frosty skill distribution

[MortisNostre]

So its come time to start leveling my frost maiden. I plan on having WF on switch to deal with cold immunes and help leach some mana back. Thus, i wont be going for a pure mage build, rather, a FA,CA/strafe hybrid.

What i need is advice on skill distribution, and in what order to max them.
w/o +skills,
20 FA
20 CA
-enough to get valk to lvl 17 after +skills?
-how much strafe?
-how much pierce? (will be using razortail)
-how much d/a/e?
-how much penetrate?
-how much crit strike?
-any other skills im missing that may be useful?

lastly, im not exactly sure how to balance my vit/dex distribution. I want high enough AR so that i can own with WF as well as with my ICE bow, and i obviously want a decent amount of life.. Any suggesitons?

[MortisNostre]

help?????????

[Hector]

So its come time to start leveling my frost maiden. I plan on having WF on switch to deal with cold immunes and help leach some mana back. Thus, i wont be going for a pure mage build, rather, a FA,CA/strafe hybrid.

What i need is advice on skill distribution, and in what order to max them.
w/o +skills,
20 FA
20 CA
-enough to get valk to lvl 17 after +skills?
-how much strafe?
-how much pierce? (will be using razortail)
-how much d/a/e?
-how much penetrate?
-how much crit strike?
-any other skills im missing that may be useful?

lastly, im not exactly sure how to balance my vit/dex distribution. I want high enough AR so that i can own with WF as well as with my ICE bow, and i obviously want a decent amount of life.. Any suggesitons?

I would do the following:
20 Cold Arrow
20 Freezing Arrow
20 Strafe, because I really think Strafe is an all-or-nothing skill. You either get maximum arrows or else it kind of sucks.
10 to 17 (maximum) Valk, depending on how many +skillers you'll use.
1 to 9 (maximum) Pierce, again depends on how many +skillers you have. Level 9 Pierce + Razortail = 100%.

Distribute the leftover points among Critical Strike and Penetrate.

Dodge, Avoid, Evade, 1 point each, period. Defense is useless for a bowazon and you'll need the points on offensive passives (CS, Penet), or else you'll kill Cold Immunes a bit too slowly. You will need Penetrate when you switch to WF because it offers no AR bonuses, and while Ice offers Ignore Target Defense, this alone will not help against bosses and such. So get yourself a good Penetrate level after your Cold skills, Valk and Strafe are taken care of.

Vitality, add an absolute maximum of 100, rest into Dex. If you can get Bow Skill Charms with Life, then you can even not add anything to Vitality. My bowazons never have Vitality and they play fine, with a little of life steal and high dex, you'll be fine.

[MortisNostre]

thanks, that was a lot of help.

One more thing though, what order should i pump points into the skills? Which skills should i max first, which last, etc...?

[Evrae Altana]

When I made a Frostmaiden, I maxed Freezing Arrow First, then stuck ~10 points in Strafe, then maxed Cold Arrow. After that, I finished maxing Strafe and sunk a few points in Valk and one point each in the other passives.

[MortisNostre]

When I made a Frostmaiden, I maxed Freezing Arrow First, then stuck ~10 points in Strafe, then maxed Cold Arrow. After that, I finished maxing Strafe and sunk a few points in Valk and one point each in the other passives.

perfect.....im assuming this approach worked well?

[Evrae Altana]

It got me through Hell. :wink3:
I maxed FA first because that was my main skill, then I put 10 in Strafe so I could leech a bit.

[AnimeCraze]

Just be warned that FA is such a mana hog that even with 80 energy and Insight merc I still had to chunk pots quite a bit.

It was an LF/FA, using a non-upped wizen, so no leech for me.