[3.1] The Blinding Blizzard - Whispering Ice Berserker - Viable for Most Everything

Any chance we could see a shaper / uber atziri video with CI?

edit: and speaking of CI, will the witch version get a comeback or is it inferior now that reflect is trivialized?

Wouldn't Efficacy Support be a good support skill?

20% MORE spell damage
24% MORE DoT
16% Increased Duration

One thing to remember, if you plan to switch from life to CI, is that general mapping will be rippier, especially on maps with many mods. You will have less effective health, because you will no longer have health potions to immediately cover for your mistakes or unexpected events. It's taking me a while to get used to my new-found tissue paperness. (On the other hand, uber lab is so much easier.)

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Guerre74 wrote:

Wouldn't Efficacy Support be a good support skill?

20% MORE spell damage
24% MORE DoT
16% Increased Duration

Whispering ice doesn't benefit from DoT.

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shrunn57 wrote:

I've never gotten a Kaoms Heart, and had pretty much maxed out without it, so when I saw this new CI version of the build I had to throw something together to try it.

I only have about 5k energy shield at present, but 6.5k damage. In the first tier 5 map I tried I got killed twice by having ordinary looking crowds come in on me. I'm used to mindlessly blowing through that level and above with just the 4200 life I had before.

Seems like without the armor I had before, that physical damage is a problem. Do I just need a lot more energy shield, better/different tactics, or maybe a better CwDT setup? I have CwDT/IC/IDS only right now.

Life version has a litte more phys mitigation due to using Armour items, but not that much. I'm not sure how you got killed easier with 5k ES. Perhaps that map had some extra mods that made it more dangerous? I find the CI version to be a LOT safer than then the Life one.

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shrunn57 wrote:

I noticed that with the CI version of this build (without MoM etc), that you can get by with essentially no mana. I had arctic armor, and added discipline for obvious reasons. Since I threw this version together with stuff on hand, I could not cap resistances without a purity skill. With three mana reservers, I was down to 65 mana, which looks like you have none at all. However, this seems to pose no problem as far as I can tell.

Yep. All you need is non-zero mana. SR costs almost nothing to cast, and without MoM nothing can take that mana. Even if you waste that mana by casting on an empty space in a No Regen map, when you get hit by something you proc Ball Lightning that will leech you enough mana to cast Icestorm again.

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Keyen wrote:

I read the few last pages, discussing the elementalist and the lack of leech.

You actually don't really need the leech. A watcher Eye with the vitality mod and shaper rings with +15/hits with spells are enough, by a long shot (think Thief's torment level of regen). 60 HP/hit, while you have 15-20 icestorms in the same time, allows you to be always full life as long as you don't get OS.

Since the mana will not follow (and since you have to reserve mana for vitality and arctic armor), you can ditch MoM et VP completly.

A possible tree (221% increased life):
http://poeurl.com/bJBG

No, I don't think that ES/Life gain on hit alone is enough to survive in high tier content without leech. You can't have fully pre-stacked Icestorms going on all the time on every enemy. It starts too slow, you'll get killed before you are gaining enough to repair the damage.

Gain on Hit is a very nice addition to the leech, but it can't replace it.

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gruumine wrote:

Hey Kelvynn, this looks expensive but is it good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwRRFZTSngA

That's the Guardian version. It's more expensive, more tanky vs non-endgame and less powerful. And this particular variation relies on this one Watcher's Eye jewel that gives you leech - something that the Berserker has for free. You won't have that at the start of a new league, so then you'd have to use Life Leech gem, and your DPS will be that much lower. And it's already low because Guardian doesn't have anything for DPS, all his nodes are pure defense. Note that he's showcasing a blue Minotaur map with zero dangerous mods.

The Guardian has been around for a long time. It's great for leveling and most tiers because of its tankiness. The problems with it are at the top end - the lack of DPS/leech starts to feel.

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Zelvas wrote:

Any chance we could see a shaper / uber atziri video with CI?

edit: and speaking of CI, will the witch version get a comeback or is it inferior now that reflect is trivialized?

I was hoping to finish T16 and Shaper last night, but the instance crashes got me. Lost 3 T16 maps to crashes.

Looks like the high level SR may be causing it. The burning damage from it is non-trivial, and it somehow interferes with Icestorm damage and 'overkills' the mob, resulting in a crash. I posted a bug report with this GIF I made, but no idea when GGG will fix it.



For now I'm going to stick with SR lv 1 and hopefully get to the Shaper soon.

As for Uber Atziri, I'm not that rich yet to buy a Mortal set (remember, I've only started playing again in January). If anybody wants to donate a set and see how it goes - you are welcome :) Shouldn't really be any different from the old versions. Just have to be more careful with the trash. VP changes don't really matter for Uber Atziri. I've already annihilated Vaal Temple, although the Uber Trio is harder.

No idea yet if I'll get to reviving the Elementalist version in 3.1. I've already missed 1 month of the league, and GGG announced major Ascendancy changes in 3.2. Dunno if making a build for just a couple months would be worth it. After doing with everything on the Berserker, I'll check it out on my Witch in Standard and maybe post a PoB link if it works fine.

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Graiaule wrote:

One thing to remember, if you plan to switch from life to CI, is that general mapping will be rippier, especially on maps with many mods. You will have less effective health, because you will no longer have health potions to immediately cover for your mistakes or unexpected events. It's taking me a while to get used to my new-found tissue paperness. (On the other hand, uber lab is so much easier.)

That's odd. My experience has been the oppsite. I'm dying a whole lot less as CI (only 2 deaths at lv 91: one was entirely my own fault and the other one was a Stygian exploding a corpse on me from off-screen, shit happens). But with 8k ES (and nothing even remotely as expensive as Kaom's) things are so much easier. I can have the CWDT-IC link again. And no chaos damage.

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Kelvynn wrote:

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Graiaule wrote:

One thing to remember, if you plan to switch from life to CI, is that general mapping will be rippier, especially on maps with many mods. You will have less effective health, because you will no longer have health potions to immediately cover for your mistakes or unexpected events. It's taking me a while to get used to my new-found tissue paperness. (On the other hand, uber lab is so much easier.)

That's odd. My experience has been the oppsite. I'm dying a whole lot less as CI (only 2 deaths at lv 91: one was entirely my own fault and the other one was a Stygian exploding a corpse on me from off-screen, shit happens). But with 8k ES (and nothing even remotely as expensive as Kaom's) things are so much easier. I can have the CWDT-IC link again. And no chaos damage.

Yeah, it is odd. I remember the good old CI days, and I would pretty much sleepwalk through just about any content. But there's no doubt I am dying noticeably more often than I was dying with 4k life and 1700 int (current ES is 6225 with 1587 int.) The deaths are typically either one-shots with my ES already down somewhat, or I just can't leech enough in a full-screen mob scene of death dealers (usually from an opened Abyss.)

I'm not gonna worry about that right now; I've only been CI for a couple of days. Maybe it just requires retraining my reflexes...

Or maybe the Watcher's Eye gem I have doesn't actually work the way I am expecting. Yeah, let me try removing it and see what happens.
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This is weird. I took out my Watcher's Eye with the +ES on hit with Discipline, and (a) there was no visible loss in ES regen rate (b) the character felt more like my old CI build (i.e., immensely tanky.) Zero deaths in 55% of a level, and I was averaging a death every 30% or so before.

I know this is anecdotal information. And it could all just be RNG, too. I'll keep playing with the Watcher's Eye out for now and see how things go. Anyone want one, cheap?