New Videos!











Old Videos

Spoiler







Uber Atziri Videos!







Map video! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7-0DuR75dc Lv80 Wasteland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cALiYwO65q0&feature=youtu.be - Vessels of the Vaal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjIhLbsfgws&feature=youtu.be - Trio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW-EHi94lyk&feature=youtu.be - Uber Atziri











There are a few whispering Ice builds out there already. Why use mine over the others? I think my icestorm tooltip will speak for itself:







I will be upfront in saying that this is not a budget build. If you want whispering ice to perform admirably, you need ~10 exalts of investment. I have invested far, far more into my personal build.



Also, this is not a build for budget PCs. There's a lot of VFX spam going on while playing and you need a good PC if you want a playable framerate. Party members may not appreciate your presence.



So, why play Whispering Ice? Because its fun as hell, and it looks cool as hell. There are stronger builds out there - cyclone, caustic arrow, bladefall (yawn). You don't play these because they are unoriginal and boring - that's why you're looking at this build. You want something interesting.



Pros and Cons



Pros:

-Fun, unique build

-Looks freaking awesome

-Staff provides a free 7-link, and no need for more than a 4-link on your armor.

-Can run most map mods, -maxres + elemental reflect combo and bloodmagic are about the only showstoppers

-Surprisingly tanky with high damage output

-Can kill Atziri with relatively low-end gear(!)

-This build gives you the Specialist achievement (woo!)

-Infinity wisdom scrolls



Cons:

-Highly restrictive gearing

-Not cheap if you want to tackle Tier 10+ maps

-Graphically intensive, may be problematic for you or party members

-Highly mobile enemies can be hard to handle







To do this build you need a Whispering Ice. No way around that. These are cheaper than they used to be, but are still probably expensive early on in a temp league. This is the only required piece of gear for the build. The rolls on the staff don't matter hugely, with high %int being more important than cast speed.



Note that any support gem socketed into The Whispering Ice will affect your icestorm skill, regardless of whether the sockets on the staff are linked. This means that a 6-socket The Whispering Ice functions as a 7-link at a fraction of the cost of any other 6-link staff.



Stats

Spoiler

Offense (Conc. Effect - Elemental overload not active)



Defense



Offense (Conc. Effect - Elemental overload not active)Defense

Stats with Astramentis instead of my OP amulet

Spoiler

Defenses



Hideout tooltip (conc. effect)



Tooltip with EO active (conc. effect)



DefensesHideout tooltip (conc. effect)Tooltip with EO active (conc. effect)









[/spoiler]



Build Theory



Intelligence is the most important stat for this build - it gives us ES, icestorm duration, base damage AND damage scaling, and mana. Stacking a lot of this stat lets us be both tanky and an offensive powerhouse.



With 50% increased intelligence (doable, but difficult) each 10 int node provides 15 int, which gives us the following:

3% increased maximum energy shield

1.5% increased spell damage

+1.5-4.5 base ice storm damage

+0.0225 seconds ice storm base duration

+7.5 base mana



That's a lot of benefit from a 10 int node!



To that end, we avoid most nodes that don't provide int themselves or are not next to ones that do. Why take nodes that "only" provide damage when we can get so much more from others? Accordingly, nodes like Heart of Ice that are normally considered good are skipped in favor of nodes that benefit us in more than one way. The build even routes around normally good nodes in order to get more intelligence.



Unfortunately, the gear that provides us with the most intelligence is pretty lacking in the resistances department. To alleviate this, we need an absolute ton of resistances from our passive tree and on our jewels. This is why we use Scion as our class - easy access to jewel slots and resistance nodes.



Why Avatar of Fire?







Cold to Fire is a very powerful gem. It adds a fraction of cold damage as fire damage - this directly adds to our base damage, and gets scaled by all our modifiers. Combined with Avatar of Fire, it also converts 100% of our cold damage into fire damage. This means we do a single damage type, making our penetration gem effective, and most importantly means we get to "double dip" on cold and fire damage increases - both %increased cold damage and %increased fire damage will improve our damage with full effect. This makes the Snowforged node very strong, providing a full 50% increased damage. Jewels can also have both increased cold and increased fire damage, and we get the full benefit of each.



Compared to a pure ice damage build, Avatar of Fire gives us a very large damage increase. Note that because the icestorm skill created chilled ground, enemies affected by the skill are still chilled even if we do pure fire damage.







So How Much DPS Does Icestorm Even Do?

This is actually pretty difficult to measure in any meaningful way, but we can do some calculations if we want to feel better.



In the tooltip listed higher in this thread, our "Avg. Damage" is shown as 13,300. This is the damage per ice spear that falls from the sky. Icestorm drops one of these every 0.1 seconds, and with my 4.5 second skill duration that means that 45 spears should fall per cast.



Now, not all of these are going to hit a given target. Against smaller creatures, maybe only 2-3 per cast will strike the target. If we assume that a creature is hit three times, it will suffer 13,300x3= 39,900 damage from one cast. With a cast time of 0.31 seconds, that would be 128,000 DPS to small targets! But wait, that damage takes place over the 4.5 seconds of the skill duration... so this is not a DPS measurement that makes any real sense. You cast the skill, and some unspecified time later your target will die - it is not immediate, and this means a lot of casting and then running off to the next pack while a group dies behind you. Make sure your loot filter makes noise for important drops!



We can get a more meaningful DPS calculation against large, stationary bosses like Atziri. These creatures have enough health to sit in an icestorm for the full duration and have big enough hitboxes that most or even all of our ice spears can hit them.



Let's be generous to our target and assume that only half the ice spears from an ice storm hit it. In practice you can achieve even more than this, but its hard to say with certainty. If half the spears hit, our target takes 13,300 x 23 = 305,900 damage over 4.5 seconds. Multiple icestorms can overlap, so dividing by our cast time makes logical sense here and we can estimate a sustained DPS of 986,000! Wow! This is, however, only after 4.5 seconds of continuous casting, which you rarely get to do in a boss fight.



Now, I don't claim that this build does almost 1 million DPS because that's a silly calculation based on some very specific circumstances. You can be assured though that the clearspeed is quite acceptable as my videos should show.





What do you need in order to kill Uber Atziri with this build?



I want to clarify a few points regarding this matter, since the character I showcase in this build guide has evolved considerably since its original incarnation to become overpowered in every sense of the word.



You do not need legacy standard items to run Uber with this build.

You do not need Skyforth to run Uber with this build.

You do not need a 900 ES chest to run Uber with this build.

You do not need perfect jewels to run Uber with this build.



This build first killed Uber in Warbands league, before Skyforth was a thing and with no legacy items. And this was before Ascendancy classes - the build is only stronger now!



What you do need are the following:

11,000+ ES

5000+ icestorm tooltip with conc. effect

Boots with 20% or more movement speed



That's it.



Skill Tree



Spoiler

Here's our skill tree. Note that we get the Alchemist cluster which is an incredibly strong multiplier to our defensive flasks. If you've ever played a build that takes this cluster before, you'll understand why I take it in this build.



https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAABAQDBAecEBwnZDXwOSA5cEFgQYhEtEVARlhXXGmwc3B0UHwIgWSL0KU8qOCycLL8tHy2oNbk2xTboPAU_J0VHRX5GaUZxRwZKyEyzUEJRdFZIVmNYr1ltXfJfKl9qX5hfsGZUavprF2wIbRluqm87b554DXvDf8aCm4LkgwmD94RThMWFe4auh2WKr4w2jHaO6Y8aj0aP-pARkyeVIJu1na6ePJ_LoS-iLqKjppmnCKcrpzCpbq-Nr5uxkLQMtQS18rfWvoC-ir68wBrAZsHFwfPDOspGykrK088y0B_Q0NWm2CTbWdvn4q3kIuq66-Tr7uwY7DjvfO_r7_3xig==



We take the long path down to Uwavering Stance for stun immunity, which is absolutely essential for this build.





For my Ascendancy points I choose to take Berserker and Elementalist. Berserker is mandatory, but elementalist is not - I'll go into the options for Ascendancy points below.





If you get your hands on a pair of skyforth boots, then you can skip the long road to unwavering stance and get more intelligence from your skilltree. This means using a rather different tree, which should look something like this:



https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAABAQDBAO4EBwnZDXwOSA5cEFgQYhEtEVARlhXXGYoabBzcHRQfAiBZIuoi9ClPKjgqTSycLL8s6S0fLag1uTbFPAU_J0VHRX5GcUcGSshMs1BCUXRWSFZjWW1d8l8qX2pfmF-wYlpmVGr6axdsCG0Zb557w3_GgpuC5IMJg_eEU4TFhXuGroazh2WKr4w2jHaO6Y8aj0aP-pARkyeVIJcGm7Wdrp48oS-iLqKjppmnCKcrr42vm7GQtAy1BLfWvoC-ir68wGbBxcHzwzrEospGykrK088y0B_Q0NWm2CTbWdvn35jireQi6NbquusU6-Tr7uwY7DjvfO_r7_3xig==



We replace the Brute Force Solution directly south of our start with a Fertile Mind, and add another Fertile Mind in the nearby jewel slot as well.



The jewel slot south of the skill effect duration nodes are actually some of the more efficient nodes on the tree for getting intelligence, which is why we grab them with the Skyforth variant of the build.



The reason for this is that the radius of this jewel slot overlaps with the radius of the jewel slot immediately south of the start, and when both have a Fertile Mind slotted, something interesting happens:







We get +20 int from two of these +10 dex nodes, while somehow lowering our dex in the process. In total, counting both jewel nodes and the dex nodes along the way, we get 108 intelligence for 6 nodes. Nice!



Here's our skill tree. Note that we get thecluster which is an incredibly strong multiplier to our defensive flasks. If you've ever played a build that takes this cluster before, you'll understand why I take it in this build.We take the long path down to Uwavering Stance for stun immunity, which is absolutely essential for this build.For my Ascendancy points I choose to take Berserker and Elementalist. Berserker is mandatory, but elementalist is not - I'll go into the options for Ascendancy points below.If you get your hands on a pair of skyforth boots, then you can skip the long road to unwavering stance and get more intelligence from your skilltree. This means using a rather different tree, which should look something like this:We replace the Brute Force Solution directly south of our start with a Fertile Mind, and add another Fertile Mind in the nearby jewel slot as well.The jewel slot south of the skill effect duration nodes are actually some of the more efficient nodes on the tree for getting intelligence, which is why we grab them with the Skyforth variant of the build.The reason for this is that the radius of this jewel slot overlaps with the radius of the jewel slot immediately south of the start, and when both have a Fertile Mind slotted, something interesting happens:We get +20 int from two of these +10 dex nodes, while somehow lowering our dex in the process. In total, counting both jewel nodes and the dex nodes along the way, we get 108 intelligence for 6 nodes. Nice!



Bandits

Spoiler

Normal - Kraityn +10% all resistances - we need those resists!

Cruel - Alira +5% cast speed - it's better than a skill point, though only just.

Merciless - Kill them all, we don't need more max charges.





Ascendancy Points

This build got a hell of a lot better with Ascendancy. The Scion is able to take two mini-ascendancy perks from the other classes, and these let us pick up some nice stuff.



Three of our Ascendancy points are spent getting Berserker. This gives us leech without needing to use a support gem, as well as 10% more damage. We pay for this by taking 5% increased damage ourselves, but this penalty is pretty minor.



Our other three points have some options, depending on your playstyle and how much offense or defense you need. I've tested a bunch of these, and here are some of the best options:



Offense - Elementalist. With a fire golem active, we gain a very significant boost to our damage. The extra elemental penetration is a nice boost as well, and the reduced elemental damage mostly counteracts the penalty of Berserker.



Balanced Offense/Defense - Occultist. A nice boost to ES and some passive ES regen. We also gain increased damage whenever we kill a cursed enemy, which is all the time thanks to blasphemy.



Defense - Heirophant. The 8% of mana added as ES will grant you over 1000 ES after all modifiers are accounted for. If you need a large boost to ES (maybe you're wearing a Black Sun Crest?) then this could be useful to you. Unfortunately the totem bonuses are wasted here.



Map Clear Speed - Raider. Yes, Raider. The 10% chance for a frenzy charge on kill is enough to keep you at full charges if rushing through a map, which means Onslaught all the time, baby! 12% more damage, 32% cast speed, and 20% move speed! This is a crazy fun way to play. Unfortunately, raider does not offer an int node on the way there like the others do. In addition, its bonuses do not help at all versus bosses like Atziri. But if you are the type to run Gorge maps all day, then look no farther than the Raider.







Gear



Here's what I use. It was very expensive. You do not need gear as good as mine to kick ass with this build! Below, I'll talk about what else you can use.





My Gear:

Spoiler



I'm not actually wearing the Astramentis - instead I use the obscenely strong Eyes of the Greatwolf, but I want to showcase gear that is realistic to acquire.



I'm not actually wearing the Astramentis - instead I use the obscenely strong, but I want to showcase gear that is realistic to acquire.



Jewels:

Spoiler





Brute force solutions go in the socket by the templar area, and the two sockets on the way to Unwavering Stance.



Fertile mind goes in the socket on the way to Vaal Pact.

Brute force solutions go in the socket by the templar area, and the two sockets on the way to Unwavering Stance.Fertile mind goes in the socket on the way to Vaal Pact.



Gear Options:

Spoiler

Weapon: The Whispering Ice. Duh.



Chest armor: Most of your ES comes from here. Priorities - 1. As much ES as possible. 2. As much int as possible. 3. Resists



Helmet: Black Sun Crest works well here if you're using Perandus Signets as it provides a whopping 19% increased intelligence. I would not suggest wearing one unless you can manage more than 8k energy shield without it though. A rare helmet with high ES/ high INT and resists works well too.



Boots: Move speed! Following that, high ES, INT, and resists. Good boots are very expensive. Sin trek is an acceptable cheap option since they provide decent ES, move speed, and intelligence.



If you are filthy rich, you can use Skyforth which provides stun protection and lets you skip Unwavering Stance. I will detail the tree changes you need to make below.



Gloves: Rare - High ES, INT, resists.



Amulet: Good: Rare amulet with +int, +allstats, resists. Better: Astramentis. A rare amulet can rival Astramentis for +intelligence, but Astramentis has the added benefit of being unique which works well with Perandus Signet.



Best: A rare talisman with +int and %increased attributes. Good luck.



Rings:

Rare rings with +intelligence, +all stats, +energy shield, resists

OR

Perandus Signet



Perandus signet is the top choice here in terms of more intelligence. 2% increased intelligence per equipped unique becomes 10% or more with enough uniques, meaning each ring slot is providing you with 100 intelligence. This alone wouldn't be competitive with certain rare rings, but Perandus Signet also gives us an absolute ton of mana regeneration, which we direly need. Its expensive however, and you NEED very good resists to be able to use them. In standard, legacy Signets provide 3% int per unique and are even better.



Belt:

Bated Breath

OR

Auxium

OR

Perandus Blazon

OR

Fire Doryani's

OR

Rare chain belt - +ES/resists



Bated Breath and Perandus Blazon have the benefit of being unique (comboing with Perandus Signet) and providing intelligence of their own. I personally use Perandus Blazon because of the increased flask effect duration. Bated Breath provides more ES and a lot more regeneration when using Vaal Discipline, Auxium provides a ton of ES and alleviates the need for an anti-freeze flask. If you want a little bit more leech, fire doryani's provides that alongside resistances and some increased damage. A rare belt works well too, this is a great gear slot to patch up your resists.



Flasks:

Our flasks are very important for preventing damage and making us highly tanky. Since we have Alchemist, our flasks have 30% more effect and last 12% longer - this is a big deal! Elemental resistance flasks give +8% maximum resistance and last a bit longer, granite flasks provide immense armor, quicksilver flasks make us incredibly fast. This empowerment applies to unique flasks too! Rumi's concoction gives more block chance (I have 51% block when rumi's is active) and Basalt Flasks mitigate 26% physical damage.



What you NEED:

One Bleed Immune Flask

One Freeze Immune Flask

One Curse Immune Flask

One Ruby Flask (for reflect). This can also fill one of the above rolls.

What you want:

Granite Flask/Basalt Flask

Quicksilver flask

Topaz/Sapphire Flask

Taste of Hate/Rumi's Concoction/Divination Distillate



Jewels

Of the nine jewel slots we grab, three require Fertile Mind, one Brute Force Solution, and the other five are free for rare jewels. These jewel slots let us patch our weaknessess and increase our strengths. Resistances are great here, as its hard to get resists from our gear. Intelligence, damage, and energy shield are perfect. Its relatively easy to find jewels with bold increased cold and fire damage modifiers, and we get to benefit from both!



On your jewels, you want any of the following:

-Intelligence

-Spell Damage

-Cold Damage

-Fire Damage

-Area Damage

-Spell Damage when using a staff

-Cast Speed

-Cast Speed when using a staff

-Cast Speed with cold skills (even with avatar of fire, icestorm is a cold skill)

-Increased Energy Shield

-Resistances



Jewels with 4 of these are pretty hard to come by, but three should be pretty manageable.







Links

Spoiler

We use a RRBBBB Staff for this build.

R - Fire Penetration

R - Cold to Fire

B - Faster Casting

B - Spell Echo

B - Elemental Focus

B - Flex Slot: Increased Area of Effect for mapping, Concentrated Effect for Bosses



Controlled Destruction is eschewed in favor of utilizing the keystone Elemental Overload, which provides 40% more damage for 8 seconds whenever we crit. Its not as good as controlled destruction, but it doesn't take a support gem slot to use!

Helmet

Whatever you want! I am currently using Flame Golem supported by minion life and minion resistance on a L20 CWDT for a tanky summon that provides a distraction while providing me with a nice damage boost.

You use these slots for a second CWDT setup, more vaal auras, or anything you feel the need for. Maybe ground slam/leap slam - fortify - faster attacks could even be worth trying, we are using a melee weapon after all.



Gloves

Cast When Damage Taken - Increased Duration - Immortal Call - Frost Wall



Immortal Call lasts provides protection from spike damage, utilizing our endurance charges generated by Warlord's Mark, which come back very quickly. Frost wall keeps melee attacks and projectiles alike out of our way, though party members will find this highly annoying! Use with care. If you don't want to use frost wall, then replace this slot with whatever you want. Orb of Storms is a good option for proccing Elemental Overload more often, since it hits multiple times.



Chest

Enlighten - Blasphemy - Warlord's Mark - Arctic Armor - Discipline / Flame Dash



Blasphemy Warlord's Mark is an amazing defensive curse, providing 2.2% leech with a 20Q Blasphemy as well as providing endurance charge generation. Previous versions of this build used Clarity for mana sustain, but Warlord's Mark obsoletes that as well. The chance to stun is not to be ignored, either - many enemies are stunlocked entirely by icestorm when cursed! The radius of the curse is large enough to cover most of the screen at max level. Arctic Armor provides physical and fire mitigation, helping reduce damage from two of the most dangerous damage types. Discipline provides nearly 2k ES with all our modifiers.



Enlighten is not required, so your chest can operate with as little as a 4-link. If you have some serious reserve reduction (from an enchant, passives, or Lv4 enlighten) then you can try to cram in yet another reserve skill - Purity of Elements and Herald of Ice are both decent choices.





Boots

Increased Duration - Rallying Cry - Vaal Discipline (x2)



Rallying cry provides additional mana regen and damage. Vaal Discipline is an excellent panic button, bringing us over 15k energy shield while regenerating it massively.







How to level as Whispering Ice

Hey! This staff requires level 33. Surely you dont want to wait until level 70 when you've respecced your build to use it? Its crazy fun to level with!



Accordingly, I've prepared a tree that both allows for effective leveling with icestorm and can respec into our final build using no more than the respec points you are given for completing all the quests. Orbs of regret are expensive!



Prior to hitting 33 I suggest leveling with firestorm, as it has a similar feel and is considered a powerful leveling skill. Try to nab a +1 to fire skills wand or staff.



Trees:

Spoiler

Leveling as a pure ES character is nearly impossible, so we want some life. We have 24 passive respec points to work with if we complete all the quests, so we want no more than 24 nodes in our leveling tree that are not in our final tree.



At the start of merciless (Lv60) your tree should look something like this:

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAAAAQSzCPQNfBFQGoEc3B0UHU8o-ilPLR8tqDLRNZI1uTrhPAU_J0VHRZ1GcUrITeNRdFNSV8lZbV-YZlRqQ20Zbqp7w3_GgpuC5IMJhXuKr4x2jxqPRpARkyeVIJrgnjyhL6IAoqOmV6aZpwinK63xr42xkLQMtQS18rfWuJO86r6Avoq-vMBUwGbB88rTzzLVpti921nkIuq66-7sOO988B_yRf4K_o8=



Around level 70 (once you have good ES gear!) you'll want to respec into Chaos Inoculation, Ghost Reaver and Unwavering Stance. If you've used my tree above, it will only take around 20 respec points to change into this build.



https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAAAAQHnBAcNfBFQFdcagRzcHRQdTx8CKU8qOCy_LR8tqDLRNbk2xTboPydFR0ZpRnFKyEyzUXRWSFZjWK9ZbV9qX5hfsGZUbRluqm87b554DXvDf8aCm4LkgwmExYV7hq6Kr4x2jxqPRo_6kBGTJ5Ugm7WePJ_LoS-io6aZpwinK6cwqW6t8a-NsZC0DLUEtfK31r6Avoq-vMAawGbBxcHzwzrKSsrTzzLQ0NWm2CTbWeQi6rrr7uwY7Dg=





Level 80 tree:

Beyond level 80 head into the shadow area for more intelligence and our final jewel slot.

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAAAAQHnBAcNfA5cEFgRLRFQFdcabBqBHNwdFB1PHwIpTyo4LJwsvy0fLag1uTbFNug_J0VHRX5GaUZxSshMs1F0VkhWY1ivWW1fKl9qX5hfsGZUavptGW6qbztvnngNe8N_xoKbguSDCYP3hMWFe4auh2WKr4x2jxqPRo_6kBGTJ5Ugm7Wdrp48n8uhL6KjppmnCKcrpzCpbq3xr42vm7GQtAy1BLXyt9a-gL6KvrzAGsBmwcXB88M6ykrK088y0NDVptgk21nkIuq66-Tr7uwY7Dg=

Leveling as a pure ES character is nearly impossible, so we want some life. We have 24 passive respec points to work with if we complete all the quests, so we want no more than 24 nodes in our leveling tree that are not in our final tree.At the start of merciless (Lv60) your tree should look something like this:Around level 70 (once you have good ES gear!) you'll want to respec into Chaos Inoculation, Ghost Reaver and Unwavering Stance. If you've used my tree above, it will only take around 20 respec points to change into this build.Level 80 tree:Beyond level 80 head into the shadow area for more intelligence and our final jewel slot.



Links While Leveling



When leveling, you likely want to use Spell Echo - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destructon - Fire Penetration - Faster Casting - Reduced Mana. Mana costs are really hard to sustain while leveling, so some of these may need to be swapped for cheaper alternatives. If you find yourself unable to run all your support gems, use item rarity as it has no mana multiplier! Free loot!





Frequently Asked Questions About This Build

Spoiler

Q: Can this build start as Witch instead?



A: Scion is by far the best choice for a WI character. The starting position provides the best access to int nodes, resistance notes, and Unwavering Stance, all of which are required by this build. Additionally, the Scion Ascendancy class is the best class for Whispering Ice - the free leech from Berserker is amazing and it is the only Ascendancy class that gives intelligence.



Q: Can you use Shavs with this build and make a low life variant?



A: You can, but it won't be as good as you'd like it to be. The base ES on Shavronne's Wrappings is quite low compared to a decent rare ES chest, and it provides no base intelligence. Ultimately you trade a very considerable amount of ES and chaos immunity to gain 30% more damage and 1-2 additional auras, which makes the build very much a glass cannon.



Q: Are Perandus Rings worth it in temp leagues? They only provide 2% increased intelligence per equipped unique!



A: Absolutely still worth it. Even if you have only 800 base intelligence (which is low for this build), then the rings will provide 80 int each if you have five uniques equipped (amulet, ringx2, belt, staff). Rare rings can provide 66 intelligence with perfect rolls while still providing other benefits, but good luck actually finding a ring like that. And the higher your base intelligence becomes, the better Perandus rings are comparatively.



Q: Can I use controlled destruction instead of faster casting on icestorm?



A: Absolutely! You'll need some other way to proc controlled destruction in this case, such as CWDT ice spear or by casting orb of storms, but this can definitely be a viable alternative. Try not to become overly focused on your tooltip damage though - cast speed matters! The faster casting gem takes me from .41 seconds to .31 seconds cast time, which is equivalent to 32% more damage!

https://youtu.be/A1BL_M_OwUw 2.2 Uber Atziri https://youtu.be/8c-Ku_RxE6E 2.2 Wasteland Clear https://youtu.be/MJsegnPAQBQ 2.2 Raider Ascendancy Demonstration - Gorge ClearThere are a few whispering Ice builds out there already. Why use mine over the others? I think my icestorm tooltip will speak for itself:I will be upfront in saying that this is not a budget build. If you want whispering ice to perform admirably, you need ~10 exalts of investment. I have invested far, far more into my personal build.Also, this is not a build for budget PCs. There's a lot of VFX spam going on while playing and you need a good PC if you want a playable framerate. Party members may not appreciate your presence.So, why play Whispering Ice? Because its fun as hell, and it looks cool as hell. There are stronger builds out there - cyclone, caustic arrow, bladefall (yawn). You don't play these because they are unoriginal and boring - that's why you're looking at this build. You want something interesting.Pros:-Fun, unique build-Looks freaking awesome-Staff provides a free 7-link, and no need for more than a 4-link on your armor.-Can run most map mods, -maxres + elemental reflect combo and bloodmagic are about the only showstoppers-Surprisingly tanky with high damage output-Can kill Atziri with relatively low-end gear(!)-This build gives you the Specialist achievement (woo!)-Infinity wisdom scrollsCons:-Highly restrictive gearing-Not cheap if you want to tackle Tier 10+ maps-Graphically intensive, may be problematic for you or party members-Highly mobile enemies can be hard to handleTo do this build you need a Whispering Ice. No way around that. These are cheaper than they used to be, but are still probably expensive early on in a temp league. This is the only required piece of gear for the build. The rolls on the staff don't matter hugely, with high %int being more important than cast speed.Note that any support gem socketed into The Whispering Ice will affect your icestorm skill, regardless of whether the sockets on the staff are linked. This means that a 6-socket The Whispering Ice functions as a 7-link at a fraction of the cost of any other 6-link staff.[/spoiler]Intelligence is the most important stat for this build - it gives us ES, icestorm duration, base damage AND damage scaling, and mana. Stacking a lot of this stat lets us be both tanky and an offensive powerhouse.With 50% increased intelligence (doable, but difficult) each 10 int node provides 15 int, which gives us the following:3% increased maximum energy shield1.5% increased spell damage+1.5-4.5 base ice storm damage+0.0225 seconds ice storm base duration+7.5 base manaThat's a lot of benefit from a 10 int node!To that end, we avoid most nodes that don't provide int themselves or are not next to ones that do. Why take nodes that "only" provide damage when we can get so much more from others? Accordingly, nodes like Heart of Ice that are normally considered good are skipped in favor of nodes that benefit us in more than one way. The build even routes around normally good nodes in order to get more intelligence.Unfortunately, the gear that provides us with the most intelligence is pretty lacking in the resistances department. To alleviate this, we need an absolute ton of resistances from our passive tree and on our jewels. This is why we use Scion as our class - easy access to jewel slots and resistance nodes.Cold to Fire is a very powerful gem. It adds a fraction of cold damage as fire damage - this directly adds to our base damage, and gets scaled by all our modifiers. Combined with Avatar of Fire, it also converts 100% of our cold damage into fire damage. This means we do a single damage type, making our penetration gem effective, and most importantly means we get to "double dip" on cold and fire damage increases - both %increased cold damage and %increased fire damage will improve our damage with full effect. This makes the Snowforged node very strong, providing a full 50% increased damage. Jewels can also have both increased cold and increased fire damage, and we get the full benefit of each.Compared to a pure ice damage build, Avatar of Fire gives us a very large damage increase. Note that because the icestorm skill created chilled ground, enemies affected by the skill are still chilled even if we do pure fire damage.This is actually pretty difficult to measure in any meaningful way, but we can do some calculations if we want to feel better.In the tooltip listed higher in this thread, our "Avg. Damage" is shown as 13,300. This is the damage per ice spear that falls from the sky. Icestorm drops one of these every 0.1 seconds, and with my 4.5 second skill duration that means that 45 spears should fall per cast.Now, not all of these are going to hit a given target. Against smaller creatures, maybe only 2-3 per cast will strike the target. If we assume that a creature is hit three times, it will suffer 13,300x3= 39,900 damage from one cast. With a cast time of 0.31 seconds, that would be 128,000 DPS to small targets! But wait, that damage takes place over the 4.5 seconds of the skill duration... so this is not a DPS measurement that makes any real sense. You cast the skill, and some unspecified time later your target will die - it is not immediate, and this means a lot of casting and then running off to the next pack while a group dies behind you. Make sure your loot filter makes noise for important drops!We can get a more meaningful DPS calculation against large, stationary bosses like Atziri. These creatures have enough health to sit in an icestorm for the full duration and have big enough hitboxes that most or even all of our ice spears can hit them.Let's be generous to our target and assume that only half the ice spears from an ice storm hit it. In practice you can achieve even more than this, but its hard to say with certainty. If half the spears hit, our target takes 13,300 x 23 = 305,900 damage over 4.5 seconds. Multiple icestorms can overlap, so dividing by our cast time makes logical sense here and we can estimate a sustained DPS of! Wow! This is, however, only after 4.5 seconds of continuous casting, which you rarely get to do in a boss fight.Now, I don't claim that this build does almost 1 million DPS because that's a silly calculation based on some very specific circumstances. You can be assured though that the clearspeed is quite acceptable as my videos should show.I want to clarify a few points regarding this matter, since the character I showcase in this build guide has evolved considerably since its original incarnation to become overpowered in every sense of the word.Youneed legacy standard items to run Uber with this build.Youneed Skyforth to run Uber with this build.Youneed a 900 ES chest to run Uber with this build.Youneed perfect jewels to run Uber with this build.This build first killed Uber in Warbands league, before Skyforth was a thing and with no legacy items. And this was before Ascendancy classes - the build is only stronger now!What youneed are the following:11,000+ ES5000+ icestorm tooltip with conc. effectBoots with 20% or more movement speedThat's it.This build got a hell of a lot better with Ascendancy. The Scion is able to take two mini-ascendancy perks from the other classes, and these let us pick up some nice stuff.Three of our Ascendancy points are spent getting Berserker. This gives us leech without needing to use a support gem, as well as 10% more damage. We pay for this by taking 5% increased damage ourselves, but this penalty is pretty minor.Our other three points have some options, depending on your playstyle and how much offense or defense you need. I've tested a bunch of these, and here are some of the best options:Offense - Elementalist. With a fire golem active, we gain a very significant boost to our damage. The extra elemental penetration is a nice boost as well, and the reduced elemental damage mostly counteracts the penalty of Berserker.Balanced Offense/Defense - Occultist. A nice boost to ES and some passive ES regen. We also gain increased damage whenever we kill a cursed enemy, which is all the time thanks to blasphemy.Defense - Heirophant. The 8% of mana added as ES will grant you over 1000 ES after all modifiers are accounted for. If you need a large boost to ES (maybe you're wearing a Black Sun Crest?) then this could be useful to you. Unfortunately the totem bonuses are wasted here.Map Clear Speed - Raider. Yes, Raider. The 10% chance for a frenzy charge on kill is enough to keep you at full charges if rushing through a map, which means Onslaught all the time, baby! 12% more damage, 32% cast speed, and 20% move speed! This is a crazy fun way to play. Unfortunately, raider does not offer an int node on the way there like the others do. In addition, its bonuses do not help at all versus bosses like Atziri. But if you are the type to run Gorge maps all day, then look no farther than the Raider.Here's what I use. It was very expensive.Below, I'll talk about what else you can use.My Gear:Jewels:Gear Options:Hey! This staff requires level 33. Surely you dont want to wait until level 70 when you've respecced your build to use it? Its crazy fun to level with!Accordingly, I've prepared a tree that both allows for effective leveling with icestorm and can respec into our final build using no more than the respec points you are given for completing all the quests. Orbs of regret are expensive!Prior to hitting 33 I suggest leveling with firestorm, as it has a similar feel and is considered a powerful leveling skill. Try to nab a +1 to fire skills wand or staff.Trees:When leveling, you likely want to use Spell Echo - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destructon - Fire Penetration - Faster Casting - Reduced Mana. Mana costs are really hard to sustain while leveling, so some of these may need to be swapped for cheaper alternatives. If you find yourself unable to run all your support gems, use item rarity as it has no mana multiplier! Free loot! [Build Guide] - Whispering Ice CI Avatar of Fire

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1386145 Last edited by Baalorlord on Mar 31, 2016, 10:56:33 PM Last bumped on Jan 30, 2017, 12:33:12 AM