[3.5] The Blinding Blizzard - Whispering Ice CI Elequisitor - Viable For Everything

You said it fires 1 projectile unlinked which is untrue. The skill itself says fires projectile"S" read it again. The purpose of it for this build would only to channel for Icestorm still so you're argument is invalid in this case. If for some reason it does good damage that is still just a bonus and we would never support the channel skill instead of Icestorm.

it maybe could be supported by spell cascade

"

Inialla wrote:

it maybe could be supported by spell cascade

I don't think that will work. Spell Cascade says "Supports spell skills that apply an effect to an area around a targeted location." While Winter Orb has an AoE tag, the skill auto-targets the impact, rather than us targeting the location.

With that said, we could switch out Spell Cascade for Inc AoE in the clearing setup and link it with Winter Orb, which would increase clearing damage for Icestorm and the impact AoE for Winter Orb. Should also help FPS!

"

Kelvynn wrote:

For OCC the Ascendancy looks obvious now: Frigid Wake + Vile Bastion. OCC defenses look insane (except for reflect). But how much damage would they cost...

I think Malediction is better (+Whispers of Doom on the skilltree). That way we can use 3 curses - Elemental Weakness, Frostbite and Enfeeble or Temp. Chains) which give -% cold resistances even more than Void Beacon. Besides Malediction gives 'enemies take 10% increased damage' and '10% reduced damage'. Which is even better than Frigid Wake.

"

ReitanRyu wrote:

You said it fires 1 projectile unlinked which is untrue. The skill itself says fires projectile"S" read it again. The purpose of it for this build would only to channel for Icestorm still so you're argument is invalid in this case. If for some reason it does good damage that is still just a bonus and we would never support the channel skill instead of Icestorm.

In the video released earlier showcasing Winter Orb, the skill was supported by GMP and fired five projectiles per volley. Based on that, it is safe to assume it fires one projectile as a base.

"

ReitanRyu wrote:

You said it fires 1 projectile unlinked which is untrue. The skill itself says fires projectile"S" read it again. The purpose of it for this build would only to channel for Icestorm still so you're argument is invalid in this case. If for some reason it does good damage that is still just a bonus and we would never support the channel skill instead of Icestorm.

Or you just do a gem swap for really hard content. This does tons of damage, you can map with GMP on instead of Hypothermia for 95% of content.

it's just a bad wording.
In the description they said "15% increased projectile frequency per stage"

no "S"

Well, now that i think about this. When we had additional staff on weapon swap with spell cascade for map clearing, we have no problem to have additional staff with GMP instead.
It will all come in "how good is winter orb at map clearing". It may be still worth it.

P.S. Also, it was supported by "faster casting", right? I generally think that it just make stacks charge faster. But maybe it also increase frequency.
I just can't explain that high rate of fire in video by any other way.

Wow, the 'day before the league start' frenzy! :)

I'm working on updating this thread for 3.5 and creating the Occultist one. I'll try to add the 'pure cold' option to this existing build, since I doubt that I'll have time to support 3 separate threads.

Some quick answers:

- We don't care how much damage WO does, therefore that GMP discussion doesn't concern this build. When those reddit people say it requires GMP 'to function' they mean 'to have enough damage and clear speed'. They are talking about using WO as the main skill. But our main skill is Icestorm, and WO is only a delivery vessel and a source of extra hits. Icestorm does all the damage, and Watcher's Eye heals you even if your hits do zero damage (that's why it's so good for fossil farming in the dark).

- Damage Over Time: no. Icestorm is not a DoT skill. It keeps hitting over time, but it's not the same kind of 'damage over time' as things like Vortex.

- Regen/recharge vs VP: not even close. VP leech is fantastic for tanking and cannot be replaced by regen/recharge. The closest those things came to VP was before the big ES nerf when somebody made a mirror-level Occultist with 30k ES or something like that, that could outregen T16 bosses. But it was all about ES and had crappy damage and took forever to kill anything serious.

I'm hoping to use the pure-ice version for my character this league, so I hope you can at least tack it onto this thread (it seems like it'll be a couple of changes, but not very much).

Thank you Kelvynn!