@silvach, I got it at around Para lvl 25-30..... RNG is RNG and Im praying to the RNG God everyday prior to login lol.
Anyway, considering the great increase in monster density in Rifts and Greater Rifts, most of the time you're fighting close-range, rather than ranged (white monsters), this is where I found the ring helpful in particular.
First of all, because when a monster swings to hit you, it can get frozen because of the shield.
Second, should the monster hit you, the frost nova will freeze not only the attacker, but the surrounding monsters, which is very helpful in critical situations.
Third, when it comes to ranged monsters, I used to teleport around and dodge most of their attacks and should I receive a hit, my teleport's CD was instantly reset, which give me the opportunity to use it again. Now, with the ring, I just tend to get close to them in order to use the ring effect to freeze them. By the time that happens, the melee monsters have caught up with me and I usually use hydra,blizzard and black hole, so I can stack the DoT and kill them fast.
So far that works out well, but my gems are currently low level and I tried that combo up to GR 33 and it worked out quite well, but I just needed a couple of comments regarding higher rifts.
I saw that the current #1 on the leaderboard (or at least it was #1 when I inspected him) was wearing one as well and that made me think that it could be a good item for higher GRfits.
It gives you extreme survivability. Wizzards does not lack the resistances due to high amount of int but they do lack armor. The Ice Armour is way better then Arcane one as bumping armor gives a lot more than bumping resistances.
Armor also reduces all damage, the ranged one as well. Having 6k armor and 10k armor makes huge difference. A lot more than having 1,7k ares and 2,2k ares.
Don't forget the extra Arcane Power that comes from removing the Energy Armor
It gives you extreme survivability. Wizzards does not lack the resistances due to high amount of int but they do lack armor. The Ice Armour is way better then Arcane one as bumping armor gives a lot more than bumping resistances.
Armor also reduces all damage, the ranged one as well. Having 6k armor and 10k armor makes huge difference. A lot more than having 1,7k ares and 2,2k ares.
I'm not talking about prismatic armor here. When doing GR's 47+ you're using Force Armor anyway, cause you just can't get enough toughness to mitigate the incoming damage by a decent amount and still have enough damage to clear the rift in time.
Force armor makes you take 3 hits, no matter how big they are.
And about the additional max. AP: you really don't need that. At all. A little ressource management assumed.
About Shoko's Argument: the tactics you describe work perfectly on lower GR's, which are currently still the Top ones in season.
As stated above: when fighting GR 47 or above even one spear or arrow hitting you might be enough to kill you without the support by Force Armor (or a good Eye of Ettlich).
Of course again this goes for softcore. I can't say much about hardcore since i don't play it myself at all.
This isn't my threat in any way, and I do like constructive feedback, but one thing is to have a further discussion regarding softcore, and completely another is to argue my point of view with the discussion you're trying to make,because it isn't relevant to compare SC to HC.
I had a specific question regarding HC and, instead of opening a new thread about an item that is already being discussed, I decided to save some space on the forum and ask the question here.
Instead of trying to correct me and say how I'm taking the thread to myself, you could've just said "Yes this will work for HC" or "No, this won't work for HC" and then continue with your further softcore discussion.
Anyway, sorry for the unnecessary posts, I wont bother you more.
@silvach, I got it at around Para lvl 25-30..... RNG is RNG and Im praying to the RNG God everyday prior to login lol.
Anyway, considering the great increase in monster density in Rifts and Greater Rifts, most of the time you're fighting close-range, rather than ranged (white monsters), this is where I found the ring helpful in particular.
First of all, because when a monster swings to hit you, it can get frozen because of the shield.
Second, should the monster hit you, the frost nova will freeze not only the attacker, but the surrounding monsters, which is very helpful in critical situations.
Third, when it comes to ranged monsters, I used to teleport around and dodge most of their attacks and should I receive a hit, my teleport's CD was instantly reset, which give me the opportunity to use it again. Now, with the ring, I just tend to get close to them in order to use the ring effect to freeze them. By the time that happens, the melee monsters have caught up with me and I usually use hydra,blizzard and black hole, so I can stack the DoT and kill them fast.
So far that works out well, but my gems are currently low level and I tried that combo up to GR 33 and it worked out quite well, but I just needed a couple of comments regarding higher rifts.
I saw that the current #1 on the leaderboard (or at least it was #1 when I inspected him) was wearing one as well and that made me think that it could be a good item for higher GRfits.
Don't forget the extra Arcane Power that comes from removing the Energy Armor
I'm not talking about prismatic armor here. When doing GR's 47+ you're using Force Armor anyway, cause you just can't get enough toughness to mitigate the incoming damage by a decent amount and still have enough damage to clear the rift in time.
Force armor makes you take 3 hits, no matter how big they are.
And about the additional max. AP: you really don't need that. At all. A little ressource management assumed.
About Shoko's Argument: the tactics you describe work perfectly on lower GR's, which are currently still the Top ones in season.
As stated above: when fighting GR 47 or above even one spear or arrow hitting you might be enough to kill you without the support by Force Armor (or a good Eye of Ettlich).
Of course again this goes for softcore. I can't say much about hardcore since i don't play it myself at all.
I think that you're missing the point. I've asked particularly for hardcore, and started my question by outlining that Im playing HC.
For season 1 the highest HC rift was 45, which is also the current progress and yet you're talking about GR47+.
Yah, sorry that I'm abusing your thread a little bit with further discussion, but this is relevant for softcore too.
This isn't my threat in any way, and I do like constructive feedback, but one thing is to have a further discussion regarding softcore, and completely another is to argue my point of view with the discussion you're trying to make,because it isn't relevant to compare SC to HC.
I had a specific question regarding HC and, instead of opening a new thread about an item that is already being discussed, I decided to save some space on the forum and ask the question here.
Instead of trying to correct me and say how I'm taking the thread to myself, you could've just said "Yes this will work for HC" or "No, this won't work for HC" and then continue with your further softcore discussion.
Anyway, sorry for the unnecessary posts, I wont bother you more.
Well to sum all this mess up:
HoA in HC: Maybe. Could turn out good.
HoA in SC: Probably not. Damage loss is too big, pure support mage doesnt work either.