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What is Icestorm and how does it work?



Unlike regular skills that are obtained by skill gems, Icestorm does not have a skill gem and can only be accessed via The Whispering Ice unique staff which provides Lvl 1 Icestorm which can be supported by all gems socketed in the staff.







The "Lvl 1" Icestorm is just a label, the way the skill works is that it scales the more Intelligence you have. The skill gains 1-3 base cold damage per 10 Intelligence you have and has a base skill duration of 0.7 secs (chilled ground lasts 0.5 secs). The duration of the skill itself (not the chilled ground it leaves) also increases by 0.35 for every 100 Intelligence you have. Furthermore your spell damage increases by 1% for every 10 Intelligence you have (as stated on the unique staff stats).

Icestorm as the name implies is a skill similar to Firestorm except it deals cold damage (additionally it leaves chilled ground, unlike Firestorm).Unlike regular skills that are obtained by skill gems, Icestorm does not have a skill gem and can only be accessed via The Whispering Ice unique staff which provides Lvl 1 Icestorm which can be supported by all gems socketed in the staff.The "Lvl 1" Icestorm is just a label, the way the skill works is that it scales the more Intelligence you have. The skill gains 1-3 base cold damage per 10 Intelligence you have and has a base skill duration of 0.7 secs (chilled ground lasts 0.5 secs). The duration of the skill itself (not the chilled ground it leaves) also increases by 0.35 for every 100 Intelligence you have. Furthermore your spell damage increases by 1% for every 10 Intelligence you have (as stated on the unique staff stats).



Pros and Cons

Pros:



*The rare gear needed is cheap



*Stacking Intelligence also provides a lot of Increased % Energy Shield whatever build you are.



*Stacking Intelligence provides a lot of base mana. Having more mana also means higher mana regeneration.



*Good survivability with multiple layers of health pools - A large life pool, a smaller but significant enough sized energy shield, some unreserved mana to take bigger hits when energy shield has fully depleted. Additionally the build has some life regen.



*Icestorm's chilled ground effect slowing enemies is a very good crowd control tool.



*Icestorm's chilled ground effect synergises extremely well with the Temporal Chains curse, making enemies extremely slow with little to no investment at all.



*Capable of freezing normal, magic, rare, exiles and warband members in end game maps. Some lower level map bosses can be frozen too.



*Good AoE damage and great single target damage.



*Due to large effective life pool there is plenty of time to react to elemental reflect mobs with a Sapphire Flask.



*Double curses that can be chosen according to preference (Temporal Chains is too good with this skill though).



Cons:



*No armour, evasion or block so don't expect to stand there facetanking.



*Needs to take Elemental Reflect maps slowly, but they are doable



*Probably some other stuff but I can't think of any right now.



I really enjoyed playing this build throughout Warbands league (even though the league itself is pretty shit). The Whispering Ice unique staff brings a mix of both good damage and survivability through stacking intelligence at a low cost currency wise. Survivability stat wise I have ~4.7k life, ~2.9 energy shield and ~1.4k unreserved mana for Mind over Matter meaning I can survive hits that deal up to 9k damage.



Stats

Offense











Defense

















Total Intelligence Maths for the curious Passive tree: 453 INT



Jewels: Roughly 20 INT per rare jewel (x3), Brute Force Solution converts at least 60 STR to INT = ~120 INT



My gear: 42+47+41+40 for chest/helm/gloves/boots, 50+65+84 for ring/ring/amulet = total 369 INT



453+120+369 = 942 Int before Whispering Ice's bonus

942 * 1.17 = Roughly 1102 Int after Whispering Ice's 17% Increased Intelligence



Passive Tree Bandits:

Normal: Help Oak for +40 Life

Cruel: Kill all

Merciless: Help Alira for +1 Power charge



Core build, 105 points used



My passive tree at Lvl 93, 114 points used

Normal: Help Oak for +40 LifeCruel: Kill allMerciless: Help Alira for +1 Power charge



My Gear









What to look for in Gear For each equipment slot, the stats are listed in order of priority. Of course if you need to sacrifice some intelligence to get more defensive stats go for it.



Helm: Intelligence, Life, Elemental Resistances, Energy shield, Mana



Body Armour: Intelligence, Energy Shield, Life, Elemental Resistances, Mana (Body Armour is your largest source of flat ES that's why it's priortised here)



Gloves: Intelligence, Life, Elemental Resistances, Energy Shield, Mana



Boots: Intelligence, Life, Elemental Resistances, Movement Speed, Energy Shield



Belt: Life, Elemental Resistances, Energy Shield



Rings: Intelligence, Elemental Resistances, Life, Energy Shield, Mana



Amulet: Intelligence, Whatever stats you're missing.





Gems

Icestorm supports: Spell Echo: There is no debating this support. Gives a huge boost to cast speed and allows you to cast twice at the cost of 1 cast in quick succession.



Concentrated Effect: Allows each individual hit to deal a lot more damage and increases the likelihood that you will be able to freeze things. Also having a smaller AoE reduces the spread of Icestorm making it more accurately hit the area you target.



Cold Penetration: There is no debating this support, it is a huge boost to your DPS in any scenario and without it you will deal very little damage to enemies with higher cold resistance.



Power Charge on Crit: As this build is a power charge focused build it is important to have some source of power charge generation.



Increased Critical Damage: This is a crit build on a softcore league, go all the way.



Faster Casting: I considered using Hypothermia over this but being able to cast faster allows me to kite much better, you may prefer to use Hypothermia though.



Auras Clarity: Necessary to keep your mana regenerating faster than the cost to cast your Icestorm continuously.



Herald of Ice: Provides a decent boost to cold damage and the on kill effect boosts clear speed.



Herald of Thunder:: I used to use it but the damage boost is so small it's not worth reducing the amount of unreserved mana I have for Mind over Matter.



Purity of Elements: Can be used on Elemental Weakness maps or simply when your resistances aren't capped since it can be difficult to cap resists when looking for gear since Intelligence takes up a suffix slot on rare gear, like resistances do.



Utility Curses:



Temporal Chains: When combined with Icestorm's chilled ground effect enemies become extremely slow and you have plenty of time to move out of harms way.



Assassin's Mark: Provides a substantial DPS boost and additional method of generating power charges.



Enfeeble: Combined with hitting slow with Temporal Chains, enemies don't hit as hard.



Warlord's Mark: If you want some life leech, I personally don't use it though.





Other utility:



Decoy Totem (supported by Minion and Totem Elemental Resistances + Increased Area of Effect + Increased Duration): Decoy totem can give you breathing room by taunting mobs away from you while also gathering mobs to it. When mobs target the totem you can Icestorm those mobs to chill/freeze and/or kill them before they deal much damage to the totem. Basically the totem protects you while you protect the totem! Increased Duration makes it so you don't need to recast the totem so often.





Vaal skill Vaal Storm Call (supported by Increased Critical Strikes + Lightning Penetration + Spell Echo): A good skill for a kiting playstyle, for some bosses you may need to retreat before going back in at times, Vaal Storm Call is good since you can leave it and forget it while you retreat to continue dealing damage from safety (along with your long duration Icestorms)



Vaal Storm Call isn't mandatory to this build you could honestly use anything you like.





Jewels

Brute Force Solution when placed in the jewel slot to the left of the Templar start converts +60 Strength in the radius into Intelligence (you can get +30 additional intelligence by pathing to the Catalyse notable if you wish to while still being somewhat efficient)





Rare jewels that should have as much Intelligence as possible as well as any other stats you may need (such as Dexterity to equip gems such as Cold Penetration).

Brute Force Solution when placed in the jewel slot to the left of the Templar start converts +60 Strength in the radius into Intelligence (you can get +30 additional intelligence by pathing to the Catalyse notable if you wish to while still being somewhat efficient)Rare jewels that should have as much Intelligence as possible as well as any other stats you may need (such as Dexterity to equip gems such as Cold Penetration).



Leveling



Past level 33, get a cheap low level amulet with as much Intelligence as possible such as and watch your Icestorm DPS skyrocket. Just focus on getting life and resists on gear while you haven't reached the point where you're seeking end game gear, do not worry too much about maximising the amount of Intelligence on rares for now.



The passive tree progression below is just an indication of what you should be aiming for in the end, take different things depending on your situation.



23 points used. Insert the Brute Force Solution unique jewel in the jewel socket on the left of Templar start for a huge boost to int when you can equip The Whispering Ice



43 points used. You may choose to get the Whispers of Doom notable earlier if you wish.



66 points used. You may start taking power charges earlier if you wish.



83 points used. You may take the Righteous Decree (Templar 22% mana notable) node earlier if you feel you need the mana and reduced mana cost.



105 points used.



From this point onwards take whatever suits your needs. Want more damage? Go for spell/cold damage nodes. Want more life? There's some life nodes available. If you are lacking resists the Elementalist notable in the Templar area helps. Don't bother with Intelligence nodes unless you're either near a jewel socket or you are very close to a 100 intelligence milestone.

Get to Lvl 33 (the level requirement to use The Whispering Ice) as soon as possible using Lightning Tendrils and/or Ball Lightning and Flame Totem and switch to using Icestorm as soon as you hit Lvl 33 and socket gems that you can use at the level such as Faster Casting.Past level 33, get a cheap low level amulet with as much Intelligence as possible such asand watch your Icestorm DPS skyrocket. Just focus on getting life and resists on gear while you haven't reached the point where you're seeking end game gear, do not worry too much about maximising the amount of Intelligence on rares for now.The passive tree progression below is just an indication of what you should be aiming for in the end, take different things depending on your situation.From this point onwards take whatever suits your needs. Want more damage? Go for spell/cold damage nodes. Want more life? There's some life nodes available. If you are lacking resists the Elementalist notable in the Templar area helps. Don't bother with Intelligence nodes unless you're either near a jewel socket or you are very close to a 100 intelligence milestone.



FAQ Q: What's MoM?

A: Mind over Matter, a keystone on the passive tree that allows you to split damage between your life and mana (note I said life, not ES) 70:30.



Q: How does MoM interact with a hybrid life/ES build?

A: First energy shield takes the 100% damage from the hit until it depletes, if there is any % damage remaining when your energy shield hits 0 then your life and mana take the remaining damage in a 70:30 to life and mana respectively. So if you took a hit that dealt 5000 damage, and you have 1000 ES, 4000 life and 2000 mana you would take 1000 ES damage (so 4000 damage remaining after dealing damage to ES) and 2800 life damage and 1200 mana damage (the remaining damage is split 70:30 between life and mana). I believe this is how it works.



Q: Don't you have problems with your mana taking too much damage?

A: No, kiting and letting my energy shield recharge while I'm taking no damage because the mobs are soooo slow allows my energy shield to protect my mana as well as my life.



Q: Why don't you go CI?

A: How about no. Seriously, CI has so many downsides (permastun, perma status effects due to low life pool).



Q: Why don't you go low life?

A: Too expensive. I like effective, affordable builds.



Q: Why don't you use Perandus Signets?

A: I don't wear many uniques so I'm better off with rare rings that give int, life and resists.



Q: Why don't you use Black Sun Crest?

A: Would need to sacrifice life, es, resists for that. It's already hard enough capping resists while getting as much int, life and ES as possible.



Q: Why don't you use Doryani's Invitation (Cold version)?

A: I simply feel I don't need it since I have life regen and Surgeon's life flasks. It's a good fit in the build though if you're not sacrificing too much for it.



Q: Why aren't you using Bated Breath?

A: Why am I not wearing that piece of garbage? I'm not going to sacrifice my largest source of flat life and resists for a small amount of intelligence and damage lol.



Q: How do you deal with Corrupted Blood and bleed?

A: Using a Surgeon's Ruby Flask of Staunching. Surgeon's flasks synergises well with multi hit skills since each hit will restore a flask charge and you can practically keep this flask on at all times. Of course you can use any sort of buff effect flask for the same purpose of being immune to bleed.



Q: Why Templar over Witch, Shadow or Scion?

A: Templar gains +5% increased life/mana over other classes at his start and he gets a lot of both life and mana regen, if you don't need any of those stats you can easily switch over to the elemental/spell damage side of his start and the build will still be efficient while Witch's spell damage path is the only decent starting path, Shadow only has one side you can start as as a cold caster, Scion is way too inefficient passive point wise.



Q: No life leech?

A: I personally feel I don't need life leech at all and that my life regen and Surgeons life flask keeps me alive. It is good to socket a Life Leech gem though, you could replace Critical Damage or Faster Casting with it if you prefer.





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