[3.6] The Blizz Sorc - Icestorm/Winter Orb CI Occultist - Viable For Everything

I'm trying this build too, and having a blast with it
it feel unkillable, I can facetank every syndicate members, the only thing that killed me is Blood Rage + Vulnerability mod, after a boss kill, while standing still...

atm I'm trying AA + Bonechill and I feel like a high lvl CWDT + Cold Snap + Bonechill is better (chilled ground for Cold Snap, and only 0.5sec chill for AA)

another thing, I hate gem swapping before boss, so I got rid off Hypotermia from my support gems, and permanently use Controled Dest + Cold Pen + Conc Effect (more damage, less lag, and still have a good clear speed)

and as a damage boost I'm using Vaal RF, it's very effective and with our e.s regen, the e.s loss is not even noticeable

thanks for this build and I'm looking forward to show it to the uber elder

I just did an unid rare T8 map, and I'm sure it had ele reflect: I noticed that I was taking damage even when hitting frozen mobs. It wasn't anything drastic, but my ES was going down in uneven chunks, i.e. it was hit damage, not DoT. So then I ported out, switched to Yugul and grabbed 4 Sapphire flasks. After that I was able to easily outleech that reflect. It probably wasn't the top tier reflect since the map was yellow, but I don't even have the boot leech enchantment yet, just LL in my staff and a 1-mod Watcher's Eye. Didn't need to use Sibyl's Lament either.

Looks like reflect won't be a problem.

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gajirachan wrote:

atm I'm trying AA + Bonechill and I feel like a high lvl CWDT + Cold Snap + Bonechill is better (chilled ground for Cold Snap, and only 0.5sec chill for AA)

Note that AA also leaves chilled ground, and we get at least 45% chill Duration, and 52% chill effectiveness from our tree, then 44% more from Bonechill gem... meaning that when something hits you, it's 30% more damage to it for around .75 seconds. and when something stands in your ground ice, it's 20% more damage to it.

Where cold snap's ground ice will be 20%... with bonechill linked. Ground Ice is Ground Ice.. and has a base chill of 10%

Thanks for this explenation, I'll keep it linked with AA ;)

Also, for those who don't like blood rage setup that eat away our ES and blocking ES recharge start.

I have different solution, but it comes at the cost of absense of a second WI staff on weapon swap, but on the other hand, it greatly diminishes our gem slot problems.

The things is - blood rage is removed together with gem, but we can't do that in the middle of battle, so we just place it on the weapon swap. So weapon swap, use blood rage, and weapon swap again. That way we can activate "stopped taking DOT damage" even without immortal call, and also it great way to "hurt yourself" before trap of the labyrinth, and activate unstoppable ES recharge to run through it.

But wait, there is more! As you all know, there is new craftable veiled mod, that "trigger socketed spell when use a skill", and those things are cheap as hell. So we can even place our frost bomb setup on it, and activate both blood rage and frost bomb at the same time (frost bomb will not go anywhere even after weapon swap, because the moment it was placed, it become completely independent from our gems). And we can do it with a skill as instant cast, even during the run, without stoping. (or with a skill that we want to use anyway, like vigilant strike)

In short, we can place there any of our supporting skills to cast, and cast it manually alltogether by weapon swap and one button.

There are tons of combo that will ease our life, i will investigate slightly further right now, any ideas are welcomed :) (coldsnap+bonechill, hello ^_^)

P.S. The only downside is that you need to get used to weapon swap notion, and waste "single target setup WI". But on the other hand, i don't even use "single target weapon swap WI" anymore. When i changed to 5 link winter orb, i use that instead for both bossing and map clear. It do both with flying colors. Maybe i will change my mind in more deep late game, but right now single target setup only make me to waste more time.

Update: Cause vigilant strike and fortify isn't one entity, removing vigilant strike from gems don't remove our fortify buff. Also, it's not a spell, so it will not be triggered by veiled mod, and will not clunk our order of skill activation.
So we can safely place vigilant strike+ancestral call+blood rage in one hand, and coldsnap+bonechill+frost bomb in another.

That give us 4 free gem slots at the very least.

Currently feeling very safe with this build, 1670 int and 9.1k ES @ lvl 89. Done up to tier 14, ele reflect is managable, no leach i just skip.

What upgrades do you think I should aim for next?

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SasoriOtoko wrote:

Level 81 - finally broke 6k ES and am doing more mapping. Much stronger now. Made this with an essence and it's not too bad for a self made chest when you're low on funds:

Still need to finish Uber Lab, just 2 trials to go.

I really like this idea. Gonna tinker with it after work.

A really GREAT starter body armour for this build is The Beast Fur Shawl.

The increased ES recovery on it is amazing (it increases the leech cap), and its cost is super low (2-3c) even for near to perfect rolls.

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Jangri wrote:

Currently feeling very safe with this build, 1670 int and 9.1k ES @ lvl 89. Done up to tier 14, ele reflect is managable, no leach i just skip.

What upgrades do you think I should aim for next?

Do you have Watcher's Eye? No Leech is not a problem at all with it, except for T16 bosses (and not even all cases there).

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djnat wrote:

A really GREAT starter body armour for this build is The Beast Fur Shawl.

The increased ES recovery on it is amazing (it increases the leech cap), and its cost is super low (2-3c) even for near to perfect rolls.

As a starter armour, sure. Needs to be replaced before getting into the high tiers.