Cold Caster Lich without using Flay?

Acolyte
1

It looks like to play a frosty lich in the new season you HAVE to go with Flay. Even though Flay is a cool addition it feels kinda weird that a cold lich has no caster variation without being a much inferior version of using Flay.

  • Chaosbolt Frostbite - definitely Flay trigger is better.
  • Marrow Shards Crit - does Frigid Shards even convert Bone Splinters? The description says it only applies to the base physical damage of Marrow Shards.
  • Marrow Shards is also triggered by Flay with crit support. Does not look like a self cast variant can compete with the attack speed triggers.

Would be really nice if frost caster lich can be somewhat viable compared to the Flay version. Otherwise it’s possible 99% of the new lich builds will just be Flay triggering X. It’s a cool skill but this is not great for build diversity with Lich being under the spotlight now.

Happy to be corrected & open to suggestions since I’ve been theorycrafting a frosty caster Lich but can’t really come up with anything semi competitive lol.

2

If you go an ailment based version a self cast Chaos Bolt setup can totally work. Chaos Bolt is great for any ailment setups. If you feel fancy you could also go Warlock since AoD is not even Lich exclusive. You could use Flay as a traversal skill applying the new Curse it provides, Exposed Flesh. (With Chaos Bolt you can refresh curses so you don’t have to constantly recast it on the boss.

3

obviously I don’t have data to back this up, but based on the information this sounds like a much worse version of the build compared to just use Flay and trigger Chaos Bolts. I hope I’m wrong though. Flay applying the curse is for sure needed.