[2.2] A Storm of Ice and Fire - Avatar of Fire CI Whispering Ice - Uber Viable!

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Sigh. An all unique build:

- 10.5k ES (you can drop Blast Radius and pick up Arcane Focus for an additional 41% ES and 20% ES RR)
- 50% faster ES RR (or 70% if AF is your thing)
- 6k tooltip DMG (36% to radius) without concentrated effect (have fun with a WI spread of a portal lol)
- 81% capped resists (oooh baby)
- 3.08 casts per second
- Ability to freeze (or take AoF as there are 2 free tree nodes)
- 2000+ Int
- 36% movement speed

With the build you posted on page 30?? How? The items you listed there don't seem to add up to that. I did try Black Sun, it was nice for Int and the +1 gems is good. But the loss of ES made me way too fragile. We can't use a shield, so the helm is the 2nd biggest source of ES. Extra Int multiplier from Black Sun won't cover for that.

Can you please post your actual items and gems? Where are the overcap resists coming from?

And how do you deal with stun/chill/freeze?

I tried the cold version. Freeze is good on trash, and you can get a nice multiplicative bonus from Hypothermia. But it doesn't work on most bosses, and trash already dies fast. CtF+AoF is better.

But I'm very interested in how you get the above mentioned stats.

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Kelvynn escribió:

How?

lol

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Kelvynn escribió:

CtF+AoF is better.

CTF is a workhorse. You run that gem whether you go cold or spec into AOF.

AOF itself is the most overrated keystone in the tree. It provides a 150 tooltip boost (on top of 5.5k). I'm not sure what numbers you guys are working with, but it doesn't give what all you guys say it gives (unlike hypothermia that boosts dps but doesn't reflect its stats on the tooltip, AOF does no such thing). You keep the chill which is nice, but the loss of freeze makes proc'ing HOI + Ice Bite + CS impossible. If you don't run HOI, then nothing to worry about, but still, there is no 50% increase (or 100% increase or 10k% increase or whatever else you guys are claiming lol).

In actuality, it nets you a ~3% multiplicative bonus to damage. Woooo lol. I said this before and some guy shouted me down saying I knew nothing and was spreading misinformation (forums lol). But if we got this insane bonus, it would reflect those stats in the tooltip, which again, it does not, and unless someone has data-mined actual damage values on hit (like D3 shows), then if it nets 3% according to the tooltip, it nets 3%. Either that or I've legit gone crazy lol.

I would honestly take the 5% to freeze by Fingers of Frost over that. Popping a flask + Hypothermia + Izaro's + Elementalist + HOI/Ice Bite and you have a 37% chance of freezing and with the added node, that goes up to 43%. It's terrific for CC, unless you like to crawl at a snails pace and lay down ice storms at a distance. If you want to run through maps, fire spec is not the way to go unless you pool all your offensive resources into defense.

Regardless, if you want to spec into fire, that's fine, it's a fine build and for bosses, it doesn't matter as every boss is immune to freeze (and pretty much chill too). But bosses make up a fraction of what you fight and it's easy enough to swap out gems during a boss fight. I'm so lazy that for regular Atziri, I don't swap anything, not even flasks at this point. Just like PVP, farmings builds =/= boss builds and every respecs to a point for hard boss fights. I've seen people respec for the boss in the Excavation map (it's certainly one of the harder ones), but I've tried to make a build that didn't need to be swapped all the time (mostly out of laziness but curiosity too).

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Kelvynn escribió:

How?

lol

Dude. What is the reason you don't show your actual items and avoid certain direct questions? I have a feeling that you are hiding something very important that makes a huge difference here. Your numbers simply don't add up to what you are claiming.

For starters, the aura radius/effect nodes in the tree you posted. Those are useless for solo play. Are you grouping? That would explain a lot.

As I mentioned, I'm having no problems with any bosses I've done after taking care of the stun, chill and freeze with US and Auxium. But you aren't using either of them. Amazing flask mastery at work? Or certain 'magic' that you won't show on video? ;)

If your variation of the build is so amazing and works so well, why are you so secretive about it? If it's something that won't work for others then why keep bringing it up here?

And the CtF mechanic was explained to me in the CtF support thread very clearly. There is no secret or hidden damage, nothing to data mine. The added damage is applied multiplicatively right after the conversion, multiplying the resulting fire damage. When you are using CtF without AoF, it applies only to half of your damage. When you are using CtF+AoF it's a simple 30% MORE damage multiplier. Plus 10%+10% increased (additive) from the gem quality.

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Kelvynn escribió:

And the CtF mechanic was explained to me in the CtF support thread very clearly. There is no secret or hidden damage, nothing to data mine. The added damage is applied multiplicatively right after the conversion, multiplying the resulting fire damage. When you are using CtF without AoF, it applies only to half of your damage. When you are using CtF+AoF it's a simple 30% MORE damage multiplier. Plus 10%+10% increased (additive) from the gem quality.

That can't be right. The tooltip would reflect the damage increase. It does not. People can say all they want, but the numbers are plain as day.

Ok, I see where the extra resists are coming from: you are running all Purities, and your build requires all aura nodes AND a lv 4 corrupted Enlighten? Sure, that's a nice solution to resist issues. You just forgot to mention your budget. That's totally gonna work for everybody, especially in new leagues.

Getting to lv 90 doesn't require any special gear or gems, dunno why you even mention that. Of course you don't need life leech for that. The point of this build is to kill hard stuff without dying. You're gonna get stunned by Uber Trio and die. Get chilled by T15 Daresso and die. Get perma frozen by a random Haast spawn and die. I don't have any of those issues and my whole gear costs less than half of the price of 1 gem you are using. And who cares how easily you can murder normal Atziri or T10 maps. You are basically running a different build than the one this thread is about.

Why AoF is not increasing the tooltip by a lot - now that's a good question. CtF multiplicative bonus works fine, just as I said. AoF is supposed to let you use it on all of your damage instead of only half. I never said that AoF is +50% dps or anything like that. CtF is, not AoF. But yeah, AoF is supposed to add more. Going to look into it again.

But either way, the main point of AoF is penetration. Your whole damage becomes 1 type: fire. And then you can consider Fire Penetration a multiplicative modifier against anything that resists elemental damage, i.e. everything that really matters. That's probably what the people mean by saying that AoF adds a lot.

I think I know why AoF adds so little to the tooltip: it takes effect after CtF's conversion and the damage converted by it is not multiplied by CtF.

But here's the real difference AoF makes: any mob worth a damn has capped elemental resistances. You don't use Penetration and deal half cold and half fire damage. The mob takes only 25% of the damage you deal. I use lv 20 Fire Penetration in WI and the mob takes 25+38=63% of the damage I deal. Or 152% MORE. How's that for 1 tree node's worth?

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Kelvynn escribió:

I think I know why AoF adds so little to the tooltip: it takes effect after CtF's conversion and the damage converted by it is not multiplied by CtF.

That's what I originally said! Go back and check it out. And I was shouted out of the forums lol.

As for the penetration argument, it's not that simple. If you have fire resistant mobs, you're screwed, even with fire penetration, you're going to deal less damage than if you're hybrid. Moreover, you're losing hypothermia, which gives 10% to freeze, increases chill and gives us a meaty 30% increase. You don't get something for nothing. Going all in on one element isn't all that. I used to play a fire spec marauder and even with penetration, fire resistant mobs are hard to put down. At no point does having penetration give you an advantage against resistant mobs lol. It gives you some of your dps back... some.

And no, I don't have a level 4 enlighten yet. I want two of them to be able to run high clarity and empower on discipline. For now I lose the added 400 ES, no biggie. Gotta have something to work towards lol.

Who cares about budget. Irrelevelant. I'm pushing the build. At no time are we claiming to make an OP WI build under 5c lmao. Ridiculous to even bring that up. And you asked for my build. I show you and you get pissed saying its full of problems and not the same build as this one. Lol. Okay.

Also, you sound angry so yeah, just gonna bail on this whole thing, cheers. Lol. Glhf.

PS: your math is out to lunch btw lmao

why use hypothermia(39 more damage at lv 20) when controlled destruction deals 44 more damage at lv 20?

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As for the penetration argument, it's not that simple. If you have fire resistant mobs, you're screwed, even with fire penetration, you're going to deal less damage than if you're hybrid. Moreover, you're losing hypothermia, which gives 10% to freeze, increases chill and gives us a meaty 30% increase. You don't get something for nothing. Going all in on one element isn't all that. I used to play a fire spec marauder and even with penetration, fire resistant mobs are hard to put down. At no point does having penetration give you an advantage against resistant mobs lol. It gives you some of your dps back... some.

Trash mobs die too fast to worry about Hypo vs Penetration. It's the bosses and rares and a lot of magic mobs in high tiers that are resistant to all elemental damage, not just fire or cold. And then there are resistance map mods that can make everything resistant, even trash. Bosses can't be chilled either, so much for Hypothermia, you switch it off for a much less beneficial green gem (Added Cold).

But even on the mobs that can be chilled, Hypothermia only gives you 40% more of YOUR damage, which is then cut by 3/4 by the mob's resistance. You do X * 1.4 * 0.25 = X * 0.35 damage to the mob.

When all your damage is one type, with Penetration, you deal X * 0.63 damage to the mob. The difference is huge.

And on non-resistant mobs, Penetration is still a huge bonus because it makes their effective resistance negative and makes them take more damage.

If you are using CtF, you gotta grab AoF too. Otherwise, if you want to keep the bonuses of cold damage, you are better off replacing CtF with Cold Penetration.

But going hybrid with CtF and Hypothermia is inferior to single damage type and Penetration.

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ald1413 escribió:

why use hypothermia(39 more damage at lv 20) when controlled destruction deals 44 more damage at lv 20?

Exactly. It's just one of the dilemmas when you are staying with cold damage. CtF+AoF doesn't have this dilemma, you are all-fire, with Controlled Destruction and Fire Penetration and the multiplicative bonus from CtF and the double-dip Snowforged increases applying to all 100% of your damage, and no need to gimp your dps on bosses by replacing Hypo with Added Cold.

It's just so much more efficient with CtF+AoF. And all you lose is the ability to freeze trash. It's chilled by the Icestorm ground anyway, just not frozen.

@_Tiem: Now that I have a clearer picture of your all-unique build (omg why is it so hard to just link your items? click on your avatar in the upper-left corner, click the items), I can see that you are denying yourself the benefits of Warlord's Mark aura or even AA. You have to run the Purities because your resistances are crap, and there goes all your mana. You can't run -regen maps either, can you? With my WM aura I can even do No Regen with a couple of mana flasks, although that's annoying. But -80% regen is barely noticeable. But no way you can do any -regen with VB and no mana leech.