[2.3] Sextuple Cursing Occultist with Whispering Ice
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Background
The impetus for this build was the addition of Cospri’s Will. I’ve always enjoyed curse builds in prior leagues and being able to trivialize packs of monsters and bosses feels great. It may not be on the same level as instantly destroying everything within a second, but this build is to push the limits of what a curser can do. My goals are to put as many curses as possible as quickly as possible, and to be able to solo higher end maps. As you see in the videos, I believe I’ve achieved those goals. I can do six curses at the moment, but with the right setup, you can do eight. For eight, you would need two doedre's damning, windscream, a +1 to curses corrupted amulet, the Malediction ascendancy passive, and the Whispers of Doom passive. With the Doedre's Scorn I have, you would get 160% increase in damage dealt to the monsters. The curses give, 63% increase from frostbite (you're doing primary cold damage), another 63% from elemental weakness, plus roughly 50% increase spell damage from whispering ice at around 500 intelligence. That's a 336% increase in damage for your Icestorm.
Pros
-- Very safe because of enfeeble and temp chains -- Strong against most bosses. -- Great party support.
Cons
-- Medium to slow clear speed. Closer to the speed of a trapper or mine build. -- Curse immune monsters or bosses. Even with Cospri’s Will, some monsters, such as totems, are inherently curse immune and will never be cursed. During the Malachi battle, he becomes immune to curses at different stages of the fight which make him a lot more dangerous. The goddess above Izaro is immune to curses so her orbs green death can ruin your day. Atziri reflects curses which can worked around with blasphemy, but this is primarily a curse on hit build. -- Expensive. Cospri’s Will is about 3 to 4 exalts. A good +1 to curses amulet will easily be an exalt or more. This build can potentially be run with budget gear, but effectiveness would take a significant hit.
Videos
Gear
Whispering Ice. While curse on hit can be used with any linked skill, whispering ice has two advantages over others. The first is that it's a skill granted by a staff that can potentially be 6-linked. This allows you to apply, potentially, five curses in one cast. I have a 5-linked staff so I can only do four curses at a time. The other benefit is the chilled ground that it creates. This helps slow down monsters. In combination with temporal chains, you can run through packs of monsters without them ever getting the chance to hit you. It's incredibly defensive and allows you to take on most bosses with relative ease. Cospri's Will This armor increases the number of curses you can apply, allows you to not worry about hexproof rare monsters or maps, and the added benefit of poisoning with Icestorm. The downside is that this is an evasion armor and getting beneficial colors is a pain. The dexterity requirement is fairly high and I needed to purchase gloves with dex to meet said requirement. Doedre's Scorn This helm helps boost your damage if you want to solo content. If you want this to be strictly party support, then you can swap it out for something with a lot more energy shield. Doedre’s Damning, +1 to curses amulet, and Windscream These are necessary to increase the number of curses you can place on a monster. I don't use windscream because movement speed is more important for me.
Skill Gems
Main Skill The setup for Whispering Ice is a 20% quality curse on hit, elemental weakness, frostbite, assassin's mark, and warlord's mark. The first two are the knock the resistance down so you can increase your damage. The ass mark is for getting crits so you can trigger elemental overload to do that 40% MORE damage. Warlord's Mark allows me to leech back my mana since I can't sustain it with my current mana regen. Blasphemous! Temporal Chains and Enfeeble are on a 20% quality blasphemy. Eventually I'll get a 3rd curse linked to blasphemy but I have to get enough levels to obtain all the passives I need. This is your defensive setup. As soon as you get close enough, monsters are cursed to be super slow and weak. The level 3 enhance helps temp chains by further slowing down mobs so they are moving like molasses. Damage Booster Glacial Cascade (GC) is linked with spell totem, physical to lightning, and controlled destruction. I want to maximize the usefulness of my curses and GC allows me to do that. Frostbite, elemental weakness, vulnerability all improve the damage output of GC. This is on a spell totem because Icestorm helps with the damage as well and I get to move around while the totem keeps up the DPS. Utility Gems. Lightning Golem, Vaal Lit Trap, Increased Duration, GMP. The golem helps with the cast speed. Icestorm is slow to cast and any cast speed you can get is always welcome. Vaal lightning trap helps with tougher monsters or bosses that need an extra damage boost from being shocked. I originally had animate guarding running with Leer Cast and Dying Breath, but he died in a T12 map somewhere and felt that he's far too squishy to keep around. Vaal Haste would also compliment this build.
Passives Tree
Ascendancy Passives
To be added... Last edited by curteck on Jul 17, 2016, 9:29:43 AM Last bumped on Jul 16, 2016, 11:50:51 AM
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