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

body part with INT is hard to find with a reasonable price, how much would you spend on a ES 750+ INT40+ and nice resist...

Build is solid. Just did merciless lab at level 59 without too much trouble. For leveling, Doedre's Damning + Asenath's Gentle Touch steamrolls everything.

Some significant updates coming soon, based on my experience in the Prophecy league. Mostly optimizing the build for a lower target level, since the recent xp nerf makes leveling past 90 a lot slower than before. I'm going to aim at lv 90-91 now to achieve the intended all-target power level, instead of lv 93-94.

First, the Perandus Signet is getting relegated from 'recommended' to 'luxury upgrade'. My gear in Prophecy is about as good as it can reasonably get after 3-4 weeks in a new league for most players. I use:

Gloves = 60c, boots = 40c, ring = 10c. I've seen a lot of similar items for similar prices, so it's not hard to get. Very high Int and ES on gloves/boots, but low total resists. The ring is used to fix the resists.

At lv 90, if I replace this ring with Perandus Signet, I gain about 250 ES and 350 Icestorm dmg and lose a crapload of resists. If I then try to balance my resists without the ring, I will have to use boots/gloves with less ES/Int, thus losing more than I gain from Perandus. And the prices on boots/gloves with 50 Int and 200 ES and two good resist mods, if you can even find any on the market, will be an order of magnitude higher. Paying 20 ex just to gain 250 ES and 350 damage is totally unreasonable.

You can use jewels with resists to compensate, but then you lose more dmg and/or ES than otherwise. Izaro's have gone up in price a lot since they became Lab-only, and it's much easier and cheaper to find rare jewels with similar amounts of increased damage plus ES (in the form of Int), or even better.

The variation with Pyre? But that requires a ring slot. So you either need expensive chest/boots/gloves to achieve the same damage (and lower ES) as the main version, or you drop to dual-curse and become a lot more vulnerable.

Witch's Int is generally lower than the Scion's. And now the level is also lower than in 2.2. The percentage bonus from Perandus Signet is getting too insignificant to be worth the pain. Perandus Signet (especially the legacy version in Standard) is still great, but only if you go at least a few levels higher (like 94-95).

Another big change: drop Faith and Steel, help Kraityn instead. You get +10 all resists instead of +8, you don't get 15% increased ES, and you save a skill point (i.e. a level!).

Increased ES nodes are overrated for the build that has extremely high Int. 75 Int ~ 15% inc ES. With 1500 Int you already have 300% inc ES. All the inc ES nodes are completely insignificant compared to that. The only ES node that matters is Infused Shield because it's MORE, not Increased. I'm not even sure we need Arcane Focus, but I haven't gone as far as testing without it yet.

ES loss from dropping Faith and Steel is totally minor, and achieving the build goals 1 level earlier is great. You can always get it later if you feel like, but I didn't notice any difference. In fact, what got me to reconsider the whole ES thing was this: I ran Uber Lab, enchanted my helm, which removed my Discipline and WM aura buffs. But I forgot to recast them and went to MF a twinned Palace map with -maxres and extra dmg mods (with IIR as the 6th gem in WI). And only noticed that I had 6k ES and no WM aura after the twin Doms were dead. :) You only need as much ES as you can lose in 1-2 hits, then it's all leeched back.

So I hope y'all got 20 regrets!

Now I just need to get my boot enchantment and this char is done. Going to update the guide and make some vids in the Prophecy league.

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Kelvynn wrote:

The variation with Pyre? But that requires a ring slot. So you either need expensive chest/boots/gloves to achieve the same damage (and lower ES) as the main version

Actually no, using pyre allows us to replace the cold to fire gem, which is equivalent to a 30% more multiplier, with controlled destruction, which is a 45% more multiplier. This change is equivalent to gaining a 11.5% more multiplier (1.45/1.3 = 1.115385).

In your build, just replace the rare ring with pyre. Losing only 55 int is, in terms of damage, more than compensated by the effective 11.5% more multiplier we gain from the gem swap that is enabled by pyre. Pyre also offers up to 65% total res, which is only marginally below what a rare ring can offer. Yes, you lose some ES by all of this, but it also frees up a passive skill point from AoF, plus a 10int travel point on the way to AoF. So by using pyre, you can get all the important stuff two levels earlier than before.

You should really give it a try!

"

Black_Gun wrote:

"

Kelvynn wrote:

The variation with Pyre? But that requires a ring slot. So you either need expensive chest/boots/gloves to achieve the same damage (and lower ES) as the main version

Actually no, using pyre allows us to replace the cold to fire gem, which is equivalent to a 30% more multiplier, with controlled destruction, which is a 45% more multiplier. This change is equivalent to gaining a 11.5% more multiplier (1.45/1.3 = 1.115385).

In your build, just replace the rare ring with pyre. Losing only 55 int is, in terms of damage, more than compensated by the effective 11.5% more multiplier we gain from the gem swap that is enabled by pyre. Pyre also offers up to 65% total res, which is only marginally below what a rare ring can offer. Yes, you lose some ES by all of this, but it also frees up a passive skill point from AoF, plus a 10int travel point on the way to AoF. So by using pyre, you can get all the important stuff two levels earlier than before.

You should really give it a try!

I'll check. If the damage is really close and the ES loss is not major then it could be worth doing. Levels/skill points are becoming a lot more valuable now. That xp nerf is no joke.

Checked the Pyre version. IT WORKS!

After replacing the rare ring with Pyre and replacing AoF with a generic 10 Int node, I lost exactly 200 ES and gained 330 avg damage with a lv 19 CD gem (i.e. it will be more with lv 20). Even a less than 1:1 trade of ES for DPS is good, and this is 1:1.5. But most importantly, build goals can be achieved 2 levels earlier!

Great idea. Thank you whoever suggested it first. It's been suggested even before the Witch version was created, but for a high lv Scion it was not very good. Now for the Witch in 2.3 it works well.

The only issue is that it makes balancing resists slightly harder. I still have excess resists with my items, but there is a significantly more need for Lightning res now. With a rare ring balancing resists was trivial. Now there is less freedom in gearing: you need to get two high Light Res mods somewhere on the chest/gloves/boots. But that's reasonable. Especially seeing as the required budget is even less now. Pyre is one of the cheapest rings on the market.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

Checked the Pyre version. IT WORKS!

After replacing the rare ring with Pyre and replacing AoF with a generic 10 Int node, I lost exactly 200 ES and gained 330 avg damage with a lv 19 CD gem (i.e. it will be more with lv 20). Even a less than 1:1 trade of ES for DPS is good, and this is 1:1.5. But most importantly, build goals can be achieved 2 levels earlier!

Great idea. Thank you whoever suggested it first. It's been suggested even before the Witch version was created, but for a high lv Scion it was not very good. Now for the Witch in 2.3 it works well.

The only issue is that it makes balancing resists slightly harder. I still have excess resists with my items, but there is a significantly more need for Lightning res now. With a rare ring balancing resists was trivial. Now there is less freedom in gearing: you need to get two high Light Res mods somewhere on the chest/gloves/boots. But that's reasonable. Especially seeing as the required budget is even less now. Pyre is one of the cheapest rings on the market.

Great to hear that it works. Props to whoever had the idea from me as well.

I remember when someone brought it up back in 2.2 for the scion version - it wasnt worth it since the build was already using all the good gems, the only option to replace cold to fire would have been hypothermia, which is less of a gain and also doesnt work against certain bosses and with certain map mods (status ailment immunity). So everyone ditched that idea. For the same reasons, my Berserker version of this build (that I'm playing in prophecy) doesnt benefit from pyre. But the elementalist and 2.3 scion versions do. Cool stuff^^

I still have to consider to replace a rare ring to Pyre version, if the rare ring gives 40+ es, I will lose 200es. that's total 450+es with INT.

is a perandus still better ?

well i m probably the one who loses most of my dps for playing such devensive jewels ;/
probably put 50ex into this witch and probably have less avg dmg as ur version ;/

mfg
Majin

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hkbutubaman wrote:

I still have to consider to replace a rare ring to Pyre version, if the rare ring gives 40+ es, I will lose 200es. that's total 450+es with INT.

Replacing the ring (whether it's Perandus or rare) with Pyre means trading ES for DPS, plus achieving build goals 2 levels earlier. I estimate that I'll gain about 400 avg dmg with a 20/20 CD gem. Trading 450 ES even for 350 dmg (my lv 19 CD) is already a good deal IMO. You only need as much ES as you can lose in 1-2 hits before you leech it all back.

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Majin111 wrote:

is a perandus still better ?

well i m probably the one who loses most of my dps for playing such devensive jewels ;/
probably put 50ex into this witch and probably have less avg dmg as ur version ;/

With your high budget all-unique version Perandus should be still better because it gives a lot of extra Int for all those uniques. And it will only get better as you level higher (I assume you intend to go higher, since you invested that much into it already).