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

I posted the wrong build. I made a rough draft and then went through and fixed it several times and I didn't even notice I copy/pasted the old one. This is the current build I came to like 40 minutes ago. Uses 103 similar to the one in the other post. Since I freed up points I could grab the mana nodes and reduction nodes that you picked up since I take a similar path. I just like to make skeleton builds and then build upon them.

That build is looking less troll and more just a draft.

I'm happy to help someone who wants to try a build style they are not used to.

Generally its best to lead with as much information as to what you're looking to do as possible in order to get more accurate help.

Looking at this tree I it appears that what you are looking for is nothing like my build at all but a CI whispering ice build that uses mostly rares as gear. I'm happy to help you make a build that works for your plan but in order to do that you would need to post what gems you plan to use and what kind of gear you wanted to use, any uniques? These things would change how you wanted to build your character.

You could even make your own forum thread asking for feedback and myself and others would happily give their opinions

Well I was going to make my own thread but I don't play casters enough to start off with a decent idea/build. So I took your tree as a base. I don't have shavs, perandus signets or doryani's and I was lucky enough to get a whispering ice.

So I took your build and asked myself "How would this look/work without being based on uniques." And I made that build that I posted a while ago and then went through and refined it to the second build I posted.

The goal was to do a lowlife build utilizing pain attunement. But I scrapped because I think that's actually way harder to pull off than what you presented here. So I settled onto getting whispering ice to work with just rares. I thought this would be a good place to post it because you initially created a build without avatar of fire. Which should work with rares it would just be less effective.

I've been doing some testing on core aspects of this build, i will share my results below.
Added: Rallying Cry, Arctic Armour, Concentrated Effect.
Removed: Herald of Ice, Spell Echo.

My changes explained

Gear w/ Gems


Level 84 Tree

"

lDantonl wrote:

I've been doing some testing on core aspects of this build, i will share my results below.
Added: Rallying Cry, Arctic Armour, Concentrated Effect.
Removed: Herald of Ice, Spell Echo.

My changes explained

Spoiler

+Arctic Armour -Herald of Ice:

Spoiler

Loss in dps, but HUGE gain in sustainability. When i play this spec, i usually cast the storm around my character and stand perfectly still which allows us to receive the 13% less physical damage and the 12% less fire damage taken.

+Rallying Cry:

Spoiler

fits the build very nicely, acting as a second clarity and scales very well with our high mana regen rates. It gives us increased damage as well, making it great for the build.

+Concentrated Effect -Spell Echo:

Spoiler

Here's a controversial change. Spell echo locks the player in a double cast animation. For most spells, this is almost unnoticeable, but for icestorm it is. Faster casting gives us plenty of cast speed without locking us into the double animation. Also, there is a 'Less Damage' modifier on spell echo that we get rid of once we remove it.

Concentrated effect adds INSANE damage. Since we take increased AoE nodes in the tree the concentrated effect storm still covers a wide area around our character when cast.

The main problem i am experiencing with this change is the steep mana cost that come with concentrated effect. I believe once my Enlighten levels, i will be able to run a much higher level of clarity and with rallying cry i should experience no mana problems.

With warlord's mark however, we leech so much mana that the cost becomes irrelevant. The problem with this is you must either get hit and have CWDT cast Warlords, or manually cast warlord's, wait for regen, then begin casting storms.

Gear w/ Gems

Spoiler

Level 84 Tree

Spoiler

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMADXwOSBBYEQ8RUBGWFVAXLxpsGoEbJR0UHU8fGB_HKU8qOCt4LJwspi0fLYsvbzQKNbk3ZjsNPAU9X0VHRnFLrkyzUEJRdFH7UlNV1lxrXIpd8l8qX2pfsGTnZlRtGW-ecLt0VXvXf8aApIKbgwmESITFhXuHZYw2jHaPRo_6kNaTJ5Ugl_SboZu1na6ePKIuoqOmmacIpyusmK-Nr5u0DLUEvorAZsHFwfPDOsNtykrK080W0B_Q0NWm2RPZW9-K37DkIukC6rrsGOw473zv6_fX-tI=?accountName=lDantonl&characterName=Dark_Culling

Thanks for your post. You touch on two things I've been tossing around in my head. First, trying to work in AA into the build and dropping spell echo. The two current things I struggle with/dislike currently is that moving through a map feels sluggish in terms of fluidity of motion and also feeling a bit squishy. AA would definitely help with defenses and putting conc effect in place of spell echo would be a big help in casting and running to the next pack. In fact last night I swapped in LL for fire pen because I was having some scary moments even against some mid-tier map bosses and exiles. That was a DPS loss (not on tool tip though) so dropping Spell Echo for Conc. Effect would help bring it back up. Against bosses I could feel the difference in time to kill them but with the LL gem in there it didn't matter that it took an extra 2 seconds to kill them. I just stood in there with barely a dent in my ES.

My play style is more conservative than most as I don't rush through map after map and dying sends me into fits of rage. I would rather sacrifice a little DPS in exchange for safety and defenses. I certainly felt the difference when I switched to the fire version and didn't realize how effective the insta-freezing of mobs was as a defensive mechanism. Leapers and charging rhoas and such never made it to me. Haven't ruled out going back to cold but I'm going to play with fire some more to see if I find my own personal sweet spot between offense and defense.

I agree that spell echo feels slightly sluggish, but the echo cast certainly makes it worth it, you can cast once (+echo) then move and be confident that your double storm will wipe the map. Without the echo you'll find you need to cast a lot more. For boss fights that require constant mobility I could see swapping out echo, but its far to efficient for clearing

Not sure I could justify swapping out echo, yes the second cast feels sluggish sometimes, but its well worth it- once you get used to it you'll be fine the mobility is more than enough to avoid things when needed.

Arctic armor WOULD be good for face tanking alot of shit, but why? the build runs like 7k ES minimum, everything is chilled, you are pretty mobile, you shouldn't really be having any problems outside huge packs of reflect mobs all at once or bosses that do obscene amounts of damage consistently enough that your ES doesnt regen and you dont obliterate them in seconds, in which case AA wouldnt help.

I could understand maybe subbing out Echo on some boss fights where you need huge mobility to avoid dieing like Malachi but....

Also the mana problems of having AA and effectivly having to double your casts to match echo...

I think the builds in a good spot right now. Both Ice and Fire are viable and effective. Even did atziri last night, the triplets were tough but atziri was a cake walk.

@Googatron
It comes down to a personal preference call for the AA vs HoI change.
I prefer more defensive specs vs insane dps specs.

Two major reasons against spell echo
* When one storm wipes, why cast the second with echo and be stuck in a longer animation
* Opportunity cost of not having concentrated effect (effectively 2k tooltip increase which is gigantic)

I've also found that the larger the area of the storm, the more lag i experience (due to more frozen ground being generated and drawn to the screen). With concentrated effect, we get to maximize dps while minimizing lag. I play in parties quite frequently and my friends all ask for less area of effect for my build so they lag less.

Two major reasons against concentrated effect
* Trash mob clear speed reduction
* Less mana useage
The trash mob speed clear is kind of trivial to me (again, personal preference here)
Mana useage can be annoying, but i've outlined a plan of action of taking a higher level clarity, using rallying cry, and reserving less mana with a higher level enlighten.

@urgatorbait
yeah, i feel like you and i enjoy a similar playstyle. I think i would sooner remove iron will before removing fire penetration for Life Leech. In scary maps, life leech can give lots of confidence. Then again, warlord's mark gets the same point across so i just use that. If i'm particularly terrified of death, i would use life leech and basically be immortal (in conjunction with AA).

Generally How I've been running it is get defence when I feel like I'm in danger. I hadn't died in 10 levels so I was feeling really safe and so everything was focused on more clearspeed and damage. However I was just doing a level 79 map and died to chain stuns from doggies who did insane damage on me. This really frustrated me as I was very close to leveling and has made me decide to make some defensive changes as I hate dying.

I'm leaning against AA though as I really don't like how it doesn't work while your moving. Just that mechanic kinda bugs me as moving is what I do when I'm in danger.

I also want to get conc effect back in rotation. When my map pool was low and I was just running 74-76 maps I hated it as one eccod storm killed without conc and so all it did was reduce the AOE however now I'm back up on tougher things and it definitely has the most damage on it.

In other news this build was based off my lowlife righteous fire character which also stacked Int in order to obtain really high ES totals from pre 2.0 and I remember reading this thread here

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/885514

Where a dev commented that they are planning to fix the 'bug' that unique flasks don't increase Int with our Signet rings. I kinda feel like that wouldn't be the case anymore as if they did thats potentially 300 more Int for this build :P

Checking out your fire conversion build now Waffle. Why do you still run hypothermia? I think I'm missing some mechanic here. Does your fire damage still freeze?

"

vindictive wrote:

Checking out your fire conversion build now Waffle. Why do you still run hypothermia? I think I'm missing some mechanic here. Does your fire damage still freeze?

Artic Breath, Icestorm and arctic armour provide "chilled ground" effect. This is a unique mechanic that chills things without doing damage and will happen regardless of type of damage or even if no damage is dealt from the skill