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

I took a closer look at the proposed alternative pathing to US via the Marauder space (as seen in this tree).

- It's 3 nodes longer than the south branch of our current tree: give up the Izaro socket near GR; lose 40-50% increased damage until about lv 97
- Lose 28 all resists
- Swap Exceptional Performance for its equal Potency of Will; no difference
- Relocate 2 Brute Force Solutions from the south branch to this new branch; no difference
- Replace tree nodes worth 125 Int with tree nodes worth 180 Int; gain 55 Int!

Not quite +80 Int but still kinda interesting in theory. Swapping some resists and some damage for Int (i.e. ES and damage). But what's it all worth exactly is not very clear.

However, if you look at the pathing efficiency, it becomes much easier to understand. By efficiency I mean the wasted nodes, the ones that give nothing useful to this build. The existing tree has 5 such nodes in its south branch: the Dex node near Exceptional Performance and the 4 last Str nodes on the way to US. The proposed Marauder branch also has 5 wasted nodes: Shaper (we totally don't need more mana regen) and 4 Str nodes not covered by Brute Forces (the last 2 near US and 2 in the middle near Ancestral Knowledge).

So, what this pathing really does is take a bunch of pure Int nodes instead of the resist nodes and postpone getting stun immunity, 2nd curse and the Izaro jewels by 3 levels.

I don't think this is a good idea. Even at the very high levels, if you end up with too much resist on your gear it's better to just look for gear pieces with more Int and less resist and/or replace crafted resists with extra Int/All stats.

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Fritso wrote:

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.

Did you already get the socket below GR? It's better than the one below WoD+Might, I actually tried that.

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Zippo011 wrote:

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

I just tried that. Replacing my current helmet:

with a high roll Rime Gaze from my stash:

I lost 976 ES and gained 478 avg hit. I also lost 1 crafted resistance mod which unbalanced my resists. And this is with two legacy Perandus rings that give 1.5x more bonus Int for wearing uniques than regular ones, i.e. normally you'd lose more ES and gain less dmg.

Bad deal IMO.

But while on the topic of alternative hats, I also remembered than I had a top Int roll Black Sun Crest stashed from the times when all my other gear was crap and I'd have like 6k ES with it:

So I tried this on... 1922 Int!! It loses me 1703 ES (and the resist mod) and gains 1531 dmg, plus Icestorm duration goes from 5.87 to 6.31 sec - which is fantastic for everything except Atziri.

Wow! Normally I would take an almost 1:1 swap of ES for dmg any time. But this puts me just under 10k ES, which is what I consider a safety threshold. Then again, with this much Int I can consider dropping the Exceptional Performance cluster and grabbing some flat ES nodes, or even more Int.

Choices, choices... Gonna think hard and experiment with things over the weekend.

Ripped really stupidly icestorming into a reflect mob >_< it's awesome that ascendancy gives us so much more damage, but I find that even just reflect rares are pain to fire into, you have to be leeching from nearby monsters as well, whereas previously reflect was almost never a problem at all.

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Vyvanne wrote:

Ripped really stupidly icestorming into a reflect mob >_< it's awesome that ascendancy gives us so much more damage, but I find that even just reflect rares are pain to fire into, you have to be leeching from nearby monsters as well, whereas previously reflect was almost never a problem at all.

You can't really rip on a simply reflective mob unless something else is wrong:
a) you were trying to range kill it (and only it, without any other mobs to leech from)?
b) curse immunity?
c) elemental weakness?
d) -max res?
e) combination of the above?

See the section Dealing with Map Mods and the Reflect/No Regen video.

Primarily A. I hit ~72, was doing a channel map with about 6k or so icestorm damage. Pocked GOliath ele reflect mob with a lot of surface area, no mother mobs around it, and not really paying attention and spamming icestorms into it destroyed ~9k es. Panic alt f4'ed instead of vaal disc'ing and logged in dead.

Just poor play. Releveling another character now. At least Earthquake is absurd with twink gear, just hit lvl 44 in ~2.5 hrs played. Post more updates when I'm back and running again!

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Kelvynn wrote:

Did you already get the socket below GR? It's better than the one below WoD+Might, I actually tried that.

Yeah, I already have all jewel sockets you have in ur tree. Reason I have those at lower level is I have not taken the Exceptional Performance Cluster. I don't see the need for it when past the 1700 INT point every icestorm already lasts >4 sec. By that time everything is already dead.

What was your main reason for getting that cluster? Better stacking for bosses maybe?

Mainly boss damage, but it also works with pretty much everything else - warcry, orb of storms, immortal call, enfeeble, vaal discipline.

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nethermage wrote:

any tips for doing the labs as CI? coming from a armor/life playstyle not having any pots that heal me makes me REALLY hate doing the labs as es/ci and i want to keep playing this char but not having access to my ascendancy points has me really feeling down.

I am not adept at running the labs so I sold out and spec'd out of CI to do the labs. Kind of like reverse hybrid with like 900-1000 life and 2500 ES at the time. Took 3 tries to get through the merc lab and each death was due to traps.

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mark1030 wrote:

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nethermage wrote:

any tips for doing the labs as CI? coming from a armor/life playstyle not having any pots that heal me makes me REALLY hate doing the labs as es/ci and i want to keep playing this char but not having access to my ascendancy points has me really feeling down.

I am not adept at running the labs so I sold out and spec'd out of CI to do the labs. Kind of like reverse hybrid with like 900-1000 life and 2500 ES at the time. Took 3 tries to get through the merc lab and each death was due to traps.

This build has zero trouble doing the Lab as a CI. Watch the Lab video in the 1st post. The traps hit you for 1/3 of your hp or ES (and AA seems to work, so we get hit for less), just don't eat 4 traps in a row. Flame Dash (Lightning Warp, Leap Slam) over the traps. Any mobs nearby mean you can leech to full ES really fast. Izaro himself is a joke for this build: just faceroll him. The only nasty trick he has is when he pops a green circle aura around himself - that means he's going to teleport you onto one of the traps in 3 sec; get away from him until the green circle is gone.

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mark1030 wrote:

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nethermage wrote:

any tips for doing the labs as CI? coming from a armor/life playstyle not having any pots that heal me makes me REALLY hate doing the labs as es/ci and i want to keep playing this char but not having access to my ascendancy points has me really feeling down.

I am not adept at running the labs so I sold out and spec'd out of CI to do the labs. Kind of like reverse hybrid with like 900-1000 life and 2500 ES at the time. Took 3 tries to get through the merc lab and each death was due to traps.

I agree, if you want to be safe in HC, delay picking up CI till you are ready to kill merc Izaro or respec out from it. Personally, I did all 3 lab runs around lv 75 when I was done with Dried Lake. After lab runs I respeced from 4 life nodes into CI, I used - 2 in templar and scion area. When you do lab as hybrid, get rid of all es you can, but use real gear for Izaro in merc. With couple of instant healing pots and relatively low total hp pool, it's possible to safely yolo through pretty much any combination of traps. If you do insist doing lab as CI, then you need to actually pay attention to trap patterns unlike life based builds. In softcore, sure who cares - most you can lose is just a few minutes worth of xp in Dried Lake.