Planning a Whispering Ice build

Whispering Ice and its Icestorm skill is something I've wanted to try for a long time. In Essence the staff finally dropped for me (I play self-found so no buying things):

With around a week of the league left, I figured it would be time to start planning my build for it. I'm planning to use my existing level 88 elementalist since I'm no longer too happy with her current elemental equilibrium build. It's too difficult to alternate between the elements efficiently while kiting a boss. I hope to get a first version of the build done before 2.5.0 hits so I get a new free reset in case something is badly messed up.

I also own a Black Sun Crest on standard:

And I found a Pyre in Essence as well:

Initially I was going to keep the cold damage since I already have a fire-themed witch (flameblast occultist in Essence), but Pyre's damage conversion makes the Snowforged cluster super effective. And if I want to use an Elemental Focus support I won't be freezing or chilling anything with the cold damage anyway. Izaro's Turmoil also benefits from having converted damage:


Icestorm does still create chilled ground even if its damage is converted to non-cold, right?

Rough draft for a passive tree at level 92. The character has all bandits taken as passives and I'm not going to change that if I can avoid it.

The tree has 472 intelligence. The three jewel sockets to the right will be filled with Fertile Mind, transforming 130 dexterity into intelligence and giving a further 72 intelligence directly:

The remaining jewel socket towards the center will receive Izaro's Turmoil.

This gives a total of 674 intelligence. Unfortunately I don't own an Astramentis but I figure I should be able to get at least 100 intelligence from gear. Probably more, but I'll go with a conservative estimate to begin with. Whispering Ice and Black Sun Crest will increase intelligence by 28%, bringing it up to 990. This gives Icestorm 99-297 base damage, putting it roughly equal footing with a level 20 firestorm.

For supports I was thinking of Controller Destruction, Elemental Focus, Concentrated Effect, Increased Area of Effect, Spell Echo and... something. I've never had the opportunity to link this many supports with a single skill. Added Cold Damage maybe? Despite the 30% damage effectiveness it would still easily be 30% more base damage. Or Faster Casting, in case the dexterity requirement of Added Cold Damage poses a problem. It works out to about the same DPS I think.

(Please disregard the gem levels, I don't have loose examples of all of them.)

These give the following damage modifiers at 21/20 (Whispering Ice gives +1 level to supports):
Base damage 140-358 (Icestorm + Added Cold Damage)
Controller Destruction 45% more + 10% increased
Elemental Focus 50% more + 10% increased
Concentrated Effect 60% more + 10% increased
Increased Area of Effect 10% increased
Spell Echo 10% less + 10% increased
Added Cold Damage 10% increased

Whispering Ice itself gives 99% increased spell damage.

My tree (including jewels) gives the following increases:
30% increased area damage
60% increased spell damage
57% increased fire damage
155% increased cold damage
48% increased elemental damage

Finally, there's a 40% increase from flame golem and 40% increase to each of fire and cold damage from having elemental golems of those types. Summing it all up:

629% increased damage
313% more damage

Total 3194-8169 damage per hit.

Icestorm's 1 second cast speed is kinda slow. I get 46% increased cast speed from tree, 8% increased from Whispering Ice and 71% more from Spell Echo, for a total of 2.6 casts per second. With 990 intelligence Icestorm lasts very nearly three seconds, so I get seven and a half overlapping storms. That's 75 icicles per second, or 426k DPS if they all hit the same target (which they most likely won't). Awesome.

I'll still have to calculate the marginal benefit of some of the clusters in the tree as well as intelligence and see if I can get even more DPS output.

Defense-wise I was thinking of going life/ES hybrid. All that intelligence gives a rather impressive amount of increased ES - 198% if I'm not mistaken. Add to that the 180% I have in the tree and even a relatively modest base value is going to give many thousands of it. Black Sun Crest doesn't give any and with a staff I can't use a shield, but I figure a base value around 1300-1400 (including discipline) should be reachable with a modest investment into crafting. After the increases it works out to around 6500 ES.

A level 88 character has 1094 base life. I'll probably have to dedicate some items to resistances, but with a few decent life rolls I should be looking at 1400-1500 base life. The tree has 85% increased maximum life, for a total of around 2700. Combined effective HP is 9200, which isn't half bad. I'll have to be careful about chaos damage of course, unless I can jack the resist high enough. I may need to alter the tree to take the life and chaos resistance cluster on the left.

I may have taken too many mana nodes because I'm used to playing characters with only 300-400 intelligence and much more expensive skills. Icestorm only takes 22 mana and with Spell Echo every other cast is free. The current tree comes out to 72.8 mana regenerated per second, which is total overkill.

Maybe I should drop Quick Recovery and Shaper and instead take Purity of Flesh and Vaal Pact? Possibly Ghost Reaver as well. I'd have to switch one of the supports to Life Leech, reducing damage, or use Warlord's Mark, which would preclude Frostbite. Unless I further alter the tree to take Whispers of Doom for a second curse. Or use Doedre's Damning, but with helmet and both ring slots taken up by uniques I'd be hard pressed to get enough resistances.

Any comments? Did I forget something important? Was my math wrong? Are some other uniques worth considering? I won't buy anything, but over the last three leagues I've accumulated a decent collection of items so perhaps I have something I've forgotten or didn't realize would be useful.

I'd stick a Fire Penetration in there

EDIT: As for things you may have forgotten, I only skimmed your post, so I'm not sure if you've already accounted for it - but most armour pieces can get a significant amount of Intelligence:



And you can get increased intelligence per unique item equipped as well (I think it requires much more base intelligence than I had to get significant value from replacing flat int with uniques):

"

Icestorm only takes 22 mana and with Spell Echo every other cast is free. The current tree comes out to 72.8 mana regenerated per second, which is total overkill.

22 mana is base cost before supports. With your gem selection you'll have 1.3^3*1.4^3 = roughly x6 mana cost multiplier, which translates into 135 mana per cast.
Also,

"

I'd stick a Fire Penetration in there

, but then you'll need STR on gear(because you have like zero of it in tree), and without Astramentis it is hard to get.

Check out this build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1667730

I recently came across this myself and started playing it - having a ball right up till Blade Flurry distracted me :)

Your concept and this build are very close so I'm sure there's some great tips for you. Additionally, the build guide is very detailed and well written.

Have fun!

If you can, try to get emperor's wit and emperor's mastery. They're quite expensive, yes, but they give some nice % to int.
As for the 6th support gem, maybe hypothermia would be an option, since you get the chilled ground it should result in quite a lot of extra damage as long as your enemy can be chilled.

Edit: You should go CI. the base life is too low for some of the chaos damage that can be found in maps, especially the spider bosses.

Make sure to craft a high INT Crystal Belt before the league ends, that stat doesn't normally appear on belts and you'll be left with "meh" unique choices.

I agree you really want to go CI as soon as you have good enough ES numbers, it has excellent synergy with WI builds, and especially as self-found you will be hard pressed to find items that have both good int and chaos res beside the other generally desirable stats.

"

adghar wrote:

EDIT: As for things you may have forgotten, I only skimmed your post, so I'm not sure if you've already accounted for it - but most armour pieces can get a significant amount of Intelligence:

I know, but I didn't want to count on having it on every piece since I need to get resists as well, so I picked a conservative value of 100 intelligence from gear. I get 25% all elemental resists and 15% cold resist from tree. Pyre gives 28% cold and 29% fire, though I may be able to bless/divine a few more percent out of it. Whispering Ice and Black Sun Crest give none. That means I'll need to get 81% fire, 110% lightning and 67% cold from gear. If an average roll is 30%, that means about 9 elemental resistance rolls across six pieces of gear. For the chest I'll want good ES rolls, and movement speed for boots. I'll need 3-4 life rolls and some chaos resist rolls as well. That's like 16-18 rolls for defense, which doesn't leave a whole lot of room for anything else if I don't want to spend hundreds of chaos rolling my gear (I have about 650 of them so it's not impossible).

I guess Rainbowstride wouldn't be a bad choice for boots:

It doesn't really shine in any category but it has decent ES, all elemental resists and movement speed. It does lack life and intelligence though, but getting everything on the same item is next to impossible.

I usually try to cap my resists without purity of elements so I can have that as an option if I encounter an elemental weakness map, as well as have room for another aura. It does give 28% all elemental resistances though, which would save three rolls worth of resistances from gear.

"

adghar wrote:

And you can get increased intelligence per unique item equipped as well (I think it requires much more base intelligence than I had to get significant value from replacing flat int with uniques):

Unfortunately I don't own one :/ I saw an all-uniques build in the witch section with two Perandus Signets and the author claimed to have almost 2000 int.

"

silumit wrote:

22 mana is base cost before supports. With your gem selection you'll have 1.3^3*1.4^3 = roughly x6 mana cost multiplier, which translates into 135 mana per cast.

Oops. That's what I get from theorycrafting at like 5 am. I actually realized this shortly after I went to bed but was too tired to get up and fix my post.

At 2.6 casts per second that would be a rather massive deficit. Warlord's Mark or Mana Leech would easily fix it; 2% leech and an average hit for 5k damage will give stupid amounts of mana. WM is a red gem but I don't need it at a very high level since the leech is there from level one. Relying on leech for mana upkeep also has the benefit that the no regen mod becomes a non-issue, and it seems to be much more common than no leech.

"

silumit wrote:

Also,

"

I'd stick a Fire Penetration in there

, but then you'll need STR on gear(because you have like zero of it in tree), and without Astramentis it is hard to get.

I intentionally skipped the other attributes to maximize intelligence. Now that I think about it though, if I want to use flame and ice golem I'll need 98 in both strength and dexterity. So I may need to sacrifice some cast speed to take a few big attribute nodes and/or roll a makeshift Astramentis from an Onyx amulet with a good +all attributes roll.

Added Cold Damage requires 111 dexterity at level 20. Increased Duration requires the same in strength. All interesting totems are strength-based as well.

I made some changes to the tree. It lost a tiny bit of int and ES, some cast speed and a significant chunk of mana (I'm hoping Warlord's Mark will make up for it). It also gained a few damage increases and is now five levels lower. But most importantly I'll have 74 str and dex, which makes equipping all the necessary gems vastly easier.

With this tree I should do 3283-8373 damage per hit at 2.4 casts per second. Theoretical DPS is slightly down to 413k.

The final form will depend on what rolls I manage to get on my gear. If I get lucky attribute rolls, I may be able to drop the big str and/or dex nodes. The Elementalist node in the templar area gives a fair amount of elemental resistances and some damage increases. I should have a few easy passive points to gain from levels too. In a pinch I could spend the 20 regrets and respec normal bandits for resistances as well.

At the moment +10 intelligence would give about 0.94% more damage. 10% increased damage would result in 1.32% more damage. So it looks like any extra passive points should go towards damage increases, as long as my defense and mana are sufficient. I could pick an easy lab day with the unique chest and farm for another Izaro's Turmoil; I have at least one more jewel socket within easy reach. With my stockpile of 58 offerings I'm all but bound to get one if I can stomach the farming. At least I have multiple characters to swap between if I want a change of pace.

"

Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

Check out this build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1667730

I recently came across this myself and started playing it - having a ball right up till Blade Flurry distracted me :)

Your concept and this build are very close so I'm sure there's some great tips for you. Additionally, the build guide is very detailed and well written.

I actually saw that when initially checking for builds to use as reference, in particular for the amount of intelligence from tree. I'm not one to follow a guide directly and playing self-found also means I'll have to make do with the uniques I have.

"

FCK42 wrote:

If you can, try to get emperor's wit and emperor's mastery. They're quite expensive, yes, but they give some nice % to int.

Self-found, so no can do. IIRC those jewels are rewards from doing the labyrinth fast, and I have no shot at that myself.

"

FCK42 wrote:

As for the 6th support gem, maybe hypothermia would be an option, since you get the chilled ground it should result in quite a lot of extra damage as long as your enemy can be chilled.

Interesting idea. I'll definitely consider it. Are there any categorical chill immunities, or is it restricted to specific enemies? Can bosses like Izaro be chilled? I remember that Argus explicitly says he's immune to chill, and I think the Vision of Justice (Orchard boss) too.

"

FCK42 wrote:

Edit: You should go CI. the base life is too low for some of the chaos damage that can be found in maps, especially the spider bosses.

I'm using CI on my flameblast occultist in essence and it is indeed very strong. I want to explore different options though, so I'll go with life+ES on this build to begin with. That's why I'm trying to make it before the next passive reset - if it turns out to be entirely too weak I can make changes and reset again.

This build will be in standard from the beginning (as a self-found player I can't make unique-dependent builds in leagues) so it doesn't need to be able to do all maps. I also have a summoner necromancer (minions as meat shield), dual bladefall totem chieftain (armour and life regen) and the aforementioned flameblast occultist (CI). Chances are that for any given map one of the four will be able to do it.

"

Zed_ wrote:

Make sure to craft a high INT Crystal Belt before the league ends, that stat doesn't normally appear on belts and you'll be left with "meh" unique choices.

Will essences cease working after the leagues are merged? I assumed they could still be used in standard, you just couldn't get any new ones.

"

databeaver wrote:

"

Zed_ wrote:

Make sure to craft a high INT Crystal Belt before the league ends, that stat doesn't normally appear on belts and you'll be left with "meh" unique choices.

Will essences cease working after the leagues are merged? I assumed they could still be used in standard, you just couldn't get any new ones.

Sure, you'll be able to use them later on, what I meant was that it's way easier to craft/hoard them while the league is still running.

This will be an excellent resource for you.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1667730

Edit: Someone already posted it. Good luck!

First go at the build:

Two divines gave me a max int roll on the black sun. The rares are not exactly stellar but they're the best that turned up with about 200 chaos. It seems I forgot to craft a mod on the amulet (I think it can get intelligence) and reroll the implicit on the belt (should get 75+ with a few blessed orbs).

I can't launch the game right now, but from memory I have about 1075 intelligence and 120-ish of the other attributes. Maximum life is 2720 and energy shield 6480. Icestorm's damage falls 25% short of the projected numbers because I don't have 20/20 supports yet (though I could steal some from my other builds).

I think I will want Ghost Reaver. Having leech only when on the last third of effective HP feels too risky and not viable for many bosses.