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

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urjoh wrote:

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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.

This is nuts. How can you possibly have any trouble with Lab/Izaro as this build? Are you playing this build as a ranged attacker instead of using the WM aura to leech? Are you not using the WM aura at all (using Clarity instead or something)? Izaro is a wuss and can't hurt you as long as he is within your aura. And lab traps... well, I guess if somebody is so bad that they just can't avoid them... I dunno what to say. But delaying CI or speccing out of it - that's crazy.

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This is nuts. How can you possibly have any trouble with Lab/Izaro as this build? Are you playing this build as a ranged attacker instead of using the WM aura to leech? Are you not using the WM aura at all (using Clarity instead or something)? Izaro is a wuss and can't hurt you as long as he is within your aura. And lab traps... well, I guess if somebody is so bad that they just can't avoid them... I dunno what to say. But delaying CI or speccing out of it - that's crazy.

Oh wow talk about condescending.

this is the first build, i'm going to copy exactly.
nice to read, well explained. detailed.
great guide. love it.
rocking it atm.

Did not read yet all the comments in this thread, so I don't know if the next question has been asked:

Why do you take increased AOE nodes? AFAIK, increased AOE makes the same ice shards to hit a larger area, so the mobs in get fewer impacts.
Did you think in dual Blasphemy with Heretic's Veil? You can enchant them with reduced Discipline mana reservation.

By the way: No Clarity?! I think it should be hard to sustain mana in cannot be cursed maps. Though I guess you can swap Warlords for Clarity in that case.

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intre wrote:

Did not read yet all the comments in this thread, so I don't know if the next question has been asked:

Why do you take increased AOE nodes? AFAIK, increased AOE makes the same ice shards to hit a larger area, so the mobs in get fewer impacts.
Did you think in dual Blasphemy with Heretic's Veil? You can enchant them with reduced Discipline mana reservation.

By the way: No Clarity?! I think it should be hard to sustain mana in cannot be cursed maps. Though I guess you can swap Warlords for Clarity in that case.

Hey,

He has taken the increased AOE nodes, so he can permanently use Conc. effect gem for the 60% more damage. Though I mostly map without conc effect, and use faster casting instead. Swap to conc effect for bosses. Increased AOE gem is no longer required.

Dual Blasphemy in Heretic's Veil is interesting. Though you'll lose out on quite a bit of ES, and resists. Also, running dual curse aura's probably won't leave any room for Arctic Armor.

I find Clarity is not needed at all. Even with faster casting and Spell echo, I can map just fine in curse immune maps. Still have 300 mana unreserved, and >100 mana regen a sec. Swapping Warlord's mark for Clarity every time will be a pain, because of non matching gem colors.

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werchiel wrote:

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This is nuts. How can you possibly have any trouble with Lab/Izaro as this build? Are you playing this build as a ranged attacker instead of using the WM aura to leech? Are you not using the WM aura at all (using Clarity instead or something)? Izaro is a wuss and can't hurt you as long as he is within your aura. And lab traps... well, I guess if somebody is so bad that they just can't avoid them... I dunno what to say. But delaying CI or speccing out of it - that's crazy.

Oh wow talk about condescending.

I apologize if that sounded condescending. It's just frustrating to see people insist that leveling as CI is hard or that Lab is hard for this build as CI. I suspect it's just because they not playing it properly.

I added more notes about the importance of using the leech of the WM aura. This is not a side version of a Firestorm build. Do not play this build as ranged attacker except for several specific bosses.

There is a Lab video in the 1st post. Anybody who has trouble with Lab as this build - tell me exactly why you can't do it like in that video. I don't consider myself a very good PoE player, but it's extremely easy even with my skill level. There must be something that people are doing wrong that makes Lab hard.

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Fritso wrote:

I find Clarity is not needed at all. Even with faster casting and Spell echo, I can map just fine in curse immune maps. Still have 300 mana unreserved, and >100 mana regen a sec. Swapping Warlord's mark for Clarity every time will be a pain, because of non matching gem colors.

In the curse immune maps, you can swap Blasphemy for Clarity.

The problem with the lab is you can't leech from traps. Doesn't matter if you have warlord's mark and a million dps. Izaro is easy. But a mistake running through traps because we're not all as good as you at not getting hit is not worth it when a simple refund out of CI makes it much easier.

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mark1030 wrote:

The problem with the lab is you can't leech from traps. Doesn't matter if you have warlord's mark and a million dps. Izaro is easy. But a mistake running through traps because we're not all as good as you at not getting hit is not worth it when a simple refund out of CI makes it much easier.

Hmm... are you using movement skills? Flame Dash, Lightning Warp, Leap Slam - are all available to this build and they trivialize most of the traps. You just need to pick a point to jump to carefully. Running through the traps is very punishing for any build that's not life based (Chris promised to do something about that in the recent podcast).

I've done over 100 Lab runs. Guess practice really helps. There aren't that many different trap types. Sooner or later you just remember them all by heart and navigate them on 'auto-pilot'.

The problem with switching out of CI just for the Lab run is not 4 respec points, you have 20 by then. It's that you can't do a bunch of Lab runs to get those great helm enchantments, unless you do nothing but Lab for a while.

IMO it's better to just practice and get comfortable with doing it as CI. HC players can practice on SC chars and go very carefully. If you encounter a trap you aren't comfrotable with, just port out and restart the run. The layout is the same for 24 hr but the traps are randomized every run. Most of them are very easy.

Izaro has exactly one dangerous trick: in the final trial he can pop a green circle aura around himself. If he does that - get away from him until it's gone. If you stay within the circle he'll teleport you onto a trap.

I have been experimenting over the weekend, and it resulted in a new variant of this build that is cheaper, safer, more DPS, less APS and is still capable of facerolling any maps with almost any mods with MF gems.

Introducing the Doom Bunny:
MF'ing in Tier 15 with double curse, empowered boss and no regen!

Resists are at 40% while everything deals fire damage, there are packs of porcupines, Kaom is on steroids, and if that was not enough, Temp Chains and No Regen. Let's MF that and facetank the boss! DPS, resists and regen is overrated! :)

In fact, I had so much fun with this new variant that after a day of MF'ing high tier maps with no deaths I just went for lv 97 and got it over the weekend doing just that, no endless Gorge runs or other boring stuff. Can level like a boss while getting good loot along the way.


So what's new?



1. Tri-Curse! Added Temporal Chains. Now everything gets gimped AND slowed in addition to leeched and stunned. I replaced one of the Perandus rings with Doedre'd Damning. That resulted in a loss of Int (ES, DPS), but gaining Temp Chains more than compensated for it. This ring is dirt cheap and you can find it easily in a new league, unlike Perandus.

2. Black Sun Crest. This helmet compensates for the loss of Int on the ring, but loses some more ES. It extends the radius of the WM aura. And it allows you to use Enlighten lv 1, which is mighty nice in a new league. It also costs much less than a good rare helmet. However, you cannot use the helmet slot for resist now, i.e. need to have more resists on the gloves/boots/armor. It's doable. Or you can always help Kraityn on Normal.

3. Fortify! Flame Dash has been replaced with Leap Slam (thanks @Fritso!). It's a bit slower, but Fortify is totally worth it. And Leap Slam has a longer range and doesn't have a cooldown, you can hop like a bunny faster than running if the terrain is open enough. Can take a full advantage of Silver flasks now too.

4. Flame Golem is now auto-popped by CWDT. No need to recast it manually anymore.

5. Dropped Rallying Cry. It's a leveling tool to sustain mana without Clarity. But once you get the WM aura going, you no longer need it. Even less after acquiring a Perandus ring. Its DPS component (15-20% increased damage) was insignificant.

6. Foresight is back. As a high level upgrade. My league char is doing fine without it, but somewhere around lv 92-96 it's nice to have.

7. Orb of Storms and IC lost Inc Duration support but they still last long enough with just Exceptional Performance.

Overall, the build loses about 15-20% of its ES (depending on how good your rare helmet is) but gains 10-15% DPS and two powerful layers of defense. Playing it is totally easymode now, as you only need to use 3 skills (down from 5). I haven't attempted Core or Uber with this variant yet, but everything else looks easier and safer than before. You don't need more ES when nothing can hurt you.

Two 'middle ground' options are also available:
- dual-curse with Black Sun Crest: trade a good chunk of ES for a good chunk of DPS;
- tri-curse with a rare helmet for more ES and resists but lower DPS.

I'll be updating the main post with these new developments soon. In the meantime, comments and improvement ideas are always welcome.