[2.5] 2600+ Int Whispering Ice Guardian. Wonderous Wizard of Wisdom

Why not use Prayer of Glory ascendancy? You get 15% cast and movement speed + 3 endurance charges and that's 12% physical damage reduction, much better then Unwavering Faith ascendancy.

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Medoo wrote:

Why not use Prayer of Glory ascendancy? You get 15% cast and movement speed + 3 endurance charges and that's 12% physical damage reduction, much better then Unwavering Faith ascendancy.

Unwavering faith is much much better then prayer of glory. I have written in the guide that some might want to drop time of need or bastion of hope for it thought.

First of all you can't compare max endurance charges to prayer of glory as though having them up is a given. Casting enduring cry every 10 seconds is a real chore and something you can already do without glory but the reason most people don't is that its alot of effort that is unnecessary much of the time. Each time there is a 10 second gap between a pack of monsters and the boss or you use a portal you will also lose those charges and then you spending time and positioning to use the cry against the boss and only getting 1 charge at a time

The cast and movement speed is even worse to maintain as it only lasts 4 seconds. Needing to buff every 4 seconds also means that while you certainly can have it up alot of the time if you are diligent and want to put the effort but its not just a given that it will always be up.

Currently I rank the ascendencies as

Radiant faith (core of the build)
Unwavering Faith (7% physical reduction all the time without upkeep is so good)
Time of need (With curse maps and this helps a bit, pretty unnoticeable most of the time though)
Bastion of Hope (7% block chance is pretty low and not very impactful but at least its automatic)

Prayer of glory (more trouble then its worth in most cases but if you were going to warcry anyway then worth picking up)

I feel like Whispering Ice is really picking up in the Meta.

I've made a fair amount of currency flipping perfect Whispering Ice's + Legacy Perandus signets.

The relevant emperors Jewels have jumped so much in price, I now feel pretty lucky that I got both of mine for 4ex each. They now go for 10 each. Perfect Conversion Jewels seem to have gone up too. Even perfect int rolls on Black Sun crest seem up.

Personally through player interaction I've encouraged about 8 other players to pick up this build and it's nice to see them doing well but seeing the price of the build go up is a little sad.

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Drahnier123 wrote:

I feel like Whispering Ice is really picking up in the Meta.

I've made a fair amount of currency flipping perfect Whispering Ice's + Legacy Perandus signets.

The relevant emperors Jewels have jumped so much in price, I now feel pretty lucky that I got both of mine for 4ex each. They now go for 10 each. Perfect Conversion Jewels seem to have gone up too. Even perfect int rolls on Black Sun crest seem up.

Personally through player interaction I've encouraged about 8 other players to pick up this build and it's nice to see them doing well but seeing the price of the build go up is a little sad.

Yeah I've noticed that a bunch of the items have gone up a fair amount as well. I'm also glad I got mine cheaper.

I hope it doesn't raise too high. I was planning on running this build for the new league but when they announced that the theme was "make rares better" I decided to pass since such an advantage to this build is not needing to worry about getting good rolls on rares

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Medoo wrote:

Why not use Prayer of Glory ascendancy? You get 15% cast and movement speed + 3 endurance charges and that's 12% physical damage reduction, much better then Unwavering Faith ascendancy.

For 4 seconds. You get the bonus to movement and cast speed for 4 sec, which is less than the cool down of the war cry so you're stuck waiting for it to go off cooldown far longer than the movement speed and cast speed linger around. It literally feels like nothing. And you won't get those endurance charges unless there are 4+ enemies around you, which requires you to be in the middle of packs, not a very good spot for a ranged caster. It's also useless on bosses as you'll never generate the ECs. Since most of your kills come from range, war cries don't at all suit this build. It's better if you went melee.

UF is literally what makes this build great. It gives you a boatload of physical resistance for free as you're already stacking a ton of auras. And as was said, the buff is permanent and doesn't require you to waste a socket on a war cry (sockets being lucrative considering how many auras we employ).

Without UF, you're just another squishy caster with pretty meh offenseive stats. You might as well go with the Elementalist or Occultist imo if you're going to cut off your physical resistance.

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Medoo wrote:

Why not use Prayer of Glory ascendancy? You get 15% cast and movement speed + 3 endurance charges and that's 12% physical damage reduction, much better then Unwavering Faith ascendancy.

For 4 seconds. You get the bonus to movement and cast speed for 4 sec, which is less than the cool down of the war cry so you're stuck waiting for it to go off cooldown far longer than the movement speed and cast speed linger around. It literally feels like nothing. And you won't get those endurance charges unless there are 4+ enemies around you, which requires you to be in the middle of packs, not a very good spot for a ranged caster. It's also useless on bosses as you'll never generate the ECs. Since most of your kills come from range, war cries don't at all suit this build. It's better if you went melee.

In practice I agree that Prayer of Glory is clunky. But the warcry cooldown is actually 4 seconds, the buff is permenant if you use it on cooldown.

Additionally Enduring Cry is guaranteed to give 1 charge if there is 1 enemy within range. You will generate EC on bosses. Enduring cry has a good range at max quality Not to mention this build leech facetanks most bosses, I don't know why you think most kills are from extreme range.

as for it feeling like nothing I have to disagree, having played with it before the movespeed and attack/cast speed are quite noticeable.

It's perfectly viable, and even more powerful than the other options(Bastion of hope, time of need) but it just makes the playstyle so much clunkier

I have taken prayer of glory instead of block chance one.

It is useful running labs, which I've been doing past 2 days to try and get helm enchant. Pop a quicksilver, do a warcry and just yolo through traps usually does the trick, thr couple times I died was due to lag or slowing down to avoid the traps and died due to that, and not being able to see clearly traps near me due to the helm reduced light radius..


Also I think rumis will be a more reliable option to get block chance when needed, not some rng every 5 sec.

As for socket, it fits nicely into the last socket in my 6L shave which I ran blood magic, enlighten lvl4 Artic armour and 2 purities. Not needing to spend life casting is great! only other option to go in there would be vaal skills.


Btw uber izaro is easy with this build, even with full buff, for those wanting to run labs for enchants. (Ive enchanted the helm 40times, no reduce reservation on anything yet and saw righteous fire twice, viper strike 3 times... Tell me game aint rigged)

Also done a vinktar for atlas bonus and bosses are also easy, can more or less face tank everything when leeching.

Still debating whethet to fit herald of ice or empower disc/purity of ice in helm if and when I get thr helm enchant eventually...

Talking about ascendancy points, i just took one small node for extra ES/Armour :/ .

What about the bandits, what would be the best choices in Normal, Cruel and Merciless?

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156Thelema wrote:

What about the bandits, what would be the best choices in Normal, Cruel and Merciless?

Kill them. Kill them all! :0