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

Kelvynn,

What are your DPS, Cast speed, and ES at the moment? I want to see how far I am off.

Thanks,

"

TheHeadsmasher wrote:

Kelvynn,

What are your DPS, Cast speed, and ES at the moment? I want to see how far I am off.

Thanks,

The gear linked above. ES is 11,221.

WI gems still in progress, CtF still lv 19, but CD is now lv 20 with 9q.

I am using Flame Golem all the time, currently lv 19. He very rarely dies and has Minion/Golem Resistance support (got several empty sockets after switching from the old CWDT curse setup to WM aura).

With these gems and golem, the avg dmg tooltip is 4833, at 0.44s/cast time (2.27 cast/sec) and each Icestorm lasts 5.22 sec. The radius is -25% from CE +20% from tree nodes = pretty much the same. Don't take more of the 5% radius nodes, there is a sharp drop in the effective damage after +20% because the shards spread out too far apart (see the linked Firestorm calculator).

Technically, the OP swap of Faster Casting for CE works fine and you can get 0.33s cast time. But in practice perma-CE is just better. Trash dies faster. On tough boss fights you can't stand in 1 spot and spam Icestorm, you have to move after every cast, so doing 60% more dps with 1 cast is far better than casting 25% faster. And even the OP switches from FC to CE for bosses anyhow.

ETA: My jewels are nothing special, all self-found/rolled, definitely need to look for better ones soon:

Kelvynn,

I am currently at Level 87 (6 less passive points compared to yours). All of my gems are level 19 and none has any quality on it.



With this gem:

ES: 7.6K, Damage: 6.86k, Cast: 0.44sec, Last: 5.44s

With this gem:

ES: 7.6K, Damage: 6.21k, Cast: 0.41sec, Last: 5.44s

My damage would go higher when I have 20/20 gems of course.

My build has more offense, but less defense than yours. When I get to Level 93 like you, I will run the numbers again.

(I think I will need to add more defense for the remaining skill points, and upgrade my gear)

Thanks,

Yeah, I was running with 6k+ tooltip while experimenting with higher dps setups. You can totally YOLO glass cannon until lv 90. But somewhere around lv 90-92 after you die a few times you'll need to take a step back and see how much dps you want to trade for survivability that's comfortable for your play style. I'm a huge chicken and I absolutely hate dying. I ran from T15 Daresso around his arena for like 10 min on my 1st kill with this char before realizing that I have already outgeared him and can stop to cast WI a lot more often than once every 10 seconds. :)))

BTW, don't go for cast speed on jewels and don't take any cast speed nodes. We are not spam casting WI, so cast speed doesn't matter all that much. Damage, Int, ES, resists - that's what you want on the jewels.

ETA: Holy crap, I totally missed Izaro's Turmoil. It's not even expensive! Buying it right now! Thanks.

Any of you guys keep getting killed due to suicide? i just switched to CI and as soon as i run up to a mob i instantly get killed (my es isnt touched). Anyone has the same problem?

"

ald1413 wrote:

Any of you guys keep getting killed due to suicide? i just switched to CI and as soon as i run up to a mob i instantly get killed (my es isnt touched). Anyone has the same problem?

nvm im dumb

"

Kelvynn wrote:

2. I dropped one jewel socket (the rightmost one, near GR) and took Amplify and Blast Radius instead, with only 2 of the nearby 5% radius nodes. This lets me use Conc Effect all the time, not just for the bosses. It's a huge boost, another 60% MORE damage, multiplicative, plus 60% increased (additive) too. The Icestorm radius is virtually unchanged (-25% +20%). I specifically picked +20% because it's the sweet spot where you lose only about 10% single target dps compared to the pure Conc Effect. See the

The problem with Con. Effect set up, is not the AoE though. It's the huge cast speed loss with no Faster Casting. It just feels pretty clunky to me :) Side-stepping on HC is really important, so I prefer a higher cast speed, so that I can cast and move aside faster.
Unless you want to offscreen things (which is def. the safest way) but it'll bring up a problem to #5.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

3. I took Potency of Will instead of Exceptional Performance. They do the same thing and you only need one of them. The difference is that the node leading to the former is +Int while the latter is +Dex. To get there, I pathed left from Foresight to connect to the upper-left part of the tree instead of going left from Snowforged. That lost me one +Int node but gained a +6% ES node. Net result: lose +Dex, gain +6% ES.

Hmm, while it's true that you'll gain more ES with this route, you are using 7 points for this, instead of 6 points grabbing Exceptional Performance. So for 10 int + 6% ES, is it worth 1 passive point? It's probably worth it if you already grab all other ES node available out there and still want more ES.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

4. I am not rich and can't afford quite the same amount of ES on the items as the original (check poe.trade prices on stuff like that!). And if you want to reliably kill the top bosses you need to have a ton of ES. So my solution is to drop Alchemist (yes, flasks are nice but ES is nicer) and the 20% mana regen +5 Int node (it's insignificant) near Scion and grab 4 fat ES nodes near Witch (+38% ES!!). This gave me over 11k ES and a lot of security and freedom in map mods. If you are rich and love flasks then the original build works fine I guess. Or you can get like 15k ES instead of Alchemist too.

I drop the mana regen + 5 Int nodes as well, but I think Alchemist is too nice to pass up, esp for Atziri-farmer. There're no cold damage in there (except double Vaal ofc) so you can use Perandus belt. Going from 6 sec to 8 sec Quicksilver, 6 sec resist flask from 4 sec is HUGE, it's 33% increase time, and it helps a lot. For regular map, probably drop-able, yeah.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

5. CWDT+Firestorm+CoH+TC is so 2.0. Drop it easily. Blasphemy Warlord's Mark aura is the new king in 2.1. Drop PoF and get it instead. All you need aura-wise is Discipline + AA + Blasphemy + WM + Enlighten (doesn't even have to be lv 3). It takes care of everything. It doubles your life leech.

I'm currently using Blasephemy + WM as well, but sometime when I try to offscreen an enemy, I'll run out of mana pretty quickly (I only have 200 mana left after reservation). Thanks to Icestorm being a duration skill, so it's more of an annoying issue rather than critical. The leech is damn nice though. Facetanking reflect, Tor. Chamber laser boss, or Palace Dom's lightning spider #FeelsGoodMan.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

6. Auxium! You take US to stop getting stunned/interrupted, meaning you already hate this kind of stuff on a CI char with 1 life. Auxium takes care of the other half of the problem: chill/freeze. I tried Doryani's, Perandus Blazon, Bated Breath, but Auxium was by far the best.

No comment here, Auxium is truly the best belt for map.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

7. Thought about going all-unique. Twice the dps but half the survivability. Not my thing. WI, Astramentis, 2x Perandus Signet, Auxium - 5 uniques is perfect in my opinion.

Pretty much. If you want to do this reliably in temp league, 5 uniques is the way to go.

Hey Kelvynn, I'm interested in your changes to the build.

My questions:

1. Level 20 clarity? Isn't it conventional to only level it part way, because the higher reserved cost is more of an issue? How are you currently able to manage that? Using Mikelat's calculator, I would need a pool of almost 3000 mana to be able to use a 20 Clarity with Blasphemy, Discipline and AA all at the same time - and that's using my 6L to link Clarity in to Enlighten as well (level 3). What am I missing here?

2. You don't have Fire Walker / Frost Walker. Plan to take them later? Or just not worth it?

"

wraeyth wrote:

Hey Kelvynn, I'm interested in your changes to the build.

My questions:

1. Level 20 clarity? Isn't it conventional to only level it part way, because the higher reserved cost is more of an issue? How are you currently able to manage that? Using Mikelat's calculator, I would need a pool of almost 3000 mana to be able to use a 20 Clarity with Blasphemy, Discipline and AA all at the same time - and that's using my 6L to link Clarity in to Enlighten as well (level 3). What am I missing here?

2. You don't have Fire Walker / Frost Walker. Plan to take them later? Or just not worth it?

Clarity is only used for curse immune maps, instead of WM aura. I put it in instead of Blasphemy so it's benefitting from Enlighten as well. For any map that's not curse immune, WM aura > all.

I dropped Fire/Frost Walker temporarily because of my current resist situation: 2 of my self-rolled jewels ended up having resists, and with the chest/gloves/boots I have I ended up with 135/138/135 resists without the Walkers. But now I want to use these awesome new Izaro jewels (they are not limited to 1! it's totally amazing for this build). Going to take the Walkers back at the price of some minor ES loss. Funny thing, I am 1 node short for that at lv 93! As _Gaia_ noticed, that switch to the better effect duration cluster costs 1 more node. Guess I can switch back to the original setup, but I'm close enough to lv 94 to wait.

I'm planning to reach lv 94 tonight and post an update.

"

_Gaia_ wrote:

The problem with Con. Effect set up, is not the AoE though. It's the huge cast speed loss with no Faster Casting. It just feels pretty clunky to me :) Side-stepping on HC is really important, so I prefer a higher cast speed, so that I can cast and move aside faster.

Right after switching from FC to perma-CE, the change in the casting rhythm felt pretty big. But I adjusted very quickly and have no problem with it now.

The thing is, you already use CE for boss fights, i.e. where the mobility matters the most. So you have to adjust to it anyway. May as well adjust once and for all.

But here's an alternative: if you really want to cast faster, you can use FC instead of CD. You lose less dps than dropping CE. Maybe the AoE radius nodes were not worth taking in the original build, but they definitely are in 2.1 after they got buffed with damage, so using CE is not associated with tiny Icestorm radius anymore, and CD is weaker than CE.

"

_Gaia_ wrote:

I drop the mana regen + 5 Int nodes as well, but I think Alchemist is too nice to pass up, esp for Atziri-farmer. There're no cold damage in there (except double Vaal ofc) so you can use Perandus belt. Going from 6 sec to 8 sec Quicksilver, 6 sec resist flask from 4 sec is HUGE, it's 33% increase time, and it helps a lot. For regular map, probably drop-able, yeah.

Just for Uber Atziri? The regular one is trivial for me with this gear already. As I mentioned, switching to high level CWDT+IC with WM aura completely trivialized the Trio fight. And for Atziri herself I use these flasks:

and they are more than enough. I'm yet to use up even half of their charges on the regular Atziri, so it's mostly overgearing in preparation for Uber. I think it will be enough for it too. Hard to check, with the amount of grind or currency required to try Uber.