3.16 Critical Strike Whispering Ice! 5M DPS potential 15K + ES potential

The Theory:

I have only made a few guides. The first thing I need to say is I learned everything about whispering ice from Kelvyn I think his name was and the current author of Ice Skating. I used Whispering Ice scion as my league start for the past 6 leagues and always converted eventually to aura stack. The reason I never carried them farther than league start was the DPS ceiling was just too low as elemental overload. The reason people don't do crit with WI is the resources we need to put into Int stacking typically wouldn't allow us to put enough into crit resources. Then I saw for the first time the change to inquisitor. Righteous Providence. + 50 int and Str and 1% crit chance per 1 of whichever is lower. The light bulb went off then and there because we use so much % attribute to scale Int all we need to do is get a nice source for flat STR whether we path it on the tree or use split personalities with STR/INT or both, our crit chance is near 100% with little to no investment. Grab a few multiplier nodes on tree, and socket crit damage in our setup and boom. 100 crit chance 600+ multi. Not to mention that we can completely ignore penetration due to inquisitor crits ignore resists. So every resource that would have went into penetration can now go into crit multi.

Things we lose from traditional WI :

From not going Scion or Occultist we mainly lose stun immunity and penetration but again we wont be using Pen, all of our hits ignore resists.

Great news though, awakened cast while channeling now gives us the stun immunity as long as we are channeling cyclone which is nearly always. As a quality of life thing I always go for Freeze and Chill Immunity on boots if possible. Our main source of Defense is leech and as long as we keep holding down cyclone we keep leeching.

Where I am at now. My theory crafted POB hit 3000+ int and 5 million DPS. Right now I am at about 2200 Int 700 STR. I will have to craft end game 7% implicit rings and a few more things to get near the 3000 mark.

Current Gear:



Jewels:

We use as many large clusters as we can fit in. I'm currently using 2. The reason is "cold to the core" which converts our Int and Str into cold damage.
If you cant fit more than 2 like me, get cold to the core on a megalomaniac. Another useful megalomaniac is enduring composure. I use immortal call as an important part of defense so always having 3 endurance charges is really nice.

In the farthest large cluster jewel put two split personalities with int / str. If you can hit the 700-800 STR mark without them obviously INT/ ES would be ideal.

Watcher eye with Hatred = 1.8% Crit chance This is so you wont need crit chance support gem or more than 700 STR. However, if you can get enough STR this could be replaced. I like crit chance on watcher eye with something defensive ideally. Im using 10% mana as ES clarity as second modifier.

At some point emperor's Mastery is very good so is emperor's wit and you can use both. I don't have either yet.

In the rest of the slots you want rare jewels with as many of these things:
Crit multiplier for cold skills
Crit multiplier for Spells
Crit multiplier for elemental skills
global crit multiplier
Intelligence
Energy Shield

Masteries: These were very impactful for obvious reasons
Caster Mastery converts intelligence to spell damage (thanks GGG)
Leech Mastery Our main defense , take the maximum total ES per sec
Attributes Mastery take the 5% attributes again ty GGG
Reservation Mastery So that we can run all these Auras

Auras:
In the End I added reservation enchant on helm and self control on mega jewel to fit all of these:

Purity of Elements (Huge, lets us run with stampede and replace resists)
Hatred
Zealotry
Discipline
Clarity
Precision (only until you have enough Strength for 90+ crit chance)

My Goal is to fit in Skitterbots but not sure what I want to drop. Clarity and Vitality are both QoL but because of the flat mana reservations on those we fit easily due to our huge mana pool. The trade off would have to be Discipline which is possible if you want to trade 2000 ES or so for DPS

Other Useful notes :
A great boost for dps was Iron will Passive so make sure to grab that, it turns our Huge amount of STR into DPS.

You will Notice I do not use Elemental Focus which trades Freeze for more Damage. I prefer to freeze lock as much as we can. Because this build does large damage at larger intervals than small damage more rapidly it means we hit bosses with huge cold hits 5 times per second max. This allows us to use freeze defensively.

Current POB i was very reluctant to post this because its very early still.

https://pastebin.com/LmX508Z7

Final POB. I quit the build , IT was by far the best WI build I played since the first nerf. Highly Recommend if you have 100EX to spend. I got to 27th Wave of Simulacrum and was face tanking Kosis.

Remember this is work in progress i theory crafted it 3000 INT 5M dps

I welcome any advice from traditional Whispering Ice Players just post in comments or message me in game

MuddICE

well first thanks for guide)

1)could you make pob for lvling, for noncluster version and cluster? and some advices for first items to buy/aiming/upgrade during lvling

2)why not use stampede boots?+1 annoint and full speed (can't imagine playing without them xD)

3)what's about mana regen?i can see only arcane surge and no inspiration?

4)what you think about purity of elements?immune to shock ignite freeze etc
hm in ideal situation stampede with charisma annoint + helm ench for hatred/zealotry/PoE mana eff and you can fit zealotry+purity of elements)

so all immune+easier res cap and you can use suffixis for str/int craft etc

I added POB. I used this tree to level. started WI at 38 like always when you get cwc. I use clarity 20, and I have eternal enduring mana flask so its fine. Arcane Surge one of highest damage i found. Stampede is very good but I like chill/freeze immune better. I will look at purity of elements. Again this is ongoing.

I would LOVE to get purity of elements and stampede going but its 50% reserv i would have to drop zealotry don't think its possible even with charisma

Hm about mana i think clarity+arcange surge enought cause you don't use ball lightning to apply curses, so it's not eating mana per use)
ass.mark ok on cwdt in such way? without ball lightning

About what we lose vs witch version..fun booms from profane bloom...but with higher dmg with same gear i think it's can be compensated. with profane so cool to clear blight maps/legion, how inq doing where?

and did you managed 30 wave of simulacrum? bosses just nearly oneshoting me xD i nearly killed them but ...

"

muddzlinga wrote:

I added POB. I used this tree to level. started WI at 38 like always when you get cwc.

Same tree? you going same path while lvling and no cluster version?

about Purity of elements charisma+head enchant hmmm
yeah...it's near to fit..oh forgot about your megalomaniac with disc mana eff also...well some corrupt jewels with 2% increased Reservation Efficiency of Skills and lower lvl of clarity+off vitality and it can be fited
well yeah, so it's dmg vs immune to shock freeze + stampede...pity we can't fit all xD

OK SO, if i drop discipline and vitality, ill be at 10K es instead of 12K which is fine. Stamped + charisma and I can fit in Purity of Elements. Right now its a DPS Loss but in long run i can drop resists off of gear for more INT. I will make the change, thanks for advice

"

muddzlinga wrote:

OK SO, if i drop discipline and vitality, ill be at 10K es instead of 12K which is fine. Stamped + charisma and I can fit in Purity of Elements. Right now its a DPS Loss but in long run i can drop resists off of gear for more INT. I will make the change, thanks for advice

reg+leech enough?cause with discipline watchers for +ES on hit also good
well ideal watcher for inq version i think %crit chance+cold dmg hatred+precision multi.crit

I did implement purity of elements by removing discipline and vitality. We get consecrated ground whenever we cyclone in place. That gives us 700+ regen. That plus the 3000-4000 ES per second leech is enough. My bigger concern was the loss of ES. Right now im at 10,500 ES. I'm more comfortable around 12-14 but I just did Sirus 8 only 1 death so it felt great. AND, if i can farm the helm enchant for efficiency on Hatred Zealotry OR Purity I might be able to fit Disc back in

well looking at your gear...
hm with amulet
or

or with tranq enchant
+ gloves with 5% int
+aw elem focus (just for lulz numbers, without it i think it's better cause of freeze everything $) )
+emper master instead of megalomaniac (left one without CttC)
+some adj in gear like get less res cause of purity of elements and craft+13 to all attr
+ watcher eye with 3rd mod crit multi while precision or flat cold dmg...

+ ring's like which i don't know gona be appear on trade or not...

it can be reached ~900k av hit.damn it's so high...but gear just insane and cost's few mirrors -_- aveg icestorm users never gona reach so high numbers

crafting all attr better than str+dex
and even on amulet annoint tranquillity better than str if without utmost might still 100% crit