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

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DrLestatt wrote:

Could you explain why you took Zealot's Oath?

This build doesn't use ZO. You must be looking at Elemental Overload?


Video update:

MF'ing Double Curse Twin Dominus: I need more portals!

Does my casting really look too slow or 'clunky' without FC? I'm so used to playing like this, maybe I just don't see it.

Added MF gem swap option to the Links and Q&A.

Why would you tell someone to level as CI ? There's no point in looking for high es gear around lvl 40, imo it's better to just level as hybrid, also you don't need that chaos res from CI on lvl 33.

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golombx wrote:

Why would you tell someone to level as CI ? There's no point in looking for high es gear around lvl 40, imo it's better to just level as hybrid, also you don't need that chaos res from CI on lvl 33.

I leveled with CI the last days and it was no hassle at all, to the contrary, I don't see the advantage as hybrid. You can run discipline at that point and build up a lot of ES due to int, the extra multipliers behind CI certainly help with that. You don't need high ES gear, I pretty much used whatever ES or even EVA/ES items had useful sockets, had int or had resist stats that I wanted. My chestpiece around lvl 50-65 was a 6 socket with 227 EVA and 154 ES.

If you run hybrid, you have to decide to either leech life or ES, so you can't easily keep your whole defense pool up. Even though chaos damage isn't that common, you encounter it often enough that it likely gets annoying to play with almost no life under the energy shield, and picking life nodes for leveling seems weird if it works fine as CI.

That's my current setup - and I've been using FC for pretty much the entire time so in my opinion it does feel sluggish when you cast your icestorm (it's like when I'm doing Temporal chains which is like the most annoying thing ever) but if you're used to it then no wonder you are fine with it. I wanted to switch FC out but I just can't stand slower cast speed after getting used to it so much.


I decided to level without any respecs so I didn't put any points into life and just went with ES at the start and got CI around 3k ES. It was a real nightmare in the beginning especialy since I only got my Whispering Ice around level 45 and doing all that with firestorm just isn't it.
Don't think I would do that again.

PS.
Why are you not using a damage flask instead of one of the quicksilvers? It's 40% damage and it's pretty much all the time.

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Kelvynn wrote:

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DrLestatt wrote:

Could you explain why you took Zealot's Oath?

This build doesn't use ZO. You must be looking at Elemental Overload?


Video update:

MF'ing Double Curse Twin Dominus: I need more portals!

Does my casting really look too slow or 'clunky' without FC? I'm so used to playing like this, maybe I just don't see it.

Added MF gem swap option to the Links and Q&A.

Oh ok , i forgot to refresh you tree on your character and it previously had ZO.
my bad then :p

Just one quick question, dont you think spell echo is an hassle to farm maps in term of clean speeds? (casting is kind of long due to that)

What do you think of replacing this gem by Increased AOE, for map <T12, because i suppose the dps would be enough and it would increase the clearspeed.
For bosses , spell echo is a must i agree.

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golombx wrote:

Why would you tell someone to level as CI ? There's no point in looking for high es gear around lvl 40, imo it's better to just level as hybrid, also you don't need that chaos res from CI on lvl 33.

Have you tried it? Maybe in the old metas it was hard. I keep seeing different CI builds recommending that you level as a hybrid and then use all or most of your respec points to switch to CI at lv 60-70. But it's a big misconception now. At least since 2.1, leveling as CI is a breeze thanks to Blasphemy. You don't need to look for high ES gear, just use whatever ES gear you find on your way. You will be steamrolling everything with self-found stuff with this build (as long as you have WI). And while you don't need chaos res at lv 33 yet, you need it soon enough, as you reach A4N around lv 33.

I leveled my Standard league WI Scion as a hybrid till lv 60-ish following Baalorlord's guide (written before 2.0 I think). Then I leveled my Perandus league char as CI from lv 33. Maybe I'm not very good at leveling as a hybrid, but my experience as CI was 10x more enjoyable, much faster and almost deathless (merc Daresso and Malachai got me twice each cause I went after them at lv 64 YOLO style with self-found gear in the new league).

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werchiel wrote:

That's my current setup - and I've been using FC for pretty much the entire time so in my opinion it does feel sluggish when you cast your icestorm (it's like when I'm doing Temporal chains which is like the most annoying thing ever) but if you're used to it then no wonder you are fine with it. I wanted to switch FC out but I just can't stand slower cast speed after getting used to it so much.

Noted. Guess it's just a matter of habit. I rephrased the Links section

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werchiel wrote:

I decided to level without any respecs so I didn't put any points into life and just went with ES at the start and got CI around 3k ES. It was a real nightmare in the beginning especialy since I only got my Whispering Ice around level 45 and doing all that with firestorm just isn't it.
Don't think I would do that again.

Firestorm? That was probably a mistake. Lightning Tendrils work really well and only cost 4 respec points. But I suspect you might have missed something else.

What allows you to steamroll as CI is the ability to leech ES. To do that, you need to get up close and personal with the enemy, have the WM aura cover them. As a bonus, it also stuns them a lot. If you were playing the traditional Firestorm range killing everything, you missed all the fun of the WM aura leech/stun.

Added a note about the importance of this to the Leveling section.

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werchiel wrote:

Why are you not using a damage flask instead of one of the quicksilvers? It's 40% damage and it's pretty much all the time.

I prefer Quicksilver cause I like moving fast. You like FC, that's about 30% faster casting. Quicksilver is 40-70% faster moving (depending on whether the map is dangerous enough to care about freeze/shock/curse/ignite).

Sulphur flasks are awesome. Not only they give you permanent 40% increased damage (which amounts to about +600 avg hit for me), but they are also 4-use flasks (15/60) with the Reduced Charges prefix. However, with my current DPS (thanks in part to not using FC) nothing short of Core Malachai, Vaal Temple and Uber requires them. Everything else can be done much faster with Quicksilvers.

I really don't see how anybody can spend more time casting than moving. You run to a pack, cast Icestorm once or twice depending on how spread out the mobs are, and then you move again: loot the stuff they drop and run to the next pack. It's 1-2 sec casting and 5-10 sec moving. That's why I say that FC is much less helpful in fast mapping than Quicksilver.

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DrLestatt wrote:

Just one quick question, dont you think spell echo is an hassle to farm maps in term of clean speeds? (casting is kind of long due to that)

What do you think of replacing this gem by Increased AOE, for map <T12, because i suppose the dps would be enough and it would increase the clearspeed.
For bosses , spell echo is a must i agree.

Spell Echo increases your DPS by 2.5x (see Offense - Details). Without it you will definitely need to cast Icestorm more. Swapping out CD and CE for FC and AoE will hurt your DPS less than swapping out Spell Echo. That's an option I totally wouldn't recommend.

1. It looks to me like a large benefit of going Elementalist is being able to get Elemental Conflux and then getting all the benefits of Burning, Shock, and Freeze. But Elemental Focus completely negates this. I'm assuming the +more elemental damage far outweighs the benefits of status ailments plus whatever support gem you could possibly replace Elemental Focus with?

2. Considering your recommended stat priorities for armor, should I be crafting +max ES / +ES% onto my armor gear? Or should I craft +Int? I see most people craft +res%...
(This is my chest which I plan to craft)


I'm kind of a newb so apologies in advance if my questions are silly.

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0Lime0 wrote:

1. It looks to me like a large benefit of going Elementalist is being able to get Elemental Conflux and then getting all the benefits of Burning, Shock, and Freeze. But Elemental Focus completely negates this. I'm assuming the +more elemental damage far outweighs the benefits of status ailments plus whatever support gem you could possibly replace Elemental Focus with?

2. Considering your recommended stat priorities for armor, should I be crafting +max ES / +ES% onto my armor gear? Or should I craft +Int? I see most people craft +res%...
(This is my chest which I plan to craft)

I'm kind of a newb so apologies in advance if my questions are silly.

Elemental Conflux is a very short duration buff that you only get for killing a rare or unique enemy. It wouldn't make any difference for us even if it was not negated by EF: too rare and too short. We get Elementalist for the other 3 benefits: +5% res penetration, 4% reduced incoming ele damage and 30% increased fire damage with Flame Golem.

You cannot craft any more ES onto that item, it already has 3 prefixes (see poeaffix). Craft 30 Int on it unless you are lacking resists.

The most common thing to craft is resists, because ideally it should already have ES and 40+ Int. You can only craft 30 Int max and very little ES. Your item is very decent except for lacking Int.

Your Enchantment list in the starting post isn't correct, as far as I know. Enchantments are not picked totally random, the "tier" you get is bound to the lab difficulty. Furthermore, the list of enchantments was datamined when the league started and it seems like the mods labeled with "lvl 75" on several sites are in the game for later use, they are not available yet.

For helmets, the wiki lists 361 mods by the way, not 325, but I didn't doublecheck the whole thing for anomalies or errors, so I basically got no idea which number is correct. However, you obviously run merciless for the best enchantment tier, so the lottery boils down to 13 glove, 15 boot and 325/361/a ton of helmet enchantments.

The hightest variant for each ench needs be deleted from your list and your helmet chances adjusted.


By the way, I tried the other pathing I suggested and like it very much. I lack the comparison obviously and it made me favour resistances a bit more than extremely high ES for my rares, but still, I'm happy I went for it. I'm also playing around with other gem setups a bit, for the non-weapon pieces.

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Noted. Guess it's just a matter of habit. I rephrased the Links section

I believe that you should either go with FC from the start or don't touch it at all. I swapped FC for Item Rarity since I just steamroll through maps anyways and it is a pain to get used to it. But I already noticed that it is less and less of a hassle as time passes so I will probably reach my comfort zone again.

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Firestorm? That was probably a mistake. Lightning Tendrils work really well and only cost 4 respec points. But I suspect you might have missed something else.

I figured since the mechanichs of firestorm are simmilair to icestorm I may as well see if I'm going to like it before I invest too much. Now I did realize that my effectiveness will skyrocket once I switch to icestorm so that thought made me hold on and it turned out well for me. I at least learned something.

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What allows you to steamroll as CI is the ability to leech ES. To do that, you need to get up close and personal with the enemy, have the WM aura cover them. As a bonus, it also stuns them a lot. If you were playing the traditional Firestorm range killing everything, you missed all the fun of the WM aura leech/stun

On one hand I do agree. On another however - it should be noted that some bosses cannot be hadndled like that. I mention it since this is my first character that I got to a high level (or so I would say) and using Icestorm allows you to facetanks 90% of the stuff you encounter. But then you go against Trio or Atziri and you realize facetanking is not an option. So I think it would actually be a useful thing to add for new players - not to take facetanking for granted as this is a mistake I made and I'm speaking from a perspective of someone who was completely green before. Most people will probably be aware of that if they played another build before but as your first one - building awareness matters.
Also - instead of taking increased duration for Enfeeble I took increased radius. I figured that anything that gets enfeebled will die anyway before the duration is over (save for beefy bosses) so I may as well cover a wider area. Not sure if it's a good thing overall but I haven't faced a problem so far and it is working out - I will have to see if the increased duration would make any difference on Uber.

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I prefer Quicksilver cause I like moving fast. You like FC, that's about 30% faster casting. Quicksilver is 40-70% faster moving (depending on whether the map is dangerous enough to care about freeze/shock/curse/ignite).

Sulphur flasks are awesome. Not only they give you permanent 40% increased damage (which amounts to about +600 avg hit for me), but they are also 4-use flasks (15/60) with the Reduced Charges prefix. However, with my current DPS (thanks in part to not using FC) nothing short of Core Malachai, Vaal Temple and Uber requires them. Everything else can be done much faster with Quicksilvers.

I really don't see how anybody can spend more time casting than moving. You run to a pack, cast Icestorm once or twice depending on how spread out the mobs are, and then you move again: loot the stuff they drop and run to the next pack. It's 1-2 sec casting and 5-10 sec moving. That's why I say that FC is much less helpful in fast mapping than Quicksilver.

I feel ya. But still - 1 quicksilver allows me to have around 75% uptime on it (not counting casting) so with 2 it should be a 100% uptime. That's why I would rather have one damage flask for tankier bosses purpose especially since I don't lose anything as like I mentioned I already have a high uptime. I'm still getting used to playing without FC so maybe my feelings will change in time.