Whispering Ice. The reason I went CI after almost 2 years.

I was asked for a guide for my Whispering Ice build on Warbands. I don't have one, but I thought I'd post my current gear, current tree, and some thoughts on where to go from here.

PLEASE NOTE: This build is going to cost you around 10 ex just to get off the ground. You *can* shave off a little off the cost by getting an Eye of Chayula instead of Astramentis at first. It'll work, but you still really really want Astramentis eventually.



Link to Skill Tree (this tree is the goal. I'm still missing a few points)

Support gem choices
The obvious ones: Hypothermia - Cold Penetration - Spell Echo.
If you're using Vaal Pact like I'm doing currently, you obviously want Life Leech. If you instead go with Zealot's Oath, Life Leech becomes much worse.
Increased Area of Effect and/or Concentrated effect both depend on what damage output vs aoe you feel comfortable with. I switch these out all the time depending on the map layout and the level of the monsters. In lower maps I run Inc AoE + Added Lightning Damage and swap in conc effect for bosses. In higher maps or tight indoor maps, I usually run Inc AoE + Conc Effect. In some extreme maps with Enfeeble + Elemental Equilibrium + high cold resistance, I usually go with Conc Effect + Added Lightning Damage. It's all up to you.
Faster Casting is also along for the ride in my weapon swap, and if I switch over from Vaal Pact to Zealot's Oath, it would take Life Leech's slot.
Added Cold would be a little bit better than Added Lightning, but it's green, and therefore you can't swap out the gems like I do all the time.
tl;dr: I use Hypothermia - Cold Penetration - Spell Echo - Life Leech - Concentrated Effect - Increased Area of Effect (+Added Lightning for swapping)

Survivability?
Currently 9366 Energy shield. No other noteworthy defensive mechanics other than the chilled ground from Whispering Ice and all the flasks.

CI without stun immunity? Are you crazy?
I DO have stun immunity, but not of the normal kind. Rather, I have exactly 100% chance to avoid stuns while casting due to a few nodes in the skill tree once I pick up Heart of Oak in 2 levels. It works just fine. On top of this, your icestorms will keep dealing damage even while you get stunned, so whatever is attacking you will stay chilled for a long time, and you can even stun alot of mobs yourself with the damage from icestorm.

Jewels?
1x Fertile Mind (dex->int unique jewel) in the jewel socket between ranger and shadow.
1x Brute Force Solution (str->int unique jewel) in the templar jewel socket.
For the rest you want: Intelligence, cold spell damage, cast speed, energy shield. Resists if needed.

Why so few ES nodes?
I currently have 1020 intelligence and will get more. that is 204% increased energy shield right there. I do get some nodes in the tree, but among the notable missing nodes are Nullification and Unnatural Calm. You can take them if you want to, but they will do much less for you per point spent than for any other CI build because of your already high increased energy shield multiplier from all the intelligence.

Vaal Pact vs Zealot's Oath
This is something I'm uncertain about. Both are definitely reasonable choices. You can't run both because Vaal Pact prevents regen so you have to choose. you'll have 3% regen just from taking nodes you'd take anyways, so i'll leave that choice up to you.

Crit vs noncrit?
You could go crit with this build, but I don't think it's a good idea based on how I play. As noncrit, the damage you deal with each cast becomes much more predictable and you can therefore just do one or a few casts on one pack, then start focusing on the next pack, and the first one will die off in a few seconds. If you go crit, you will deal much less damage when you don't crit, and much more when you do, making this method much less reliable.

CI vs Life + ES?
Both are most likely just fine. but the Life + ES tree will look a bit differently. I didn't do any calculations on this. I just finally saw the chance to go CI which I haven't done since back in Domination. (november 2013).

What would you upgrade next?
The rings. you can bench up to 20% increased energy shield on a ring, so I would want that on top of what I have at the moment. I can bench it on my current ones but they're too bad to warrant spending an ex and then several divines each on.
The perfect ring would have:
Prefixes:
%ES (benched)
Flat energy shield
Flat mana (?)

Suffixes:
Intelligence
Mana regen
Cast speed or + all attributes


After that, I might consider getting a Shavronne's Wrappings and going Low Life. This would enable me to get Pain Attunement for 30% more spell damage, as well as an additional aura (linked to Blood Magic). I would either use Anger for more damage, or Grace for some evasion. I'm leaning towards Grace but it is completely up to you. Note that adding Anger means you get even more flat damage, making Added Lightning Damage worse, so you might want to replace that with Faster Casting, should you go that route.

Finally, you could technically get a better rare amulet than Astramentis, but it would take a ridiculously good one for that to be the case. You want the same mods as you'd want on a perfect ring, other than cast speed which, if i recall correctly, you can't get on amulets.

Looks pretty good, thanks for putting your time into it!

Thanks! The formatting is crap but I didn't think the post was going to become that long.

I also planned for the increased duration cluster. Then it turned out it affects only the base 0.7 duration of the storm so I dropped it.

Hi, this build is looking pretty beastly. One question though, how are you running discipline, herald of ice, and anger together? I don't see enlighten or any mana reservation in your skill tree.

The staff only grants the skill right... you don't get the support gems like hypothermia on whispering ice skill (it doesn't say its linked to the skill)

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Audiowaste wrote:

The staff only grants the skill right... you don't get the support gems like hypothermia on whispering ice skill (it doesn't say its linked to the skill)

All socketed support gems automatically link to Ice Storm. You do not need to link any of the sockets.

Can you tell me which bandits you took please? ty

Just a quick note : Heart of Oak gives % chance to avoid being stunned, it does not stack additively with % chance to avoid interruptions from stuns while casting, but multiplicatively, so you won't get 100%.
Still, you should be able to cast just fine, the only problem might be with the small titty bitches and their machine gun attacks which can chain stun you without giving you a chance.