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

If you consider only Sanctuary of Thought, I guess that the numbers in the current state might actually be pretty balanced, for this particular node.

PJSalt
But then comes the rest of the ascendancy:
For totem builds - totems deal less dmg
For infinite mana builds with EB - nope cause you get 10% MoM wether you want it or not so you will not be always at full ES
For the pretty nice bonuses of illuminated devotion - they do not apply to your main skill
For ES of flat mana - it's good for ES builds but gated behind a MoM node, which doesnt work with ES

It's like their entire idea was to make an ascendancy that defeated itself.

Maybe they just are scared shitless about the power of gaining endurance charges when you gain power charges. I'd rather they just remove that node and make the rest of the ascendancy reasonable though.

Lastly, I dont know how objectively strong the kill counter is. It seems pretty fun though. A shame the rest of the ascendancy is the way it is.

Ps. Yes, I am very very salty. No, I'm not going to play MoM RT EE cyclone Mjölner with a kill counter just to dodge all the bullets I automatically fire at myself if I pick this ascendancy.
Gravity is just a prejudice. A part of Earth's jurisdiction. As an apache helicopter, I find that very oppressive.
Last edited by Zorajin on Jul 30, 2016, 12:13:00 PM
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Zorajin wrote:
If you consider only Sanctuary of Thought, I guess that the numbers in the current state might actually be pretty balanced, for this particular node.



Its not unfair. Which creates salt because most other classes do something unfair. You kinda want it to do something unfair cause that feels more fun. Oh well
Im having trouble with the blood magic-purity of lightning-purity of elements-enlighten links

with a 20/20 blood magic and a lvl 4 enlighten i can only get the auras to reserve 52% how many reserve nodes will this require to fix.
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Gestrell wrote:
Im having trouble with the blood magic-purity of lightning-purity of elements-enlighten links

with a 20/20 blood magic and a lvl 4 enlighten i can only get the auras to reserve 52% how many reserve nodes will this require to fix.


I used the aura calculator to find out that if you are using a setup like you described and they still reserve 52% then you are only getting 14% reduced mana reserved from the tree. The most likely culprate is that you have not yet gotton the Charisma aura nodes in the ranger area.

Also a note that after getting those nodes a level 2 enlighten is actually better then a level 4 one since you want to reserve as much life and mana as possible to get the most benefits from the guardian
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WaffleT wrote:
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Gestrell wrote:
Im having trouble with the blood magic-purity of lightning-purity of elements-enlighten links

with a 20/20 blood magic and a lvl 4 enlighten i can only get the auras to reserve 52% how many reserve nodes will this require to fix.


I used the aura calculator to find out that if you are using a setup like you described and they still reserve 52% then you are only getting 14% reduced mana reserved from the tree. The most likely culprate is that you have not yet gotton the Charisma aura nodes in the ranger area.

Also a note that after getting those nodes a level 2 enlighten is actually better then a level 4 one since you want to reserve as much life and mana as possible to get the most benefits from the guardian



thanks for the tip :3, im actually using an enlighten level 1 in the helmet now for additional ES
I want to play this build next league in Hardcore

I would be very interested to hear some theorycrafting as to the comparison between this build and the witch (tricurse), which I have played to lvl 87 and is ~okish.

Elementalist Ascendancy just seems so ridiculously good when compared to templar that I am really unsure about this version.

With wardlords Mark I also have 3 endurance charges (phys dmg reduction) and IC procs reliably.

I understand that templar version has 81% allresist which is great against elemental dmg, but I don#t see how the build offers that much defensive-wise and I really would like to see the damage it does with 2300int (sure, it has tons of int, but Elementalist gives a ton of extra dmg flat out while templar ascendancy does nothing dmg wise).

-The 1 second block chance every 5 seconds is garbage tbh (talking about HC here, completely unreliable defenses are useless there). And the stun immunity from Bastion of hope is wasted as well.
- The rest of the big ascendancies you don't even take.
- You get about ~700 more int than a good witch version (which is cheaper and works fine without shavs and works without using all uniques, thus easily getting 10k+ energy shield the "old fashioned" way) of the build. Do the 700 int make up for the entire elementalist ascendancy tree dmg wise?
- Is leech good enough just from the gem without using WM?
- Using the conversion from pyre, the witch version can hugely benefit from Izaro's Turmoil afaik as well as some other skillpoints in the tree.
- Witch version uses amplify and blast radius, how is the clearspeed with the templar build? The witch version is only mediocre imho, other cheap builds (summoner or Essence drain) clear at least as fast, probably faster.



Last edited by OldboyX on Aug 13, 2016, 12:44:16 PM
Happy to compare the two and while I prefer this version I don't think either is strictly 'better'

Hope this answers your questions and sorry if the post was long but thought it was worth responding to each question individually

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OldboyX wrote:
I want to play this build next league in Hardcore
Elementalist Ascendancy just seems so ridiculously good when compared to templar that I am really unsure about this version.

Eh the elementalist gets offense ascendancies and then spends a bunch of skill tree points on the defense. The Templar gets a bunch of defense ascendancies and then spends all their skill tree points on offence. either route the builds end up with pretty similar ES numbers but with Templar giving better elemental resistances and physical mitigation. With overload active my damage numbers are higher then the witch with all 3 of their *sometimes* damage boosts from their ascendency and overload up. The witch does get extra penetration that is active for a few seconds after lightning warping though. The only thing actually unique is the reflect resistance but neither build has trouble dealing with that anyway

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OldboyX wrote:

With wardlords Mark I also have 3 endurance charges (phys dmg reduction) and IC procs reliably.

The armour from guardian always gives more physical damage reduction then 3 endurance charges and it gives it all the time. I generally don't like relying on "sometimes" defense as there is always the chance of getting caught fresh from a new portal or where there is no mobs before a boss and they would have run out. If I actually felt threatened by physical damage then I would change my gloves and run one of the many curse options like warlords mark. I like not relying on curses though, easy job on curse immune maps and mobs. Oh yeah and Unwavering Faith gives another 6% physical mitigation as well. Again all the time not just while killing things

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OldboyX wrote:

-The 1 second block chance every 5 seconds is garbage tbh (talking about HC here, completely unreliable defenses are useless there). And the stun immunity from Bastion of hope is wasted as well.

I totally agree that 50% additional Block Chance for 1 second every 5 seconds is garbage. I don't even bother mentioning it. 7% block chance all the time however is not bad and worth picking up as some extra reduction. Doesn't really need it but hey its some nice extra block

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OldboyX wrote:

- You get about ~700 more int than a good witch version (which is cheaper and works fine without shavs and works without using all uniques, thus easily getting 10k+ energy shield the "old fashioned" way) of the build. Do the 700 int make up for the entire elementalist ascendancy tree dmg wise?

Both builds gets the Whispering Ice and Astramentis so those are the same cost but in terms of the rest of the gear the only real cost is an unlinked shavs and the two rings. Everything else costs about 1c and is silly easy to acquire.

The upfront cost of the the rings and shavs seems higher but since the rarity change they are not breaking the bank and most whispering Ice players including myself who have done witch builds in the past ended up spending more on their high ES chest (to get those actually good ES totals) then the total cost for everything in this build combined. Then they still want to try and buy gloves and boots that have both resistances and ES which are also not cheap

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OldboyX wrote:

- Is leech good enough just from the gem without using WM?

In my experience yep its fine. Again if I felt the need it wouldn't be hard to change gloves to add that into the build

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OldboyX wrote:

- Using the conversion from pyre, the witch version can hugely benefit from Izaro's Turmoil afaik as well as some other skillpoints in the tree.

Yeah the question was in deciding if I wanted to hugely benefit from Izaro's Turmoil %damage or hugely benefit from the triple dipping Int conversion jewels. For this particular version Int just tends to win out though as it scales %Int so much

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OldboyX wrote:

- Witch version uses amplify and blast radius, how is the clearspeed with the templar build? The witch version is only mediocre imho, other cheap builds (summoner or Essence drain) clear at least as fast, probably faster.

My version has only has 5% less AOE then the witch one as it takes all the blast radius wheel. For two points Amplify could also be picked up and then it would have more AOE then the witch, at that point its more of a personal taste thing.

Yep the build is not the fastest clear I've ever built. I mean its as fast as firestorm or icestorm is going to get and its pretty damn fast but top tier earthquake and essence drain builds tend to beat it just by the nature of how their skills are designed. Thats ok though skills are allowed to be different in how they work and its definitely not slow. Its damn good at atziri and the big bosses so if there is more big threats coming next patch its more suited to that sort of task then the gorge map clearers anyway. Definitely feel its faster then a summoner build though, those suckers take ages to move over to things even with haste while at least here you can one shot things on the edge of the screen with a click like most builds now


The build was more of me just wanting to make as it good as I could though I'm not sure I would recommend it for a first build in a new league. Especially hardcore. The leveling process is somewhat risky as its high defenses don't come online until your gems are level 19-20 and you really hit a break point when you can put the shavs on. Even with whispering ice being pretty cheap I don't know how early you can afford one without a currency base already built and I swapped over from firestorm at level 33 so that the high Int from the tree started mattering right away.


Last edited by WaffleT on Aug 13, 2016, 4:52:30 PM
Thanks for your in-depth answer. Many valid points.

- My witch does tooltip avg 8k with only lvl 87 and lvl 19 gems without quali (and I only ever bothered to get 4 ascendancy points so missing Pendulum and Mastermind of discord, I do however have 2 izaro's turmoil equipped alrdy and ~1300 int). Can you just give me a number for your templar?

- Is chaos resist an issue for your build? The witch version is CI and immune to chaos. Any thoughts on that?

- Do you use Elemental focus Gem or does your WI freeze? That is something I would also value highly in Hardcore, but the witch version does so much less dmg if you don't convert to fire it's a pity.
Last edited by OldboyX on Aug 13, 2016, 4:42:26 PM
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OldboyX wrote:
Thanks for your in-depth answer. Many valid points.

- My witch does tooltip avg 8k with only lvl 87 and lvl 19 gems without quali (and I only ever bothered to get 4 ascendancy points so missing Pendulum and Mastermind of discord, I do however have 2 izaro's turmoil equipped alrdy and ~1300 int). Can you just give me a number for your templar?

- Is chaos resist an issue for your build? The witch version is CI and immune to chaos. Any thoughts on that?

- Do you use Elemental focus Gem or does your WI freeze? That is something I would also value highly in Hardcore, but the witch version does so much less dmg if you don't convert to fire it's a pity.


Sure, so with my recommended setup the number at level 89 is 7,212

The tri curse witch uses concentrated effect instead of faster casting which shows up better in tooltip so If I make that swap as well I get 11,651 tooltip in hideout. I find faster casting is smoother feeling though and the smaller AOE from conc making mapping slower

Swapping elemental focus with concentrated effect would give a bit more damage and bring the freeze back. Hypothermia is also another good option, lose a bit of damage but gain extra freeze chance and don't lose any AOE which makes mapping easier.

Freeze is fun. I just didn't bother with it cause I only ever died while mapping twice, both in village ruin when I was careless and let an enraged beast slam me without vaal discipline or bleed immunity up haha

Chaos damage not really much of a problem. I mean with shavs its no different dealing with it then a 9k HP build would deal with it. Its all very predictable stuff anyway
I used this build for a basis to mine, I hit 91 today and let me tell you, it's solid. Do ubers easy, the leech is great, defenses on point, movement very good granted I have a pimped lw setup.

I've had no problem so far, although in early levels it is difficult to stick with. It was worth it though.

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