Ice Mage Build

Rizz_the_Filthy_Dino

This is a build I theory crafted, I love the idea of Winterborn. I know that Bogdan's monster set procs very frequently with regens on allies and has a lower chance to proc, so running that same mentality with Frost AoE's and Dots, Winterborn could proc the ice pillar. Spell Strategist amplifies the damage

The strategy here is to yank a single enemy away from a group with "Frozen Device", they are debuffed with Major Maim for 4 seconds. Before pulling an enemy to me, I prepare Proximity Detonation on myself and they get pulled into range of me. The idea is to lay down enough frost damage DoTs around me in an area (Gripping Shards / Wall of Elements / Arctic Blast / Pulsar - Black Rose DoT / and Ice Comet or Sleet Storm) for Winter Born to proc. It is a 3 meter radius; however, the target will be slowed around me.

Ice Heart is there to further proc Ice Pillar; however, I wouldn't be opposed to changing it to something like Molag Kena

Here's the build:


Winterborn
(2 items) Adds 1096 Max Magicka
(3 items) Adds 129 Magicka Recovery
(4 items) Adds 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Cold Damage ability, you have an 8% chance to summon an ice pillar that deals 7967 Cold Damage to all enemies in a 3 meter radius. The ice pillar persists for 2 seconds and reduces the Movement Speed of all enemies within the radius by 60%.

Spell Strategist
(2 items) Adds 1096 Maximum Magicka
(3 items) 129 Spell Damage
(4 items) 129 Spell Damage
(5 items) When you deal damage with a Light Attack, you place a mark over your target for 5 seconds, granting you 500 Spell Damage against your marked target. This effect can occur every 5 seconds.

Ice Heart
(1 items) Adds 833 Spell Critical
(2 items) When you deal Critical Damage, you have a 20% chance to gain a damage shield that absorbs 8600 damage for 6 seconds. While the damage shield holds, you deal 770 Cold Damage to all enemies within 5 meters of you every 1 second. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds.

Wild Impulse
(2 items) Reduce the cost of Impulse by 10%. Impulse places lingering elemental damage on your targets, dealing 3333 Flame, 3333 Shock, and 3333 Ice Damage over 8 seconds.

Pros

• Lots of slows for allies to capitalize on.
• Frozen Device is amazing to use with a coordinated team; yanking an enemy player from the safety of their group disorients them and can lead to a quick numbers advantage.
• Ice Pillar has potential of being devastating.
• Not some cookie cutter meta build, thought provoking.

Cons

• No health regen abilities other than Arctic Blast, could slot drop Elemental Drain for another self-sustain ability; however, that penetration is too nice to take up.
• Don't have a lot of resistances with all light (Winterborn / Spell Strategist), I was thinking about running Ice Furnace, but it's a trash set imo and the proc is ... fire damage. I could run Lady mundus stone for more resists.
• No execute means I could only get assists and not killing blows.

Instead of telling me this won't work, help me make it work. What do you think this set would need? I want to keep with the two main sets I listed. I am all for changing out the monster set.

NupidStoob

I feel like the build contradicts itself a bit.

If you want to pull someone out of his group and kill him quickly you have way better options with Zaan and deep fissure + prox detonation with SST and Spinner.

If you want to be a control mage you don't need prox detonation nor SST and can focus a lot more on that which would require a better complimentary set together with winterborn (most likely something defensive or sustain heavy).

Currently your build also heavily relies on having allies that react when you pull someone. It's also entirely built around you having the initiative. I assume you want to play this in CP PvP otherwise there is no way you sustain at all. This however can also lead to you getting oneshot especially from ganks as Iceheart will only proc if you have a chance to react to the attack and actually crit them them. On top of of that iceheart is meant to be played on rather beefy chars with higher resistances in melee range, which your char just isn't.

If you want to keep the ice mage control theme then I would suggest to use bone pirate or malubeth (which is kind of cool since they can't run away from you with all the ice) and swap out spell strategist for something that helps you sustain/survive such as lich, bright throat, shacklebreaker fortified brass or impreg. You can still use frozen device to surprise people, but you will be a lot less vulnerable to anyone engaging the fight with you.

Kel

Honestly, this is the best control Ice mage (warden) build I've seen...

https://youtu.be/Fc_rW25nedM

Locks players down while still doing crazy damage.
Recovery and max magicka can be an issue if you're not heavy attacking, though.

I understand wanting to come up with your own thing, but this build has everything you want to do.

Datthaw

I play a winterborn setup on my magnb. An ice mage of sorts. I have done alot of testing and found a setup that procs winterborn consistantly and will snare people to were they just can't move at all without spamming snare removers.

-5 winterborn
-5 lich
-2 skoria
-5-1-1 all tri stat glyphs all spell damage glyph
-1 master ice staff charged with ice enchant
-1 lich resto back bar weapon enchant

I won't get into bars too much since you're running this on warden and I run magnb but the general playstyle is lay down wall of ele and aoe's while holding them in place with destructive clench spam (normally building mercy stacks for the meteor>fear>bow combo but substitute your warden burst) open world and bgs make sure to take advanrage of terrain and pull to choke points.

This build sustains like no other along with pumping out decent damage because with lich you can run everything spell damage. Give it a shot and see if it fits your style

HansProlo

jabrone77 wrote: »

Honestly, this is the best control Ice mage (warden) build I've seen...

https://youtu.be/Fc_rW25nedM

Locks players down while still doing crazy damage.
Recovery and max magicka can be an issue if you're not heavy attacking, though.

I understand wanting to come up with your own thing, but this build has everything you want to do.

i copied it and i am not nearly on his stats, especially the health.

kojou

Datthaw wrote: »

I play a winterborn setup on my magnb. An ice mage of sorts. I have done alot of testing and found a setup that procs winterborn consistantly and will snare people to were they just can't move at all without spamming snare removers.

-5 winterborn
-5 lich
-2 skoria
-5-1-1 all tri stat glyphs all spell damage glyph
-1 master ice staff charged with ice enchant
-1 lich resto back bar weapon enchant

I won't get into bars too much since you're running this on warden and I run magnb but the general playstyle is lay down wall of ele and aoe's while holding them in place with destructive clench spam (normally building mercy stacks for the meteor>fear>bow combo but substitute your warden burst) open world and bgs make sure to take advanrage of terrain and pull to choke points.

This build sustains like no other along with pumping out decent damage because with lich you can run everything spell damage. Give it a shot and see if it fits your style

I run the same on my Warden except with Iceheart. Works well for group play.

Taleof2Cities

If I were one of your friends, I would not be excited about taking you on multiple farming runs in Vet Blackrose Prison ... to get your perfected ice staff.

HansProlo

this build doesnt really work for me in BGs. especially in deathmatches.

winterborn doesnt proc often enough. its rather squishy with LA.
there is no burst and the aoe is bad vs moving targets.

i ve got all except jewelry golden, torugs pact, winterborn, ice heart. no impenetrable parts yet but that cant be the only problem. its half l2p half that this build doesnt really work in bgs

Rizz_the_Filthy_Dino

HansProlo wrote: »

this build doesnt really work for me in BGs. especially in deathmatches.

winterborn doesnt proc often enough. its rather squishy with LA.
there is no burst and the aoe is bad vs moving targets.

i ve got all except jewelry golden, torugs pact, winterborn, ice heart. no impenetrable parts yet but that cant be the only problem. its half l2p half that this build doesnt really work in bgs

It's definitely your impen that's making you squishy. If you impen out all your gear, that'd give you like 1500 impen and with a healer running Transmutation, you should be getting another 1500 or so impen from that setting you to 3000, right under the soft cap.

Impenetrable is like the number one thing you want to have close to soft cap in PVP, especially in BGs where you get zero bonuses from CP levels. You'll otherwise be shredded, which is what your problem was.

Think about it this way, everyone is running either self heals or run a dedicated healer. I've even seen full on coordinated teams run like 4 healers before, or at least like each person did 75% DPS and 25% healing to each other. Your team fights will come down to who dies first, and with you running zero impen and them running full impen and that amount of healing output, you're never going to get a kill, only assists. They'll simply outlast you.