[2.2] A Storm of Ice and Fire - Avatar of Fire CI Whispering Ice - Uber Viable!

@ Kelvynn

Your build is interesting, I like what u did with Amplify + Blast Radius + Conc effect.

I got one question though. Can u explain why do we need +45% increased effect duration instead of +50% spell dmg (the points spent to get to Potency of Will can be spent to get so much spell dmg).
Can u explain with facts?


Also I would like to say that i find CoH + firestorm + temp chains to be a better utility for bosses than Blasphemy + WM (trash are a joke anyway), because WM is not so reliable in many boss fights, also many bosses do completely spell dmg so immortal call is not effective.
Another thing is that u dont really need the extra life leech, with high enough dmg and ES u can face tank things u couldnt imagine with LL gem only.
As for the mana leech, u can solve it by running a low lvl clarity and some regen in the tree, like the starting witch passive for example (1 point). What do u do if a map is immune to curses and -% mana regen? the firestorm combo is all around, while the WM combo is usueless in many situations.

I know you said that u love the 4 sec immunity from IC but is it really needed? Which physical mobs trouble you? (apart from uber trio).


One last question: Wityh the gear u got and the tree u have, i think u cant be capped in resists? Can u inform?


Thats all, and thanks in advance!

"

nel0angel0 wrote:

@ Kelvynn

Your build is interesting, I like what u did with Amplify + Blast Radius + Conc effect.

I got one question though. Can u explain why do we need +45% increased effect duration instead of +50% spell dmg (the points spent to get to Potency of Will can be spent to get so much spell dmg).
Can u explain with facts?


Also I would like to say that i find CoH + firestorm + temp chains to be a better utility for bosses than Blasphemy + WM (trash are a joke anyway), because WM is not so reliable in many boss fights, also many bosses do completely spell dmg so immortal call is not effective.
Another thing is that u dont really need the extra life leech, with high enough dmg and ES u can face tank things u couldnt imagine with LL gem only.
As for the mana leech, u can solve it by running a low lvl clarity and some regen in the tree, like the starting witch passive for example (1 point). What do u do if a map is immune to curses and -% mana regen? the firestorm combo is all around, while the WM combo is usueless in many situations.

I know you said that u love the 4 sec immunity from IC but is it really needed? Which physical mobs trouble you? (apart from uber trio).


One last question: Wityh the gear u got and the tree u have, i think u cant be capped in resists? Can u inform?


Thats all, and thanks in advance!

Duration: +45% duration is better than +50% increased damage because increased damage is additive while storm duration is multiplicative as long as it keeps hitting something. Of course, that matters only against targets that take time to kill. If you are doing only easy maps for xp then you can skip the duration nodes and go for more dps. But then again, everything in easy maps dies from 1 cast of Icestorm even without another 50% increased damage.

Increased duration not only gives you more dps against bosses/tough rares/packs, but it also helps survivability by giving you more time to move around. You cast Icestorm on the boss, then move, then cast again, then move. You stack them up and they keep going longer while you are free to move around. Also good against bosses that move because you can cover more territory with ongoing icestorms damaging the boss while you kite it around.

Btw, as I mentioned, I switched back from Potency of Will to the original Exceptional Performance to save 1 point. But one of the two duration clusters is necessary if you want to do hard stuff.

WM aura vs CoH TC: how is it not reliable? All bosses have shorter curse duration, they don't stay cursed for long. Aura solves that problem, it's always on, and you don't need to get hit to renew your curse. And then there is Atziri: you simply cannot keep her cursed without Blasphemy, you'd need to bring extra anti-curse flasks to cure yourself all the time. Blasphemy is not reflectable, you can curse Atziri with it just fine. Extra life and mana leech is great.

Mana leech: low level clarity is nowhere near as good as WM aura leech. You cast 1 Icestorm on a pack and you are full mana as long as anything there still lives, i.e. as long as you need to keep casting. And you don't need any mana regen nodes, can use them for something better. For curse immune maps I use lv 20 Clarity instead of the WM aura. If it's curse immine and -% regen then it's just a slow clearing, same as with any other variation.

Firestorm+CoH+TC is just as useless as WM aura if the map is curse immune, that's a strange argument.

If you think that on some bosses another curse is better than WM, you can always switch them. If the boss is pure elemental, you can switch AA (green) and WM (red) gems for TC (green) and PoF (red) and use TC aura and PoF. However, I haven't found a case where I'd want that yet. That extra life leech is so awesome. Do you have an example?

And no, you cannot facetank some things with just LL. The difference made by the WM leech is quite noticeable. I've found myself fleeing from hard packs, reflect rares and Beyond mobs in high tier maps too many times before starting to use WM aura. I very rarely flee anymore. WM aura makes life so much easier!

Physical encounters where 4 sec IC rocks: blue packs of exploding hedgehogs, rares with extra physical damage, about half of Beyond spawns, bosses such as Abyss, Collosseum, Shrine, Palace, Excavation, Wasteland, and of course Trio. But long IC is just an added bonus to the extra leech from WM.

Resists: I just finished replacing all rare jewels with Izaro's. My resists are capped: 148, 144, 136 with just armor, gloves and boots:

I had to replace crafted Int on my gloves with resists. I need to look for better gloves, mine are not particularly good for this build. But this works already.

Btw, the benefit of the 3rd Izaro was negligible. A good rare jewel with resists and damage

allowed me to craft Int instead of resists for just a little lower dps and slightly higher ES. You can use a jewel like this one to help with resists and find good Int gloves. Our gear options are very flexible.

"

sybrwookie wrote:

Question about gear. I've been using a Black Sun basically since I started using the WI. I've upgraded everything around it and am looking at some very high ES helms (which will also take care of some of my resist issues), but taking it off is going to cost me well over 100 Int, so losing damage, mana, and ES, so even putting on a pretty high end helm is only going to net me a few hundred ES, while losing a lot in other areas. Is it really worth the ES? With it, I know I'm running a bit low right now (just under 8k ES), it just seems like such a hit to take in so many areas.

I've run with Black Sun for a while. But eventually replaced it with a high ES helmet. Maximizing Int is not a goal, it's just one way of increasing dps and ES. You need to cap resists too.

I just checked on my char: with a rare ES helm I have 10432 ES and 5551 WI tooltip. If I put Black Sun on (mine is 12% Int), I get 8507 ES (-19%) and 6127 tooltip (+10%).

I don't think gaining 10% dps is worth losing 20% ES. I don't feel comfortable with less than 10k ES. Too fragile. The 1st post mentions that Black Sun is worth using if you have 8k+ ES without helm.

OK, thanks for the input!

"

Kelvynn wrote:

WM aura vs CoH TC: how is it not reliable? All bosses have shorter curse duration, they don't stay cursed for long. Aura solves that problem, it's always on, and you don't need to get hit to renew your curse. And then there is Atziri: you simply cannot keep her cursed without Blasphemy, you'd need to bring extra anti-curse flasks to cure yourself all the time. Blasphemy is not reflectable, you can curse Atziri with it just fine. Extra life and mana leech is great.

Mana leech: low level clarity is nowhere near as good as WM aura leech. You cast 1 Icestorm on a pack and you are full mana as long as anything there still lives, i.e. as long as you need to keep casting. And you don't need any mana regen nodes, can use them for something better. For curse immune maps I use lv 20 Clarity instead of the WM aura. If it's curse immine and -% regen then it's just a slow clearing, same as with any other variation.


Resists: I just finished replacing all rare jewels with Izaro's. My resists are capped: 148, 144, 136 with just armor, gloves and boots:

I had to replace crafted Int on my gloves with resists. I need to look for better gloves, mine are not particularly good for this build. But this works already.

You covered it all except 2 parts for me:

1) You almost convinced me to use WM combo, what about area of effect? What if u want to hit the boss from afar, what happens to your mana then when u dont actually leeching because u are far?

2) Can u please inform if u got more resists in tree / jewels? Because i got more overall resists on gear than you and i am BARELY capped in merciless.
Can u give detailed numbers?


Thanks!

"

nel0angel0 wrote:

1) You almost convinced me to use WM combo, what about area of effect? What if u want to hit the boss from afar, what happens to your mana then when u dont actually leeching because u are far?

Lv 20 Blasphemy (+38% increased radius of curses) makes the aura large enough to cover everything on the screen except corners. I just walked into Dried Lake and took this screenshot:


If you want to off-screen something then of course the curse won't extend that far. When you are not near them you don't really need it either. But the CWDT CoH setup is not much help there either since it requires you to get hit.

For mobile bosses that you want to kite and off-screen (e.g. T15 Daresso) I always cast an Icestorm or two between them and me, not just at them. In case they decide to charge at you. If they do, they may hit me once, trigger IC, and the leech from the WM aura repairs the damage while I run away IC'd. T15 Daresso is a possible use for TC aura because he's damn fast. But an aura nevertheless: casting TC on him directly won't slow him down for long, he'd shrug it off too fast.

"

nel0angel0 wrote:

2) Can u please inform if u got more resists in tree / jewels? Because i got more overall resists on gear than you and i am BARELY capped in merciless.
Can u give detailed numbers?

My tree has the same resist nodes as the original build:
current tree, lv 94
I don't have any jewels with resists anymore. 3x Brute Force Solution, 2x Fertile Mind, 3x Izaro's Turmoil. I only have resists on the gear pieces linked above.

I did help Kraityn on Normal as per the original build. Those +10% all resists are totally worth 1 point. Did you do that?

P.S. Oh heh... I just noticed that the original build suggests helping Alira on Cruel for 5% cast speed, and I actually did that. That was a mistake. I don't know what Baalorlord was thinking, but I think 5% cast speed is far less useful than a skill point for this build. We don't spam cast. We cast, move, cast, move. 5% is nothing. I'm totally gonna spend 20 regrets and get me that fat 12% ES node near Witch and finish this build at lv 94 instead of 95!

There we go. All better. Updated the tree as well. Don't help Alira, take the skill point.

This build is effectively complete at lv 90. Then you can grab the Alchemist cluster if you are into flasks (lv 93), or the 4 nice ES nodes near the Witch start (lv 94). And you are done! Leveling after 94 is a huge chore anyway. If you choose to go all the way, you can grab 2 more sockets, or have both ES and Alchemist, or Path of the Savant, or just collect more Int nodes.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

Lv 20 Blasphemy (+38% increased radius of curses) makes the aura large enough to cover everything on the screen except corners. I just walked into Dried Lake and took this screenshot

Ok you convinced me!

One last question:

Isnt it better to get both skill effect duration clusters?
Isnt 90% better than 45%?

If not can u explain?

Thanks!

"

nel0angel0 wrote:

Isnt it better to get both skill effect duration clusters?
Isnt 90% better than 45%?

Icestorm has 1.5s base duration + 0.15s per 100 Int.

Let's make a table and see how duration (in milliseconds) changes with Int and extended duration nodes: with 0%, 45% and 90% extended duraion.

INTL D+00 D+45 D+90
---- ---- ---- ----
1000 3000 4350 5700
1200 3300 4785 6270
1400 3600 5220 6840
1600 3900 5655 7410
1800 4200 6090 7980
2000 4500 6525 8550

With duration longer than 6s you risk killing yourself at Atziri because the pause at the start of the split phase is 6s.

For everything other than Atziri +90% is great. But we really don't have enough tree nodes for both clusters. And it's only good for bosses because all trash is long dead by then. Somewhere around 5s is the sweet spot, and it's achieved by taking 1 of the 2 clusters.

guys,

I understand that it is best to bring all gems to 20% quality, but which ones should I focus on first? There are so many of them!

"

Kelvynn wrote:

"

Frajhamster wrote:

How much INTELIGENCE do u have ?

1457 Int currently.

The original (and very expensive) version has 1620 Int as show on the 1st post screenshots. All-unique versions can reach above 2000 Int while sacrificing survivability and versatility.

Int is a tool, one of several used by this build. It gives you 3 things:

1. Icestorm damage: 1-3 base cold dmg per 10 Int, i.e. avg +1 base dmg per 5 Int. Which is then multiplied by all the Increased and MORE damage foci you get from gear, gems and tree nodes.

2. ES: 2% Increased ES per 10 Int, i.e. avg +1% per 5 Int. Our ES comes from 2 sources: a) gear, b) Discipline aura. It's then increased by the Int bonus and the bonuses from the tree nodes, and finally multiplied by 1.15 from the 15% MORE on the Infused Shield node.

3. Mana: 5 mana per 10 Int, i.e. avg 1 mana per 2 Int. Almost all of our mana is reserved by the auras, so it doesn't really matter if you have 1400 or 1700 Int for this purpose.

Maximizing Int is not a goal in itself. The goal is to have high dps and high survivability. You can trade some Int for +damage and +ES nodes. You should always consider how much this or that upgrade will affect your dps and ES. It's not a linear scale, but you can check it easily for your current setup by taking off 1 jewel: take out Izaro's and see how much dps you've lost, calculate what 1% increased spell dmg is really worth; take out Brute Force and see how much dps and ES you've lost, calculate what 1 Int is really worth. Then make decisions based on that knowledge.

Just wondering, how do you get that much intelligence? I am level 76, and ATM I only have around 1,100 intelligence. I have taken pretty much all of the intelligence on the passive tree (also have brute force on the way to unwavering stance with fertile mind on the way to vaal pact), and also have 2 perandus signets (1 leg and 1 nonleg), a decently rolled astramentis, and a 10 16 whispering ice. I have intelligence currently only on my boots, but will eventually craft some on my headpiece. My belt is a fire doryani's to cap resistances. BTW can you also tell me what your links are for WI in 2.1? Any advice is appreciated, thanks!