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

These were recorded in different leagues with different class versions of the build but it works the same for all versions.

Hall of Grandmasters (2.5 Marauder)
Endgame Bosses with Nasty Mods (2.5 Witch)
Tier 16 Guardians (2.5 Marauder)
The Shaper (2.5 Marauder)
Uber Lab (2.5 Marauder)
Xoph's Domain (2.5 Marauder)
Esh's Domain (2.5 Marauder)
Tul's Domain (2.5 Marauder)
Uul-Netols's Domain (2.5 Marauder)
Chayula's Domain (2.5 Marauder)
Uber Atziri (2.3 Witch)
The Pale Council (2.3 Witch)
Leveling as CI (2.4 Templar)

Older videos from the pre-Atlas maps:

Pre-nerf Core Farming with Prophecies (2.3 Witch)
Twinned Bosses (2.2 Scion)
Mapping with Reflect + No Regen (2.2 Scion)

2.5 Breach league, after 3 weeks:

Standard league:

This build is based on Intelligence which provides both offense (Icestorm damage) and defense (ES, leech amount). Converting cold damage to fire maximizes the offensive and defensive power.

Offense


Defense


Utility

Important: Always 20q your staff and chest armor before attempting to 6S them (and linking the armor). Quality improves your roll by a lot. You can do it a lot cheaper than Vorici with average luck, as long as it's 20q.

Mandatory uniques

Recommended uniques

Rare armor/gloves/boots

Belt

Jewels

Enchantment


My gear

Arctic Armour lv 20, ideally 21
Ball Lightning lv 4
Blasphemy 20/20, ideally 20/23
Cast while Channelling 20/20, ideally 21/20
Cold To Fire 20/20, ideally 21/20
Concentrated Effect 20/20, ideally 21/20
Curse on Hit 20/20, ideally 20/23
CWDT lv 1
CWDT lv 20
Discipline lv 20, ideally 21
Enfeeble 20/20, ideally 21/20
Faster Attacks 20/20
Fire Penetration 20/20, ideally 21/20
Fortify any level, ideally 20q
Immortal Call lv 20
Increased Duration 20/20, ideally 20/23
Leap Slam any level
Life Leech any level
Orb of Storms lv 17 or better
Scorching Ray 20/20, ideally 21/20
Summon Chaos Golem 20/20
Temporal Chains 20/20, ideally 20/23
Warlord's Mark any level, ideally 21/20

Optional:
Elemental Focus 20/20, ideally 21/20
Item Rarity 20/20, ideally 20/23
Culling Strike 20/20

Recommended priority of adding quality:
- Faster Attacks
- Blasphemy
- Curse on Hit
- DPS gems: CtF, CwC, Fire Penetration, Concentrated Effect
- Fortify
- Temporal Chains
- Enfeeble
- Inc Duration
- Golem
- Scorching Ray
- Warlord's Mark

Uber Lab farming is the best way to add quality to your gems. You can often find treasure chests filled with random quality gems to vendor for the GCP recipe.

If you are not into Uber Lab farming, then:
- for all gems except the DPS ones, level the gem to 20 or buy an uncorrupted 20/0 gem, vendor the gem + Gemcutter Prism to get a 1/20 gem, and then level that one. You can get them to lv 17-18 in no time, and that is enough for them to be efficient;
- for the DPS gems, level 2 copies at the same time (or buy 20/0) and then vendor one copy with GCP and re-level it in the swap weapons.

Weapon RRRBBB: Life Leech, Cold To Fire, Fire Penetration, Scorching Ray - Cast While Channelling, Concentrated Effect (or Elemental Focus).

Scorching Ray must be linked to CwC. No other links are required, Icestorm automatically uses all support gems in the staff.

The 6th socket:
- Concentrated Effect for max DPS against bosses
- Elemental Focus for slightly lower DPS but larger AoE for map clearing
- Item Rarity for better loot, if the map is easy enough

In the Standard league, you can also swap Fire Penetration for Item Quantity.

For the top bosses, a swap staff for MF culling can be quite useful. RRRBBG: LL, CtF, FP/IQ, SR - CwC, IR, Culling Strike. Swap to it when the boss is at 10% life or less.

In some endgame content (Labyrinth, Atziri/Uber) the extra leech is not needed but extra DPS is very useful. A second staff with 4B2R and Elemental Focus instead of Life Leech is good to have.

Chest 5L: CWDT (lv 1) - Ball Lightning (lv 4) - Curse of Hit (20/20) - Enfeeble (lv 20) - Temporal Chains (lv 20).
Important: CWDT needs to be lv 1 and BL must be lv 4 or lower, do not level these gems! CoH can be any level, 20/20 is highly recommended. Enfeeble and TC must be lv 6 or higher, do level them. This setup will not work with low level curse gems or high level CWDT/BL.

Your body armor doesn't need to be 6L or even 6S. If/when you get a 6L chest, move Orb of Storms to the 6th socket for more curse application or add Enhance for more curse effect.

4L: CWDT - Immortal Call - Increased Duration - Summon Chaos Golem.

3L: Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Fortify.

2L: Blasphemy - Warlord's Mark.

Remaining sockets: Discipline, Arctic Armor, Orb of Storms, and a gem of your choice (e.g. Enlighten for more free mana, Enhance for stronger curses (6L chest), Vaal Discipline, Vaal Lightning Trap, Lightning Warp, Portal, etc).

Other than having to put the 5L into the body armor, the rest can be placed depending on the sockets you have. You will have to off-color 3 sockets in at least one item, so be prepared to spend 200-300 chromatic orbs. If you want the optimal setup, you will have to off-color all 3 items, and 2 of them will be in that 200-300 chrom range:

Helm BBR+any (use Vorici 1B or 2B): Blasphemy - Warlord's Mark - Discipline - gem of your choice.
Gloves/boots RRRB (use Vorici 2R or 3R): CWDT - Immortal Call - Inc Duration - Summon Chaos Golem.
Gloves/boots RRGB (use Vorici 1R): Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Fortify - Orb of Storms.

The final curse comes in at lv 77. Until then you can put Enfeeble into 3L with CWDT-IC, summon the golem manually, and the body armor links are not even needed. You can use the body armor to get around the coloring issues until you are higher level and doing high tier maps.

You can also place the Leap Slam link into the Black Sun Crest wasting its +1 gem level bonus, until you get enough chroms to color everything for the optimal setup.

Lv 88 tree

This build is fully functional as early as lv 69, and fully safe at lv 77 (see the Leveling section). After that you just add Int/damage/ES upgrades every 1-3 levels and go as high as you want.

Kraityn - Kill - Kill

30% total resists for 1 skill point is a very good deal. It lets you use items with lower resists and higher Int/ES. Once your gear gets so good that you overcap your resist by 10% or more, you can always respec Kraityn into a skill point.

Berserker

Berserker get really nice bonuses as long as he keeps killing something. The minor nodes in the Ascendancy tree are mostly wasted as they grant melee-oriented things, but extra attack speed is useful for Leap Slam which becomes significantly less clunky compared to the other versions of the build.

Pain Reaver leeches 1% damage as ES and mana always, plus another 2% if you have killed recently.

Rite of Ruin reduces incoming damage by 6% and makes you immune to stun if you've killed recently. And it grants 25% increased attack speed if you haven't killed recently, to get Fortify in boss fights faster via Leap Slam.

Crave the Slaughter adds another 25% attack speed if you've been hit recently, increasing the speed of Leap Slam (Fortify!) even more in combat. And it grants 15% increased movement speed if you haven't been hit recently which is really nice for clear speed.

Aspect of Carnage adds 40% MORE damage dealt at the price of 10% increased damage taken. That's a great bargain since the MORE modifier is multiplicative (all your damage is simply multiplied by 1.4) while the Increased modifier is additive and only affects the sum of the Increased and Reduced damage (such as Fortify, Chaos Golem and Rite of Ruin).

- Run around, see a pack of mobs, hit them with Scorching Ray + Icestorm.
- If they are not dead yet, Leap Slam into the middle of the pack, pop Orb of Storms and keep channelling Scorching Ray.
- Don't be afraid to tank. This build is VERY tanky. Moreover, you want everything you hit to be in the Warlord's Mark aura.
- You never run out of mana and can pre-cast Icestorm on triggered bosses.
- Warlord's Mark aura covers most of the screen and provides ES and mana leech and endurance charges, plus it makes Icestorm stun lock almost everything.
- Anything that manages to hit you gets chilled, Enfeebled and Temp Chained and can't really hurt you anymore.
- Whenever you take enough damage to notice it, Immortal Call triggers and makes you immune to physical hits (that's most of them) for up to 3-4 sec.
- Your golem pops automatically when you take damage and distracts the enemy.
- Leap Slam to obtain Fortify, hop across the terrain and over Labyrinth traps.
- Be careful, of course. While you can faceroll almost everything, this build still cannot survive the attacks that are meant to 1-shot, such as Atziri's Gigantic Flameblast, Malachai's Teleport Slam, etc. Facetanking high DPS bosses should be done with caution. Use Leap Slam often to get Fortify when it expires. Depending on the map mods, you should be wary of elemental or physical damage that is not a problem without those mods.

This build doesn't depend on flasks to function, so the choice is entirely up to you. All flasks have to be utility ones, because life flasks don't work with CI and mana flasks won't work because you leech mana faster than you spend it and you are almost always at full mana.

I currently use these flasks for most of my mapping in high tiers:

Ruby flask of Staunching protects against bleeding and reflect. Anti-freeze and anti-shock flasks are always a good idea. Quicksilver flasks for faster clearing.

For the very few boss fights where stun is an issue and you may not get adds to get stun immunity (Chimera, Rigwald, some versions of Merveil) use this to trigger Rite of Ruin:

This build can do any map mods and almost any combinations of them.

Mods that grant monsters extra damage, speed, projectiles, AoE: this build is very tanky and can take a lot of punishment. Just be more careful. The same goes for the curses on you and lowered max resists.

Mods that grant monsters more life or resistances: they die a little slower, makes no difference otherwise. You have huge DPS and resist penetration.

Elemental reflect: this build easily outleeches even the top reflect mod, as long as you stay near the mobs you are hitting (i.e. they are covered by the WM aura; avoid range-killing in reflect maps). Because all our damage is fire, we enjoy the 13% LESS incoming fire damage benefit of Arctic Armor, and that works with reflect. Bring a Ruby flask for bosses and rares with additional reflect. Do not combine ele reflect with leech immunity, lowered max resists and Elemental Weakness (unless your fire resist is overcapped). Beware of Necromancers: they can cast Flammability and Elemental Weakness. Have an anti-curse flask with you and don't combine ele reflect with 'inhabited by undead'. Take out Doedre's Damning and put Sibyl's Lament in the left ring slot:


Leech immunity: without the ability to leech you cannot tank well and have to range kill everything; be very careful and avoid reflective rares like plague. Do not combine this with ele reflect.

Hexproof: without the curses you are much more vulnerable to attacks and lose a big source of ES/mana leech. Swap Blasphemy and Warlord's Mark for a Purity aura most helpful for that paricular map.

The % reduced regen mods are not a problem at all, you will not even notice them most of the time. No Regen is fine as long as there is no leech immunity. Pain Reaver leech is more than enough as long as you hit anything. Pop Orb of Storms before Scorching Ray, and stop casting just before the last enemy dies. Or click off Arctic Armour to have more room for error.

See the Boss Guide (moved to a separate post instead of posting a copy for each version of the build; it works the same for all versions)

Problem: It's hard to stay alive after switching to CI.
Cause: You are either not using WM+Blasphemy aura or trying to range kill everything instead of getting close, or you are not using Int+ES items.
Solution: Use WM+Blasphemy and keep everything within your aura. Use the recommended items (see Leveling).

Problem: Not enough mana for WM+Blasphemy aura while leveling.
Cause: You are using Clarity.
Solution: Stop using Clarity. Your two auras should be Discipline and WM+Blasphemy.

Problem: Not leeching enough to stay alive while leveling, even with all mobs in the Blasphemy+WM aura.
Cause: Your DPS is too low, because your Int is too low and/or you are using wrong gems in the staff.
Solution: Use the recommended gear and gems. Make sure you don't neglect to take the jewel sockets as per the Leveling guide, they make a lot of difference while leveling. With appropriate DPS you will easily outleech everything in the storyline content. You MUST use gear with Int AND ES. Re-read the Leveling section starting from "Reaching lv 39" in case you overlooked or forgot something.

Problem: Running out of mana while leveling.
Cause: You are either not using WM+Blasphemy aura, or staying too far away from the enemy, or not using Scorching Ray+CwC.
Solution: Use Scorching Ray+CwC and WM+Blasphemy, keep everything within your aura.

Problem: Getting perma-frozen or stun-locked.
Cause: You don't have protection against freeze and stun yet.
Solution: Until you get Rite of Ruin, don't leap into mob packs. Just cast Scorching Ray/Icestorm and get close enough to leech from them. Carry an anti-freeze flask.

Problem: Leap Slam is very slow.
Cause: Your Faster Attacks gem is too low level or has no quality. You haven't completed your Ascendancy yet.
Solution: Level the Faster Attacks gem and add quality to it. Do the Lab. Leap Slam will get a lot faster.

1. Which version is the build is the best?
It really depends on your goals and personal preferences. The Witch is very powerful all around and almost immune to reflect, I usually recommend trying the Witch first if you haven't played this build yet. The Templar is very good at boss killing and has nice party support perks. The Marauder is very tanky, fast, good for clearing and running the Lab. The Scion has the fastest clear speed and the most ES, although that class is in need of a buff.

2. Is this build HC viable?
Yes, if you are careful. Although the Marauder version is not as safe as the Witch or the Templar. I would recommend one of those two for HC.

3. What map mods should I avoid?
You don't have to avoid any mods, but if you don't want to take risks, avoid these:
- Leech immunity. Without the ability to leech you have to range kill everything, and a random reflective rare means trouble. You can do this mod, but only if you really have to.
- Combinations of elemental reflect with curse immunity, Elemental Weakness or -max res.
- If you are trying to level above 94 or playing in HC, avoid ele reflect and curse immunity to be safe.

Everything else is fine.

4. Can I play this as Low Life with Shavs?
You can but it will be not very good. You will have much less ES, chaos/poison damage will be a thing, and you won't be able to survive the top encounters. The extra auras from reserving life will not compensate for losing so much ES and Int. The 30% MORE damage from Pain Attunement is absolutely not worth the pain. We already use several multiplicative (MORE) damage modifiers.

5. What about Skyforth?
Too expensive, no Int, low ES, no resists and you are already immune to stun most of the time. You can buy amazing body armor, gloves and boots, plus all the required uniques, i.e. your whole set of gear, for less than the price of Skyforth.

6. Can I play this as another class?
Yes. You can play as Witch, Templar, Scion, or perhaps Ranger (I haven't tried that yet).

7. Can I MF with this build?
Yes, even in the highest tiers. This build has much more power than you need to clear most maps with most mods. You can always trade some of that power for more/better drops. Swap Concentrated Effect for Item Rarity (+70% IIR). If you are in the Standard league, swap Fire Penetration for Item Quantity (+44% IIQ). This will only lower your DPS without making you any less safe against most enemies. You can even swap out Life Leech if the map is easy enough. Against the top bosses you can use a swap staff with MF gems and Culling Strike. You can go even further by using items with inferior stats/resists that have MF, depending on how easy the map is for you.

8. Isn't leveling as CI hard?
Not for a build that does tons of AoE damage and leeches ES. The combination of WM+Blasphemy aura with Life Leech makes sure your ES is always replenished. Just don't play a range attacker. Get close to the mobs you are killing. See the Leveling section.

9. Is it hard without Unwavering Stance?
No. Rite of Ruin makes you immune to stun as long as you are killing, i.e. you become immune to stun moments after casting SR/Icestorm and the leech from it is enough to keep you alive even if you get stunned immediately. Most bosses either spawn adds or don't stun you often enough to worry about it. For the select few bosses where stun can be an issue, bring

a.k.a stun immunity in a jar.

10. What about Hyporthermia?
Hypothermia is weaker than the weakest DPS support gem we use (Elemental Focus) and does not work on chill immune targets. All current endgame bosses are immune to chill.

11. What about Heretic's Veil?
No Int, losing 15% Int bonus from Black Sun Crest will hurt. Still won't have enough mana to run all curses as auras. Lv 22 Blasphemy is just more radius but it would lose 20q on Blasphemy (additional 10% curse efficiency). Not worth the sacrifice.

12. What does Orb of Storms do?
It triggers Elemental Overload. Orb of Storms crits per hit, i.e. very, very often. In some endgame boss fights Orb is also used to curse the enemy (see the Boss Guide).

13. Why convert the damage to fire?
Adding fire damage mods on top of the cold damage ones is good for DPS. Dealing with elemental reflect is a lot easier when it's fire because of Arctic Armour. See Build Theory for more details on the offensive and defensive bonuses of the damage conversion. It also makes it much easier to find good jewels.

Leveling with the Whispering Ice is a blast. You can start using it at lv 33 and switch to CI at the same level, although it makes more sense to switch at lv 39. This way you get used to the play style and feel very comfortable by the time you graduate from the storyline content into the maps.

Video: Leveling as CI with the Whispering Ice (Templar version)

Don't listen to the people who say that leveling as CI is hard. It is for other builds, but not for this one, as long as you use the recommended items and take tree nodes in the recommended order.

It does not get any harder at higher levels and diffculties, as long as you do the recommended upgrade in A4C.

Other than the staff (that may cost 1-5c depending on the league), all other items used for leveling from 39 to 70 can almost always be found on poe.trade for 1 alc or less (with a total budget of 10-12 alc plus the staff). Some of the items for leveling can be easily crafted with minimal currency investment.

Before starting

This build is based on The Whispering Ice. You must have the staff before proceeding past lv 39 with this guide. If you don't have the staff, you can level any way you know how, but this guide will not work after lv 39 without Icestorm. Other skills such as Firestorm will not have enough dps/leech for safe and fun leveling as CI.

It is highly recommended to obtain Pyre before lv 39 (or at least before A4C), although a ring with high Int and some resists can work too. If you already have Astramentis, it will make everything trivial.

And the first three jewels. One must be Fertile Mind and one Brute Force Solution, any +Int will do. The last one ideally Izaro's Turmoil, but those can be expensive early in a new league, so a cheap jewel with 2 useful mods (see Gear-Jewels) will do until later.

The following items, or similar, must be obtained before lv 39:

Everything before lv 39 is way too easy and you can use any self-found gear to get there.

Useful twink items for trivializing lv 1-39:


Don't skip quests that give skill or respec points:


Start

Your starting skill is Heavy Strike. Use it to kill Hillock and throw it away. Take ground Slam as your reward from Tarkleigh. If you already have twink gear - great. If not - you'll still do fine. Use a two-handed mace or staff with the most damage you can find.

You will be leveling as a regular life/armor Marauder until lv 39. Any self-found gear with life and armor will do.

Lv 2: Buy a Paua amulet from Nessa for mana regen.

In the skill tree, go up via the Str nodes and head to Shaper:
Your first 11 skill points (lv 11)

Submerged Passage: Go to town and take Ancestral Protector to help you kill rares and bosses.

The Climb: Rescue Navali. Get prophecies from her any time you find silver coins. They can be extremely helpful. Save crafting prophecies for lv 39.

Axiom Prison: Go to town, take Added Fire Damage as your reward from Nyssa, buy another copy from her, support Ground Slam and Ancestral Protector (or just have them all in a 3L until later).

Killed Brutus: Take Rallying Cry as your quest reward and start using it. Buy Leap Slam to leap over obstacles.

Keep moving right, through Foresight, to Harrier:
Lv 18 Tree

Cavern of Wrath: Take Sunder as your reward from Nessa and start using it. From here to lv 39 just annihilate everything in front of you with Sunder and use the totem to help with the bosses.

Act 2: Go West, open the passage, finish The Way Forward, kill Alira, kill The Weaver, take Melee Physical Damage as your reward from Silk.

Lv 18: Support Sunder and Ancestral Protector with Melee Physical Damage. Go East, kill Fidelitas, take Herald of Ash as your reward, start using it.

Lv 20: Equip Astramentis if you have it and say good-bye to stat requirement woes. Help Kraityn.

After Harrier you just prepare for the switch to CI and the Whispering Ice. Take 3 jewels sockets, Vaal Pact, Ghost Reaver, Snowforged:
Lv 35 tree

You can put any jewels that help Sunder (physical, melee, area damage) into those sockets temporarily. You will replace them with the jewels prepared for the Whispering Ice mentioned above.

Finished Crematorium: Take Warlord's Mark as your reward from Maramoa. Do not level this gem if you don't have Astramentis, because you won't have enough Str to use it after converting your Str nodes to Int at lv 39.

Lv 24: Buy Discipline (from another class, Marauder doesn't get this gem) and start leveling it. You don't need to actually use it yet, just put it into a socket and level it.

Lv 31: Help Siosa in the Library, take Fortify as your reward and support Sunder with it (4L).

Killed Voll: Take Summon Chaos Golem as your reward from Oyun and start using it.

Lv 36-38: Save these 3 skill points.

Lv 38: If you have Astramentis, you can start using CWDT - Immortal Call - Inc Duration.

Reaching lv 39 is the turning point of your experience: you can equip your Whispering Ice and spec into CI! Do it! Use the saved points to take CI and Infused Shield:
Lv 39: A4 Normal

Put the prepared jewels into the sockets: Brute Force above the start, Fertile Mind near Vaal pact, and the DPS jewel near Harrier. This will convert your Str and Dex nodes to Int.

You need 59 Str to equip the staff. If you don't have Astramentis, you need an amulet with as much Int as possible and some Str. Look for a rare amulet that has Int or Int+Str implicit, Int explicit and optionally All Stats and extra Str. Example:


Stop using the twink gear. From now on, you must be wearing gear with as much Int and ES as you can find. Your armor, helmet, gloves and boots must have Int AND ES. No need to buy the top rolls this early, just look for cheap items with Int, ES and some resists.

Special mentions:

Shavronne's Pace is by far the best boots for leveling all the way to 70. They are very cheap and common and give you 35% inc movement speed (you are always on full life with CI). Get them.

Icetomb is very common and cheap. It has good Int and ES, takes care of your cold resist and makes you immune to chill.


Doedre's Scorn is another cheap unique great for leveling, and it gives you extra damage for cursing the enemy too. This helmet is good until you reach 1200-1300 Int, somewhere around lv 80-85. After that Black Sun Crest will become the top option.

You can craft your own armor easily with no budget at all. You must have met Haku and Catarina by now. Don't ignore them. Helping them once or twice gets them to lv 2, and you can invite them to your hideout or just place their crafting benches there (type: /claim_crafting_benches).

All you need from the armor at this point is a level-appropriate amount of ES (example: see the wiki for ES gloves; at lv 39 you want Embroidered or Silk gloves) and 20+ Int. Pick up the drops of those types. If you happen to find a magic or rare drop with 20+ Int and extra ES - that's great. If not, you have options:
- if you have a rare drop that already has 20+ Int: craft increased %ES on it (Haku)
- if you have a rare drop without Int: craft Int on it (Catarina)
- if you have a white drop: use a transmutation orb and hope for Int or ES, then use an augmentation orb.

Use the belt slot to get as much resistance as you can.

Your staff should be at least 4S / 2L and have these gems in it, in the order of importance: Scorching Ray, Cast while Channelling, Life Leech, Elemental Focus, Controlled Destruction (5S), Cold To Fire (6S). SR must be linked with CwC. No other links required, all support gems in the staff apply to Icestorm automatically.

Of the staff gems, only Life Leech, Fire Penetration and CwC are available to Marauder, the rest have to be obtained from other classes.

Your two auras must be Discipline and Blasphemy+Warlord's Mark.

From that point on, you will be steamrolling everything on your way through the game. Use Quicksilver flasks to move fast, with various useful mods such as anti-freeze, anti-bleed, extra resists, etc.

Important: If you try to range kill everything, you lose the massive advantage of the WM aura. Don't be afraid to get close to the enemy! Very few enemies can really hurt you through that leech, stun and chill. The radius of the aura is very small at first, but it will grow substantially as you level the gem and take Blast Radius.

Once you get used to this new play style, you can do the Normal Labyrinth. Dodge Izaro, don't tank him. Take Pain Reaver for its awesome leech.

Next:
- Arcane Focus
- Deep Wisdom
- Blast Radius
- Occultist's Dominion
- Fire and Frost Walker
- Elemental Overload
- Avatar of Fire
Lv 55 tree

A4 Cruel: Upgrade your gloves, belt and non-unique jewelry before facing Cruel Daresso and Malachai. Get more Int, ES, and start looking for resists for Merciless.

Elemental Overload: Start using Orb of Storms to trigger it.

Avatar of Fire: Convert your damage to fire for the double-dipping bonuses and resist penetration. Your staff must have Cold to Fire now. Gems: Life Leech, Cold To Fire, SR - CwC, Fire Penetration (5S), Elemental Focus (6S).

Lv 58-59: Close the tree loop by taking the Int nodes down from EO. Refund Foresight and the two ES nodes next to it. You don't need them. 750 Int = 150% increased ES. This build's ES is based almost entirely on Int, not those tiny +%ES nodes. Take Potency of Will.
Lv 59 tree

Next:
- jewel socket between Witch and Templar (Izaro's Turmoil or rare)
- Coldhearted Calculation (Shadow area)
and head to the Templar area:
- Light of Divinity
- Retribution
- Amplify
- Elementalist
Lv 69 tree

Finish the storyline content if you care about it, or grind to lv 73 quickly in the Lake. Don't forget to free Deshret. Grab the final resist/ES nodes:
- Faith and Steel (Templar area)
- Nullification (Shadow area)

Lv 73: Wear your endgame gear and do the Cruel and Merciless Labyrinth. Take Rite of Ruin, then Crave the Slaughter.

You can grind to lv 80 in the Lake easily or work on completing maps for the Atlas bonus. You should be safe enough in low- and mid-tier maps. Keep upgrading your gear.

Get the 3rd curse next:
- Whispers of Doom
Lv 77: Safe and Sound

By then your staff really should be 6S. Gems: Scorching Ray - Cast while Channelling, Life Leech, Cold to Fire, Fire Penetration.
The 6th socket:
- Concentrated Effect for tough bosses
- Elemental Focus for map clearing
- Item Rarity for MF'ing
SR has to be linked with CwC and optionally with EF for more damage. CE, FP and LL never need to be linked.

You are good to go for all content in PoE! Do the Endgame Labyrinth and take Aspect of Carnage. Farm Uber Lab for xp, currency, maps, sellable frags and uniques, random quality gems for the GCP recipe. Get the leech enchantment for your boots, then start enchanting the helmet. And keep working your way through the Atlas.

Video: Uber Lab farm run

Then just add more and more power:
- Lv 79: Templar area jewel socket (Brute Force Solution)
- Lv 81: Witch area jewel socket (Izaro's Turmoil or rare)
- Lv 85: Shadow area jewel socket (Izaro's Turmoil or rare)
- Lv 88: Jewel socket between the Scion start and Vaal Pact (Fertile Mind; a Dex node nearby is converted twice!)
Lv 88: The build is complete

At this level you can comfortably farm T16 and the Shaper once your gear is good enough to survive them.

And for the final levels, should you decide to go that far, a few choices:
- (1 point) replace the useless Curse Cast Speed node near Whispers of Doom with the two Curse Effect nodes (+10% curse efficiency)
- (2 points) Ancestral Knowledge
- (3 points) Trickery
- (3 points) Catalyse, Thief's Craft or Ballistic Mastery (they are all equal and give 40 Int)
- (4 points) jewel socket near Whispers of Doom: Fertile Mind plus Agility, or Brute Force Solution plus Might
You can switch between these options every time you level up. Refund something smaller, grab something bigger.

If/when you manage to overcap your resists with great items, you can drop Nullification, Faith and Steel and eventually even Kraityn and use those points to get more Int/DPS. Do not worry about losing ES nodes, your ES comes from Int.