Cold Druid [proven viable FINALLY]

He did it! The crazy SOB actually did it! I wrote soooo many comments on his videos about my most played build ever and how it can possibly be fun to try out in D2R (since I played some broken/underpowered version of it in some old version of Legacy D2) and he upgraded it and made it possible. Weeeeell it's very, VERY similar to the one I have/sometimes play with on my own account.

Unfortunately I never put this one on maxroll (otherwise I could prove it was originally my idea lol, oh well)...
If someone is interested how it looks and feels like, here's a video:


Edit: P.S. Unluckily YT's comment history doesn't go very far in past (and I watched soooo many vids I can't bother finding them manually) but at least I have this as a bit of a "proof" since 4 months prior he didn't even think that could work. I remember him dismissing my idea of that build, in the comment sections on one of his vids where he mentioned off-meta builds ideas, like about 2 years ago, he was asking some questions of what I used (which I just started building so I had rough idea, wishful thinking, rudimentary plan and not big enough knowledge about BiS stuff) and he was absolutely not convinced it could be viable to even try:

Arctic Blast?

NNNnnnnooooo way who sway.

Still looks horribly slow to me. Imagine spending so much (Enigma+Infinity) just to be worse than a ladder starter blizz sorc in random uniques.

uuee wrote: 8 months ago

Still looks horribly slow to me. Imagine spending so much (Enigma+Infinity) just to be worse than a ladder starter blizz sorc in random uniques.

It is a bit slow, but remember he was in a Players7 game and that will slow things a bit as well.

mhlg wrote: 8 months ago

uuee wrote: 8 months ago

Still looks horribly slow to me. Imagine spending so much (Enigma+Infinity) just to be worse than a ladder starter blizz sorc in random uniques.

It is a bit slow, but remember he was in a Players7 game and that will slow things a bit as well.

You are right. I didnt pay attention to that detail. My apologies

True! I only tested this build (well with CoH instead of Enigma and a rare ring instead of one SoJ basically) only on players 1 and 3 and it was really fun to play with, just because it's like so different?

However, a worth note is that I played an early version (as I already said) in Legacy D2, without Infinity nor Sunder Charms and it was quite subpar. I was struggling a lot on Hell. When you get to BiS gear and with the changes D2R bring I'm kinda glad it made this build shine for a bit even tho it's exclusively off-meta one.

And yes, definitely can't be compared to one shot OP killers from S-tier like Javazon or Blizzard/Orb Sorc or this new Disco Mosaic Sin, buuuut it's finally a viable one. Since it's one of my top 3 the most favorite builds of all time, when I saw that video I almost cried and just had to share it with you!

You're going to watch all 5 hours of his part two, aren't you? Just make you to keep your pants on while watching it.

How does this compare to a Wind Druid? I'm tired of the windy's randomness, but I do like

Hurricane. Reckon this is more fun?

Lanceor wrote: 8 months ago

How does this compare to a Wind Druid? I'm tired of the windy's randomness, but I do like

Hurricane. Reckon this is more fun?

Well for me it was ultra fun, especially leveling up... Now on Hell you are basically unkillable because everything...is...so...god...damn...slowed!! Also you are a summoner without being a full summoner, your pets actually help along even tho everything is on hard point lvl 1 (+bonuses). You are mega beam of slowsness,

Arctic Blast actually works nicely since you don't need to single enemies out you can just do a bit of 'spin' in a direction and everything in that cone will become iced (it's range also gets upgraded when you level it up -- you can hit mobs on the other side of rivers/cracks) and you can continue blasting them like that or focus 1 guy and obliterate him. Since he used Enigma, actually Enigma improves gameplay here a lot just because you can activate

Hurricane (which on that high levels lasts a long time) and then simply tele-stomp.
Don't know how or why but it surprisingly feels like everything has a purpose and every little bit helps. Merc doing job but not over-killing, pets are there to tank and affect enemies (don't forget that Spirit Wolfs also do cold dmg on top of everything else which adds another layer of slow),

Arctic Blast is single target miracle when maxed and

Hurricane just CCs like mad.

You can always mix some things up, if you want to have even more Life, you can drop one synergy (from like

Twister) and bump the

Oak Sage up (which I actually did on mine and it was ultra safe build) or you can like max Hurr/Arctic, or you can even max Grizzly and have truly half-half between cold and summoner or whatever. I'm biased so I can't really compare it to any other build, but I'm pretty sure it's kinda different yet still fun to play around.

What level would you respec into the Cold Druid? Level 67 when Doom and Enigma are both available? Or is partially synergised

Arctic Blast and

Hurricane enough to carry the build through until the top tier gear is available?

Oh yeah, no need for respec to Cold, I would go ahead very confidently and say you will have most fun using it through normal and nightmare, even more if you don't rush/being rushed and you take your time with the grind. Now all that being said,

Key things that this build absolutely requires: Cold Sunder, Infinity and apparently Enigma (even tho I played with CoH instead).

My honest suggestion is -- don't even try Hell if you don't have some solution for breaking/dealing with immunities. Yes, Doom also gives you a big spike in dmg output but it's not critical like others are.

I had

Arctic Blast maxed first and it alone carried me a lot thru normal & half of nm, with edition of couple of points into

Hurricane (although on low players count) it will be quite easy to play until Hell. Sooo to really answer your question: you can whatever you feel like, if you are gonna try this build. You can do 1 point into

Hurricane, everything else into Arctic +

Cyclone Armor or you can just max Arctic then go fully into

Hurricane and it's synergies or spread a little love to like Grizzly/Oak or whatever.

P.S.

Hurricane scales and it's real effect is actually being felt in later stages -- especially on Hell you start to notice that chilling/slowing effect which gives you the 'unkillable' feeling but at that point you already have everything else in place which, again, I think has it's role resulting this build to be a success (?)... I would just point out that you or whoever decides to make this build don't expect OP results like what we have with S tier builds, but prepare yourself to be surprised in the end (I would personally say Cold Druid is somewhere between high B and low A tiers).