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

Is this build capable of clearing hall of the grandmasters?

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Xyrm wrote:

Is this build capable of clearing hall of the grandmasters?

I don't think so. It's a very powerful build, but it's not a PvP build and it really shows in HotGM

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NumbSchiller wrote:

Hey Kelvynn,

I played your build again and love it again. In Essence I played the Elementalist and killed the shaper for the first time. Awsome! Thanks to you!

This league my farming is unlucky. I am still poor and dont know how to afford a Kaoms any time soon.
What do you think about my gear? Any possible upgrade I miss?

- Most important is Kaoms but it feels like I have to farm forever.
- Astramentis is kinda weak. But it was 19C.
- I justed hit lvl 20 with my gems and made them 20% and level them again now.
- The boots could have some more life but this is not a priority I guess.
- I miss 2 lightningres and used +18 Fireres for max res. Far from optimal but okay I guess.
- Jeweles are 1 Yellow and Izaros Turmoil with decent stats. That sounds good enough to me.

Spoiler

The unique Jeweles are all +23 Int

What do you think?

You got very nice Int on everything, so you understand the main idea and should do fine. If you got a Blessed orb - use it on that Astra. And the way to upgrade is to try to find similar items with more life. 73 lightning resist is not a big problem.

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Xyrm wrote:

Is this build capable of clearing hall of the grandmasters?

I stopped trying. It always crashes with this build, or at least did before this latest patch, I haven't tried after it yet. I even figured out how to deal with DanziGG and cleared 3 wings before the instance crashed on my best run.

If HoGM is a serious goal for you, make a Saboteur just for it. You can clear HoGM easily at lv 80 with pretty much any mines: Glacial Cascade, Frostbolt, Magma Orb, etc. Mines are totally imbalanced for PvP, their damage does not scale down properly, they 1-shot everything in HoGM. Here's a video of how it goes: BOOM!

You can look at the character MinusMyMines in my profile for an example. I did about 20 HoGM clears on him in this league before I got bored of it. It's a variation of this build: Vieira's Magma Orb Saboteur with cheaper gear and specifically adapted for HoGM.

Thanks for the great build Kelvynn. I killed shaper for the first time ever tonight. Failed on my first run though. I wasn't able to tank his teleport slam despite using granite and basalt (most likely due to bad enfeeble application). Decided to use a different strategy and dodge his abilities instead of tanking them. So I farmed some guardians and leveled up an Anger skill gem and removed Arctic Armor since I was going to be moving a lot. Ended up killing him on my 2nd run with a few teleports left. I also used a decoy totem for the mini bosses for extra safety.

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Kelvynn wrote:

If HoGM is a serious goal for you, make a Saboteur just for it. You can clear HoGM easily at lv 80 with pretty much any mines: Glacial Cascade, Frostbolt, Magma Orb, etc. Mines are totally imbalanced for PvP, their damage does not scale down properly, they 1-shot everything in HoGM. Here's a video of how it goes: BOOM!

Thanks for the input. As it turns out, one of my MANY spec experiments this league was a GC mine sabo, who I still have at level 87. Unfortunately he's naked, but I do have ~40ex lying around to burn that I may throw at him after I finish gearing my whispering ice guy :)

So far, I love this build. I'm only 68, but aside from a little pain in the early and mid 30's (before the swap) it has proven to be everything that was promised. The clear speed is a bit slower than my Frost Blades Raider or Ngamahu Cyclone Berserker, but the tankyness and raw damage is there. I've killed shaper on my cycloner, but it was kind of a struggle, but this char has real promise to clear all the content. Bosses while leveling just completely melted

The clearspeed remains my main concern. I'd love to see some vids of how you clear maps, or better yet, some of the breechlords. Almost all your vids are focused on bosses (which is fine, I'd just like to see how an experienced player handles it on farm).

At finally, two gearing questions for those with experience with the build:

1) Would it make sense to swap the Astramentis for a Bisco's when farming? I understand you sacrifice damage, but Bisco's makes a HUGE difference in time efficiency.

2) Would Atiziri's Acuity be a chase unique for this build? It seems to have everything you want, and it's quite easy to get enough resists between the rings, boots, and belt. I could probably afford a pair if I was diligent about selling off some of the crap I have lying around. With how fast we hit, it would probably allow the dropping of Vaal Pact and then make the build even easier to farm Lab with, plus give an absurd amount of intellect.

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Drippyskippy wrote:

Thanks for the great build Kelvynn. I killed shaper for the first time ever tonight. Failed on my first run though. I wasn't able to tank his teleport slam despite using granite and basalt (most likely due to bad enfeeble application). Decided to use a different strategy and dodge his abilities instead of tanking them. So I farmed some guardians and leveled up an Anger skill gem and removed Arctic Armor since I was going to be moving a lot. Ended up killing him on my 2nd run with a few teleports left. I also used a decoy totem for the mini bosses for extra safety.

Sure, you can dodge everything the Shaper does. It just takes longer, and the arena gets more and more trashed. The most common reason for getting 1-shot by the slam is moving. You get no protection from AA and Tukohama if you move. The boss guide recommends dodging the Slam if the animation starts while you are moving. However, Anger seems like a waste. It doesn't add enough damage to be worth 50% mana.

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Xyrm wrote:

The clearspeed remains my main concern. I'd love to see some vids of how you clear maps, or better yet, some of the breechlords. Almost all your vids are focused on bosses (which is fine, I'd just like to see how an experienced player handles it on farm).

At finally, two gearing questions for those with experience with the build:

1) Would it make sense to swap the Astramentis for a Bisco's when farming? I understand you sacrifice damage, but Bisco's makes a HUGE difference in time efficiency.

2) Would Atiziri's Acuity be a chase unique for this build? It seems to have everything you want, and it's quite easy to get enough resists between the rings, boots, and belt. I could probably afford a pair if I was diligent about selling off some of the crap I have lying around. With how fast we hit, it would probably allow the dropping of Vaal Pact and then make the build even easier to farm Lab with, plus give an absurd amount of intellect.

I don't make trash clearing videos because they would just attract trolls. This build has medium clear speed. It's nothing like the real clear speed builds. Anything with Queen of the Forest will clear trash much faster.

I thought about making a video for the breach domains, but the price of the Chayula Breachstone is crazy, and it's just a pure waste of currency most of the time. And it's hard to keep up with the timer there compared to the clear speed-oriented builds. Now, once you clear to the boss, this build will just roflstomp it.

That's the main thing about this build: you won't blow thru the map at QOTF speed, but you can kill the bosses reliably without insane budgets and Mathil-like skills.

Bisco's: possible, but you will lose most of your damage and may run into stat requirement issues since you don't have any other sources of Str and Dex. Bisco's is a trash farming item, it works well with the clear speed meta. Technically, the most efficient farming could be achieved if you clear the trash with your Raider using Bisco's and then destroy the boss with WI. But I never felt the need for Bisco's, I just roll high tier maps to iir+iiq>100 plus pack size and clear them with IR.

Acuity: other than +30 Int compared to a good rare, it's useless. Mediocre amount of life, no resists, and the crit-related mods are totally wasted. If you get lucky and Uber drops this glove, selling it will let you upgrade your char by more than 30 Int plus high life and resist rolls. If you don't have it yet, then you can buy super nice stuff for a better overall upgrade for less than its price. Things like well-rolled Opal rings can get you +30 Int plus a whole lot more.

Hey Kelvynn !

Small update since last time, getting more and more confident with Shaper, a few deathless runs in here, you were right, key is clearly not panicking.
Got 2 questions about Shaper.
- I think you said to ignore the clone, does it mean ignoring everything from him ? (as he sometimes cast the Beam and the Orbs if you're not close, seems like they deal way less damage tho, but wanted to confirm)
- Do you think Purity of Ice is worth on the fight when you're decently geared ? I forgot to put it once and tanking the Slams felt way more easy while I noticed no difference on the other abilities whatsoever. (I also dropped the Granite flask, I just pop Basalt and it's way enough for immobile Slam tanking, having a Chemist's Quicksilver on Shaper helps a ton for transitions I found)

Talking about gear, I got a pretty decent one for now, what do you think I could improve on ?
http://poe-profile.info/profile/Woute/WouteDaBear
As you can notice, I removed the Fertile Mind to put a 4 mods jewel that has some hp, it's a slight dps loss (40 dps lost on tooltip, dropping the 23/23 Izaro's Turmoil actually was a bigger dps loss than Fertile Mind). You think it's worth ? (I valued 40 dps less than 200 hp since I'm sitting at 6240 without this jewel and 6403 with it)

And last question, I saw in your flask setup that you have a Chemist Quicksilver and a Perpetual Quicksilver. Any reason why you didn't drop the Perpetual ? (using a 23%+ Chemist seems like it recharges way faster than a 40% Perpetual and also can hold 3 uses with some spare, I switched to double Chemist and damn does it feel better, especially for Uber Lab or long distance running)

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Woute wrote:

Hey Kelvynn !

Small update since last time, getting more and more confident with Shaper, a few deathless runs in here, you were right, key is clearly not panicking.
Got 2 questions about Shaper.
- I think you said to ignore the clone, does it mean ignoring everything from him ? (as he sometimes cast the Beam and the Orbs if you're not close, seems like they deal way less damage tho, but wanted to confirm)
- Do you think Purity of Ice is worth on the fight when you're decently geared ? I forgot to put it once and tanking the Slams felt way more easy while I noticed no difference on the other abilities whatsoever. (I also dropped the Granite flask, I just pop Basalt and it's way enough for immobile Slam tanking, having a Chemist's Quicksilver on Shaper helps a ton for transitions I found)

Talking about gear, I got a pretty decent one for now, what do you think I could improve on ?
http://poe-profile.info/profile/Woute/WouteDaBear
As you can notice, I removed the Fertile Mind to put a 4 mods jewel that has some hp, it's a slight dps loss (40 dps lost on tooltip, dropping the 23/23 Izaro's Turmoil actually was a bigger dps loss than Fertile Mind). You think it's worth ? (I valued 40 dps less than 200 hp since I'm sitting at 6240 without this jewel and 6403 with it)

And last question, I saw in your flask setup that you have a Chemist Quicksilver and a Perpetual Quicksilver. Any reason why you didn't drop the Perpetual ? (using a 23%+ Chemist seems like it recharges way faster than a 40% Perpetual and also can hold 3 uses with some spare, I switched to double Chemist and damn does it feel better, especially for Uber Lab or long distance running)

You can completely ignore the Shaper Clone as long as you are leeching (from the Shaper or the portals adds; you cannot leech from the clone). His damage is weak. He's only dangerous if he's up when the Shaper opens the Portal. In that situation you need to start leeching from the adds ASAP.

Purity of Ice is not very important, but it helps. Everything but the Slam does cold damage. Granite flask is not very important either when you have 6k+ life. You can replace it with Quicksilver if that works better for you.

Your gear is very good (holy shit, those 4-mod jewels!). The only upgrade I can think of is more life on gloves, but you are good for everything already.

Fertile Mind is 54 value in that socket. The tooltip difference from an Izaro may not be significant, but check your Int - if you can cross the next 100 Int margin, then your Icestorm duration increases, and that's a very good thing.

Chemist Quicksilver is indeed the best, although other types are OK too as long the speed is 30% or close. I guess I forgot to roll me another high speed Chemist one! :) Fixed.

P.S. Don't forget to swap your golem and CWDT back from the Shaper setup ;)

Okay, "ignoring" the clone should make my life easier on the fight, I had to reposition a few times because I was afraid of him.

Yeah, got a bit lucky with the 4 mods jewels. Got the poe.trade search pinned in my favorites and when I see an appealing one I try to get it, bought one for 4ex yesterday (the one with the life roll, it's just all perfect rolls oO ) and was lucky to find one for less than 50c too.

I'd like to get a bit more life indeed (your gloves/boots/belt have so much life !) but even when spamming poe.trade, I can't find anything appealing. (since I also need some resists not to mess up everything)

Ah, I didn't paid attention to the 100 Int margin, baaaad. I think I'm fine anyway, 1426 without Fertile Mind, 1472 with it, but I'll keep that in mind for sure, thanks.

Actually I have more trouble fighting Phoenix than Shaper, I hate it when he dashes and gets out the Icestorms, makes me lose leech and he killed me a fair few times because of this. Today I tried to fight him next to the door instead, so when he dashes he hits the wall and still is in the icestorms.

PS : Thanks, fixed the gems x)

PPS : Just got my hands on that as a left ring, feels sweet sweet sweet xD (+650 dps on tooltip compared to a +53 Int ring I had before)