[2.6] The Curse Whisperer - Tri-Curse CI Whispering Ice EleRaider - Viable for Everything

Could you tell me if the build is still chilling mobs around?
Because we are dealing 100% fire damage due to Avatar of Fire (50%) + Cold to fire (50%)

But i feel like the mobs are slowed down, which makes me think they are chilled and the tooltip of icestorm says " Chilled ground last 0.73seconds"

But Elemental Focus cannot Inflict Elemental status ailments. So i think it might not be the case but i cannot get my mind fixed on this matter.

Overall, my idea was the following:
- If the mobs are chilled, then could we replace controlled destruction by Hypothermia (or something else mb?), which is even better as it would freeze everything and its not a big loss in term of damage...

Another idea i got is to replace Enfeeble by Temporal Chains to slow everything and increase our cleanspeed but i wonder if it would be viable enough to do Core like that.

What do you think of these ideas?

"

Schaller wrote:

Instead of leap slam, keep flame dash and just use an unlinked Vigilant Strike to smack a white mob every once in a while.

I tried that. Vigilant Strike can't be evaded, but amazingly enough, you can MISS. A LOT. Especially against high level enemies that move a lot, like snakes. I'm not a specialist in melee mechanics, nfc what's going on there, but it's very unreliable. And being a single target melee skill, it's kinda too much work. If you Flame Dash to the mob and then hit it with VS, even when you don't miss, it takes more time than Leap Slam.

I'm currently trying Leap Slam, and I'm loving it. Takes a few minutes to adjust to this new play style, but then it's kinda fun: you run, you see a pack ahead that's worth more than just an Icestorm (magic, or a rare with adds), you cast Icestorm and Leap Slam into it. Works on bosses too: leap right onto the boss and immediately leap away.

Leap Slam also has longer range than Flame Dash. And it has no cooldown. With Faster Attacks you can chain-Leap faster than running. I'm the Bunny of Doom, a Leaping Death! :)

"

DrLestatt wrote:

Could you tell me if the build is still chilling mobs around?
Because we are dealing 100% fire damage due to Avatar of Fire (50%) + Cold to fire (50%)

But i feel like the mobs are slowed down, which makes me think they are chilled and the tooltip of icestorm says " Chilled ground last 0.73seconds"

But Elemental Focus cannot Inflict Elemental status ailments. So i think it might not be the case but i cannot get my mind fixed on this matter.

Overall, my idea was the following:
- If the mobs are chilled, then could we replace controlled destruction by Hypothermia (or something else mb?), which is even better as it would freeze everything and its not a big loss in term of damage...

Another idea i got is to replace Enfeeble by Temporal Chains to slow everything and increase our cleanspeed but i wonder if it would be viable enough to do Core like that.

What do you think of these ideas?

Icestorm creates chilling ground regardless of the damage conversion to fire, and it chills everything that's not immune to chill regardless of EF. The chilled ground is a separate mechanic, it's not you hitting things. You can see it working easily: all mobs become shiny-blue, i.e. visually chilled.

Hypothermia is inferior to Controlled Destruction. It adds less damage and it doesn't work against chill immune targets. To use the freeze part of it, you'd have to deal cold damage which we don't, and don't use EF which we do.

Enfeeble is better than Temp Chains because we need to reduce incoming damage more than we need to evade it. Although that's debatable and may depend on the target. It would be awesome to have a white socket and switch them at will. But that's too much to ask for.

Then again, it took me a lot of Lab runs to get the +20% Enfeeble effect helm enchantment. If you get the 20% TC effect first, try TC. Also, coloring Sorcerer Boots 3R1G is a major PITA. It's possible but it'll cost 1-2k chromatics, i.e. not going to happen early in a new league.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

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Fritso wrote:

Have you thought about using Fortify somewhere in the setup? I mean we are wielding a staff, so Leap Slam - FA - Fortify is possible. Seems to me like the additional 20% damage reduction would be very nice.

That sounds like a fun idea to try! Leap Slam would have to replace Flame Dash, and it's much slower even with Faster Attacks. So you would lose some of the 'get out of trouble fast' ability. On the other hand, 20% reduced incoming hit damage... which would stack additively with Elementalist and multiplicatively with AA and Enfeeble... Sounds interesting.

But where to put it? That's a 3-link. Would have to think on that. Maybe in a combination with moving Flame Golem to CWDT...

And then there is this new Lightning Golem which may or may not be better than Flame. Let's see what GGG gives us.

"

burchits wrote:

Who will play in this build, I sell good chest for 3ex!!!!

Aww, that life regen ruins such a great potential! You can't craft another suffix on this item, i.e. no exta Int via +All Stats or another +resist mod. ES and Int are pretty good, but I'm not sure it's worth 3 ex in a temp league.

ok. 2ex

"

Kelvynn wrote:

I tried that. Vigilant Strike can't be evaded, but amazingly enough, you can MISS. A LOT. Especially against high level enemies that move a lot, like snakes. I'm not a specialist in melee mechanics, nfc what's going on there, but it's very unreliable. And being a single target melee skill, it's kinda too much work. If you Flame Dash to the mob and then hit it with VS, even when you don't miss, it takes more time than Leap Slam.

I'm currently trying Leap Slam, and I'm loving it. Takes a few minutes to adjust to this new play style, but then it's kinda fun: you run, you see a pack ahead that's worth more than just an Icestorm (magic, or a rare with adds), you cast Icestorm and Leap Slam into it. Works on bosses too: leap right onto the boss and immediately leap away.

Leap Slam also has longer range than Flame Dash. And it has no cooldown. With Faster Attacks you can chain-Leap faster than running. I'm the Bunny of Doom, a Leaping Death! :)

Cool to see that you figured out a way to fit in leap slam, and actually like it.
The extra defense, and faster movespeed is very nice.

I'm also sticking with it for now, adjusting to the playstyle.

Time to adjust your build guide. And don't forget to mention it was due to my brainfart ;-)

"

Fritso wrote:

Cool to see that you figured out a way to fit in leap slam, and actually like it.
The extra defense, and faster movespeed is very nice.

I'm also sticking with it for now, adjusting to the playstyle.

Time to adjust your build guide. And don't forget to mention it was due to my brainfart ;-)

I'm going to play it for a few days and see what works the best. There are several options what to sacrifice to incorporate Leap Slam.

I'm currently doing a few high level maps a day on my Standard char with MF gems. No idea why I haven't tried MFing with this build before, was too careful or w/e, but the drops in T13-15 with IIR/IIQ are amazing and the clear speed is only a little slower.

Going to level her to 97 and see if the alternative pathing via the Marauder area can work well. There isn't anything spectacular to get at lv 97+ (Trickery is kinda 'meh' after it was nerfed in 2.2), so if I can really get +80 Int by repathing that way it'd be very nice.

I'll update the guide after this weekend depending on the results of all that experimentation. Thanks for the Leap Slam idea again!

"

Kelvynn wrote:

Going to level her to 97 and see if the alternative pathing via the Marauder area can work well. There isn't anything spectacular to get at lv 97+ (Trickery is kinda 'meh' after it was nerfed in 2.2), so if I can really get +80 Int by repathing that way it'd be very nice.

I'll update the guide after this weekend depending on the results of all that experimentation. Thanks for the Leap Slam idea again!

Alterative pathing through marouder to get +80 INT? That sounds interesting. I haven't seen any Whispering Ice builds yet that go through that area.

Would you care to elaborate, or do you want to keep that info for yourself untill you've figured it out?

/Edit: if you're wondering what to get after lvl97, you may want to try getting Foresight. That will give you >500 extra ES for just 2 nodes. Pretty nice I'd say.

"

Fritso wrote:

Alterative pathing through marouder to get +80 INT? That sounds interesting. I haven't seen any Whispering Ice builds yet that go through that area.

Would you care to elaborate, or do you want to keep that info for yourself untill you've figured it out?

/Edit: if you're wondering what to get after lvl97, you may want to try getting Foresight. That will give you >500 extra ES for just 2 nodes. Pretty nice I'd say.

See aRTy42's post on page 11 about the Marauder pathing. I haven't tried it yet.

ES nodes are always an option: Foresight and the 4 nodes near the Witch start. But they don't really change much. They won't save you from 1-shot attacks such as Touch of God/Uber Flameblast, and anything that doesn't 1-shot you can be outleeched. About 10k ES is enough to be safe in general. Also, it's not quite 500 ES. Int nodes give pretty good ES too, so if you trade some Int for some pure ES you gain some ES and lose some DPS.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

See aRTy42's post on page 11 about the Marauder pathing. I haven't tried it yet.

ES nodes are always an option: Foresight and the 4 nodes near the Witch start. But they don't really change much. They won't save you from 1-shot attacks such as Touch of God/Uber Flameblast, and anything that doesn't 1-shot you can be outleeched. About 10k ES is enough to be safe in general. Also, it's not quite 500 ES. Int nodes give pretty good ES too, so if you trade some Int for some pure ES you gain some ES and lose some DPS.

That pathing looks interesting. Unfortunately it's not for me....can't lose out on the resists. Have actually been thinking about taking the 10% all res bonus from bandits, so my resists stay close to maxed in ele weakness maps. Currently at 158/154/142.

I'm at 91 now. Gonna pick Foresight at 92, and the 4 points to 96 will be spent on grabbing the jewel node below Whispers of Doom. Put a Brute Force Solution in there, and grab the +30 STR node. That will give +54 INT (without bonus from gear) and 8% ele damage for just 4 nodes. I may even respec out of Foresight at 94 to do this. I'd just really like to end the build at 1900 or higher INT. Currently at 1800 flat.

What do you thing about using Rime Gaze Mind Cage? It gives less ES but +30% cold dmg + procs with perandus rings

Unless I'm looking it wrong, by going to Unwavering Stance around Marauder starting area. It costs 3 more points, 28% all resists and 10 dex to gain 75 int and 40% mana regen. Where exactly does +80 int come, Brute Force jewels don't seem to overlap? If I'm correct then it's not really that great, unless you have insane rares to cover resist loss. For 3 points you can always grab 40 int from Ballistic Mastery or for 4 points 3rd Fertile Mind Jewel between Duelist and Ranger is worth 64 int.