[3.5] The Blinding Blizzard - Whispering Ice CI Elequisitor - Viable For Everything
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Hello everyone,
I am fairly new to the game, started a month ago to be exact. After trying out my end-game-viable-self-created(irony) builds in hardcore league, I wanted to check out some community created builds. Since I love playing spellcaster characters, this build come to my attention and I wanted to give it a try. In hardcore league again. Levelling was fun and I felt super powerful but when I switched to CI my experience turned into "being afraid of everything". This was my first time trying CI ofc and not having anything to fill your "health" or not regenerating while taking damage was terrifying at first. Being in hardcore league makes it worse for sure :) I reached level 90 with this build, my highest level ever. I have not clearly completed my atlas or defeated big bad guys, but I killed elder and guardians at least. Since I have other friends in hardcore league with me, from time to time I am waiting for them to level up their "new"(rip hardcore) character and helping them with bosses. I made some tweaks to the build which made me more comfortable playing and I want to share them with you. First of all, I can't go without armour or evasion. I feel terrified when I take big chunks of damage and hope to recover them with life leech. I know Tukohoma + arctic armour gives some physical damage reduction but It was not enough for me, being a new player in hardcore league. So I decided to go with atziri and shaper's touch. Atziri has decent ES and some armour and evasion. Shaper's touch makes your high stats more valuable and gives insane amount of evasion with some armour. I also throw in a molten shell gem into my CWDT setup for extra physical damage defense. I am not entirely sure about mechanics but preventing 250 physical damage every 528 damage is insanely powerful. Now I have some questions. 1- Is Vaal Pact %100 necessary for this build? I always wanted to have some form of regeneration by taking Zealot's Oath. Which I imagine would make life easier in labs. [I am afraid to test it in hardcore league :)] 2- I am super afraid of this but do you think this can be turned into a low life build? Running all purities with enlighten + current auras with blood magic might make room for easier choices in other items. If you do so, Shavronne makes you lose tons of ES would you need to use a Presence of Chayula to make up for it or Can you keep the Astramentis with sweet sweet stats? 3- Do you have any suggestions for me to focus on other than saving up 30+ ex for a good watcher's eye? :) And my current items:
Spoiler
Last edited by seratk#7070 on Apr 14, 2018, 11:36:02 AM
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" Just how much does that elder ring cost? :) I don't think it's a realistic option for many people. Discipline was also nerfed and it won't give you a lot of ES. Lv 20 Discipline will become lv 22 and give you +14 base ES. Lv 21 will become lv 23 and give you +17 base ES. That's actually a downgrade from even a semi-decent Moonstone ring. 104% increased damage on Mark of the Shaper is a DPS upgrade, but only in a combo with a very good elder ring, since you get no Int on one ring. You also get no resists on it, so it's going to be that much harder to max resists. And 6% inc ES is a downgrade from a ring with good flat ES. And you lose the option to swap 1 ring for no regen/no leech maps (you'll just have to swap both rings and have a special pair of rings for that). And it makes the Fenumus setup impossible too. The 'bonus' feature of Mark of the Shaper is also extremely annoying - spawning the 'vortex balls' is not exactly what you want to do, especially while clearing Shaper-influenced maps or fighting the Shaper himself. Overall, I don't think it's worth the pain. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Apr 14, 2018, 1:36:22 PM
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" Grats on lv 90 in HC! That's a respectable achievement! Of course, your play style is not exactly what the build is designed for. If you want to be super careful, there was a Guardian version of WI, with huge AR, all 81% resists and all the other defenses. The price for that was low DPS, and it still couldn't facetank the endgame. But for the purpose of getting to high level in HC without going into the top tiers it would be very safe. Molten Shell isn't useful because CWDT has a cooldown. Vaal Pact is extremely important for tanking. With it you can restore 40% of your ES per second, without it - only 20%. It doubles your tankability. Sorrow of the Divine doesn't work with VP. Low Life is possible, but it won't really make you safer. You'll have lower ES and become vulnerable to chaos damage, and there is a LOT of chaos damage in the game. Your resists should already be maxed without the Purities, or over-maxed for EW in HC. Using items like Shaper's Touch doesn't help, of course. AR/ES Atziri's Splendour is a decent option for HC. You get no Int, but since you are not going after the endgame things you don't really need a lot of DPS. But Shaper's Touch is really not worth it IMO. Replacing Astramentis is only an option if you can get one of those extremely expensive Shaper amulets with %inc stats. Watcher's Eyes with the Discipline mod are that expensive in HC? Wow! Why aren't you using Vigilant Strike? Wouldn't Fortify be fantastic for HC? I suggest dumping Molten Shell and using VS. ETA: Looked at your actual char... You don't have Exceptional Performance!! That's a huge buff you are missing. Get it ASAP! Drop the jewel socket near AoF and get it. And you are missing 1 skill point somewhere. Check your quests. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Apr 14, 2018, 2:01:46 PM
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thanks for the reply.
" I will think about replacing it. " I was aware of the Zealot's oath not working but i was using it for consecrated ground(Inquisitor ascendancy). Now I realized that all sulphur flasks have that. I will replace it. " I can't find a good vaal regalia which exceeds 600es in hardcore. Also they are damn pricy. But i might change the Shaper's touch. BTW this is my tooltip damage in town. Is it really that bad?
Spoiler
 " Other than being expensive there is none with discipline mod that is listed for sale. I have been checking offline for a week now. Even it is listed it will be 80ex or something for sure. " I tried using it. But it was very hard to get accustomed with. I almost died once while trying use it and dumped it. I know fortify is huge defensive bonus. Maybe I should practice it on low level areas. " I will dump the 2 points reaching Faith and Steel and take it. I was keeping 1 point unspent so there is no missing side quest. Last edited by seratk#7070 on Apr 14, 2018, 3:39:16 PM
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In your setup with Splendour, you should keep Faith & Steel and drop Nullification instead, since you have AR on gear.
VS is of course only useful when you tank things. Ancestral Call is a great support for it, although I see that you prefer to add duration to IC, that's not a bad idea for HC. 8k Icestorm tooltip in town is not bad at all! What's your ES with Discipline? It's too bad that Watcher's Eyes are too rare/expensive in HC. I can see why: it requires killing a yellow or red tier Elder while killing the adds quickly. Most HC builds are too defensive or too low DPS to farm the jewels. But you should be able to. There is pretty much nothing a yellow Elder can do to you. Eradicator is more dangerous, but shouldn't be that bad in yellow tiers either. Farming the Elder for the jewels should be very profitable in HC. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Apr 14, 2018, 4:28:13 PM
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Great build, it is refreshing seeing people doing completely different builds, and doing it well.
Besides it is one of the most complete guides out there. It has sections about how to deal with every boss in the game, how to level up, and so on. I may give it a shot in standard. Thanks for sharing and congratulations again (by the way, if you are new in the game and reading this: THIS IS PROBABLY ONE OF THE CHEAPEST BUILDS THAT CAN DO UBER ELDER). Last edited by Jedity1#4840 on Apr 14, 2018, 5:24:29 PM
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" I have 9200 ES with discipline right now. I managed to get it above 10k but than dropped some of it for more damage recently by jewel adjustments. By more i mean %25 more damage in tool-tip and i think it was good trade off for lost 800 ES.(I had around 6.4k damage in town before) I do not understand how atlas works properly yet, so my atlas is very unefficient probably.There is too much stuff to comprehend, but I am learning day to day :) I have one more question. How about using leap-slam tied to fortify support and faster attacks instead of flame dash + vigilant strike? It sounds kinda stupid but it might be more usable for me than VS idk. I think wise oak flask is really good hybrid flask if you manage to get your all uncapped resists to same value. it is a little bit hard work but you get %10 less damage taken for each element + %15 penetration during flask effect. It makes a good solution for +ELE damage map modes imho. BTW really really thank you for making this guide. It is really comprehensive, fun and powerful. |
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Is there anything horribly wrong with still going for a life version of this build? I ask because I just had my first Kaom's heart finally drop. I'll have to level a Scion just for this, so I want to make sure it still can work that way before I start. Thanks!
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" You need to get tons of int for more damage which give %ES increase which makes going ES logical. You would be missing that bonus by going life build. |
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" Life version is too squishy for the endgame. You can get about 7k life with Kaom's and a good amount of life nodes at the price of some DPS. But you can have 9k ES easier than that, and with higher DPS. And dealing with chaos damage is annoying. And things like the Lab become harder since you need to bring life flasks and heal yourself instead of simply stopping to recharge ES. Things are so much easier with CI. Just sell that Kaom's and get yourself some nice stuff. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Apr 14, 2018, 9:30:14 PM
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