[3.2] The Whispered Curses [8 Curse DPS'ish Occultist]

Hi, this is my first build guide/showcase. It's sort of ended up as a "meme-like build" after a friend of mine suggesting to make a doedre's skin build. So this is what i ended up with for a starter, and... what an "enjoyable" ride it has been.

Warning, your general practitioner might recommend not doing this build if you are addicted to clear speed or end game bossing. The warning is susceptible to change as i progress further into mapping.

WORK IN PROGRESS, expect it finished'ish by 18/3. Only casually playing this league ;).

So let's start at the end of what became an 8-Curse Whispering Ice Occultist, which was sort of a hybrid of the existing whispering ice builds (examples are; 1) whispering ice berserker, rest in peace!, 2) tricurse whispering ice and 3) avatar of fire whispering ice), which could make use of the entire spectrum of doedre's skin.



Build theory:
Spoiler

Very rough draft of the though process:
Occultist = witch starting area + all curse nodes, which =//= life (or atleast worse at it). So ES it was.
Needed a mean to apply more curses, thought of tricurse whispering ice build from https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1667730, the name of this build is a homage to his original build.
Whispering Ice and ES likes stacking Int.
Duration is good for Doedres effigy and Ice Storm (bad for lightning warp though...)
The build from https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1931384 made me consider the following; Vaal pact + ghost reaver + warlords mark, hmm... does it work with Vile Bastion... Yup!
(also check out his new guide at https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2094148)

Thus a Int stacking, curse stacking whispering ice occultist was born.

A better write up coming!


Pros and Cons:
Spoiler

Pros:
1) Unique as heck (such special snowflake, much hipster, wow!)
2) Sorta cheap "starter" (currently at a balanced 50c gear investment over time, with astramentis being 20 of those and 6 socketing doedre's skin + whispering ice are the majority of the rest)
3) Fun to watch the currently 8 (up to 9-10) dancing curses on monsters heads
4) The pop from occultist "curseplosions" are satisfying.
5) Slow and freeze everything but bosses to a complete halt.
6) Many sustain layers due to: ES regen from slain enemies, warlords mark + vaal pact, es recharge cannot be interrupted, ES gained on hit (with Watcher's eye)
7) LVLing process was a new experience (being ES focused from the start and whispering ice from lvl 33)
8) Great for partyplay of any size*
9) Does not benefit from 5-6 links.
10) And the very best, excels at capturing beasts :D

Cons:
1) Bosses have 60-80% less curse effectiveness (Can their areas also have 60-80% less aura effectiveness as well then GGG? #butthurt #salty)
2) Bosses without adds require writhing jar to proc Malediction.
3) 2 Button action build (doedre's effigy + ice storm)
4) Middle of the road DPS, can go high depending on buff uptime. Detailed explanation in spoiler tags.
Spoiler
Theoretically the dps should (let me emphazise SHOULD! be there, POB (pastebin coming later under build theory) shows avg. 29,5k shaper damage pr. shard under optimal (enemy chilled, malediction procced, conditions, giving it around 250-300k pr. icestorm.

With a ~3,5 duration for each storms, we can achieve around 11 overlapping Ice Storm casts using Cast While Channeling. Due to the erratic nature of the Ice Storm impact zones we will only gain around ~50% effectiveness from each storm.

In conclusion this equals around ~1,38-1,65mil shaper dps on achieveable gear. Which isn't game changing, but should allow the build to do most content. However this is only for the 16 seconds you have writhing jars, otherwise you sit at a meagre ~0,82-1mil dps fully ramped!

5) DPS has a ramp up time, especially with Cast While Channeling.
6) Reaching 10k+ ES and 1,5k+ Int is very, VERY EXPENSIVE!
7) Putting skills in your skill tree feels horrible (Oh another travel node, yay!)
8) Not hardcore viable (could potentially be hardcore viable, but the currency investment could more sensibly be put elsewhere).
9) *Only do parties if people have monster computers that can handle the vast amount of ice storms coming down!
10) Mediocre clear speed.


Ascendancy choice:
Spoiler

Taken in the order:
Wicked Ward -> Vile Bastion -> Profane Bloom -> Malediction

We ended up with occultist due to the fact that profane bloom allowed us to apply curses to hexproof enemies (even though some god ¤&"/¤"# beyond monsters are still "Curse immune")

Additionally Malediction gives flat 10% reduced and 10% increased damge vs cursed enemies and added chaos damage as % of non-chaos damage from the amount of curses on slain enemies. Which during theorycrafting was 8-9 curses, resulting in 64-72% more'ish chaos damage and 10% increased damage taken from this node alone.

Vile Bastion allowed us to be Chaos Inoculation without using the chayula amulet/brine king, leaving room for Astramentis and other defensive options.

Along with the overall 25% increased curse effect and %ES occultist felt like the only logical choice for a character that aimed at providing as many curses as sensibly possible.


Skill tree:
Spoiler
Easiest is to go look at "FrozenFecalFlatulence" for the updated tree, as currently it is undergoing quite alot of revisions.

Latest tree:
poeurl.com/bOQK

Details on choices and considered variants will be added.


Pantheon:
Spoiler

Not currently finalized. :) so no clue on the best.

Currently thinking:
Major: Soul of Solaris (crit protection) > Brine king (only for the freeze/chill part)
Minor: Abberath (untill ignite immune) > tokuhama ~= gruthkul (only if upgraded)


Gear:
Spoiler

Required uniques:
Doedre's skin
Whispering ice
1-2 Brute force solution
1 Fertile mind

Recommended uniques:
Astramentis (A GG rare could potentially outclass this)
Cyclopean coil (13-15%, and with Str higher than Dex)
Writhing jar (to proc Malediction on bosses)

Rest are rares with the following simple priority:
Resistance (till 75%) > Intelligence ~= Energy shield > Resistance

Jewels:
To be determined

Early search macro:
http://poe.trade/search/otimguwaniramo

Current gear:




Curses and Mana reservation:
Spoiler

Details coming!


Gem Setup:
Spoiler

Will be detailed later when i have settled in, testing alot of variants right now.


Planned progress:
Get gem slots for a movement skill (probably flame dash+faster casting) and cwdt+immortal call.
Test 4% reduced mana reservation + another "self-cast" blasphemy curse to make room for more DPS oriented supports in Whispering Ice (only works with cast while channeling).
Get a watcher's eye with ES gained on hit while affected by discipline. Consider the cannot be frozen mod + purity of ice for a secondary mod (if possible).
Finding the best balance between how to apply curses (i.e. should whispering ice always apply atleast 1 curse? or should i be more "down and dirty" with some ball lightning+blind+curse on hit shenanigans?) and getting the required DPS/surviveability for the content i'm currently at.
Work towards being able to fit cyclopean coil (more res needed).
Upgrading to a better Doedre's skin.
Potentially adding a single vs multi target setup for whispering ice.
How long will doedre's effigy be able to actually survive in maps, fine untill t10's but??

Thats all for now folks.
Feel free to discuss this work in progress and chime in with suggestions, the only 2 pieces that are essential are doedre's skin and whispering ice as the builds backbone.
Last edited by TheScalpel on Mar 8, 2018, 11:00:17 AM
Last bumped on May 11, 2018, 8:23:51 PM
Reserved if i need more space.
Tried going with this, but it seems Doedre's skin does not allow 8 curses, all existing curses that are not socketed in the body armor get overwritten (unless curse limit allows for enough curses).

A real shame, since it could've been a good choice for Occultist :(.
Just did some testing, all of my 8 curses definetly apply without error to every new pack i tried. :)

So no error in the theory on that part. :)
going for something similar myself, though only 5-6 curses and using the chaos as support, not the focus, one thing i'm curious about though, you would clearly benefit immensely from the doedre's helm, and it would only be a slight es drop, any reason for going rare? or did you just really need the resists
"
Cashew wrote:
any reason for going rare? or did you just really need the resists

Few reasons I see.
1. His gears are in deep need of resist
2. His helm provide more int




(Ideas for the build)
Elder ring with Warlord Mark <-- free 2 socket for more dmg in staff
Since CwCh nerf based on timer instead of cast speed, use blight instead and use a wither totem
Look at idea to remove elemental overload or add controlled destruction to staff. Seem strange to elem overload with Ass. Mark.
Since you dont seem to use blasphemy, maybe consider using more unique's and adding resist aura. (Could be hard to do but Perandus ring would give so much dps and energy shield)


I toyed a while with the ideas. Seem fun as hell tbh and using 1 of my favorite skill... If league wasnt ending soon I just might put time on a new char for this.. YEt, Im trying to work on something else atm :p
Last edited by petitcrabe1 on May 12, 2018, 11:35:12 PM

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