[2.5] 2600+ Int Whispering Ice Guardian. Wonderous Wizard of Wisdom

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WaffleT wrote:

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leichenlager wrote:

ah right i missed that part i guess , my bad. i happen to have 80 int acuity on my bow char so thats nice to hear. guess the 80 int is superior to anything else even if the rest of the stats from acuity arent very useful.

Yeah with perfect gear the build has 100% increased Int so that becomes 160 Int which is more ES and damage then anything else in the glove slot. The rest of the stats are not very important but the armour is pretty good as the build does scale armour

yea i guess the armor is also nice to have. i rarely play standard and im trying to buy the missing gear for more than 2 hours now. its such a pain people just never reply. they dont even bother relogging to standard from league for an item that costs multiple exalted. sigh. sorry end for my rant here. thanks for the help about the upgrade part i missed.

Nice to see you're still rockin' WI. I finally had a Shav's drop so I decided to try the LL build and while I have 9k ES, I'm finding it almost impossible to stay alive with regards to some monsters.

I thought the build would play pretty much just like a CI build but that's not the case. I'm getting chunked down like crazy despite having the 2% leech and Vaal Pact.

For example, the porcupines absolutely wreck me with their spines. I'm guessing that's the pierce but my ES just plummets and since there are no flasks that refill ES, I just watch myself die. This seems unaffected by bleed immunity flasks, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Chaos damage being a thing too makes desecrated ground really difficult to deal with as again, no ES regen like life builds.

So what do you do because getting chaos resist doesn't seem like an option (or getting much of it to make some sort of difference anyway). It's fine when you're motoring and leeching but outside of that, I feel like I have 1k ES.

Again, never played a Shav's build so maybe I'm doing something wrong?

This is the best WI variant I've seen by far ^^

The main reasons I abandoned my WI is light radius and the lack of good mobility options.

Aren't you annoyed by the light radius with that helmet? For me, it was very uncomfortable in indoor maps. I was thinking on using another helmet, but there aren't that many good options, vertex is the best I can think of.


I see that you have lightning warp in your boots, but without any reduced duration. Which tells me you only use to jump over some walls. Have you ever tried warp + faster casting + less duration + rapid decay? How does it compare to walking with quicksilver flask? (I don't have 20/20 gems to compare)

Edit: for the guy above me, try cast when stunned + frostwall

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Nice to see you're still rockin' WI. I finally had a Shav's drop so I decided to try the LL build and while I have 9k ES, I'm finding it almost impossible to stay alive with regards to some monsters.

I thought the build would play pretty much just like a CI build but that's not the case. I'm getting chunked down like crazy despite having the 2% leech and Vaal Pact.

For example, the porcupines absolutely wreck me with their spines. I'm guessing that's the pierce but my ES just plummets and since there are no flasks that refill ES, I just watch myself die. This seems unaffected by bleed immunity flasks, so I'm not sure what's going on.

Chaos damage being a thing too makes desecrated ground really difficult to deal with as again, no ES regen like life builds.

So what do you do because getting chaos resist doesn't seem like an option (or getting much of it to make some sort of difference anyway). It's fine when you're motoring and leeching but outside of that, I feel like I have 1k ES.

Again, never played a Shav's build so maybe I'm doing something wrong?

Hey mate. First of all, your characters are not public so it's hard to give you specific Advice.

As for Chaos Resist, I do not go anywhere without using an Atziri's Promise flask. Free more damage/more leech multiplier + chaos resist on demand, I pop it vs any reflect mob or chaos damage that I see or just bosses for damage boost, You're not getting out of neg res but it helps a lot.

I also carry a Basalt flask which helps vs the spines, I trust that you are indeed a guardian as the guide suggests and have the extra phys resist from ascendancy, that's good too. As always if you want to be tankier vs phys spike damage just add a chaos golem to your setup. I also have commandment of reflection on my gloves which also ends up tanking projectiles often.

As for no flasks to refill ES, I would never run an ES focused build without having Vaal Discipline, you rarely need it but when you do it is an absolute lifesaver.

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dulahan200 wrote:

Aren't you annoyed by the light radius with that helmet? For me, it was very uncomfortable in indoor maps. I was thinking on using another helmet, but there aren't that many good options, vertex is the best I can think of.


Edit: for the guy above me, try cast when stunned + frostwall

I think you forget that if you are following this guide you cannot be stunned, CWDT is good, I find CWDT IC does help vs multiple Porcupines dying at once.

I'm not sure about WaffleT but if I had to choose a different Helmet with this build I think I would go Alpha's howl. Gets you 23 purities + discipline. Pushes for more mana reservation reduction Also cannot be frozen is a super nice mod that you now don't need on flasks(those 5 second freezes as ES build man.) Also with Alpha's you don't need to take the cold res node on the tree and can get more int.

As for the Lightning warp, it seems to me that WaffleT values leveling spare gems quite a bit. Which is a fair option, All gems in my main setup are functional and I still don't run a 4 link Lightning warp, it just seems like a heavy gem investment where I could get nice CWDT setups with things like automated Chaos Golem's. Feel free to look at my links on my Muttering Madness character(the only thing I would change with infinite chroms is replacing Vortex with Inc duration or replace Decoy totem if I had 6l)

@_Tiem as Drahnier mentioned since your profile is private we can't actually tell if you are doing something wrong. Porcupines do physical damage and this build gets more physical mitigation then any CI build I've ever seen since from the guardians notables so if you are dying on this character but not a CI one then I'm not sure what you are doing.

Porcupines do have a large amount of damage when you kill too many at once and this is a problem that can be solved with mechanical play by using storms on the edge of the screen and running away as they die. I needed to do that before I got my armour and damage levels higher and could start face tanking more. Making sure to pop your Basalt flask or taste of hate also help reduce that incoming damage

Pretty much all chaos damage in the game is rare and not that hard to avoid. Desecrated ground I find not that troubling as you just make sure not to stand on it while attacking bosses and outleech it during general clearing. The suggestion of an Atziri's promise would also help if your finding that a problem its a pretty good and cheap flask.


@dulahan200
I don't actually notice the lower light radius. You do have arcane vision allocated right? Maybe its just not a big deal for me or my screen is brighter.

Yeah if you really wanted to swap then I'd probably choose vertex as well. Alphas howl is an interesting suggestion and it might be worth a go. I think vertex is more likely to be better then alphas though, alphas only makes your discipline 1 level higher then black sun and thats going to be a lot less ES then is provided by the 15% int that black sun gives so if you need to change then you probably need to change to something that gives more ES like vertex

In terms of gems I do value leveling ones more then the ideal setup. I use level 2 enlightens as much as possible instead of level 3 because I want that experience going towards something I can vaal for a profit.

The ideal setup for lightning warp is the 4 link you mentioned but when you get enough high level enlightens to start running haste instead of arctic armour then both the warping speed and normal running speed become good enough that it doesn't feel that needed and I only still have the warp to jump over gaps and to escape the vaal glacial hammer prison that one of the map bosses does. You can see in my videos that I never warp as even with all the supports you can do more accurate dodges with the high movement speed of the character

@Drahnier123 / @WaffleT

I'm actually using an Elementalist because I already had one and aside from the ascendancy, it's the same basic tree. I've been using a WI build for like pretty much a year+ so I know my away around. I just had the Sav's drop in the past few weeks and wanted to make use of it.

Gear is identical to the original build here (and Waffle's original Witch build).

I guess it's just very low physical resistance that I'm suffering from, I guess the bane of every caster. I have a curse on hit setup with WM to get some ECes but that's pretty situational given boss encounters or packs you meet for the first time and tbh, doesn't help much with regards to porcupines as you have to kill them to get the charges and killing them is what causes all the problems.

I guess I just gotta accept the fact that phys damage will always be this looming thing, just wasn't sure what the pitfalls of a LL build was as I've never used Shavs. It's sort of the achilles heel of WI (I guess unless you go Templar) or most casters and makes the builds very unacceptable to being chunked down very quick from big hits. But I do agree chaos damage is far and few between. And I don't think a single boss makes use of it really.

Maybe I should just buckle down and level a Templar :p

Also, for what it's worth, I found using Voidbringer is too good to pass up. Getting that extra crit change to spark EO is a pretty big bonus but the added ES is huge. I guess you could always corrupt them too to get the curse on hit.

Thanks guys :)

Thanks for the build guide, I am having a blast playing it. I am doing the skyforth and acuity variant.

I was deciding between the witch variant or the guardian, and since I saw ur high level upgrade includes these 2 items as well as shav which I happen to have, the decision was made.

I wanted to share a slight variant that I am running, not better or worst, just personal taste.

I took the 2 mana reservation nodes by Templar instead of the aura effective node.

This enables me to run AA as well as haste, PoI, PoL, PoF, PoE, lvl 19 clarity and discipline.

so in the Shav, I have BM linked with Enlighten lvl 4, AA, POL, POE, and i reserve 99% of my life.

On mana, then I have about 300 free after reserving discipline, POI, POF, Haste and clarity.

My ultimate goal after few more levels is to get a lab enchant to reduce the reservation on disc/haste/one of the purities. get a lvl 16 clarity corrupted implicit on belt so I save a gem space, and a 5L6S shav. so the spare socket in shav can run Lightening warp/lighten golem on mana and not be affected by BM

After all these, I can then run HoI as well for a little bit more dps boost... Totally not worth the gear investment, but it's something to aim for lol.

My other 4L is orb of storm, inc crit chance, curse on hit and frostbite. I am forgoing the CWDT and IC but since it's SC and I have AA, doesn't seem to trouble me so far.

Once again thanks for the build :)

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@Drahnier123 / @WaffleT

I'm actually using an Elementalist because I already had one and aside from the ascendancy, it's the same basic tree. I've been using a WI build for like pretty much a year+ so I know my away around. I just had the Sav's drop in the past few weeks and wanted to make use of it.

Gear is identical to the original build here (and Waffle's original Witch build).

I guess it's just very low physical resistance that I'm suffering from, I guess the bane of every caster. I have a curse on hit setup with WM to get some ECes but that's pretty situational given boss encounters or packs you meet for the first time and tbh, doesn't help much with regards to porcupines as you have to kill them to get the charges and killing them is what causes all the problems.

I guess I just gotta accept the fact that phys damage will always be this looming thing, just wasn't sure what the pitfalls of a LL build was as I've never used Shavs. It's sort of the achilles heel of WI (I guess unless you go Templar) or most casters and makes the builds very unacceptable to being chunked down very quick from big hits. But I do agree chaos damage is far and few between. And I don't think a single boss makes use of it really.

Maybe I should just buckle down and level a Templar :p

Also, for what it's worth, I found using Voidbringer is too good to pass up. Getting that extra crit change to spark EO is a pretty big bonus but the added ES is huge. I guess you could always corrupt them too to get the curse on hit.

Thanks guys :)

Physical damage is always a concern for ES builds. Lowlife and CI have exactly the same issues of dealing with it and have the same danger of getting one shot by it unless they go templar and all the defences that it offers. I'm suprised that you managed to get 9k ES on a witch as getting the flat ES through its mana is a large part of the build. I'm guessing you cut damage and Int from the tree to get ES nodes and dealt with the auras being less effective then the templars.

Yeah I've never died to chaos damage. Its all so easy to avoid in the game that I don't really think about it most of the time. I can't name a boss that uses it and rares are never a problem.

Voidbringer is a good option but more fiddily to work with. You need to make sure you have enough mana unreserved and it really gimps you in 60% less regen maps. When you make it work I think its better then Gentle touch but worse then the final upgrade of atziri's acuity. On the guardian at least where the Int and armour is more important then flat ES like on the witch

is anyone running this build sucessfully in essence league?

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WaffleT wrote:

Physical damage is always a concern for ES builds. Lowlife and CI have exactly the same issues of dealing with it and have the same danger of getting one shot by it unless they go templar and all the defences that it offers. I'm suprised that you managed to get 9k ES on a witch as getting the flat ES through its mana is a large part of the build. I'm guessing you cut damage and Int from the tree to get ES nodes and dealt with the auras being less effective then the templars.

Yeah I've never died to chaos damage. Its all so easy to avoid in the game that I don't really think about it most of the time. I can't name a boss that uses it and rares are never a problem.

Voidbringer is a good option but more fiddily to work with. You need to make sure you have enough mana unreserved and it really gimps you in 60% less regen maps. When you make it work I think its better then Gentle touch but worse then the final upgrade of atziri's acuity. On the guardian at least where the Int and armour is more important then flat ES like on the witch

Mhm, it wasn't that hard. I'll link my tree below. Only change from gear was Voidbringer and Bated Breath for the belt because having 9.2k ES with a 3.5k recharge rate is pretty awesome.

I've got an Ice and Fire golem up, the former to get the crits up enough to proc OE because a 40% multiplier is amazing and then we don't have to invest in nodes on the tree. My crit chance is 11% and I have a Scion with 16%, which seems high enough to get EO up like 60-70% of the time. It's not very consistent, where you crit 10x in a row and other times you can't find a crit to save your life. Stupid RNG.

But then I went Cold to Fire too, taking AoF and using the gem instead of penetration, which I get from the Elementalist by way of Mastermind of Discord and using our movement skill Lightning Warp. It's only a 25% pierce but it's free and pretty much up 24/7 because I'm always zipping around.

I'm really gunning for a helmet enchant that gives me less mana reserve on one of the purities so I can drop one of the mana reserve nodes. I can't really see any other enchant being worth much if anything.

DPS is enormous, so much so that I could sacrifice int for ES on the tree. My tooltip is 9.2k resting with just my golems up, with it spiking to 10.5k for 4 sec every 6 sec thanks for Pendulum of Destruction, which also gives a hefty 25% increase to radius. It's so high that I don't even bother using concentrated effect mostly because I think cast speed is far better and safer, even in boss fights. Using spell echo without cast speed is just a no go (and believe me I tried). Re-positioning for this build is worth way more than yes even an added 50% multiplier. I used to pancake everything with just 7k on my tooltip. Walking around with 10k is a dream :)



I really want to try Acuity but I refuse to buy it as I want to earn that drop myself. But I figure the 80 int passed through our multipliers would probably be like 200-240 effective int. Off just one item. That would probably make up for the obscene ES loss by losing Voidbringer.

The biggest ES boost for me was linking a lvl 21 Discipline with a lvl 4 Enlighten:



That's almost 600 ES just there. The Witch also makes capping resists a lot easier too, I didn't need a single resist on my jewels thanks to getting 12% just from the ascendancy points.