[2.2 Whispering Ice, Lowlife, Pure Unique wearer 1900+ Int, updated]

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LainV wrote:

Hi all
I am kind of torn in between the fire and ice variants of this build.
Fire is just so much pure damage while ice provides better defences (plus the shattering sounds *-*)

For now I spec out of Avatar of fires for a hybrid damage.
And hence my support gems are Faster cast - Spell Echo - Life leech - Hypothermia - Conc Effect
Cold / Fire penetration is dropped in this case.
Just want to seek opinions if the penetration gems are too much to lose ?

I was like you (read a few post higher). I tried avatar of fire and recolored my staff to get fire pen and the damage difference is brutal.
Yes, we loose the shattering sound but it's more efficient, especially on bosses :3

I'm glad everyone seems to be having fun with the build. I originally had nimbleness specced in the build but didn't feel that I needed that much stun avoidance and those points could go into Int but recently I had a conversation with someone using my build in a hardcore league and was considering Kaom's roots and he mentioned we are near Heart of Oak which I hadn't considered

I already get practical application so if I wanted to avoid those stuns it would be another 5 points to get nimbleness and heart of oak to then have 100% chance to avoid stuns while casting which is pretty neat and I think better then the Kaom's roots option or Unwavering Stance options.

This build absolutely melts everything like no other I've tried. I am still only level 79, but I'll share my experience regarding leveling.





I leveled with EK/Fire trap until 33. At that level, I equipped Whispering Ice and watched everything melt. Just for the lulz, I ditched my tabula and got a Solaris Lorica, running Discipline on life and double purity on mana. As jewelry is fixed, the rest of the gear were random energy shield based uniques and they also give the biggest boost to int.

The biggest issue was definately early merciless, pre-62. Even though I have a lot of experience leveling in general, I had some deaths and close calls due to low ES and uncapped resists (was sitting at ~1.7k ES and 10 cold resist in A1M, lol). I would not recommend going this route in HC, but it was definitely a fun glass-cannon alternative to life-based leveling. After equipping the shav, nothing could kill me.

Currently I'm sitting at 1267 int, 78/78/80/-35 res, 7.3k ES. My biggest goal is leveling and flipping the important gems to q20. I am still missing lvl3 Enlighten, so I had to get another 4% reserved node under Sovereignty. I squeezed in a lvl3 clarity, as I'm still having issues in less regen maps. Empower in helm is still not feasible, it reserves too much and I want to run HoI. I'm hoping the mana issues will go away once my Enlighten is 3, and I get Coldhearted Calculation near shadow start.

Other than that, the build rocks! Keep up the good work!

One more thing: do you put a dex -> int jewel into the socket under MoM to convert that lonely +10 dex node? Or do you get a damage/int/es jewel instead?

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maladeth wrote:

One more thing: do you put a dex -> int jewel into the socket under MoM to convert that lonely +10 dex node? Or do you get a damage/int/es jewel instead?

This has been asked a few times and the answer is really dependant on what jewel you have to replace it.

With converting that unique jewel gives 34 Int. My current focus is to get a higher ES total as I feel my damage is fine so to replace it I would want a jewel with Int and %ES on it. Of course perfect would have Int damage and %ES.

One consideration is that every 100 Int you get extra duration on the storm which is hidden really good damage for bosses and why we don't need to use the increased duration gem.

if changing into the unique jewel gets your total into the next 100 bracket then it might be better then a jewel with Int/Damage

I really like the build. Just equipped my lvl 84 witch and skilled her and so far it's really great!

That's my Gear and setup, I may write something more here when I got some sleep ^^



Passive Tree

I quickly threw together this equation to help people balance their mana and their WI skill (I suppose it would work for any skill combination with any character tho). Note this is if you're using spell echo, which doubles up the cast time as it casts your skill twice. If you're not, take out the *2 on the y variable.

(y * 2) * 100 = A
(x / A) * z = B
x - B = MCR

Where:
y = Cast Time
x = Mana Regen per Second
z = Cost of Skill

A = Cast time multiplier
B = Mana regen multiplier
MCR = Mana cost ratio

So, for me, I have a cast time of 0.35s for WI, which means when I use spell echo, I am cast locked for .7s. My mana regen is 96.3, WI costs me 71 mana.

(0.35 * 2) * 100 = 70
(96.3 / 70) * 71 = 97.6
96.3 - 97.6 = -1.3

So you can see I'm actually short 1.3 mana. If I got one more (say by decreasing the mana cost or upping my mana regen), I would be able to spam WI without having any delay. But since my mana pool is 148, I'm actually good. You essentially want MSR to be 0. If it's negative, you're missing that much mana and will either have to make sure your mana pool is big enough to compensate or get more regen. If it's positive, then you're actually wasting resources into unused mana, so if you have nodes supporting it, you can allocate them towards damage or defence.


Also, I really like this build. I did a cold variant that relies on Doedre's Scorn, which has amazing synergy with the build. +1 to curse gems, Int, an increase to curse duration, a % boost to elemental damage and a % boost based per curse applied. So Asenath's gives us Temporal Chains on the free and I self cast Frostbite which gives me a % debuff on cold and a better chance to freeze them, on top of the 40% added damage boost. Coupled with Fingers of Frost, Breath of Rime and Celestial Punishment on the passive tree, my base chance to freeze is 35%. Throw in Frostbite and it shoots up to ~50%; you can even drive that value higher with jewels. But even the 50% is well enough to freeze almost everything on the first hit. And since WI is so easily spammed, the CC is just crazy. I'm locking down everything. And if they can't get frozen, TC works well enough to keep them away from me as they die a cold, cold death ;)

I opted for only one Perandus and didn't go with Astramentis or Shavronne's because a) the cost is nuts and b) I wanted to pool my defences. I have all my resistances capped and will eventually go CI, so chaos won't be an issue. Also went with Doryani's Cold Variant to make back some of the damage loss from not having Astramentis and to nab more defence.

My gear


And my current tree (level 78)


So far I'm just wrecking maps. The damage output and CC is insane. I love this build, so much fun.

@_Tiem

Thanks for the calculator I'm sure some people who were having mana issues would appreciate being able to math it out like that.

Your build is similar to a few I've seen around for those who don't have shavs and you can definitely get more ES going rares then lowlife at the exchange of losing damage and having all those purities giving max resistances and I'm glad your enjoying whispering Ice as its a very fun skill to use.

A few notes about your tree though, you get an insane amount of freeze chance I count 50% chance to freeze including hypothermia. Considering how often icestorm will hit the same target rapidly I feel you would get more freeze duration and actually lock them for the same length of time by moving some of those freeze chance nodes into damage.

For example even if celestial punishment is always active those 3 nodes average out at 13% damage per node so you'd get a fair amount more damage from the witch start or storm weaver clusters while also saving 2 travel nodes. Retribution in the Templar area is also sickeningly good value for a whispering ice build

Also the cold penetration gem would give you more damage then added cold gem in the situations that matter, rares and bosses :)

Thanks WaffleT. I've got a +23 Int brute force solution by Celestial to get back those two strength nodes and boost my base Int. I'm still a little short on mana but I'd like to respec pretty much all mana nodes into more damage as they are just a waste now.

I'm running Item Rarity just to boost my farming a bit and do like the ckearing speed added cold damage adds, but when I get better gear and start pushing Atziri, I'll definitely run cold penetration (I've been leveling it on my offhand).

I'll play with your suggestions and thanks for your guide, it was a lot of help and full of great ideas :)

Do you know what affects WI? I've been juggling various jewels around but I'm not sure if projectile damage or projectile speed do anything. I haven't been able to find much on the damage scaling of the skill itself.

_Tiem I tryed your calulation but I dont know if I did something wrong but this is what I get out of it:

(0,33*2)*100/134,5 = 0,49 * 88 = 43,12 - 0,49 = 42,63

But when I look at your example:

(0.35 * 2) * 100 / 96.3 = 1.37 * 71 = 97.2 - 96.3 = 0.9
(y * 2) * 100 / x = A * mc = (B - A) = MSR

So you get A to 1,37 but than you put by (B - A) on A your x in it so your mana regen what is it now?