Improved Cold Maiden? Maybe...

[Maniphesto]

Sorry about the IAS post, I should have opened my eyes and noticed the IAS charts in this forum. My Bad

I have been doing some testing with the cold maiden and sort of altered her, i think is is actually a little more effective then the one i was reading in the compodium (respect to whoever did that one, its a great guild!). This is sort of similar to the cold maiden, made some item switches and some skill switches i feel are more effective. I was using the cold maiden in SP testing effectiveness and I found the use of blade shield and blade sentinel to be paticularly useless. Anyways, what do you guys think about this build, testing so far has yeilded great results....

Weapon = Doom Zerker (-60 Cold resist, +2 skills, lvl 12 holy freeze possible)
Weapon switch = Call to Arms + Pheonix (more life and mana!)
Shield = Tiamats (adds cold damage)
Helm = Nighwings (2 skills, 15% cold damage, 20 dex possible)
Armor = CoH (resists, skills, str)
gloves = Craft gloves (ias/cb/resist/martial arts whatever u fancy)
boots = shadowdancer (2 shadow skills, fhr, high kick damage)
rings = Raven frost X2 or Raven + duel leech/str/resist ring (obvious reasons)
belt = nos coil or dungos (nos = life leech/str/slow, or vundos =pdr/life)
ammy = Highlords/craft (1 skills/deadly strike 33% at high lvl, or rare/craft ammy skills/resists/stats u know the deal)

charms = martial arts skillers w/life or cold damage + anni + torch (the usual)

skills maybe like this..............

pheonix strike = 20
blades of ice = 20
venom = 20
Dragon Flight = 20 (big AR Boost is important)
shadow master = 1-10
+ prereqs

Merc = Act 2 NM Might merc with infinity giant thresher

doesn't leave much room for customizing, but you know how it is.

It's a PvM build so not very viable in PvP obviously.

Your main attack is going to be Choas ice from pheonix since you cant use blades of ice, which does suck but is ok. You also have tiger strike you can combine with it for some serious damage, especially with a lvl 20 Dflight
Anything that isn't cold immune dies instantly, and for cold immunes we have lvl 20 venom or various other elements from pheonix strike.

Using BoS (it will be at lvl 14) you can easily achieve 7 frame "claw" strike with only 26 extra IAS. Highlords + nos coil takes care of that, or craft gloves, whatever you want.

what do people think of this? thanks in advance for your input.

[Maniphesto]

Edit: I've actually decided to now switch out Tiamats in favor of stormshield, the 75% block is MUCH more helpful then the elemental damage that tiamats grants.

As well I added 1 point into bade fury as a means of dealing with pesky Iron Maiden areas.

As in the cold maiden, Death Sentry is also an option for anyone that might wanna add it in there as well, but the fact alot of enemies shatter deters me from feeling its worth it, also im going to play this character act1 normal to act 5 hell, teaming with a necro.

this character is ALOT of fun, I love pheonix strike and dragon flight together. Dflight is also great for telestacking your merc and your shadow master.

The only problem area I can see for this build thus far is the relatively low AR on your initial pheonix strike. Im running just over 6K (dragonflight is at about 18-19k so thats a non issue.) which isn't bad, but it would be great to increase a bit as you can never have enough AR. Demonlimb is an option for enchant on weapon switch, but i hate taking away call to arms and its very annoying prebuffing more then just a single weapon switch in PvM. The only option I can concieve is to add in some AR charms, but then I would be sacrificing skillers and I don't think I really want to do that.

I've been reading some of the other guilds that use claws for martial arts builds rather then another melee weapon (mainly the cold maiden or immobilizer guides) and I feel there is flawed logic in them compared to doom axe.

a) Cold Maiden mentions that the use of Eye of etlich amulet is very important for the hidden freeze on it. Doom axe takes away the need for this ammy leaving room for a much more effective one such as highlords for deadly strike and IAS to hit last break. Holy Freeze solves this by keeping enemies frozen.

b) Immobilizer build utilizes the skill claws of thunder. I don't think this skill is needed, I would much rather have a high level venom as it is passive once it is cast. I was reading the guild about how much damage u can get when utilizing Claws of thunder + Tiger Strike + pheonix strike + Dragon Tail finisher. Now this is a great combo and for sure will grant tons of damage, the problem is actually performing this is semi difficult. Actually getting three fully charged skills on you at one time takes patience and effort and all your focus needs to be on that. Imho this takes away from the experience constantly trying to build up this attack is annoying, hense the use of venom. Also, dragontail adds fire damage and so many enemies are immune to fire in hell that it turns me away from wanting to use fire attacks. Dflight on the other is alot more effective with telestacking (and coolness factor if thats something you care about).

So as it stands, the only issue here is with your AR on pheonix strike, and its a small one..does anyone have anything they can add to this?

Also, I couldn't find the edit button for some reason, maybe im on drugs or something, so sorry for the double, yet relevant, post.

[Maniphesto]

After much testing, I've now reworked her even further.

I've decided that using venom is not as effective as I originally thought. CoT is actually worth maxing out, for high end pheonix strike damage.

So skills now look like this....

Claws Of Thunder = 20 points
Blades of Ice = 20 Points
Pheonix Strike = 20 Points
Dragonflight = 20 points (I've tried testing dragontail here now for the tri elemental attack, but its just not as overall effective as Dflight's teleport.)
Shadow Master = 1 - 5 points (4 will reach lvl 18 so she uses good equipment)
Death Sentry = Rest of points after build is finished
+ Pre req's

As before, this doesnt leave much room for customization, but is VERY effective build.

Powerful cold immobilizing effect, powerful physical damage, very powerful lightning damage, and benefits of corpse explosion.

Depending on how you would like to focus your sin now you can actually use some item switching.

Cresent moon is now a viable option for two reasons, It has ITD which will help solve earlier AR problems without needing enchant and bothersome prebuff, and it also has -35% to enemy light resist for you CoT.

I still prefer Doom for the +2 skills, holy freeze, and even higher negative to enemy cold resistance.

Also another option is now Griffons Eye, for its - 20% to enemy lightning resist. Socket this with a perfect facet, and a perfect facet in our stormshield and were in business.

Offensive:

-60% enemy cold resist.
-30% enemy light resist.
+20% light skill damage.
(^Not including lvl 12 conviction aura on Merc, and the - to light resist that infinity offers)
55% deadly strike
25% chance of open wounds
10% Crushing Blow (if you can get some craft gloves, lookin for ways to increase this)
Ias enough to hit fastest non claw striking

Defense:

40% Faster hit recovery (if you use dungos + shadow dancer, more if u get charms)
50% physical damage reduction
max blocking
max resists in hell (with a few charms)
over 3k Life (with battle command/BO from weapon switch)

The build keeps getting better and better, can easily solo hell baal now with no problems at all.

Ubers I feel will be a problem, But im not to concerned about that right now.

edit: Can anyone confirm to me why exactly adding griffons eye does not increase pheonix strike thunder damage over nightwing veil? thanks

[Masas]

What about Cold Maidens that lack access to duped runes?

[Maniphesto]

What about Cold Maidens that lack access to duped runes?

Well, I never said the build was going to be cheap............

there are subsitiute cheaper items you could get though. I could go through them but this isn't really a guild so I don't wanna put that much time into it. Its not that hard to come up with other things though, I can easily just think of a few cheaper things right off the top of my head that would be effective as well.

[BildBenny]

I think fastest attack with a Claw is 7 frames per attack, and with axes, swords etc (most 1h weapons) is 8 frames per attack.

Voice of Reason might be another option. It doesn't pack as much - to enemy cold resistance, but if you use D-Talon to release the charges this one might be better. I dunno, Doom does on the other hand have Freeze and +2 Skills...

[Maniphesto]

upon realizing that nightwing veil does not add damage to pheonix strike it is no longer worth using, imo.

i think for this build now the best helm would probably be a godly circlet, maybe 2 assassin skills, hit recover, resists, str, run walk speed.

[Ritslev]

Greetings Maniphesto


My name is SonOfRa... the original creator of the Cold Maiden..

As you will notice from the gear it was pre (xxxx) patches ago that it was created and this is what reflects teh gear choice.. mostly though you'll notice that the build is really build up around the claws.. so while yes you can get a rune word weapon instead which will greatly improve the build it will also dramatically alter it.

Cudos to u for trying it out, and cudo for altering it...

GL with it.

BTW Yes I'm also the creator of the Blade Fury Build... which is my pride and joy. I don't play Diablo II anymore, I have switched to another favorite of Blizzard : WoW.

I do though still have both my chracters around still.. along with a few others :)

It's a pleasure to once in a blue mono read these forums and see my builds actually still being used.

SonOfRa

[Maniphesto]

It's a great guild and she is alot of fun, thats for sure, thanks for posting the original guild and giving me a basis for this character.

She is working out pretty good actually with minimal problems!