[0.3] Whispering Ice Blood Mage - Viable for Everything
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2025-09-09: Initial version of the build.
2025-09-10: Improved mapping experience with more mana and cast speed. Updated the PoB. Introduction
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I've been a huge fan of The Whispering Ice in PoE 1 for many years, and I've been maintaining my Icestorm build through many leagues. Now that this staff has been added to PoE 2, I wanted to try recreating the same play style in this game. There are currently two things lacking in PoE 2 that make it impossible to have quite the same level of fun as in PoE 1: 1. There is no way to cast spells while constantly moving, nothing like the Cyclone-CwC tech. 2. There is no way to leech ES from spell damage. And only one spell caster class capable of leeching life (Blood Mage). This is my best attempt at making a Whispering Ice build similar to PoE 1. Hopefully, in the future they will make spell leech more available and add more mobility options. Videos
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PoB2 Data Build Theory
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This build is based on the Blood Mage's ability to quickly recover life and mana while using them both as defenses. It does a good amount of damage in a decent area. The Whispering Ice staff grants two skills: 1. Icestorm (sustained AoE hit damage that scales with Intelligence). 2. Heart of Ice (an aura that applies a strong chill). Icestorm also consumes chill to produce empowered hits. Blood Mage has an innate 10% spell leech. And uses Life Remains and Mana Remains to quickly recover life and mana. This form of recovery creates an overflow, effectively increasing life and mana pools by 50%. This build also converts 25% of incoming damage from hits into damage over time (that it can easily outleech). And another part of incoming damage is taken from mana, while recouping the same amount of damage as mana over time. This is a crit build (90%+ crit chance). It draws several benefits from critical hits: - instant life leech with Atziri's Acuity - extra remnants for more recovery - extra damage "if you've crit recently" - extra damage with 400%+ crit damage bonus This build becomes functional at lv 75 (the minimum required level for The Whispering Ice) and is complete at lv 94. Some small damage nodes can be added after that, depending on how high you want to go. How Expensive Is It?
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In the current league prices, I started at lv 75 with about 200 ex total budget (this was not my 1st character). Probably can start even cheaper. Some of the items I have right now (in PoB) go for 1-5 div. Good jewels can be found for ~1 div. Nothing super expensive. There is a possible big upgrade for damage - Rakiata's Flow support gem that is currently about 20 div. More than the rest of the items combined! Of course, I cannot predict future prices. How Do I Level to 75?
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You can level to 75 any way you want. I used Spark. There are leveling trees, item sets and skill sets in the PoB data. Skills and Supports
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Icestorm: 1. Overabundance II for +1 storm (make sure you take Preservation to have the storms last long enough!) 2. Considered Casting for 35% MORE damage 3. Elemental Focus for 25% MORE damage (because Icestorm cannot freeze) 4. Cold Mastery for ~15% MORE damage. Can swap to Concentrated Area for bosses (but Conc is not good for map clearing). Replace with Rakiata's Flow if you can ever afford it. Heart of Ice: 1. Slow Potency 2. Cold Mastery Life Remnants, Mana Remnants: 1. Harmonic Remnants II 2. Remnant Potency III Place in any free sockets with Life/Mana Remnants or Heart of Ice: - Cool Headed - Warm Blooded - Strong Hearted To use all 3 of them, you need to get 5 extra Spirit on amulet or body armour. If you don't have that, drop Strong Hearted and use an anti-shock charm. Arctic Armour: 1. Cold Mastery 2. Knockback 3. Freeze 4. Cold Penetration Sigil of Power: 1. Magnified Area II 2. Prolonged Duration II 3. Cooldown Recovery II 4. Rapid Casting II Elemental Weakness: 1. Heightened Curse 2. Prolonged Duration II 3. Efficiency II 4. Fire/Cold/Lightning Mastery You can turn Elemental Weakness into a mega curse by assigning it to Weapon Set II and using Weapon Set Skill Points (see PoB). How Do I Use Weapon Set Skill Points?
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1. Talk to Doryani or The Hooded One. 2. Refund Passives. 3. Refund three 4-node clusters that give crit/damage, 12 point total. 4. In the top-right corner of the screen, click on "< I Weapon Set". 5. Put back the 12 points you've just refunded. Now they are Set 1 Points. 6. Switch to "< II Weapon Set". 7. Take Lingering Whispers, Fated End, Zone of Control. This will be in Set 2. 8. Un-click "< II Weapon Set". If/when you get Rakiata's Flow support for Icestorm, drop Elemental Weakness. Items
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Make sure you max Fire/Cold/Lightning Resistances. It's possible to max Chaos as well. Or at least get it to 50%+. You can see my actual gear in PoB. The Staff
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The lowest version (Icestorm lv 17) requires lv 75. Then there is a lv 18 version (req lv 78). And a lv 19 version (req lv 84). They all have 4 sockets. In theory, a lv 20 version with 5 sockets can drop at ilvl 86 - but that's not realistically possible in the current league. You want a staff with +4 to Level of All Cold Spell Skills. Cast speed is good for more pleasant mapping experience. Intelligence and Exposure mods don't really matter. Make it 20% quality with Arcanist's Etchers. This adds quality to Icestorm and Heart of Ice. Socket it with Greater Glacial Runes (Gain 10% of Damage as Extra Cold). Best corruption: +1 socket. Gloves
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Atziri's Acuity with 45-50% crit. It requires 42 Str. Convert a few Int nodes to Str, or get +Str on other items. Good corruptions: +1 socket or Cold Penetration. Amulet
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Must have: +3 to Level of All Spell Skills (+2 for low budget) Other useful mods: - Life - Crit Bonus - Spell Damage - Spirit (5 is enough, implicit or explicit) Anoint with Adverse Growth (Ire, Paranoia, Disgust). Body Armour
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You want to max the sum of Life+ES. Because your 4th Ascendancy (Crimson Power) adds ES to Life on the body armour. Other good things are Resists or Spirit (just 5 is enough). Socket with Greater Iron Runes for more ES. Boots
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You want 30-35 movement speed, Life, and Resists. Preferably on a base that gives Armour (don't go for much more Str requirement than on the gloves). Expensive option: Farrul's Rune of the Chase. Helmet
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Life, Resists, Armour (within the Str requirement of the gloves and boots). Belt
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2+ charm slots (you have +1 from quest rewards), Life, Armour, Resists. Rings
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Cast Speed, Life, Resists. Get the rings after everything else, when you know how much Res you need. Jewels
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Sapphires with Increased Critical Hit Chance AND Increased Critical Hit Chance for Spells. Other useful mods: - Crit Damage Bonus - Cold/Spell/Elemental Damage Charms
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Silver, Antidote, Golden If you are getting stunned or frozen (low hp gear, or nasty maps) use Stone or Thawing instead of Golden. Ascendancy
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1. Vitality Siphon 2. Sunder the Flesh 3. Grasping Wounds 4. Crimson Power The first two are extremely important and very easy to get during the campaign with the quest Barya/Ultimatum. 3rd and 4th are only important after switching to Icestorm (lv 75+). You can get both of them together in the lv 75+ Sekhema or Chaos Trial - whichever one you like more (or hate less). Quest Rewards
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All possible Resistances whenever there is a choice. Act 2: charm effect duration Act 3: elemental ailment threshold Play Style
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Walk around, see a pack of monsters. Cast Icestorm on them and keep walking. They will die to sustained damage, you don't need to wait for it to happen. Move, cast, move, cast... You have 4 Icestorms at your disposal. While clearing the map you typically want to place them in 4 different spots for max area coverage. Works really well vs mechanics like Abyss, Breech, Ritual, Delirium. A rare monster may be worth stacking 2 storms. When fighting a boss: cast Sigil of Power right on top of it, then keep casting Icestorm while walking around it (ideally without leaving the Sigil circle). Cast Elemental Weakness once in 15 sec. Dodge the telegraphed 1-shots. You want to be close enough to the enemy to pick up life/mana remnants (automatically). Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Sep 11, 2025, 11:15:49 AM Last bumped on Sep 15, 2025, 12:27:45 PM
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<3 we back boys!
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I was just looking around for staves to buy and do something with this. Glad to see the OG Icestorm guru taking another crack at it too
Would anybody like some... POUNDCAKE?
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Is INT on gear just not as impactful this time? More of a bonus than a necessity?
Would anybody like some... POUNDCAKE?
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Hey ! Glad to see you around POE2, loved your long running Icestorm guide on POE1 <3
League started as Stormweaver with WI, but playing another twist of it. I always felt it was a bit slow for clearing, so i used my Ele Weakness curse as a clearing tool while keeping Icestorm for bosses. Combo feels great, clear is amazing, and the rain of ice and comets just scratch that itch on single target ahah This is also a good way to synergise around INT stacking, as INT/Mana benefits Archmage, Whispering Ice's Int Stacking, Doedre's, Impending Doom, Mana Flare, Pure Power and Arcane Intensity. (I tried playing around Elemental Discharge, but the 1second immunity on consuming ailment was too hard to get around. Food for thoughts : Stormweaver - CI - no crit - (Shaper of Storms / Force of Will) Running T15 without issue (that's all i can vouch for, not a lot of time to play) EleWeak - Unleash - Doedre's Undoing - Tul's Stillness - Impending Doom - Controlled Destruction Icestorm - Shock - Rising Tempest - Mana Flare - Ambrosia - Zarokh's Refrain Cast on Ailment - Comet - Rising Tempest - Ixchel's Torment - Boundless - Energy Retention Archmage Overwhelming Presence /or/ Convalescence Also using Sigil of Power / Mana Tempest to boost damage on bosses (If i'm correct, you can cast Icestorm then stand in MT to get the damage boost, without the mana drawback) If i were brave enough, i'ld reroll into a crit blood mage version, with cast on crit setup, and probably with Atalui's Bloodletting _________________ Icestorm (sustained AoE hit damage that scales with Intelligence) I don't think this is true on POE2, neither tooltip nor wiki uphold this statement. If/when you get Rakiata's Flow support for Icestorm, drop Elemental Weakness. I wonder if this is worth doing, as we have built-in Exposure on every hit with Whispering Ice. It would still work, in most cases, but exposure would undermine Rakiata i believe ? Last edited by valarhexile#3016 on Sep 14, 2025, 7:33:41 PM
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" Int scaling on Icestorm is pretty weak in PoE 2. You can get some Increased (not MORE) damage from it, but the difference between 5% and 15% on the staff and whatever you can get on gear is nothing compared to what you can get from levels and support gems. There are more important suffixes that you can get instead of just Int. Such as resists, cast speed, crits, mana regen... |
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" Not sure what you mean here. It's literally what you can read on the staff and Icestorm skill description. " Exposure will undermine the effect of Rakiata's a little (exposure effect is halved on bosses, so they will lose 10-12% all res). But doing 65% MORE damage to a pinnacle boss is still a lot more than you can get from any other support. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Sep 15, 2025, 12:00:09 AM
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" I'm also working on something else for clear speed. Something similar to the PoE 1 Occultist version of the build used to be. You can see it on my twitch/youtube. A separate build post will be coming soon, as a sister project to the Blood Mage. |
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" First part : What i mean is your statement "Icestorm (sustained AoE hit damage that scales with Intelligence)" is kinda misleading. AFAIK : (please, if i'm wrong, feel free to share any kind of written information that could point me toward a better understanding) You're stating the skill Icestorm scales with Intelligence, but it doesn't. It sure takes advantage of the Whispering Ice %spell per intelligence scaling, but as much as any other spell you could use ? Whispering Ice, the staff, provides 4% (generic) spell damage per intelligence. Icestorm, the skill, doesn't provide or use any sort of intelligence scaling. Whispering Ice description : Grants Skill: Level (16-20) Heart of Ice Grants Skill: Level (16-20) Icestorm+(2-4) to Level of all Cold Spell Skills (10-20)% reduced Cast Speed (5-15)% increased Intelligence 4% increased Spell Damage per 10 Intelligence Inflict Elemental Exposure on Hit, lowering Total Elemental Resistance by (20-30)% poe2wiki : https://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/The_Whispering_Ice poe2db : https://poe2db.tw/us/The_Whispering_Ice Icestorm description : Conjure a hail of icy bolts over the targeted area. Chill and Freeze on enemies in front of you are Consumed to fuel the Icestorm by creating improved bolts.Deals (3-87) to (5-131) Cold Damage Cold Damage from Hits does not contribute to Chill Magnitude Cannot Freeze Impact radius is 0.9 metres Storm radius is 2.6 metres Storm duration is 6 seconds One impact every 0.15 seconds Improves 1 Bolt per Chill Consumed Improves 1 Bolt per Power of enemies from which Freeze is Consumed Limit 3 Icestorms Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality: +(0.01-0.2) metres to impact radius poe2wiki : https://www.poe2wiki.net/wiki/Icestorm poe2db : https://poe2db.tw/us/Icestorm Second part : True, didn't factor the boss part, that's huge ! Guess it's why it costs that much ahah Last edited by valarhexile#3016 on Sep 15, 2025, 9:48:34 AM
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" Ohhh can't wait to see what you'll eventually come up with ! |
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