Ternion Attack Cold Mage

[DeTry]

Hello.
At the beginning I would like to ephasize that my English language isn't the best so there can occur some mistakes.
I am experienced hack'n'slash player and already done ranger that passed through normal and epic difficulty.
Today I would like to create a specific build which i would like to be based on cold damage.
As we know, game doesn't serve us many cold oriented spells or builds we could play around it.

I have been thinking about Ice shards and Ternion attacks but I'm not sure about scaling.
I saw that people play Ternion Attack but they scale it with lightning damage. I fancy to scale it with cold damage and freeze everything nearby.
And here is the question.
Is it able to scale enough cold damage with ternion attack's to play and kill fast?
If yes, what does ternion attack scale with, faster attacks, or faster casting/ cast speed? Only staff with cold damage is viable? or other weapon as well?
And finally, as a secondary mastery use storm or something else?

[SilentMeteor]

Yes cold ternion is viable.
Faster attacks (honestly your wording reminds me of POE)
Storm, obviously.

[sarcastic_godot]

Ternion does require a staff and is a modifier to your staff base attack. Ice shard doesn't, it works with all weapons (and even without one). Ternion gets an erea effect later on, Ice Shard more particles. Both have increased projectile speed. And Ternion benefits from +Attack Speed, whereas Ice Shard, as a spell, benefits from FastCast

I'm pretty unsure what you mean by "scale with" Cold/Lightning... ...do you want to know whether it gets amplified by "+xx% cold damage"? (No) Or do you mean using a staff that uses lightning (or cold) as its base damage type? Please do clarify this.

On a side note: One thing that works awesomely well with Ternion is using a staff with "reduce enemy health by x%" - "Harrowing" prefix if you're using a non-unique. So that's what I've been using on my Ternomancers, no matter which element the base damage was. And Ki-rin in the weapon switch, because it's doing Vitality damage as base attack, and has those really really helpful extra resistances...

[DeTry]

Well, Thanks for answers @SilentMeteor (Actually i have been playing in PoE for a quite a long time) and @suicidal_godot
So, I can get flat cold damage only from staff? And does that cold damage can freeze monsters using ternion attack? It's cool that Ternion increases area of effect itself while leveling this skill because on first few levels it sucks as I see.
Secondly, I won't benefit from projectile speed as well as from faster casting?
I thought about Click[www.tq-db.net] later on.
Now i wanted to share link with Stonebinder cuff's but I see they nerfed these arm?

What about statictics?
2:1 int:dex?

Yes I want to use base cold damage staff

[sarcastic_godot]

More Dex - you'll be close up with your prey and they'll be trying to bash you, hence you need solid Defensive Ability. 600-800 when you get to Hades, and 1k plus in Epic and Legendary is what I'd recommend. ofc there are helpful items like the Battlemage Robe, but...

Stonebinder Cuffs[www.tq-db.net] are my fav arm piece, too. They're nerfed mostly in terms of drop frequency :^/, but I'd still recommend using them. Whether you want to invest the extra strength points for the legendary ones[www.tq-db.net] is up to you (I normally do). And they also come with a stat or some in addition to +Skills and EleRes. But their drop rates have been really hit hard with the Nerf-o-matic...

Cold Staff is nice, but you would make life easier by using a Vitality damage stuff, at least a tad later. Your Deathchill Aure massively debuffs the enemy Vit resistance - -119% at Max+4, so they'll be far in the negative, and get hit by heavy exponential scaling effects. Sure, those Staffs are rare, but this effect makes them worthwhile with a Terniomancer. In Normal you can find the Necro Set staff[www.tq-db.net], and Kirin[www.tq-db.net]. Later there are some others, and as I see you know how to use TQ_DB, I'll leave the search to you. Late game, Fafnir's Heart[www.tq-db.net] is awesome, as it also has a big chunk of Bleeding damage, and this is one of the debuffs Deathchill Aura does, too....

OFC you need one other damage type in one switch, else undead would be unkillable (well, not all, but most are inherently immune there), and Cold is a sweet option there. Keep the thing with the Harrowing (reduce enemy healt by x%) in mind, this males high HP bosses' healthbars melt away way faster than any direct damage. After all, they get hit three times at once, so...

You also can get flat cold damage from e.g. Rings or other gear, which then is properly multiplied by your +%cold damage buffs... ...so wearing e.g. a pair of Rings of Frost should make your early game progress smoother. If you don't have some, they can be found every now and then at the vendors from Megara on, and IIRC you can wear them from Lvl 12 on. Glacial Loops etc are a later option.

FastCast does nothing at all with Ternion - that's a mod to your weapon attack, like Onslaught or Marksmanship. It does help with your cast rate / cooldown times of all your other spells, though. But you can also completely ignore it, from the Ternion perspective at least.

Re. Freezing... ...I have to concede that I mostly played Terniomancer with Dream (for the extra debuffs from the Trance and the Phantom Strike mobility), so I don't remember that well how this worked in TQ... ...though you'll always have the slowdown effect from your Deathchill Aura, which is quite noticeable, too. In brief, melee opponents are less of a pain (with that DA) than Archers. Never forget to max your pierce resistance and always keep moving...

HTH + HF!

[rulikstanislav]

there are a lot of options - ones that were not mention:
- tyrants ; arctic(staff and ring) ; archmages prefixes
- of winter suffix
- "staff of the deep" monster infrequents
- "chill of tartarus" relic

[DeTry]

Again, thanks for answers. I appreciate it.
I don't want to play vitality, so sorry.
Would it be good as a cold ternion character int:dex 2:1 ?
How much invest into strength if it's needed at all?
I would be greatful for your advices

[rulikstanislav]

Definitely zero points into strengh it does nothing else other than increase your physical damage of a weapon attacks ...only.

As a range char you have no use for offensive ability therefor spending points into dex ... i would only recommend to spend enough points into dex just to meet the dexterity requierements of inteligence armor -> ragnarok 200+ dex.

everything else just into inteligence.

gaining/stacking defensive ability points is way easier then through dex anyway
since it is 1 dex = 1 OA/DA.
for legendary difficulty you need 800 (min) - 900 (average) - 1000 (max).

[sarcastic_godot]

I generally agree with rulikstanislav - apart from the Strength thing. You might want to get to 132 or 170 there, to meet the requirement for the Stonebinder Cuffs. Every point above that is wasted. If you have good DA gear, you can cut out at 425 Dex (SB Cuffs again). If not, I cease putting points in there when I get to 1k DA. If you like to live dangerously, you can go for the min 800 he recommends... ...after all, death is cheap in this game. :D

Part of this difference comes from my opinion / experience / style to play Ternion pretty up-close. I want to hit the opponents with 2, better all three projectiles. While you can do that from a certain distance on bosses, the standard mob only catches one shot, unless you get pretty close, so I rush them. Might be mostly a matter of playstyle,.. ..so if you want to keep to sniping, you can go low on DA. If you want to be capable of rushing, I'd advise 1k. For reference. purposes: 1400 - 1500 makes you practically unhittable by melee attacks.

So I'd say it's up to your choice of playstyle - snipy-DPS-y vs. rushy-"tanky". And it also depends on how much "% Attack Damage to Health" you have.

All else into INT.

Maybe you want to put a bit into hitpoints. (I used to put all my extra Stat points from Quests, e.g. Chiron's Bow quest, in there, but have stopped doing so by now) Don't put any points into energy, drink a potion instead. You get plenty from Masteries and practically can't burn through them faster than the potion CD...