[2.6] The Curse Whisperer - Tri-Curse CI Whispering Ice Elementalist - Viable for Everything

"

FBomb666 wrote:

I apologize for the noob question, but here goes: with the Pyre nerf announced, I was wondering why do we have to convert our cold damage to fire damage? Couldn't we just focus on cold damage - replace fire penetration gem with a cold penetration gem? We wouldn't have to go for Avatar of Fire, so two skill points saved there (maybe try to incorporate Heart of Ice?). Unfortunately this would mean Astramentis would be required (otherwise it would be very difficult to reach the required dex for max gem). Also it would require one of the sockets on the staff itself to be green. We would lose out on some damage on the tree (Fire Walker, Snow Forged). I'm guessing I answered my own question, the cons outweigh the pros? Any comments?

"

Kelvynn wrote:

Offense

Spoiler

The Whispering Ice grants you a unique skill - Icestorm - that scales with your Intelligence stat and uses any support gems in the staff without the need to link them (a free 7-link).

The initial cold damage is converted to fire. This lets us take advantage of both Fire and Cold damage modifiers, as well as the bonuses from the Flame golem and Elementalist Ascendancy nodes.

More details

Spoiler

Icestorm is a high DPS skill. Its true DPS is hard to calculate, and it can vary depending on too many things, so the game only shows average damage per hit. Icestorm hits 10 times per second by producing a small AoE explosion in a random spot within the area of attack. What makes this build really shine is resistance penetration (see below). Resistant enemies, including all serious bosses, take a much larger percentage of our damage than they do from most other builds.

We use several support gems that increase the damage multiplicatively:

Fire Penetration is equivalent to 38-152% MORE damage depending on the enemy resists. It can make the target's resists negative, so against an enemy with no Fire resistance it makes their resistance go to -38% resulting in 38% MORE damage. A boss with max Fire resistance (hard capped at 75%) would take only 25% of incoming fire damage without penetration. But this gem penetrates 38% of it and makes them take 25+38=63% damage dealt, or 152% MORE. Elementalist Ascendancy class adds another 25% resist penetration, increasing our damage modifier from penetration to 63% MORE damage against trash and an incredible 252% MORE damage against bosses and other resistant enemies.

Concentrated Effect is 60% MORE plus 10% increased. Reduced AoE radius is increased back to almost the same size by the Blast Radius and Amplify nodes. The combined radius is only 10% smaller than the original for 6 sec of every 10 sec, and for the other 4 sec it's even larger than the original thanks to Pendulum of Destruction.

Elemental Focus is 50% MORE plus 10% increased. The chilled ground created by Icestorm works regardless of this gem, it's a completely separate effect.

Converting Icestorm damage to fire maximizes the offensive bonus of Flame Golem to 80% with Liege of the Primordial and adds another 40% increased damage against enemies that hit you with fire.

Cast while Channelling is 10% MORE plus 10% increased. And it sets the casting speed of Icestorm to 0.35 sec which is much faster than it could be cast directly.

Scorching Ray is used to cast Icestorm (via Cast while Channelling) while also doing its own burning damage and applying up to -24% fire resistance debuff on the target which stacks with Fire Penetration.

Because this build is not a crit one, we use a secondary skill to trigger Elemental Overload's 40% MORE damage benefit. Orb of Storms works the best because it can benefit from the increased AoE and skill duration. And it also triggers Mastermind of Discord's fire penetration effect.

Warlord's Mark causes everything that's not a boss or curse immune to be stun locked by Icestorm.

"

FBomb666 wrote:

Ah crap, I meant to post my question under the Marauder section where the bonuses from the Flame golem and Elementalist Ascendancy nodes don't really apply (he uses chaos golem). Sorry about that.