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

Thanks for the great build. So far at level 77, it is far better/safer than some of the popular builds I've tried with Breach - including - the Reach/LA/Barrage/King of the Forest and the self-cast Flameblast builds.

A bit confused about the latest comments.

Should I be re-rolling a new char Scion to Maurauder/Bersker (SC/CWC) to optimize this build or should I stick with my current Scion (elementalist, juggernaut)

If stick with Scion,

1. should I switch to SR-CwC?
2. how would I prioritize spending passive points since I will not put any points towards stun immunity.

thanks

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after-initial-post-edit: I've already jumped the gun and am trying SC/CWC on Scion (elementalist, jugger) with Pyre and no more AoF, so far s good, huge improvement to Quality of Life.

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atlassound wrote:

after-initial-post-edit: I've already jumped the gun and am trying SC/CWC on Scion (elementalist, jugger) with Pyre and no more AoF, so far s good, huge improvement to Quality of Life.

That is exactly what I was going to suggest. Elenaut with SR+CwC. And since Perandus is rather expensive, and you are not quite lv 92 yet to take advantage of its Int bonus, going with Pyre instead of AoF makes perfect sense, even if temporarily - Pyre costs nothing, you can always discard it in favor of Perandus+AoF later on.

One more suggestion: when going Elenaut, remove Immortal Call from your CWDT-Golem link. Having the endurance charges granted by Juggernaut last instead of consuming them for a temporary phys immunity looks like more survivability to me.

This will also make you immune to stun while clearing trash since you will be at max endurance charges from WM anyway (unless the map is Hexproof). It means you can try dropping US! I can't say how bad it's gonna be without stun immunity against bosses that have no adds, but I am trying a similar thing on my Berserker (he's immune to stun if killed recently) and so far seeing only a few problems. There is a flask that grants stun immunity if you get into a bad situation (Kiara's Determination) although it's very expensive. But I think it may be worth trying.

Currently at 66% into lvl 94 so I'm gonna keep grinding until I hit 95 and then I'll try switching to Juggernaut as well as using Pyre and going back to Ray+CWC. I'd like to also test it out with getting rid of US and see if it's viable. What skill points would you recommend taking instead? All I can really see is getting the 2 additional jewels although the nodes that lead to them are rather weak.

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Kelsier0 wrote:

Currently at 66% into lvl 94 so I'm gonna keep grinding until I hit 95 and then I'll try switching to Juggernaut as well as using Pyre and going back to Ray+CWC. I'd like to also test it out with getting rid of US and see if it's viable. What skill points would you recommend taking instead? All I can really see is getting the 2 additional jewels although the nodes that lead to them are rather weak.

I haven't compared different end-level options in quite a while, I think my Scion was 96 at the time and the jewel socket between Scion and Ranger was the best, so take that one for sure (Fertile Mind). And replace Brute Force under the start with Fertile Mind.

Other options:
- Trickery (Shadow area): 30 Int + 20% inc dmg for 3 points;
- socket near AoF: you grab it together with the nearby 30 Dex or 30 Str node and use Fertile Mind or Brute Force, so you get 54 Int + 8% inc dmg for 4 points;
- three equal 40 Int options for 3 points each: Catalyse (Templar area), Ballistic Mastery (Ranger), Thief's Craft (Shadow/Ranger).

So you have options for 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 points between those. And you can always get an extra point by switching the curse nodes at Whispers of Doom.

I'm itching to try all this new stuff on the Scion, but my main Scion is lv 99 with some xp towards 100, not a good time to try risky things.

Ok, I hit 95 and changed ascendancy from Raider to Juggernaut. Like we discussed, I dropped Avatar of Fire and Unwavering Stance, swapped in Pyre for Perandus, and am running Ray+CWC with Conc now in place of CTF.

Started by running some guardians, and there's some good and some bad. The good is that chill immunity is amazing! Hydra is soooo much easier than before. The bad is that getting stunned really sucks, and this makes Phoenix much more difficult. Still doable, but feels like the difficulty of hydra and phoenix has been swapped. Not much noticeable difference on chimera or minotaur.

Some things I've found that helped a bit with the stun problem are dropping Immortal Call - this is essential otherwise you're constantly losing your endurance charges. I put in Decoy Totem for now but it seems useless, there's probably something better we can use instead. Also I picked up a Kiara's Determination and swap that in for bosses. It definitely helps against phoenix just so you don't get perma stunned in those first few seconds. But I'm still on the fence about whether the points you get for skipping US are really worth the hassle. Gonna need some more playtime to decide.

Anyway, the really good news is I got my first Shaper kill. I had never attempted him before, and I got him down on my 2nd try. First try I ended up with vortexes all over Zana's safe spot and couldn't recover. I watched Kelvynn's first shaper vid, and then 2nd try I had the mechanics down a lot better. Almost got him deathless but i died with him at about 2%, then came back in and got the kill. Since I had never tried him without chill immunity, I can't really compare, but I'm sure it helped. I didn't really notice stun being as much of a problem on shaper as it was on phoenix. I did hit Kiara whenever it was up though.

Phoenix? I didn't quite expect to get stun locked there. What stuns you there? Just the size of the fire hits? Are you running PoF? Ruby flasks?

Another option to try is The Writhing Jar. I'm going to use that on my Berserker because his stun immunity is 'if you've killed recently'. But you might just be able to use those worms to get a fresh endurance charge from WM.

Another idea:


Endurance charge in a flask. Perhaps bring 2 of them and get 1 more charge from getting hit?

Another one:

Fragility jewel (-1 max endurance charge). Swap one jewel for this fight. That should make it easier t stay at max charges, only 2 now.

Somewhere along these lines there should be a good compromise that would allow you to get go of US. Of course, the big question is whether or not it's really worth the effort. You only spend 5 non-Int tree nodes to get US. It kinda sucks that the Jugg Ascendancy is only half-useful, but chill immunity and extra survivability from endurance charges is still good.

I've been able to get Phoenix down pretty smoothly most of the time now with just using Kiara's, so I don't think anything fancier is really necessary after all. I do use PoF and pop ruby flasks when he does his ultimate.

I found that Culling Strike seems to be the best choice for replacing IC, if you are running guardians/shaper. Either the golem or orb (if it's a fight where you don't move orb to the curse link) seems to trigger it pretty much every fight, which is great. I'd consider switching to this even with US, although maybe IC saved me sometimes and I just don't really notice it.

I am still going back and forth on whether it's worth it to get rid of US. I ran without it all yesterday, then switched back to US this morning to compare. Here's the difference with my gear/setup:

Without US:
1798 Int, 10397 ES, 7164 Icestorm tooltip (in hideout with no golem or anything else)
Can't use IC (but culling seems as good/better?)
Have to use Kiara's - very short duration flask that doesn't provide much else
Random stuns can still happen at bad times occasionally

With US:
1718 Int, 9918 ES, 6699 Icestorm tooltip (as above)
Can use Experimenter's Silver Flask of Adrenaline - long duration flask to keep onslaught up permanently (don't have raider onslaught anymore) and move faster
Don't even have to think about stun, so overall quality of life is better

It's close enough that it's probably just down to personal preference really.

Hi! I'm level 82 with your build right now and so far so good!

I'm only stuck in what I should upgrade next (armor or belt or something else), they're both so expansive so I don't want to buy the wrong one.

I have a budget of 3ex only... can you give me some feedback?

First of all thanks again for the great build.

The SR-CwC is pretty cool. I just started messing around with it so my gems aren't leveled yet but the benefits of not being animation/cast locked, being able to run AA/Disc with a lvl 2 enlighten, and being able to carpet the entire screen faster than self cast are nice and I noticed it right away.

Anyways what I'm wondering is about leaving Elemental Focus unlinked from the SR gem so that SR has the ignite/freeze/shock chance?

I've only done up to t14s, uber Izaro, regular Atziri so far. Just got lvl 90 but I'm struggling to get my rares upgraded for more ES as I'm still under 8kes. DPS hasn't been my problem but sometimes I just feel a bit squishy or 1 shot hehe.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm confident I can do t15 when I get one, the only time I die in maps is when I don't know the boss and/or make some stupid mistake. I mean rares are basically 1 cast and dead, even some map bosses like Piety malformation only take 1 cast and run a circle around her lol.

When I first started the build I already was on a diff witch build and you weren't done with inquis yet so I went Scion. I happened to have a pyre sitting around so I just used that from early on and haven't been using 3rd curse. I'm wondering if lack of temporal chains is a bigger part of my survival problems but I bought a legacy perandus signet at a great price and enjoy having the extra gem to play with in the WI so haven't switched around.

How important would you rank TC? Everything dies so quickly that the snare effect seems useless, is it more of the attack/spell slow?

Is the damage loss from perandus or a dps gem ala pyre worth the 3rd curse? Why?

From what I gather getting the curse corrupt on an Astramentis is not exactly easy?

What about trading off something else for another curse? I suppose the MS, ES, Resists on boots isn't worth it?

On the Crystal belt basically one is trading extra stats for having to use a freeze flask is all there is to it? I just recall in the original guide you stating something like you Must have Auxium for end game.

I just always leave my Orb of storms linked in with the CwDT ball lightning setup as they don't interfere with eachother since Orb is self cast only. What am I missing here? Seems like it's just bonus to have orb and ball enfeebling for me.

Sorry for the long rant. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Thanks!

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kurtkage wrote:

Anyways what I'm wondering is about leaving Elemental Focus unlinked from the SR gem so that SR has the ignite/freeze/shock chance?

SR doesn't ignite. It causes burning damage similar to RF which is different from ignite. Ignite is caused by fire damage hits, but SR doesn't hit. Icestorm hits are too small to care about them igniting anything (ignite damage is based on 1 hit).

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kurtkage wrote:

How important would you rank TC? Everything dies so quickly that the snare effect seems useless, is it more of the attack/spell slow?

Is the damage loss from perandus or a dps gem ala pyre worth the 3rd curse? Why?

TC is very important in the endgame. You are right that everything before T15 dies too quickly. But you will want to do T16, and do it with mods (i.e. good IIQ/IIR). That's where you'll see the difference made by TC. Things like Rigwald, Hydra, Chimera can hurt you a whole lot more when they are not slowed.

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kurtkage wrote:

From what I gather getting the curse corrupt on an Astramentis is not exactly easy?

What about trading off something else for another curse? I suppose the MS, ES, Resists on boots isn't worth it?

+1 Astra extremely rare and expensive. The latest patch introduced a div card for it, so we'll see if that helps. Other options have been considered and dismissed long time ago, you can browse through this thread. So far there is nothing better that Doedre's Damning, and it's totally worth it.

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kurtkage wrote:

On the Crystal belt basically one is trading extra stats for having to use a freeze flask is all there is to it? I just recall in the original guide you stating something like you Must have Auxium for end game.

That was when the end game was Core (pre-nerf) and there was no Crystal belts or Essences. Malachai's tentacles would instantly freeze you. Since then T15 got nerfed and Malachai a joke now, and the advantages of the Int Crystal belts are definitely worth carrying an extra flask. And now that we are switching to Juggernaut and getting chill immunity it's Crystal belt all the way.

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kurtkage wrote:

I just always leave my Orb of storms linked in with the CwDT ball lightning setup as they don't interfere with eachother since Orb is self cast only. What am I missing here? Seems like it's just bonus to have orb and ball enfeebling for me.

Sure, if you have a 6L chest that's a nice QoL improvement to have the Orb linked to the curses.