The Frostmaiden is the only build I haven't really tried, yet always wanted to.
I was thinking to build one this ladder, but I'm a little worried about her effectiveness in hell
I was planning to run river of fire/cs/wsk/pits/cows. How does it look in players 1 and players 8?
Equipment I have in mind:
Nightwing's Veil
Crescent Moon
Waterwalks boots/Wartravs
Razortail
+2/3 bow/20 IAS/goves
Ravenfrost/soj?
Ice gmb/mb
forti
merc (dunno here which is better):
insight/infinity act 2
faith act 1
Will she kill fast or will I have to always worry for mana and not dying? Or should I make a Gunslinger instead?
what fun factor would you give it (1-10)?
hlap plox
|||Crescent Moon, I thought you meant the runeword at first, i was like huh? 
There's a very thorough guide for frostmaiden in the stickies which includes gear advice. I'd go with a +3 Bow Skills amulet, you can get an Insight Might merc for mana, and you can get a dual leech ring instead of SoJ and be +2 skills ahead.|||Quote:
... +3 Bow Skills amulet...
no such thing.|||From the aforementioned "Ice Maiden" guide, a few lines about a "Faithful Frostmaiden":
Quote:
One gripe I have with Ice is it's lack of physical damage compared to Faith. Especially if made in a Mat. Bow for the faster speed. Both are competent Freezing Arrow cannons; where Ice has the better FA damage, Faith has the versatility of speed and higher physical damage of the arrows, as well as large the AR% bonus (300% on top of Penetrate and Fanaticism's AR%) to allow high chances to hit, and potentially higher +bow skills to keep Multishot and Magic Arrow as 1-point wonders yet still be high enough for end-game use. Actually, I prefer to have Multishot no higher than slvl 15, since the mana cost generally becomes detrimental to your upkeep as you get higher, and there's rarely cases when there's 15 or more monsters in a single group. Even then, with 100% pierce, you'll be hitting most of the monsters in any given mob more than once, so a high level Multi is not needed.
Contrary to your guide, I don't recommend placing your extra skill points into another Bow skill after Freezing Arrow+synergies and Strafe are maxed. Those points would be better served in maxing out Valkyrie IMO, as it lets you make use of three of the best tanks in the game; Valkyrie, Decoy, and your Mercenary. Maxed Valkyrie sends her life into the near-immune levels, especially if she's prebuffed with +passive skills at slvl 35 or above. She also makes for an OK supplementary damage source. Sure, slvl 17 is when she gets her War Pike, but when she's at slvl 35+ she makes it hurt.
Personally I'm a Faithful Frostmaiden Fanatic. I'm the type of guy who prefers a well-rounded character with 2 or more elements focused on to allow easy times with all monsters, regardless of immunity. Faith allows nearly the same numbers of Freezing Arrow damage, with almost twice the physical damage per arrow hit, as well as a greater chance to hit against all the monsters of Sanctuary (+300% AR and ITD versus just ITD alone). I also roll with a maxed Strafe, so she'll be just as potent as a pure Strafer as well. The best of both worlds, I suppose, just how I like it.
I'm entirely with Eilo. An FA strafer with Faith is a fantastic way to still play up the benefits of FA (with extraordinary AR) while also maintaining pretty great damage thanks to Strafe. I'm running a 7fpa one currently whose Strafe dmg is 1k-5.5k and whose FA dmg is 1.2k-6.4k plus 2.2k in cold damage (with a Might/Pride merc). That. Versus carrying an Ice: Strafe @ 900-2.6k and FA @ 1.2k-3.1k and 2.8k in cold damage with all other gear (and the merc) exactly the same.
It's a wonderful build that can run anything AND contribute positively to Baal runs with FA's freeze time.|||The Ice Matriarchal Bow Frostmaiden build is viable in hell, but it loses effectiveness in games with more than 3 players games fast.
Playing alone it is quite powerful, but contrary to the Blizzard Sorceress, it relies in DPS, not sheer numbers(although the blizz sorc DPS is insane).
I would advice, however, using a Mara's and Chains of Honour instead of Crescent Moon and Fortitude. If you can get a +2 Amazon amulet with better mods than Mara's, go for it. And go with Insight/Might merc. The build is expensive but fun.|||I'm not entirely sure why everyone's advocating Insight for a zon that relies on FA.
The mana regeneration offered by Insight isn't nearly enough to account for any rapid and consecutive usage of FA. In fact, as long as you've got mana leech somewhere, a single Strafe or MS into a pack of monsters would immediately do more for your blue globe than Insight. AND it frees up your merc to help with YOUR damage.
Infinity and Pride too expensive? Fine. Use Reaper's Toll! It's an incredible boost to your physical dmg, especially if you're not using Atma's.|||Quote:
I'm not entirely sure why everyone's advocating Insight for a zon that relies on FA.
The mana regeneration offered by Insight isn't nearly enough to account for any rapid and consecutive usage of FA. In fact, as long as you've got mana leech somewhere, a single Strafe or MS into a pack of monsters would immediately do more for your blue globe than Insight. AND it frees up your merc to help with YOUR damage.
Infinity and Pride too expensive? Fine. Use Reaper's Toll! It's an incredible boost to your physical dmg, especially if you're not using Atma's.
Mana regen also depends on your mana pool. There's a formula in the AS (under the basics section) that can tell you how much mana you regenerate per second. You can figure out how many attacks/seconds you do, how much mana per second you use, how much mana you need to regenerate, and what the base mana to get that kind of regen should be. Last patch I ran a full mageazon from an Insight without any leech. Insight CAN be a viable option, but as with all options, it all boils down to how you use it.
Also, if you're playing untwinked, what do you think you'll find first/easier, reapers or Insight? It's easily the most damaging budget weapon you can stick on a merc (210%ED, 45%CS). And ON TOP of that, you get the mana bonus, the dual heal bonus (only with prayer merc),... Why are people are so blinded by the aura they don't see the other very good bonusses?|||To your second point, Kardinaal, I agree. Insight is valuable for reasons apart from mana regeneration. However, for mana regeneration, it's not very valuable at all to a Frostmaiden not looking to invest points in energy. Consider the following:
If I have a Frostmaiden with a mana pool of 300, I'm naturally--i.e., just because I have 300 in the blue globe--regenerating 2.5 mana per second. If I'm using Insight (with slvl 17 Meditation) and have the same mana pool, I'm regenerating 20 mana per second. That's great.
Now, let's say that same Frostmaiden has a slvl 26 FA, and she can fire at an 8fpa rate. There are, typically, 25 frames per second, which means I can fire three arrows per second. At slvl 26, FA costs 21.5 mana. I'm depleting 64.5 mana per second, but only recovering 20/sec thanks to Insight
What is a help, however, is my mana leech, which, as you'll see, is really doing the bulk of my mana recovery work. Let's assume 3k in physical damage from a single arrow and 6% mana leech for the sake of this exercise. In hell, my mana leech is cut by two-thirds, so if in normal I'd take away 180 mana in that single arrow, I'm only really recovering 60. That seems fantastic...way better than anything Insight's Meditation could be doing for me. And if, because of physical resistances, natural monster leech drain numbers, or just lower physical damage, I only garner 15 mana on my next arrow, I'm still in a pretty good place because maybe that next shot also pierced and hit two other monsters.
So leech!|||Well, that's why I opted for the crescent moon.
But faith>ice for the frostmaiden? That's sad as ice seemed sooo sexy...|||Faith is faster, more physical damage (thus more leech). Ice offers more elemental damage and extra protection with the holy freeze aura. So once again there is no best bow, it's all about playing style. If you find yourself using mostly FA with the occasional strafe for leeching, I'm pretty shure Ice will be the faster killer (you'll need more leech though). If you just use FA for freezing, then strafe everything to death, faith will be better. Choose which will be your main skill, and get the bow that suits it best. Or get both and use weapon switch to alternate between them so you don't have to choose.
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