockback. This was a big success: knockback on multishot is great CC, it interrupts without scattering.

...

I farmed an Infernal Machine on MP4 and another on MP5 with this build. I substituted Force Armor for Prismatic Armor and saw no improvement, so I'll keep Prismatic. I will make MP5 my home, having to slow down for the champs actually improves my survival rate.

Patch day tomorrow finally! I'm glad I did all this research without paying the cost of doing it live. Discussions here were a big help.

[MonTy]

Dumb me to play on patch night. Not sure if it was me or server lag but got a full 5+ second hang on a Act 3 champ fight. Killed probably a hundred on PTR without much concern.

Ahh well decent run with him, on to my softcore self-found/crafted guys for a bit

[MongoJerry]

I think it's a mistake to go without Diamond Skin. That's 20k life right there times every time you get it to come off cooldown. In an elite fight, you probably get over 100k health from Diamond Skin alone and probably much more. It's the combination of Diamond Skin and Frost Nova rolling off cooldown that makes the build work.

---

LMB: Spectral Blade / Healing Blades
RMB: Meteor / Star Pact
1: Explosive Blast / Chain Reaction
2. Frost Nova / Bone Chill
3: Magic Weapon / Force Weapon
4. Energy Armor / Prismatic Armor
Critical Mass, Cold Blooded, Blur.

Spangles, I'm still trying to figure out why you like Explosive Blast. It just seems redundant with Meteor. Why not replace it with another spell like Diamond Skin or even one of the Familiars?

[Spangles]

Dumb me to play on patch night. Not sure if it was me or server lag but got a full 5+ second hang on a Act 3 champ fight.

Your deeds will be remembered. I get spikes like that, I always thought it was my video card overloading.

Spangles, I'm still trying to figure out why you like Explosive Blast. It just seems redundant with Meteor. Why not replace it with another spell like Diamond Skin or even one of the Familiars?

This thread led me to use this build when I decided to move on from kiting. I didn't use Teleport, however. I instead used Blizzard for a ranged attack, and later changed out Blizzard for Meteor.

I continue to use Explosive Blast as another closeup attack with Spectral Blade, augmenting them with Meteor as a finishing move or as a ranged attack. I find these spells complementary and not redundant. I think I can kill frozen mobs faster with three attacks than with two attacks and a DPS buff. Can't be quantitative without a damage meter tho.

Diamond Skin was part of my build until Monty said:

I'm thinking that Diamond Skin won't be as useful in higher Monster Powers, due to a set amount of damage being negated.

so I substituted Magic Weapon for Diamond Skin, to see what would happen. I was able to farm Infernal Machine keys in 1.05 live on MP5 quite handily.

I think it's a mistake to go without Diamond Skin. That's 20k life right there times every time you get it to come off cooldown. In an elite fight, you probably get over 100k health from Diamond Skin alone and probably much more. It's the combination of Diamond Skin and Frost Nova rolling off cooldown that makes the build work.

When I tried MP6, reflected damage gave problems, so I might switch back to Diamond Skin from Magic Weapon in MP6 to see if that will help.

All of this changing up is getting confusing, so here is the status quo:

LMB: Spectral Blade / Healing Blades
RMB: Meteor / Star Pact
1: Explosive Blast / Chain Reaction
2. Frost Nova / Bone Chill
3: Magic Weapon / Force Weapon (MP5) or Diamond Skin / Crystal Shell (MP6)
4. Energy Armor / Prismatic Armor
Critical Mass, Cold Blooded, Blur.

I think I will dwell in MP5 for a while to farm keys, but one always wants to push the envelope a bit. What I really need for progression is more armor and resists, but new weapons are more fun. Maybe a Skorn with lifesteal...

[MonTy]

Yea the Diamond Skin comment was a shoot from the hip that unfortunately I never got to test out. Monster Power increases more in health than damage, so that was pure speculation that eventually you'll need more damage, not protection. In Hardcore this will be a funny thing to balance, so probably never for that.

And thanks for the comment Spangles. Just sucks that finally the patch hit and I lost him right away. Talk about fail! Lol.

[Spangles]

Yea the Diamond Skin comment was a shoot from the hip that unfortunately I never got to test out. Monster Power increases more in health than damage, so that was pure speculation that eventually you'll need more damage, not protection.

I farmed an Inferno Machine in MP5 and went from Battlements to Siegebreaker with this build:

LMB: Spectral Blade / Healing Blades
RMB: Meteor / Star Pact
1: Explosive Blast / Chain Reaction
2. Frost Nova / Bone Chill
3: Magic Weapon / Force Weapon
4. Energy Armor / Prismatic Armor
Critical Mass, Cold Blooded, Blur.

I tested Diamond Skin in place of Magic Weapon for a while and found that I had to replace Blur with Evocation. Removing one form of protection to improve another doesn't make sense for me at MP5 especially since the Magic Weapon buff really speeds farming.

My Scoundrel has a Windforce for knockback, and I gave him an Eye of Etlich for cold damage and two IAS rings, as per Concillian's post. He now fills the air with arrows and CCs incessantly, which takes some getting used to. This is so useful that when he dies I wait for him to revive before continuing.

Ghom was easy, as in 1.04, but Siegebreaker took some iterating since I can no longer stand still and one-shot him. I think this is because reflected damage is more severe in 1.05 than previously.

I found 4 legendaries in 6 hours. This would have taken at least two weeks previously. I'm sure the drop rate is broken and will be hotfixed soon.

[Concillian]

Been playing this quite a bit at "Monsters 4" lately.

Basically been running:
Spectral Blades -- Healing Blades
Meteor -- Star Pact
Frost Nova -- Bone Chill
Diamond Skin -- Prism
Teleport -- Fracture OR Energy Armor -- Pinpoint Barrier
Magic Weapon -- Blood Magic OR Energy Armor -- Pinpoint Barrier

There are two things I'm trying to do...

1) With Teleport -- Fracture I am very, very durable, but kill slowly, high monster power really considerably ups health, and killing speed goes down considerably. Initially I was doing MP4 very slowly and unable to kill Siegebreaker before the enrage, even tanking all hits in a corner and having nearly 90+% time on target.I was trying to trade fracture for offense.

This is what I found:
Without fracture the following things that were fairly trivial become nightmares:
Exploding fallen -- With fracture, you can teleport and run. They'll explode on your images and you still have nova and/or diamond skin to save you from a stray.
Frozen -- getting out of frozen is really easy with teleport. Put your mouse on a clear area, hit the button, and you're done.
Jailor + desecration -- again, getting jailed in desecration is a much bigger deal when you can't just point and teleport. Fracture breaks you out of jail too.
Vortex -- Without Teleport, Vortex can put you in the middle of a very nasty situation.
In addition to these, it took away an option for fire chains that I liked to purposefully sit in a corner so they can't get their chains all around. If I was taking too much damage from regular attacks, I could teleport out, run away, they'd often get stuck on my images and I could often get free enough to TP even if I needed to.

Lastly, I lost a lot of flexibility in choosing targets to attack. I liked being able to use teleport as an offensive tool. While fighting melee, you could wait for Frost Nova cooldown, single out a ranged foe, teleport next to him, nova and go nuts. Without teleport you can chase those fat moon clan mages halfway to china and miss a frost nova... GRRRR.

Bottom line is that Teleport -- Fracture is an immesurable amount of defense & flexibility, and while I can play without it in softcore because death has little penalty, I have no idea how MonTy was able to survive at length in hardcore without Fracture.

2) Second thing I was looking at was options that provided both defense and offense. Pinpoint barrier and Blood Magic Weapon both offer mixed offense and defensive buffs. Pinpoint barrier seems most beneficial for defense, and depending on crit & + crit damage % can offer just as much offense as magic weapon. Currently I'm only +70% crit damage, and Pinpoint barrier offers only about +9% damage vs. +10% damage, but it's so superior defensively that I feel it is a better option than blood magic.

Another offense + defense option I explored was to use:
Cold Blooded
in conjunction with
Ice Armor / Chilling Aura

Here you have a clear synergy. your aura chills stuff that isn't frost nova'd and cold blooded increases damage done to chilled and frozen stuff. It works okay except that the damage reduction from ice armor is only melee damage, and frankly melee damage is not a huge problem with this build... ranged damage is. This allows you to drop blur without too much penalty, but the passives available are kinda meh. Galvanizing ward is a good defensive option, and astral presence is always a good offensive option.

Overall I didn't feel like this provided enough defense against ranged. A room full of quill fiends or whatnot really hurts, since there's no ranged damage reduction. Pinpoint barrier seems the better option, since you don't also tie up a passive.

[FireIceTalon]

Right now I'm using an couple interesting variations of this build, though one of them is simply a Critical Mass based build w/o the meteor.

On lower mp levels (say mp 5 or below) I use a almost total offensive build with the following:

Diamond Skin - Crystal Shell
Energy Twister - Wicked Winds
Frost Nova - Deep Freeze
Storm Armor - Shocking Aspect
Meteor - Shower
Explosive Blast - Chain Reaction

Passives are Cold Blooded, Evocation, and of course Critical Mass.

I love this build because its so versatile - I have a cold attack, arcane attack, physical attack, lightning attack, AND a fire based attack. Being able to perma-freeze monsters and have little or no cool-downs on frost nova and diamond skin is awesome, with about 50% chance to crit, 221% crit dmg, near instant AP regen, a decent 600+ LOH, and about 850 life regen

I havent tried this exact build on higher mp levels yet, but on mp 5 I have just enough defense for it to be viable against virtually any elite pack. On 6+, I switch out meteor for Slow Time (Stretch Time rune) and I have to use Energy Armor (prismatic) rather than the Storm armor. I think if I can get my resists into the 800's buffed, with 1k+ LOH I might be able to get away with using the offensive build on higher mp levels, yes? DPS is about 120k. It may possibly work now but kinda scared to try, heh. I still die plenty on mp 7+ with the more defensive build, but overall it is quite successful. I'd love to be able to use Shocking Aspect and Meteor Shower on high mp lvls though - playing with offensive skills is more fun than playing with defensive ones (even if the defensive ones work great)

[ViralSpiral]

So I notice that Critical Mass uh...doesn't exist anymore. Is there anything close to this old play style left?

[FireIceTalon]

So I notice that Critical Mass uh...doesn't exist anymore. Is there anything close to this old play style left?

Perma-freezing on Wiz is no longer possible, but certain cold builds nowadays can provide great CC. MM with Familiar/Icicle rune does a great job of keeping mobs frozen for a substantial amount of time. By the time they are out of freeze they are usually frozen again within a few seconds. Unfortunately cold builds lack the damage of fire builds, nor do they have the utility of arcane builds - both of which are far more dominant at higher torment levels.

There is also the chain apocalypse build, which involves spamming Explosive Blast in a similar fashion that CM wizards did in D3V. This build is centered around the coveted Wand of Woh, and with enough CDR you can spam this skill non-stop. It comes in both fire and arcane flavors.

[Aahzmadius]

The closest I've seen to this build in RoS is actually a barbarian using the cold rune on Earthquake + Lut Socks. It absolutely freezes the mobs-they don't even cast their effects-for about 5 seconds. If you can kill the mobs in that short of a time, there's almost no danger. And of course they will be severely depleted even if they escape the freeze.