So this all is TL;DR: Losing 10% of our damage with AoF+Pyre(40%) but keep Pyre's resistances or losing a 15% More Damage (Controlled Destruction -> Cold to Fire) and having a more expensive ring (Perandus' Signet) with no resist. What would be more desirable? Maybe start with the first and endgame with the second?
And by the way, is Pyre really confirmed to appear as a Legacy version? Didn't see that anywhere, so I'm assuming no.
"The following changes can be obtained by rerolling the item's mods with a Divine Orb:"
And Pyre is on the list, so yes, it's legacy on standard.
So this all is TL;DR: Losing 10% of our damage with AoF+Pyre(40%) but keep Pyre's resistances or losing a 15% More Damage (Controlled Destruction -> Cold to Fire) and having a more expensive ring (Perandus' Signet) with no resist. What would be more desirable? Maybe start with the first and endgame with the second?
And by the way, is Pyre really confirmed to appear as a Legacy version? Didn't see that anywhere, so I'm assuming no.
"The following changes can be obtained by rerolling the item's mods with a Divine Orb:"
And Pyre is on the list, so yes, it's legacy on standard.
I apologize for the noob question, but here goes: with the Pyre nerf announced, I was wondering why do we have to convert our cold damage to fire damage? Couldn't we just focus on cold damage - replace fire penetration gem with a cold penetration gem? We wouldn't have to go for Avatar of Fire, so two skill points saved there (maybe try to incorporate Heart of Ice?). Unfortunately this would mean Astramentis would be required (otherwise it would be very difficult to reach the required dex for max gem). Also it would require one of the sockets on the staff itself to be green. We would lose out on some damage on the tree (Fire Walker, Snow Forged). I'm guessing I answered my own question, the cons outweigh the pros? Any comments?
I apologize for the noob question, but here goes: with the Pyre nerf announced, I was wondering why do we have to convert our cold damage to fire damage? Couldn't we just focus on cold damage - replace fire penetration gem with a cold penetration gem? We wouldn't have to go for Avatar of Fire, so two skill points saved there (maybe try to incorporate Heart of Ice?). Unfortunately this would mean Astramentis would be required (otherwise it would be very difficult to reach the required dex for max gem). Also it would require one of the sockets on the staff itself to be green. We would lose out on some damage on the tree (Fire Walker, Snow Forged). I'm guessing I answered my own question, the cons outweigh the pros? Any comments?
Last pages and even on the first page there's comments on this topic. Fire damage is mandatory.
The Whispering Ice grants you a unique skill - Icestorm - that scales with your Intelligence stat and uses any support gems in the staff without the need to link them (a free 7-link).
The initial cold damage is converted to fire. This lets us take advantage of both Fire and Cold damage modifiers, as well as the bonuses from the Flame golem and Elementalist Ascendancy nodes.
More details
Spoiler
Icestorm is a high DPS skill. Its true DPS is hard to calculate, and it can vary depending on too many things, so the game only shows average damage per hit. Icestorm hits 10 times per second by producing a small AoE explosion in a random spot within the area of attack. What makes this build really shine is resistance penetration (see below). Resistant enemies, including all serious bosses, take a much larger percentage of our damage than they do from most other builds.
We use several support gems that increase the damage multiplicatively:
Fire Penetration is equivalent to 38-152% MORE damage depending on the enemy resists. It can make the target's resists negative, so against an enemy with no Fire resistance it makes their resistance go to -38% resulting in 38% MORE damage. A boss with max Fire resistance (hard capped at 75%) would take only 25% of incoming fire damage without penetration. But this gem penetrates 38% of it and makes them take 25+38=63% damage dealt, or 152% MORE. Elementalist Ascendancy class adds another 25% resist penetration, increasing our damage modifier from penetration to 63% MORE damage against trash and an incredible 252% MORE damage against bosses and other resistant enemies.
Concentrated Effect is 60% MORE plus 10% increased. Reduced AoE radius is increased back to almost the same size by the Blast Radius and Amplify nodes. The combined radius is only 10% smaller than the original for 6 sec of every 10 sec, and for the other 4 sec it's even larger than the original thanks to Pendulum of Destruction.
Elemental Focus is 50% MORE plus 10% increased. The chilled ground created by Icestorm works regardless of this gem, it's a completely separate effect.
Converting Icestorm damage to fire maximizes the offensive bonus of Flame Golem to 80% with Liege of the Primordial and adds another 40% increased damage against enemies that hit you with fire.
Cast while Channelling is 10% MORE plus 10% increased. And it sets the casting speed of Icestorm to 0.35 sec which is much faster than it could be cast directly.
Scorching Ray is used to cast Icestorm (via Cast while Channelling) while also doing its own burning damage and applying up to -24% fire resistance debuff on the target which stacks with Fire Penetration.
Because this build is not a crit one, we use a secondary skill to trigger Elemental Overload's 40% MORE damage benefit. Orb of Storms works the best because it can benefit from the increased AoE and skill duration. And it also triggers Mastermind of Discord's fire penetration effect.
Warlord's Mark causes everything that's not a boss or curse immune to be stun locked by Icestorm.
Last edited by KurthDeimos on Mar 1, 2017, 11:31:25 AM
Ah crap, I meant to post my question under the Marauder section where the bonuses from the Flame golem and Elementalist Ascendancy nodes don't really apply (he uses chaos golem). Sorry about that.
Ah crap, I meant to post my question under the Marauder section where the bonuses from the Flame golem and Elementalist Ascendancy nodes don't really apply (he uses chaos golem). Sorry about that.
The math on Pyre+CD+points vs AoF+CtF+Perandus has been done long time ago, thank you @Black_Gun for digging it up.
Obviously, losing 10% damage and 2 skill points without getting anything in return (keep Pyre, buy AoF) is a bad idea now, so I'm going to just return to the old model (this build was originally using AoF+CtF+Perandus). It's a much better option for the endgame, and that's also where it really counts. You can steamroll everything up to T15 either way, and Perandus doesn't start to shine until lv 85-90.
Losing Pyre frees up a ring slot. Perandus is endgame, so until you are lv 90 and your other gear is ready for T16/Shaper you can just use a ring to get the missing resists - as long as it has good Int on it.
The loss of resists on Pyre (assuming you end up with Perandus eventually) means you need to find those resists elsewhere. The most obvious choice is the belt. Rolling 2 resist mods with Spite is not very hard. The belt will be more expensive, but the essences will be more available in this league too.
The buff to Auxium means little, it's still not a worthy alternative to Int Crystal. 60 ES is nothing compared to 50 Int. And finding multiple resist mods on body armor, boots and gloves is a whole lot harder these days than it was in the pre-Crystal times.
The nerf to CE is more important IMO. It's losing 5% from its MORE dmg mod (from 60% to 55%), and it's losing 14% from its area reduction mod (from 25% LESS radius = 44% LESS area to 30% LESS area). Compared to the old mods, this means 8% damage nerf and 32% mechanic nerf. That is a big deal for the skills that use Firestorm-like damage spread. Concentrated Effect is now 32% less CONCENTRATED!
But CE was already used just for the endgame bosses. It will still be a good thing to use for boss killing, just not quite as good as before.
There is a choice what gem to swap for CtF. For self-cast that's obviously CD. For CwC I'll swap CE for it for clearing and keep EF, but swap EF for CE for endgame bosses.
Another nerf in the patch notes is that the base duration of Orb of Storms gets shorter. We have Potency of Will, so that's fine. But this nerf will make you remember to recast Orb every 10 sec against bosses to trigger Mastermind of Discord - which you should be doing anyway.
Kelvynn, are you planning on updating your build after the new tree comes out? I was planning on using it in new league and have already play tested it in stnd but with the changes coming I'm confused since this type of build is not my usual.
