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

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Kelvynn wrote:

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Subliminal89 wrote:

Hi Kelvynn, unhid my characters. Didn't realise they were hidden. I am lvl 87, around 1380 intelligence and 7.1k ES.

I don't see anything wrong with your char. You are 3 levels away from completing the build with the jewel near GR (although normally you'd want to take it before Trickery).

Actually, good catch with Deep Thoughts: that was left over from when we cared about mana and can be dropped now.

Your lack of ES comes mostly from the body armor, then the boots. The gloves could be better too. Discipline is still lv 19.

Int is a bit low too. You lack 5-10 Int here and there: gloves, boots, low roll Fertile Minds (yeah, I know, they went up in price because of the HOWA builds). But it all adds up.

Those low roll Izaro's need upgrading. You should be able to find better jewels for not too much currency, probably even rares with Int.

Thanks again for your help, much appreciated.

The 5-10 int missing here and there, and the ES on gear were due to shortfalls in budget available. With some farming I'll look to make the upgrades you've suggested. That being said, even with my current stats I'm running t15 quite well. Just becomes quite difficult with certain nasty map mods.

i wanted to follow ur build 100% but i ended up dropping temp chains. i don't really need it in maps and I like having the extra dps. also i'm not a big fan of massive gem swaps for certain fights so changing just BL- orb of storms and cwdt - warlords is just enough for me. my mechanics are shit because i still didn't do shaper but that's just due to mistakes because the burst is real. i'm at 13.6k tooltip in town. 1782 int or smth like that.
for uber atziri my build is a bit slow because i couldn't find 30 ms boots with the rest of the stats i needed. so i just use a purity of fire and 3 vaal disciplines (really easy to fit in) for the ads.

once i get more currency i'll try more shapers.

question. do u use LL gem for uber/shaper fights or just the beserker leech and wm ? i was thinking about the LL gem but i would need a second staff and set of gems for that since i have no use for LL in maps. maybe an atziri flask could provide some leech instead of LL gem ?

Well if you take look at hes profile, hes using Life leech gem in 2r 4b stave, so i would assume he does,

well after a good night sleep i did shaper deathless yesterday. with the addition of emperor's mastery it's really overkill. once i also learned that i can get 70+ phys reduction with granite basalt and chaos golem, the slam didn't matter anymore. maybe I also got a bit lucky as in the final phase he only managed to spawn one vortex and the clone didn't get to shoot balls. i'm curious to see if i can take on shaper earlier in the next league, with less int. also did vaal temple with vuln extra proj and inc life... not much to say there either. precast as much as i could in the middle, pop a vaal discipline pop all my flasks and the fight is over in 4 sec. it doesn't really matter which one dies first.

i might try getting the light radius node in the future. i can see deaths happening in arenas like the one from vaal temple, or with certain lab traps and while this doesn't mean much in sc.. in hc i highly recommend the 1 point investment.

also, i still strongly believe that once the build reaches 1.6k+ int the third curse isn't necessary for any boss fight or mapping situation. neither is the cull gem. i like leveling gems in my swap but since it's late in the league i might get another perf roll staff and put life leech in it to do ele ref maps more easily. so far i'm ok with the dps setup and conc effect instead of aoe (leeches better from packs and rares) but i do have to play more carefully.

all in all, the only sad part about this build is its ability to level past 92-93. u can run insane map mods and packsizes but the clear speed is not that fast due to low mobility. other than that... save up currency buy some emperor's mastery jwls and become godlike. :)

ur strongest wi char to date kelvynn.

I think this is one of the most fun/unique builds I've seen ever... CI zerker casting spells! I've started playing in BHC and it was the best to level with from lvl39 and on. (build really needs to hit 38 for CwC gem and 39 for CI conversion to start)

One thing though: stun! I got chain stunned somewhere in my early 70s and died. Your other WI guides have stun immunity (US) built into them and I think the zerker needs US as well. Since I enjoyed the build so much I restarted in BSC and planned a tree that also has US node, to see if that will let me tackle stuff in HC for the next league:



Losing 10 points (but converting a lot to int) does "hurt", but so far it feels much smoother. Took US quite early on in my 40s after converting to CI.

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teketoria wrote:

I think this is one of the most fun/unique builds I've seen ever... CI zerker casting spells! I've started playing in BHC and it was the best to level with from lvl39 and on. (build really needs to hit 38 for CwC gem and 39 for CI conversion to start)

One thing though: stun! I got chain stunned somewhere in my early 70s and died. Your other WI guides have stun immunity (US) built into them and I think the zerker needs US as well. Since I enjoyed the build so much I restarted in BSC and planned a tree that also has US node, to see if that will let me tackle stuff in HC for the next league:

Spoiler

http://poeplanner.com/AAQAAOkhAgBye4wlJ11JZ5uuPsauPC2DzLc-g19Bh_nogsco-rQMytO-ipMnf8bBxewYLL8V14auVmOP-tDQX2pGcYMJb57KSl-wm7WExcM6KjihL6KjUXSO6aaZwfOVIC0fHU81uacrEVBtGZf0UlM9X0yzBAfr5F8qHwI2xdgkVkinCOvuHNyPGriTHb4zhwPug_cRLSycEFivm4dl1I8ZLtlhVw3zm2hl0iGezacwn8udrhps5CIpT548jHbsOIKb1aaFe2ZUtQRFR8BmPAXvfNAf7-tHBtvnbAjxio9Gm6EYajlSWAe_CCQ3AAAAAAA=

Losing 10 points (but converting a lot to int) does "hurt", but so far it feels much smoother. Took US quite early on in my 40s after converting to CI.

sry for ur rip.

in ur mid 70s u should really have cruel lab done and u won't have trouble with stun. i don't need stun immunity even in uber lab because i leech enough that the chain stuns from the spear don't kill me. most bosses don't stun you. and it's hard for me to believe u got chain stunned while mapping or doing dried lakes. as long as u kill a single mob, ur stun free for 4 seconds and you should always be killing.

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LastMagus wrote:

sry for ur rip.

in ur mid 70s u should really have cruel lab done and u won't have trouble with stun. i don't need stun immunity even in uber lab because i leech enough that the chain stuns from the spear don't kill me. most bosses don't stun you. and it's hard for me to believe u got chain stunned while mapping or doing dried lakes. as long as u kill a single mob, ur stun free for 4 seconds and you should always be killing.

Yes, I've already done cruel lab (was the easiest ever) and took Rite of Ruin, but unfortunately I ran into a cluster of mobs while mapping and got stunlocked. That stun immunity after killing an enemy is pretty good, but doesn't help with the above scenario. I'm sure it is ok not to take US in SC but it feels very good during my testing now.

Also created a witch version in BHC and will see how that goes... but I think zerker is far superior because of much higher leech and damage, as it can use another more dmg gem instead of LL and also has other goodies in its ascendancy.

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LastMagus wrote:

question. do u use LL gem for uber/shaper fights or just the beserker leech and wm ? i was thinking about the LL gem but i would need a second staff and set of gems for that since i have no use for LL in maps. maybe an atziri flask could provide some leech instead of LL gem ?

I've spent some time playing each setup: LL for extra leech or CD for extra DPS. Since the gem color is different and all other gems remain the same, I just bought another staff for it. Here's what I found:

LL is by far the most dependable, safe and comfortable. The videos for T16 and the Shaper are made with LL. It may look like an overkill (which is why I switched to CD after starting the thread with LL). But it's very good for compensating for the extra damage the Berserker takes compared to the other classes.

The damage is just fine. You can see how fast the Shaper melts when he's not invulnerable. And I didn't need the Writhing Jar, could just bring Atziri's Promise for more DPS like the other versions. With CD the Shaper kill went a little faster, but not that much faster, because you can't speed up the portal and the bubble, they always take the same amount of time. But with CD my ES fluctuated quite a bit and with lesser gear it could be quite dangerous.

The same goes for the rest of T16 and the other tough bosses (like Rigwald). Better safe than sorry.

However, for Uber Atziri CD was clearly the top choice. There is no facetanking there, DPS is king. The faster everything melts the better. It goes pretty much the same as the 2.3 video for the Elementalist except that it's faster with the Berserker, he has no trouble dodging 1-shot attacks at all because of his extra movement speed (with my 30% boots I didn't need a flask for it). However, there is an issue that was not present for the other versions: ignite. The lack of elemental defenses plus the extra damage taken really feels. The other classes get ignited by the flameblasts but it's nothing bad. Berserker gets ignited hard and can die from it, so he needs flasks for it. I re-arranged the flasks for Uber: use a more traditional Ruby anti-ignite and a Sulphur anti-curse:

After 1 death to ignite it was really easy.

In the Breach league there is also this specific content: breach domains. For the top two (Uul and Chayula) you need the 4B2R staff again, but with Inc Duration instead of LL. And CD instead of CE because you really can't have a small Icestorm radius there. See the Chayula video.

I am going to switch the main post back to LL, with CD as an option.

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teketoria wrote:

I think this is one of the most fun/unique builds I've seen ever... CI zerker casting spells! I've started playing in BHC and it was the best to level with from lvl39 and on. (build really needs to hit 38 for CwC gem and 39 for CI conversion to start)

One thing though: stun! I got chain stunned somewhere in my early 70s and died. Your other WI guides have stun immunity (US) built into them and I think the zerker needs US as well. Since I enjoyed the build so much I restarted in BSC and planned a tree that also has US node, to see if that will let me tackle stuff in HC for the next league:

Spoiler

http://poeplanner.com/AAQAAOkhAgBye4wlJ11JZ5uuPsauPC2DzLc-g19Bh_nogsco-rQMytO-ipMnf8bBxewYLL8V14auVmOP-tDQX2pGcYMJb57KSl-wm7WExcM6KjihL6KjUXSO6aaZwfOVIC0fHU81uacrEVBtGZf0UlM9X0yzBAfr5F8qHwI2xdgkVkinCOvuHNyPGriTHb4zhwPug_cRLSycEFivm4dl1I8ZLtlhVw3zm2hl0iGezacwn8udrhps5CIpT548jHbsOIKb1aaFe2ZUtQRFR8BmPAXvfNAf7-tHBtvnbAjxio9Gm6EYajlSWAe_CCQ3AAAAAAA=

Losing 10 points (but converting a lot to int) does "hurt", but so far it feels much smoother. Took US quite early on in my 40s after converting to CI.

Well, as the Q&A says, this is probably not the version you want for HC. Elementalist and Inquisitor are much safer.

It would be a waste to take US when you already have the partial immunity from Ascendancy. You just need to get used to the build. Other than Merveil's steam geysers in the maps, chain stun can only happen when you get hit by several mobs at the same time. So you need to cast the first Icestorm before approaching the pack. It will kill something, and then you are immune.

Other than experimenting with the top bosses, my most common cause of death in this league have been Volatile Bloods. I'm used to ignoring them on the other classes, they don't hurt there all that much even in -maxres maps. Not so for the Berserker! You really have to pay attention to them and read the descriptions of the orange rares in high tiers, or just make sure to stay away from anything orange. But sometimes that's just not possible. Some mob types charge at you from off screen, and since you have strong AoE damage around you most of the time, they pretty much suicide bomb you. A rare rhoa or fat bird or w/e else runs in and explodes near you before you can even react. Not that it happens often, but it did happen several times in my 94 levels. And in HC 1 time is all it takes.

Just choose Elementalist for HC and be happy ;)

I'm fan of totem builds and ranged play-style but I must admit this is best and most detailed guide I ever seen in my life in PoE. Amazing work and dedication.

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Kelvynn wrote:

Weapon 6S / 2-5L BBBBR: Scorching Ray, Cast while Channelling, Elemental Focus, Concentrated Effect, Controlled Destruction, Fire Penetration. For 5S drop CE. Icestorm does not require any links and automatically uses all support gems in the staff. Just link SR with CwC. Link the other blue gems to it whenever you can afford it for extra damage from SR. FP does nothing for SR, there is no reason to 6L the staff ever.

Concentrated effect not working with SR too? So i need only 6s/4l then? 5+ link completely useless? Cus i can afford it but looks like CE not working :l