[Phrecia] Manaforged Wildspeaker -> Whisperer League Starter

Overview

Whispere was arguably the strongest Ascendancy and most unique Ascendancy during the first Phrecia League. Now it is back with no Nerfs, in fact it got Buffed quite a bit.

However, with the power will come attention and hype, which will result in very expensive Items. Be warned this Build is cheap to start, but VERY expensive to max!

Whisperer is a strong Ascendancy once the Build is online. It allows to stack Dexterity and Mana at the same time with an infinite pursuit. It adds another unique angle with we know all granting Flat Damage based on a % of the Maximum Mana, but doubles the Mana Cost and your mind is destroyed granting the same effect as Crown of Eyes.

This makes it a excellent pick for Kinetic Blast of Clustering and Manaforged Arrows Support Builds.

The Ascendancy also offers other benefits like Awakened Fork Support on a Ascendancy Node for easy access to amazing coverage.

And also offers good survivability in juiced content with don't panic yet.

How to get into the lategame

The big weakness of the build is early game where you don't have all the items yet. Without high Dexterity/Mana the Build will feel lacking. So I highly recommend playing as a Wildspeaker throughout the Campaign and Early Endgame until the important Keypices for the Swap are prepared and then swapping into a Whisperer and destroying the Game.

Wildspeaker offers a great suit of Ascendancy Nodes

• Tailwind from Greatwolf's Call
• Flat Physical Damage from Pack Mentality (requires Crit)
• %Increase Damage and Early Access to Dex Stacking with Scourge of the Wilds
• Inspired Learning with Boon of the First Ones
• Instant Access to Spell Suppression (not needed but neat to have) on Primal Instinct

Why Manaforged Bows over Kinetic Blast of Clustering

Kinetic Blast of Clustering and Wanders in general gonna have huge Attention this Phrecia Event, as they got giga Buffed in 3.27 Keepers of the Flame League. With that Attention comes Hype and increased Prices. To partialy circumvent those we go with Manaforged Bows, allowing us to get into the Endgame a bit faster and cheaper.

Manaforged Arrows Support Bows was my league starter for the 3.27 League and was a perfect Pick for early Breaches and with some minor adjustments even handeld T17 with ease. Applying the Lessons Learned from Keepers to the Phrecia Starter makes it a excelent Choice.

In Essence the faster and cheaper Progression allows us to safe up for the Expensive Upgrades quicker and buy them (hopefully) before the Wanders transition into Manaforged Whisperer.

Manaforged Bows

Manaforged Arrows Support scales Damage of the Mana Cost of our Bow Skills, however we need the Cost of our Main Skill to be 3x the Cost of our Trigger Skills to consistently trigger them each Attack.

To make sure your Cost is setup correct just hover the Tooltips of your Skills and make sure that your Main Skill is 3x the other ones.

The Satisfying and Fun Part of Manaforged Bows is that we cover the Screen in Arrows and have Access to "ALL" the fun Bow Skills.

Tornado Shot, Lightning Arrow, Elemental Hit of the Spectrum, Storm Rain, etc.

Patch Notes

Whisperer - Buffed

• we know all has "100% increased Mana Cost of Skills" (previously 50%) and also now has "Attack Skills have Added Lightning Damage equal to 6% of maximum Mana" (previously 4%)
• don't panic yet now has "20% of Damage taken Recouped as mana"
• other buffs that do not affect us

The Main Node we know all got buffed massivly for Manaforged, as our Damage scales of the Mana Cost of our Skills and we gain more Damage based of our Mana.

If needed don't panic yet got buffed and offers great Survivability for high juiced content

Wildspeaker - Buffed

• Primal Instinct now has "-10% to amount of Suppressed Spell Damage Prevented" (previously -15%)
• Greatwolf's Call now has "50% Increased Effect of Tailwind on you"
• Scourge of the Wilds now has +100 to Dexterity
• other buffs that do not affect us

More Tailwind effect means faster attacks and faster moving around

Scourge of the Wilds grants Dexterity already so just on its own it grants now 30% increase Damage

If needed Primal Instinct is buffed and we have easy instant Access to capped Spell Suppression Chance.

Pantheon & Bandits

Help Alira for +15% all Resistances.

Use The Brine King and Abberath. Remember to unlock Burning Ground Imunity and Freeze Immunity with Divine Vessels.

For Both Whisperer and Wildspeaker the following Rule Counts

Dexterity = Evasion & Damage

We have no complex Skill Rotations it is just "Fire your Main Skill until all Enemies are Dead" and move on.

Everything else is automated.

Tornado Shot

Tornado Shot fires Primary Projectiles equal to your Arrow Count. ( If you have +4 additional Arrows from Sources, then it fires 5 Primary Arrows)

These Arrows will travel to the targeted Location in a Cone, then explode(visually) and fire 3 Secondary Projectiles each.

An Enemy can be hit by 1 Primary Projectile and 1 Secondary Projectile of EACH Primary Projectile. With 5 Primary Projectiles, it can result in up to 6 Hits. This is called Shotgunning. The avg. Amount of Hits is Primary + Half your Secondary Projectiles for Bigger Targets or 1/3 of the Secondary Projectiles for Small Targets.

While the Primary Projectile will Pierce all Enemies till it arrives at the targeted Location, the Secondary Projectiles can Pierce, Forke, and Chain.

A secondary Projectile that chains of an Object can hit the same Enemy as a different Projectile of the same Primary Projectile. Resulting in further Shotgunning with 2+ Targets to hit.

Projectile Travel Distance

Each Projectile has its own Lifespan. As the Projectile travels it's 'Life' decreases. At Maximum Distance, aka. when the 'Life' hits 0, the Projectile stops.

A Projectile can stop early if it hits an Enemy and has no Split, Pierce, Fork or Chain left.

Increasing the Projectile Speed will directly increase the maximum Distance the Projectile can travel. And as a Result the Clear of the Build.

If using Returning Projectiles Support, the Projectile will start to Return when reaching it Maximum Distance or Hitting the final Enemy.

Returning Projectiles & Pierce (LA and EHotS)

Tornado Shot only starts shining once we have access to Chain. We can use Pierce and Returning Projectiles Support for Single Target Damage before Access to Chain. Requiring at least 1 Pierce the Projectile will hit the Enemy, then continue travelling until reaching Maximum Distance. Then returns thanks to Returning Projectiles Support to the Players Position at the Time of using the Skill. This results in a Second hit.

Manaforged Arrow

A Bow Skill linked to Manaforged Arrows Support can not be used manually. It instead triggers when spending Mana on other Bow Skills. To prevent absurd Spam, it can not be triggered by other Manaforged Arrows Support Setups and gains a Cooldown.

This means that our Main Skill has to cost at least 1 Mana to eventually trigger any Manaforged Setups.

A Bow Skill linked both to Manaforged Arrows Support and Lifetap Support has 0 Mana Cost, so it will trigger whenever we use a Bow Skill manually and it is of Cooldown.

Inspired Learning / Boon of the First One

Boon of the first One does the exact same wording as Inspired Learning, for simplified writing I will explain it based on Inspired Learning.

Inspired Learning is a Smaller Version of the Headhunter. Instead of granting all the Rare Modifiers for 60 Seconds, it will only grant 1 Modifierer for 20 Seconds.

A player can only have 1 Buff for each Modifier, if the same Modifier would be gained again, instead the Duration is refreshed.

Using more than 1 Inspired Learning is generally not recommended, as both select a Random Modifier, individualy. However for Content like Legion or Breach where a lot of Rare Enemies are slain, it can be beneficial to use two.

27.01 | Initial Writeup