[3.5] Occultist Vortex/Cold Snap ES/CI - Deathless and Safe Uber Elder and T16's
" well, a DoT works by dealing damage over time, if the vortex has sufficient dps and duration, I don't see how it would be clunky. drop the vortex on the mob you'd like to kill, path to the next one! it might be clunky if the AOE is too big or too small for what you want, but otherwise I see no reason for there to be an issue. furthermore, legion mobs would be stationary, all the better for us, knowing for the full duration of vortex the mob will be taking damage. |
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End of league thoughts:
Fun build. While clear speed wasn't zoomies (it's not Deadeye TS) fast, I was able to run around a lot in maps dropping Vortex and killing packs quick. Occasional stragglers, i.e. a single monster outside of the Vortex AOE, felt annoying but running from pack to pack makes it feel fast when you don't pay much attention. Also, Vaal Cold Snap is so quality of life, you zoom through packs and everything dies. On Shaper Guardians, I was able to tank everything fine and when I felt I was in danger, I disengaged to let my ES recharge/regen to levels I felt comfortable. Minotaur, Chimera, and Hydra were easy and I didn't have worries. Phoenix wasn't an issue either but because I was cautious of its explosions, I often dropped Vortex and Flame Dashed onto the other side of the room. No write ups on Uber Elder since I was killing it on my HoAG Champion but I imagine it to be as simple as drop Vortex and dodge. I spent about 4 ex for all my ES gear (helm, body, gloves, shield). I could've probably gotten better items but this was sufficient enough for me. Prior to Solstice Vigil, I had a dex amulet with 20% ES and 40 flat es. Solstice Vigil isn't required but I thought it was nice for the free Temp. Chains reserve. I had about 11k ES total which is lower than what I saw of other's gear in this thread. My weapon costed 10c which was really good compared to the OPs linked item for weapons -- I think CDOT Multi is far more superior than Pristine + Bound crafted items. However, if you can get both, it'll definitely improve your DOT damage -- I'm about 600k Shaper DPS with relevant things ticked (3 Spider stacks, EE, chilled). This is a character I've died the least with getting to 95 (15 deaths total). My only grievances with it is the lack of leech since it's a DOT build. Despite that, it has solid defenses with the quick ES recharge and Vaal Discipline. I will probably play a Vortex build again but maybe as Frostbolt version. |
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" omg, they killed kenny. As I see it our build is dead and occultist core has literally been exploded, with some chunks of her flesh now hanging on the skill tree. It was good while it lasted. |
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The tankiness of the build took a pretty big hit with the combined loss of ES & recharge/regen. I still think it should not have much issue clearing T16/UElder with endgame gear however gearing/leveling process will probably be a much harder task (especially the CI switch).
Still looking forward to play the build and see how it goes. |
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" LOL, Seems like they really really want you to play melee this league Ding dong, the witch is dead! Was my favorite build too |
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nah the build is most definitely not dead. been experimenting with a more defensive tree, pretty sure I can hit the same levels of defenses, just lower dps. to give an idea, am aiming for 2m shaper dps instead of the 3.3m that I achieved.
overall, had to take more ES% nodes, the 4th notable for the occultist is definitely more fluid, trying to experiment with whether to take profane bloom (making vortex mapping experience fluid) or forbidden power (playing around with power charges to give bigger aoe and spell damage) or withering presence (giving chaos resistance - since I am aiming for LL this would be useful, and going to try to incorporate some chaos DoT in the build somehow). gearing MIGHT be more tedious, having to get higher ES on what we can get, I will probably sacrifice many dps mods for added ES definitely, but I dont see an issue with the build. (for example taking a watcher's eye with faster start of ES opposed to hatred+malevolence cold dmg + CDoT increase). vortex itself remains unchanged, and the tree's nerf to ES as a whole can be dealt with. we also have yet to see all the different unique legion jewels and how they may change the passive tree. that would definitely be exciting change to take note of. to be fair, this will come as a turn off for many who wanted to play the build as it is harder to gear/path/passive etc., but I like the build so i'll make some adjustments to make it work. definitely not going to be meta - melee will easily overshadow, but I'm happy to play vortex. Last edited by SonsOfKorhal#5375 on Jun 5, 2019, 7:44:14 AM
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I'll give Profane bloom a try, it should improve mapping clearspeed.
2 new nodes to look for: -  Help solving mana issue. -  Scaling int is a good way to gain a lot of ES, but it is inside Might of the Meek range, so probably not worth it unless we have lots of int on gear. |
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" personally, I think profane bloom will be very useful early in atlas completion. while gear is still crap, you get the effect of the dual oblits. I might take profane bloom first and swap to forbidden power later when I can comfortably do a weapon swap to dual oblits and not suffer from less dps and less survivability. forbidden power will be a dps boost when my gear allows me to path away from the faster map clear speed. as for withering presence, it probably requires the most effort to experiment how to add a chaos dot into the setup. alternatively, going malediction and ignoring vile bastion is also an option, playing a more curse oriented build. there are some guides out there that path toward a curser vortex occultist. it's definitely something possible to experiment. definitely need to take insightfulness, we need the ES. as for utmost intellect, i've opted to still use might of the meek, i think it gives better utility. while meddling with utmost intellect, if you have about 450 int, the 3 nodes will give a nice 22% ES boost, which is around 7% ES per node, definitely worth it. if you stack +int on your other items, this cluster is a good boost to ES - even more than 22%. (I'm ignoring offensive/mana/other perks of stacking int). however, you'd have to see if this is a trade off worth not using might of the meek. Last edited by SonsOfKorhal#5375 on Jun 5, 2019, 10:51:55 AM
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" These seem the way to go for the future tree. Using the same gear I currently have (which will be harder to obtain in Legion), I'm at about 10.1k ES from previously 11.2k ES. Obviously, I lost damage to spec (respec Heart of Ice to Utmost Intellect) into more defenses but I think this trade off is worth it (550k vs 610k Shaper CDoT DPS). https://pastebin.com/ya6JRueJ This is my 3.7 tree but it's for a level 95 character. I think most people will get towards 90 easily so nodes I'd remove are probably Zealot's Oath (use a flask for it), stat nodes if you have gear for it, 2 ES nodes near Path of the Savant, and I'm not sure what else. AS for ascendancies now that WIcked Ward has been moved, I think I might go towards Profane Bloom which requires testing to see how it helps my issues with stragglers outside the Vortex AoE. Nothing really seems fancy. |
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" I'll take a look when I'm back and see how it differs to what I was considering. As I mentioned in the above post, personally I would not allocate utmost intelligence as we lose too much from not using might of the meek. I'll post my considered POB later, but as reference here's my 3.6 one. my 3.7 one has similar ES, only slightly lesser (10.2k vs 10.4k), but I've lost a lot of dps to maintain it (2.4m vs 3.3m - shaper dps) https://pastebin.com/ZbdqSqd8 I'd go profane bloom first to help with initial mapping before switching to forbidden power. in 3.6 I was using this amulet which gave charges - something incredibly useful for phase run and immortal call. with the changes to immortal call, taking the new overcharged nodes (that aren't behind conductivity) is something I will do. I might even allocate a +1 endurance charge just to hit near pre-nerf IC phys mitigation. frenzy charges give a nice dps boost and compliments my phase run, endurance charges give a nice phys mitigation and compliments immortal call, and power charges would go well with forbidden power and a +4% spell dmg per power charge passive node. |
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