[2.6] The Curse Whisperer - Tri-Curse CI Whispering Ice Elementalist - Viable for Everything
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well, i was just thinking that even though this was designed to facetank, i never played it like that really. so in theory you could try to dodge more when 3.0 comes but... at least before.. if i missed a dodge i didn't get one shot. the builds is slow as hell. i guess that's why it was designed to justsit there and take the hits
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" the thing isnt even that this build is slow... my selfcast version with haste aura, vaal haste, a silver flask, and cast speed corruptions on the rings as well as the 150% inc buff of the lightning golem helm enchant was very quick and smooth. no, the point is that icestorm is a duration skill that only hits it's true singletarget potential if you stack icestorms on top of a boss. therefore, moving around is a stronger dps loss than say on a bow build, where you conly lose mild amounts of damage by stutter stepping. another thing the ES nerf means is that we lose one flask slot to add a life flask... I wouldnt even mind the ES nerf if they buffed life a bit. but in it's current state, life is just so fucking weak. even if one invests a ton in life, you are still susceptible to oneshots or strong boss attacks in general. life is in a pitiful state; and bringing ES down to this pitiful state as well just sucks. there are tons of builds who get destroyed by the ES nerf just like this one. |
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" the things is, a lot of builds that get rekt in th ES version can still go life. if you are good with mechanics you can go 4.5k life and avoid 99% of one shots. sadly that's not the same case for wi. i mean, unless the 3.0 tree comes with some pathing improvements to get more life or at least more dps, wi will be a novelty build for guys with mirror tier gear and high lvl toons. :) i did play most of legacy league on 8k es with wi but i didn't have to worry about a lot of stuff. with 8k life pool and vp... gl doing lab. that's if you get 8k hp. i don't think even the new hybrid life rolls will help much. |
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awesome guide. grea job. it says whispering ice staff is lvl 33 though. the guide mentions lvl 39 everywhere. did it use to require lvl 39 to equip?
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" no, but you will really struggle to sustain the mana cost of icestorm at lvl 33. and the cast speed is painfully slow at that level. at lvl 38, you gain access to cwc, which solves the mana and cast speed issue. at lvl 39, you can equip the icetomb chest and the doedres helmet, which buff your ES a lot and add a good chunk of int. therefore, kelvynn some time ago changed his guide to recommend the switch to WI at lvl 39 (instead of 33 as in earlier iterations). Last edited by Black_Gun#7476 on May 21, 2017, 5:54:31 PM
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" alright thanks for clearing that up (for other users aswell wondering the same) |
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the new scion elementalist and raider ascendancies look nice. maybe scion is an option again. but yeah, the question remains if this build will be worthwhile at all after the axing of vaal pact. currently, I'm still assuming that life based mom berserker is the (only) way to go in 3.0...
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" My initial testing indicates that Life/AR/MoM is viable. Just need more Life. With the buffs to gear mods in 3.0 and hopefully some good changes in the tree it can be fine with more than just Berserker. Zerker leech is awesome, but he also takes significantly more damage than Elementalist. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on May 23, 2017, 12:08:07 PM
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I really dont see elementalist being worth it in 3.0. Going life means that more passive point have to be spent on life nodes, which means less points for offense. This, in turn, means a loss of damage. Berserker offers four(!) additional advantages in 3.0 that it didnt have in the 2.6 CI setups:
1.: 100% leech from cloaked in savagery, which means that nothing outside of oneshots can kill us. 2.: a huge leech rate from cloaked in savagery which completely negates reflect. 3.: the huge leech rate from cloaked in savagery allows us to skip the warlords mark curse which frees up one ring slot or 4 passive points. 4.: the huge leech rate also means we dont need the life leech gem anymore, which allows us to make up for the lost damage from having to spend more passive points on ehp by getting an additional damage multiplier. those points all work in favour of berserker over elementalist and werent a factor until now. IMHO, this tilts the "class balance" for WI strongly in favour of berserker. Last edited by Black_Gun#7476 on May 24, 2017, 12:09:49 PM
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Yes, as it stands right now, if you try Life in 2.6, Berserker is the way to go. But we don't know the extent of the changes in 3.0 yet. Elementalist still has 3 major advantages over Berserker:
1. Mastermind penetration. Roughly counters Aspect of Carnage. 2. Tons of increased elemental damage. Roughly counters an extra gem. 3. Paragon defenses. Compensates for the extra leech. My experimental Life/MoM zerker has 9k Icestorm tooltip even after trading a lot of DPS for Life. But he kills T16 bosses visibly slower than my current league Elementalist with 7k tooltip. The offensive mechanics of this class are really, really good. So if it can get enough Life to survive in 3.0 without zerker-esque leech it will be fine. The fact that T1 Life on gear will increase by a lot in 3.0 - that alone might just be enough. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on May 24, 2017, 3:47:06 PM
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