[3.6] The Blizz Sorc - Icestorm/Winter Orb CI Occultist - Viable For Everything

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April_Spades wrote:

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MORPHEUS3 wrote:

Hi, i am looking to play this build this league. I have couple of questions.

Why does everyone want to use bloodrage for arakaali proc. By using bloodrage arent we losing access to the most OP thing about ES occultist, Wicked ward Recharge.

In my Dot occultist i didn't have leech.My recharge carried me thru contents. Why are we sacrificing it.

DoT occultist can drop a vortex and then run around avoiding attacks and waiting for ES recharge to kick in. Icestorm requires us to stand still and channel to deal damage, therefore we can't dodge as easily. Leech gives us strong and reliable regen while facetanking things.

Good point but wont having both be better. We can dodge a bit wait for recharge to start and tank next few seconds with both leech and recharge instead of higher leech but no recharge.

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MORPHEUS3 wrote:

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April_Spades wrote:

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MORPHEUS3 wrote:

Hi, i am looking to play this build this league. I have couple of questions.

Why does everyone want to use bloodrage for arakaali proc. By using bloodrage arent we losing access to the most OP thing about ES occultist, Wicked ward Recharge.

In my Dot occultist i didn't have leech.My recharge carried me thru contents. Why are we sacrificing it.

DoT occultist can drop a vortex and then run around avoiding attacks and waiting for ES recharge to kick in. Icestorm requires us to stand still and channel to deal damage, therefore we can't dodge as easily. Leech gives us strong and reliable regen while facetanking things.

Good point but wont having both be better. We can dodge a bit wait for recharge to start and tank next few seconds with both leech and recharge instead of higher leech but no recharge.

Yeah, that playstyle is valid. The thought is keeping it for facetanking mega-bosses. Recharge isn't quick enough to eat shaper balls for instance.

Getting that much leech is NOT a problem when there are Ice Storm hits happening all the time, even when you re-position (due to the duration) If you like a more dodgy playstyle, then simply don't use Blood Rage, that style will work just fine, but requires more awareness and dodging. Hell, you could even spec out of Ghost Reaver and focus on your recharge rather than your leech if you wanted. The build is very flexible, and it would be easy and cheap to respec the various playstyles.

Here are a couple numbers from my lvl 100 14k ES build...
Energy Shield Recharge = 5392.4/Sec after 2 seconds.... (without ghost Reaver)
Energy Shield Recharge = 2696.2/sec after 2 seconds.... (with ghost Reaver)

Leech rate at full leech stacks (easy on bosses) 5600/sec constant with maybe a small 1 second build up delay... and doesn't stop until the critter is dead.

With blood rage proc that recovery jumps to 8400 ES a second after you take a decent hit. Plus it's a lot more consistent, since a fully stacked Icestorm will give you hundreds of leech stacks a second.

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MORPHEUS3 wrote:

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April_Spades wrote:

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MORPHEUS3 wrote:

Hi, i am looking to play this build this league. I have couple of questions.

Why does everyone want to use bloodrage for arakaali proc. By using bloodrage arent we losing access to the most OP thing about ES occultist, Wicked ward Recharge.

In my Dot occultist i didn't have leech.My recharge carried me thru contents. Why are we sacrificing it.

DoT occultist can drop a vortex and then run around avoiding attacks and waiting for ES recharge to kick in. Icestorm requires us to stand still and channel to deal damage, therefore we can't dodge as easily. Leech gives us strong and reliable regen while facetanking things.

Good point but wont having both be better. We can dodge a bit wait for recharge to start and tank next few seconds with both leech and recharge instead of higher leech but no recharge.

For leech to be useful we have to take Ghost Reaver, but that halves our energy shield recharge rate. Because of that we get more consistent ES recovery by procing arakaali than we would with occultist recharge.

EDIT: Not saying occultist recharge is bad; it's really good. It just works better with the hit-and-run sorta playstyle that DoT builds have. WI takes a few seconds of standing still to build up max DPS, while something like Vortex or Essence drain just takes one cast and then frees you up to dodge for a bit.

Gents, what about gameplay style? Boring or ...?
I mostly played by projectiles/bow users and worry alittle bit :))

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watson1337 wrote:

Gents, what about gameplay style? Boring or ...?
I mostly played by projectiles/bow users and worry alittle bit :))

That's a super subjective question. The build typically plays like this. Run ahead to the next screen..... Stand still and cover everything in death. Repeat.

Bosses = Stand still and point the mouse at boss until dead... maybe move once.

I really enjoy the build and the playstyle, but I can see how it may be boring for people who really like super active combat. You should check out a couple of the videos and decide if it's a style you may like.

Ah, you know what? I played the Berserker version of this build way back when (was it 2.6?) and I absolutely loved the playstyle, managed my first Shaper kill with it. I thought about going with the Ascendant version, now I see this one and I think I'm back in love.

Time to rain some icy doom on some poor fuckers. :)

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watson1337 wrote:

Gents, what about gameplay style? Boring or ...?
I mostly played by projectiles/bow users and worry alittle bit :))

End game clearing is very similar to winter orb build, and there are plenty of videos on it. It's very smooth playstyle, because you just run around and everything dies around you, you just charge up from time to time and pick up loot.

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Now that I think about it, if I understand correctly, while we have blood rage and between cwdt-ic procs we are never at full shields. So we get the bigger more modifier from leech gem most of the time as long as we have it on.

Then again, if we have too much regen from zealot's oath and it's bigger that blood rage degen then we're always on full shields.

From my experience with RF builds, as long as the degen is on, even if it's completely negated by ZO/Sulphur, you will still technically never be at full ES and will keep taking advantage of the high mod on EL.

Not that it really matters for clearing trash without getting hit. The bosses will hit you anyway.

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watson1337 wrote:

Gents, what about gameplay style? Boring or ...?
I mostly played by projectiles/bow users and worry alittle bit :))

Watch the videos and decide for yourself.

Build updated for 3.6.

- dropped the entire lower half of the 3.5 tree
- grabbed the new ES leech stuff
- replaced Life Leech with Energy Leech
- swapped Storm Weaver back to Snowforged
- adjusted pathing in the Templar area
- grabbed Divine Judgement, Potency of Will, Ash, Frost and Storm, ZO
- changed jewel sockets
- no longer requiring Fertile Mind

The build now does 40% MORE damage and has an innate 103% cold penetration (against everything, without Frostbite).

Fun times ahead!