Piercing Cold

This build is a complete lvl 60 setup and is UP-TO-DATE with the new relic subclass rework. The subclass used is Cold Heart and the build is in a way a 2.0 version of my previous Piercing Light build. It’s a build that can dish out some serious damage while in Harmonic form. The Tier 2 passives of Energy Spike & Light Spear allow us to have +50% increased duration for Harmonic form. The Tier 3 passives of Energy Spike & Light Spear allow us to cast extra Energy Spikes and throw an extra “Dark” Spear respectively. With an Arc of Light equipped or in the Legendarium we can switch to casting Holy Bolt instead of Absolver and get 50% chance to cast Absolver. Frost Blast also adds some nice dps to the mix. Shadow Step is our escape and mobility skill & with the Celestial Boots every cast will also add a stack of Mana Infused (for 5% mana regen or 10% with the set bonus that stacks up to 2 times). Light Spear will heal us for 20% of our max hp for the first enemy it hits and is good extra snipe/filler DPS.  The Celestial Gauntlets and the bread & butter DPS Source for Dusk Mage Builds. With a 3 piece set bonus you get 100% dmg for the price of 50% increased mana cost while Holy + Unholy Charged at the same time. A Skittering Shoulder (even without a set bonus) is a great source of survivability so it is the best Legendary in slot for now but a blue will be better if you don’t need that buff. Dark Spears + Energy Spike build up the Light Buff very quick and spamming Absolver or Holy Bolt will have to do the Dark Buff charging.

September 17th EDIT: I’ve updated the skill points allocation screenshots to include the extra 10 points (total of 70) that the new update added.

Build Video footage:

The skills I use:

• Frost Blast – a good source of dps for a cheap energy cost. At Tier 3 this costs only 12,5 energy (excluding any cost reduction from gear)
• Holy Bolt (or Absolver when not wearing/slotting Arc of Light) – a good source of damage + okay build-up of the Light Buff bar. Absolver is good AoE + piercing. And Holy Bolt is a nice & quick single target dps.
• Shadow Step – our escape mechanic and a movement skill. It also gives a nice passive mana regen at Tier 2 and procs the Celestial Boots‘ Mana-Infused buff.
• Luminous Run – extra escape/movement skill that also lets you phase through enemies for as hort time.
• Energy Spike – good AoE dmg + helps build up the Dark Buff bar quick.
  
• Dark Spears – okay AoE dmg + helps build up the Dark Buff bar quick.
• Ice Shield – It’s a great bit of Extra DPS to nearby enemies. This one’s on a cooldown and does not cost Energy.
• Cold Front – Our BIG relic skill that we can active after spending a total of 200 energy with other skills like Frost Blast. It’s good to save and use this on champions & bosses.
  
• Light Spear – a nice source of healing at Tier 1 + decent piercing DPS.

The gear I recommend using is:

MY IDEAL EQUIPPED GEAR:

• A good rolled + socketed 2 handed blue weapon (OR a version with 1 hand + shield/focus
  with good rolls and sockets)
• Must wear 3 Celestial pieces! I suggest wearing Celestial Mask + Gauntlets + Boots (+ optionally Chest (if not slotting it in the Legendarium):
  • Celestial Gauntlets – with a 3 piece set bonus you get 100% dmg for the price of 500% increased mana cost while in Harmonic Form. Without the 3 piece set bonus it only gives 50% dmg + 25% mana cost increase while in Harmonic Form.
  • Celestial Boots – Cast a Cooldown Skill: gain Mana Infused for 3 sec. Mana Infused  gives 5% mana regen per sec. or 10% with the set bonus and stacks up to 2 times.
  • Celestial Mask – gives +1 Dark Skills (+2 with the 3 piece set bonus) [I’ve tested it and it won’t give you extra levels if the skill is already lvl 10 so go for lvl 9 if you have +1 or 8 if you have +2 to those skills]
• If you ‘slot in’ the Celestial Chest, you can get a good stat boost from a well-rolled + socketed Blue Chest. You’ll be looking for flat dmg, %dmg and/or Crit dmg, Crit Chance.
• Blue Legs rolled for flat or %dmg or Crit dmg, Crit Chance with sockets
• Blue Shoulders rolled for flat or %dmg or Crit dmg, Crit Chance with sockets. You can even try using Skittering Shoulders for survivability (50% dmg reduction for 15 sec.)
  

Blue Gear only gets 1 socket now.

Suggested Legendarium Powers (to fill in the gaps from items you’re wearing):

MY IDEAL LEGENDARIUM COMBO:

• Arc of Light – Cast Holy Bolt: 50% chance to cast Absolver (a 1-handed Digitus)
• Ebon Grasp  – cast Energy Spike: while Dark Buff is active, fire a barrage of Unholy Bolts. (a 1-handed Digitus)
  For the 3rd slot there are two ways I like to do it:
• Option 1: slot the Celestial Chest and wear a blue one
• Option 2: Egg of Mayhem – boost our Frost Blast Skill to cast another second random Relic Attack along with it. It can proc Spinning Blade, Venomous Maw, Localized Storm, Sword Smash.
  

The recommended stats to look for in your items are (the list is not in order of priority and is just listing good bonuses + there’s new stats and I might have missed some which will get added later):

• + Flat Damage
• +% Elemental Damage (starts getting very good later on when you have a nice flat to boost with this)
• +% Damage to Dark skills
  
• +% Damage to Light Skills
  
• +% Damage to Frost Blast/Cold Front (and any of the other relic skills we use)
• + Health
• + Defense (the non elemental is good for any act but lesser numbers than elemental)
• +% Critical Hit Chance (the cap is 40%)
• +% Critical Damage (the cap is 300%)
• +% Gear Luck (eventually try to get like 50-75% total for good drop quantity – the cap is 100%)
• +% Energy Recharge Rate
  
• -% Relic Energy cost
• +% Relic Active Skill Damage
• +% Block Chance
• +% Chance to Evade damage
• +% Mana Regen
• +% Chance to Chill – a decent CC proc that works well with this build
• +% Chance to Poison is a decent DoT and stacks with other DoTs
  
• +% Chance to Bleed and/or Burn to stack the poison with the other DoTs
• + % Chance to Stun/Slow/Blind – not a bad choice but not high priority
  

The Skills and Passives I recommend are:

IMPORTANT: Keep in mind that my setup + all other alternative examples are WITH the +2 Light & +2 Dark skill levels from the Musketeer Set Hat + Chest!

September 17th EDIT: I’ve updated the skill points allocation screenshots to include the extra 10 points (total of 70) that the new update added. The numbers in YELLOW represent the suggested skill levels after the new update. In some cases you may need to remove point from one skill to get another one leveled.

REGULAR VERSION (used in the video):

LIGHT SKILLS CRIT CHANCE:

DARK SKILLS CRIT CHANCE:

USING SNOWSTORM INSTEAD OF ICE SHIELD:

SHORTER COOLDOWNS: