[3.1] The Blinding Blizzard - Whispering Ice Berserker - Viable for Most Everything

Yes std gear have been bought only for testing extreme combos...main concern is temp league, business as usual
Except for cases finding new league unplayable (seems this will be not the case for 3.1.0)
Now collecting "geld" for some phys unarmed/Starforge corrupted facebreaker (vuln)/Gruthkul's Pelt and vaal's for 6L 1+all Infernal Mantle totem build (almost done)
Involving real money for game (except for MTX) and buying exalts for stuff is too far for me
And assets available in every temp league are simply not sufficient for doing it all..

Hey Kelvyn,

Long time follower here (pre-Ascendancy I think) albeit not posting much.
Thank you for another throughout guide, super easy to read and follow.

It's funny, everytime I wanted to make a WI build from scratch I was like "why bother, there's that dude who already know everything to be known about WI, let's just copy him". I only play HC temp league though, so I did some minimal changes (mainly not using Black Sun Crest and Izaro Turmoil, gearing more defensively)

I have to admit, after living through the glorious day of pre-3.0 WI (I did Inquisistor), reading 3.0 patch notes was really sad and make me forget about WI for a while. It didn't dawn upon me until I read a reddit post about going life based Berserker with WI and I was like "hmm, that might work!", and lo and behold, you already make a guide with 70+ pages on it. I've lived under a rock.

I can feel the staff's sulky eyes starring at me, crying off in corner, asking me why did I abandon it for so long. At this point I've already semi-quit HC Harbinger, so I decided to give WI a try in Turmoil HC.

Got to level 87 without much trouble, in face I just facetank everything (it's hilarious seeing my Gladiator Sunder friend run away like a chicken from Breach lord, while I just stand there and kick it butts). I wasn't able to push to 90 because I don't have enough time, but with 5k life, 2.5k mana unreserved, ele weakness capped, 7.5k average damage, it was only a matter of time.



Here's some thoughts:

1. I didn't start the race with it, because I wanted to at least get some leveling gears, and uniques needed to have a smooth sail to endgame, instead of struggling with res and life (still, I did a10 Kitava with 3k life, lowest I've ever done in HC). Gears with Int are hard to find in Turmoil HC, because low population = not a lot of good drops, but still pretty easy to manage. For a regular temp league, should be much easier.

2. Vaal Pact is love, Vaal Pact is life. I'm VERY, VERY skeptical about new VP. Doesn't matter if you get good leech cap or leech rate, it's still not instant. Of course, I'll shamelessly count on Kelvyn to test and give us another OP WI build if it's still viable.

3. A friend gave me Kaom's Heart few hours ago. As you can see, I have a small high level CWDT in my set up, and I can count on more than 5 occasions that it has saved my char (getting stunned once from very fast mobs before I was able to cast WI). I also play agressively and recklessly, combined with the nasty mods map (Alch and "Oh, no reflect, go", lol), so in the end I decided not use it.

"

_Gaia_ wrote:

Hey Kelvyn,

Long time follower here (pre-Ascendancy I think) albeit not posting much.
Thank you for another throughout guide, super easy to read and follow.

It's funny, everytime I wanted to make a WI build from scratch I was like "why bother, there's that dude who already know everything to be known about WI, let's just copy him".

Thanks! Glad that you like it.

"

Got to level 87 without much trouble, in face I just facetank everything (it's hilarious seeing my Gladiator Sunder friend run away like a chicken from Breach lord, while I just stand there and kick it butts).

I had but a couple of days to spend on the Turmoil race, and I wanted to get a feel for the Slayer (because we may be heading into a Slayer meta in 3.1), so I played a Sunder Slayer to lv 75. While I love clear speed builds blowing through the trash, I got another reminder of how squishy all those 'mathil' builds are. Breaches were the perfect example. Annihilate the normal spawns, but pray that you don't find a breachlord or notice him in time and run away before he wrecks you. :)

"

2. Vaal Pact is love, Vaal Pact is life. I'm VERY, VERY skeptical about new VP. Doesn't matter if you get good leech cap or leech rate, it's still not instant. Of course, I'll shamelessly count on Kelvyn to test and give us another OP WI build if it's still viable.

It's not as much about VP itself as the ability to keep doing damage and leeching without having to constantly attack. You can move, use other skills, pop flasks, get stunned momentarily - all the while Icestorm keeps going.

Since you liked the Inquisitor version, check out Lord_Seru in my profile. It's current (3.0), self-cast Icestorm taking advantage of the Ascendancy cast speed, CI (screw chaos damage), no VP, mega Inq regen combined with the limited GR leech, and the highest damage mitigation of all my WI builds (CI + Inca + Inq aura, on top of the defenses that all other classes use). I tested him in Standard and nothing could touch him below T16. Only got some trouble in T16 and had to move out of the Shaper beam. But still managed to kill everything. The ones that don't do constant damage (Phoenix and Hydra) were the easiest: they couldn't 1-shot him with all that mitigation, and by the time they'd attack again he'd already regen to full.

I was expecting VP to be completely destroyed in 3.1, so that was my plan for 3.1. But now I'm not sure. Depending on what else changes in 3.1, VP may still remain the strongest option. We'll know soon enough.

Hi, Kelvyn, I love your choice of this building. He's so cheap that it makes it easy for us to face boss. According to the changes of 3.1 VP, what new ideas and improvements do you have over the next season?

"

hades2525 wrote:

Hi, Kelvyn, I love your choice of this building. He's so cheap that it makes it easy for us to face boss. According to the changes of 3.1 VP, what new ideas and improvements do you have over the next season?

Check the last 2 pages. The final choice of class will be made closer to the 3.1 release, when more details come out.

I'm finally going to try WI in 3.1 after stalking your WI build/s over the last couple of leagues, here's hoping for a good synergy with Slayer and/or at least a still-viable Berserker otherwise. Thanks for all your efforts Kelvynn!

Hi kel

I played the tourmoil with a 2 h sunder build. I dont try wi because i dont see how to get the gear in 10 days with my playtime. And sunder dont need gear. At least i get 82 and had with not soo good gear 100000 dmg. While it was really fine for trash (much faster then wi) it was a pain with bosses. Some wasnt a problem, other (all much movement bosses or special esh breach lord) you only can run away or die).
now with vaal pact nerf incoming i tried your no vp build in std and it was verry squishy. i died verry often. i think its my playstye from playing long time wi. But i hope it will be better in 3.1.
Last question. how do you think it will be with the breach 2.0. as i see we must walk the breach and there will be more and more bigger monster. So do you think it will be fast enought to kill all this mobs. the clearspeed isnt so good as for example the sunder build.

(i tried 2 chayula this league and never was fast enought).

"

ichbinwerichbi wrote:

now with vaal pact nerf incoming i tried your no vp build in std and it was verry squishy. i died verry often. i think its my playstye from playing long time wi. But i hope it will be better in 3.1.

Which build was that? The CI Inquisitor with Incandescent Heart? And you died a lot on that? Check if you took the same Ascendancy nodes as Lord_Seru. And use Sulphur flasks. The Brine King + Yugul/Tukohama was my choice of Pantheon. I had no issues with all that regen and 3 curses. However, I didn't level him with this setup, he was already lv 92, so maybe it's harder while leveling.

"

Last question. how do you think it will be with the breach 2.0. as i see we must walk the breach and there will be more and more bigger monster. So do you think it will be fast enought to kill all this mobs. the clearspeed isnt so good as for example the sunder build.

(i tried 2 chayula this league and never was fast enought).

From the teaser videos it doesn't seem to require high clear speed. The abyss crack does some pathing while spawning minor trash, and opens the large hole soon enough that spawns rares. I don't think it will be hard to follow it, unless you have no ms on your boots at all.

It looks like a 1-dimensional breach. Moving in one direction and killing everything along the way was never a problem with the breaches. We only fell behind the clear speed builds when it came to clearing a wide open area and moving from side to side.

Hi Kel

Thanks for the fast replay. then i look forward and hope the build will work as usual.

i played a sunder 2 hand berserker mara. Was really fast at trash but with multistrike there is often a problem with bosses for me. After having collect a big amount of attak speed it works better.

As a dont get it i ask for help here.

for the 38 challenge i need only the cursed king with the wolf barrage dmg. I tried it 5 times and never get it. Perhaps someone can help me get this?
Would be great.
the next was get splinter from unique breach monsters. Is there a trick like the port map boss to get breaches. my plan for now is to get zana 8 what i get in 2 days and then take the breach mod. But perhaps there is another hint how to get the splinter. opening breaches wasent effektiv.

if this is possible i would had the first time ever 39 challenges.