[3.3] Whispering Ice CI Quad Icestorm Totems

Required:

Whispering Ice build needs Whispering Ice...



Strongly Recommended:

Astramentis gives so much intelligence (and all the strength and dexterity you will need) that pretty much nothing can beat it. If you really want to use a rare amulet instead, you would probably have to spend a lot more currency for something with high Attributes and ES, which could make it slightly easier to get max resists but still not really worth it.

Black Sun Crest gives some really nice % increased Int and the +1 to gem level is also great for the auras, especially Discipline.

Cyclopean Coil gives up to 15% increased Attributes which easily beats anything else in terms of Intelligence which gives a huge boots to damage and ES.


Rares:

This build does not use Perandus rings. I know that such builds can reach over 2k Int, but this build needs more ES due to not having leech. You can also cap your resistances more easily with rares.

you want:

Chest, Gloves and Rings: intelligence, ES and resistances

Boots: Movement speed (at least 25%), intelligence, ES, resistances


Alternatives:

Sin Trek are a great alternative if you want to save some currency, but they only have up to 30 Intelligence and don't have any resistances.

This is a bit of a hard one and can cost a lot because you usually can't get intelligence on a belt but thanks to the Essence of Spite you can. Get a blank crystal belt and gl. In comparison to the Cyclopean Coil, The Crystal Belt loses a lot of damage (around 1k per hit) only to gain a few hundred ES (with a max ES roll) and maybe some resistances.

Shavraonne's Wrappings:


Flasks:

I'm lazy and don't really care about flasks most of the time. As long as you have something against bleed and freeze you are pretty much good to go. If you aren't a complete noob like me though then you probably also want something to counter ignite, maybe also shock and curses.


Jewels:

(Optional) Brute Force Solution for the sockets top left and right of the witch starting area. Need to get one with at least 20 Int.

(Optional) Legacy Energy from Within can be really nice at the Melding cluster. I happen to have a 12% legacy one from before the nerf. If you play on standard and you can afford a legacy one then great but if not then it might just be better to get a jewel with Int and spend the 4 skill points on other passives instead.

Other than that, you just want intelligence with any of the following: increased ES, ES recharge rate, faster start of ES recharge, any of the damage mods that affect aoe cold spell damage, cast speed. If you are unable to max your resists on your gear then you can get some on your Jewels.


My Current Gear:


Note: the chest does not need to be a 6l (see below in gem links)

Icestorm: Spell Totem, Concentrated Effect, Elemental Focus, Controlled Destruction, Cold Penetration, Faster Casting.

Extra info:


Auras (helmet): Discipline, Enlighten, any 2 Purity auras.

Extra info:


Curses: 5l: Orb of Storms, Curse on Hit, Frostbite, Temporal Chains, Increased Critical Strikes

6l: either Elemental Weakness/Enfeeble if you can get a +1 curse amulet or just something like Increased Duration or Blind Support.

Extra info:


In Gloves/Boots: 2l: Flame Dash, Faster Casting. 2l: Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1), Phase Run (lvl 3).
Summon Flame/Stone Golem, Minion and Totem Elemental Resistances, Minion Life + Portal or whatever you want.

Extra info:


MF Possibility:

Weapon Swap: It is possible to have a second 6s Whispering ice with Spell Totem, Culling Strike, Increased Item Rarity and Increased Item Quantity and two damage Gems.

Extra info:

Here's the lvl 91 skill tree in both PoB and poeplanner:

https://pastebin.com/Rk7dLDpE

https://poeplanner.com/AA0AAPsADCUAAHr53TdHa6xFR8BmtQTkItWmKU-ePIx2GmydrqcIj0YdFPrSZp5Y5SoTWiuj8nIPlG9mVNgkVkg2xR8CBAfr5F8q6-58g6eUXl3R_RzcjxoRLSychEhca8NtTLPQH-_rLR-VIMHzgh6IQh3ZQ1T0cR1PNbmnKxFQbRnZWxslS67pAsHF7Bgsv4_60NBHBtvnbAjxin_GkyfviPk3189Jsb6KoS-4kyj6V8kNfDeDpussppDWEZYOSF3yKwoRL6IuUEKMNjy9LEZFfPfBm6H31xhqOVJYB1H7zRYfGFhaUilV4CepFVArJgOadSpxYmhaBFE6FoaCAAAAAAA=

Last points if you ever get them can be used to get any combinations of the following:
Celestial Judgement
Heart of Ice
Storm Weaver
Frost Walker

Not sure if I missed any but if you get this far you will know what else you want.

LL Version:

https://pastebin.com/NdwY4y49

You can get about 20% more damage with this than the other version but you also lose about 1/3 of your ES if using legacy ES gear.

Though I have not tried this version, this is the better version to use in temporary leagues as the ES you can get on rares will not be that much better that a Shavs anyway, making the damage increase of LL easily worth it.

Tl;dr
-Maximum possible is about 1.8M Shaper and 3M regular DPS
-Realistically going to be about 1/10 of that depending on enemy size and movement

The actual DPS of icestorm is impossible to calculate

This is because you can not know how many projectiles actually hit an enemy. An approximation can be made by calculating the maximum possible DPS, which is achieved if every single projectile hits the enemy, and then estimating a percentage of actual hits.

The nature of this build further complicates this though as it first takes time to place each totem and each totem will then require a certain amount of time to cast the skill. Additionally, each skill will last for, in my case, 3.9s which means that multiple instances of the skill are active simultaneously. It will of course take some time for this to wind up to the maximum number of instances of the skill active at the same time.

Damage calculations are vs Shaper if not stated otherwise which means that for other content damage will be higher.

Totem placement speed is 0.25s
Cast time is 0.69s
Duration is 3.9s

from these we can see that it will take about 5s to place all totems and for them to reach max DPS which in may case will come to about 1.8M Shaper, or about 3M regular DPS. During the first 5s, or 4s if the totems are already active but need to start over because the enemy moves, there will be far fewer instances of the skill active and the DPS will go down to about 350k.

So already the probable actual DPS is way lower. On top of that if about half of the projectiles don't even hit the enemy ~ 180k DPS. This also does not take totem deaths into consideration which can further reduce the DPS.

Start with Frostbolt, then get 2x Firestorm gems, one linked to spell totem, one self cast until level 33. By then you should have Ancestral bond and can then go dual Icestorm totems. From there just spend the rest of the passives in just about any order you want. Get CI once you reach the point where your life gets risky low and you start noticing chaos damage. Also probably best to get the nodes past Shaper last and get Zealot's Oath once you have life regen.

Of course you need to go Hierophant so you can get 4 totems. I went Sanctuary of Thought first and then got my 2 extra totems after because the mana cost of the totems can get quite high.

Icestorm doesn't have an enchantment so that kind of sucks. The only ones that are useful are either Flame/Stone Golem Effect or Frostibte Effect. Phase Run Duration is slightly better than nothing too.

Pretty much all glove enchantments suck because they won't do damage so the only ones that will do anything are ones with some kind of utility purpose like chill/distraction.

Boot enchantments are pretty nice though. Best one is: Resistance penetration if you haven't killed recently. Life regen if hit and movement speed if you haven't been hit are also okish.

The passive skill points are the best. The cast and movement speed one could be good too but you could pretty much get similar stats from the Harrier notable if you want and that only costs one point so whether its worth it is up to you.