when to switch to CI

"

Valeli wrote:

"

True..but influences how you build. The later you wait to change..the larger amounts of respects you will need..a much larger

Not really. I'd just build up towards it early on, so you can pick it up with one point whenever you feel it's appropriate. Then you'll need at most 4 respecs to grab the 4 new ES nodes immediately behind it. That's not a lot; certainly not more than are provided by quests. I feel you don't waste a lot going in that direction early either. There's some useful "big" nodes, and I like grabbing the +30 dex node there also (which I can always respec out of later when I have dex on my gear). I like to pick up the 16% CI node too, actually, and respec out of that when I get CI. With all of those respecs you're still using just six respec points or so, which are easily provided by quests.

I'd say 3000 ES is probably a good number. I've had rough times trying to do it at 2500, and the extra 500 is probably good for you. When this occurs is, of course, determined more by your gear than by what point in the game you are.

That's what I'm doing also but you can't survive without life..you won't make it that far to change to ci.I'm only 32 in normal and already have 12 life nodes to respect out of

I really don't like the generalizations in this thread.

I didn't skill a single life node and I'm convinced you don't have to. Unless you're a fresh starter and have absolutely no gear whatsoever to help you out (or currencies for that matter).

People make it sound, as if CI was a burden. It actually skyrocketed my survivability because I didn't have to fear chaos dmg eating away my puny life pool.

If you're melee or playing some kind of harakiri build that needs you to get bashed frequently, CI might not be the best option anyway. Or not until you have enough life leech to sustain your ES.

Aside from that, CI is a survivability gain.

If you plan to leech from public parties until you hit merciless, you can do whatever you want. If you're actually playing this game, you might want to make smarter choices.

"

Unimatrix wrote:

Depends on your build.

My dual totem Incinerate witch switched in cruel act2. I played like I was CI as soon as I could anyway.

I had like 1.6k when activating CI and went up to about 2k in the levels after by getting the follow-up nodes.

Perfectly doable - I could have switched even earlier and would still have been fine. Chaos immunity is awesome <3

Exactly the same.
Noticed i could reach 2K ES by Act 2 Cruel with +20% Node behind CI.
Since i had 400 HP by then (Arrow dodging + Grace so to escape most of chaos damage until CI spec', which comes mostly from ranged mobs anyway)

Did so in order to avoid Melee Chaos damage, which is really annoying, even in Cruel.

Didn't skill a single life node to reach this point.
Playing solo.

"

That's what I'm doing also but you can't survive without life..you won't make it that far to change to ci.I'm only 32 in normal and already have 12 life nodes to respect out of

That's not the case. All of my witches have made it to 50+ no problem (excluding the two or three face-palm moments I've had earlier on), without taking any life nodes. ~50 is where the lack of life starts to become problematic for me (sewers in cruel act 3, for instance), but prior to then your life from gear plus a good ammount of energy shield can and will carry you perfectly well.

If you're taking life nodes, you're doing something very wrong. That's why you're freaking out about respec points. It's also probably crippling your available ES and damage, if you're trying to pick up both es nodes and life nodes and other linking points on your way to CI. You won't get anywhere.

Forget life nodes. You'll be fine without them until Act 3 cruel /easily/. I promise.

Make sure you have good resists. I don't know what your tree is, but to the left of the starting position there's a node (elemental master? I can't recall) that gives you 10% damage and 10% resist all. Easy to get too. Not far from that is another node that gives you 10% resist all and a big boost to energy shield (along with armor boosts). And you can snake from there over to another set of 8 or so energy shield/armor nodes followed up by a big one including resist all.

Focusing on your resist and energy shield will be plenty, as long as you have 600 or so life to fall back on. 600 is easy to come by before level 40 or 50. Nothing in normal does heavy chaos damage (and in normal you'll have 16% chaos resist anyways from that one node. Cruel act two you just have to be a bit careful of the poison arrow guys etc, but they don't hit that hard either. You have no problems before Cruel act three.

I say this as someone who's the embodiment of poor also, so don't think I'm counting on fancy gear or anything to get me to 50 without life nodes. I have, literally, six chaos orbs to my name at the moment.


Edit: If you're level 32 and already have 12 nodes you need to spec out of from life, I'd honestly just call it right now, cut my losses, and start a new witch. Don't waste orbs of regret on it. You'll get back to 32 in no time.

only if ALL three are true

1) stun immun
2) freeze immun
3) more ES (with CI) as ES+Life without CI

Edit: Post above mine edited to explain what they meant better. So my comment no longer makes sense and I'm killing it.

@Valeli:

If you have to take life nodes or not totally depends on the skills you use. Perhaps you can get to lvl 50 without any life node using OP Freezing Pulse... or if you have a lot of good ES items in your stash.

Have fun playing e.g. a spark build to lvl 50 without any life node... lol

Freezing pulse is OP? Compared to LA or EK or any of those? I'm not sold on that.

Agree with your point that it depends on the build though, that's entirely true. Should link your passives and explain what you're doing with them OP. There's a whole bunch of "it's situational" here, as there tends to be in such things.

"

Valeli wrote:

Freezing pulse is OP? Compared to LA or EK or any of those? I'm not sold on that.

Yeah. There isnt much that can compete with FP (thats why it is so overused). LA or EK are one of these skills close to FP, and perhaps even have better dmg (EK) or better killspeed (LA), but FP is by far the better allround package.

- You are much more vulnerable as LA-build and you need MUCH better gear for the same effect.
- EK maybe gives you a tiny bit more dmg, but needs more mana and is a lot less defensive.

Besides really high dmg (wich you can get with other spells too), FP grants way better defense than even most marauder tanks have. Thats what makes FP so OP.

Just grind out merciless fellshrine until ES reaches 3k. Then take CI before doing act 2 merciless progression or the chaos will get you killed.