[2.2] A Storm of Ice and Fire - Avatar of Fire CI Whispering Ice - Uber Viable!

how are u hitting 1900? think you can make your characters public so i can take a look?

Hi,

I'm a big fan of this build. I'm melting through mobs but running into issues when I get into any sort of tight space. I'm avoiding any map that isn't wide open. Lvl 70, about 4.5k ES, 1250 DPS Ice storm, maxed resists. I've got my tree lvled the same as the lvl 70 tree shown and I have frost wall and FS cast on damage linked. Still getting crushed especially in The Pit. What am I doing wrong?

Hi, about to start this build. Wondering if there's any particular difference to consider when chosing between Scion or Witch for this build, having played neither of these classes before.

Lot's of people messaging me about my gear and how I got to 1900 Int. I'm using the following:



Doedre's Tenure gives us a huge DPS boost with only a modest trade-off to casting speed (which is almost unnoticeable late game), but Atziri's Acuity would certainly BiS with its up to 80 additional Int. That would single-handedly push you into 2200. Ridiculously expensive though so probably a no-go for 99% of players.

In any case, you can always use Asenath's which adds 30 Int, and does add valuable CC to the pure AoF build, but I'm sticking with cold, so I don't need the Temporal Chains (I self cast it from time to time).

The gems you'll want to grab Fertile Mind and Brute Force Solution. You'll need at least one BFSes and four FMs. The remaining one can be either or (you can use another one for the node near CI, but I don't think it's worth it).

Here is my current tree.

Now what we want to do is stack up all 4 Fertile Minds near the start. We get some nice node overlaps, getting 20 Int from 10 Dex nodes. This is really the only place you can do that and why I think Unwavering Stance isn't worth it in the end.

Here is the placement for the 4 Fertile Minds


And then the placement for the Brute Force Solution (and either BFS or FM)


You get 3 free jewels after that, two of which will need some form of all resist, depending on what chest armour you have. Ideally, you want cold and lightning resist to cap them.

The remaining jewels I use are as follows (nothing special, just what I could find or had already in stash):



The key here is to use as many uniques as possible to get full value from the dual Perandus Signets. If you're going to run rares for your chest, helm, belt, gloves and boots, you're missing out on boatloads of Int (and thus damage, ES and mana/mana regen). I think an all unique build (as was developed by WaffleT over in the Witch forum) is probably the best build out there.

Most of the uniques you can nab for a few Chaos. The Astramentis and Perandus signets are the premium items and will set you back about 10-15 Ex unfortunately. My build cost a total of about 25 Ex to put together. The GG staff being the biggest purchase at 17 Ex. I'd say getting a 17% Int is still pretty close. The perfect roll isn't all that and I kind of regret bleeding out my entire stash for it. Oh well, live and learn :)

If anyone has any questions, please post them here. I'd rather the community glean the knowledge as well rather than just a handful of people. Most of it is pretty self explanatory.

Lastly, here's an end-game tree I've been toying with... if I ever make it to 100 that is. It doesn't provide any kind of stun protection, so you'll just have to play good ;) Definitely not a tree I'd bring to an Atziri fight though.

Hi Baalorlord!

Great build and guide. I have one question and one comment.

Question: On the leveling trees you go for the fire damage path on the Snowforged wheel, but on the final version you go for the cold damage. Is this irrelevant or is there a reason behind it?

Comment: The new Quarry Map is great for this build (and any other CI build I guess)! I was able to farm the boss easily over and over again since the main damage source is a Chaos storm and we are immune to it. Are contains two are bosses is on of the best mods to roll since the physical damage is almost none while leeching.

I'd like to try this build in the upcoming 1 month league.
Would obviously take a while to get the gear, but I think you can make do with firestorm and this tree until then.

"

fedxc wrote:

Hi Baalorlord!

Great build and guide. I have one question and one comment.

Question: On the leveling trees you go for the fire damage path on the Snowforged wheel, but on the final version you go for the cold damage. Is this irrelevant or is there a reason behind it?

Comment: The new Quarry Map is great for this build (and any other CI build I guess)! I was able to farm the boss easily over and over again since the main damage source is a Chaos storm and we are immune to it. Are contains two are bosses is on of the best mods to roll since the physical damage is almost none while leeching.

I respecced from one to the other at some point to see if there was a difference between the two - they are completely identical, pick whichever is your favorite.

This build is AMAZING, I got lucky and dropped an 18% whispering ice in a coward's trial map around ten days back so I decided to give this build a try. Managed to get my hands on an Astramentis; I had a triple resist ~600 ES chest and decent ES gloves/boots/helm lying around in my stash awaiting my next attempt at CI so things are really starting to come together now that I can equip them. Ought to be picking up the CI keystone/increased ES nodes succeeding it/ghost reaver sometime later today. I am having so much fun with this. As a bonus, I have managed to find a way to work around the performance issues I have been having lately- awesome new build plus a now-functioning game client? Yes, please; I'll have some of each. :p Thanks so much for sharing this!

A couple questions, if you have the time: I was thinking of finding some way to acquire the skill duration wheel in between the shaper notable and the jewel socket in between templar/witch, I was thinking that the huge increase in duration would help to mitigate mana cost and allow for more mechanical dodging/kiting. Perhaps it would be a good idea to travel around the top of the ES wheel north of the savant notable in order to acquire these? Alternatively, I could spend three points to acquire the northwest scion start jewel socket and use my intuitive leap jewel to grab one or more (obviously just the notable if only one) of these nodes. How do you feel about these options?

Also, what would you say about adapting this build for crit? I have been using voidbringer's just for fun occasionally, and although with no crit multiplier it doesnt really add a whole lot of extra damage (maybe ~125 per bolt) the ES on kill is VERY useful and the crit sound effects are quite satisfying. 200+ ES on your hands is not too shabby either. The increased mana cost doesnt actually hurt as much as I thought it would, although it did increase the cost per cast to ~150 mana, with 700 intelligence (and thus a huge mana pool) + fairly quick regen it doesn't slow me down appreciably. I was thinking of finding a way to incorporate doom cast and the spell crit nodes near the start of the witch tree for my attempt at creating my own personal take on whispering ice. Do you think that would be viable or worthwhile?

I'm following this build. I just reached level 33 and equipped the Whispering Ice and I'm loving it! The skill is awesome and it even makes a sound when you kill a rare similar to the Merveil cave sound.
Thanks for the guide.

Heya!
First of, this build looks really fun and I am quite looking forward to trying it out, I just wanted to ask some stupid questions as is my nature.
I currently play a PA MF build and have gotten quite used to the loot ammount etc, do you think I will get disappointed unless I try to implement the same ammount of MF into this?
The rings, are they still top choice even if you don't have that many uniques?
And lastly, on a scale from Dinner with inlaws to sex on the beach, how fun is this build to play? (because judging from the video it looks fun as hell)