[3.19] Ice Dancing Queen - Icestorm/Cyclone/CI - Viable For Everything

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KanameChidori wrote:

The big difference I can see between this and Ascendant is the massive loss of ES? Checking out POE Ninja the top 5 Ascendent have 15-18k ES while the top 5 Occultist have 7-10k. Wouldn't that make this the much less tanky build overall? Kinda torn on which one to do.

The difference in ES has nothing to do with the class. I just checked poe.ninja out of curiosity myself. The people with 16k+ ES are simply using extremely expensive gear with tons of raw ES and %int synthesized stuff (10ex+ crafting bases), as well as Clarity/ES Watcher's Eyes (starting price 45-50 ex).

There is actually an Occultist with 16.8k ES there in the top 5 with that kind of gear. But most everybody else going that route is Ascendant. Probably because those players want a solid plan from the start of the league, and the Occultist project was an experiment. Another reason may be that it's easier to max resists on the Ascendant and then spend more resources towards maxing Int and ES.

As far as the tankiness goes. With equal gear, Occultist is tankier than Ascendant. She has an extra debuff on the enemy from Malevolence, higher curse efficiency, ignores Hexproof. Clear speed adds security as well.

The big debate seems to be about stun immunity. But it's just a matter of perspective. On paper, only 40% stun avoidance on the Occultist looks insecure. In reality, I only experienced stun-related problems while leveling through 70-85. I adjusted to them by using Blasphemy Enfeeble and Fortify. Micro-stuns continued to happen until I got a more protection (Unwavering Focus or Bottled Faith; I got them both eventually). But somewhere around lv 91-93 when I got semi-decent items and my Int reached 2.5k the stuns pretty much stopped bothering me, even with the regular setup (Blasphemy Frostbite and no Fortify in the staff). I just either didn't get hit hard enough, or the stuns happened so rarely and were so short that it didn't matter.

Eventually, when you get to the serious gear level, stun is a non-issue. Harvest lets you add 10% stun avoidance enchant to the jewels. You can find Unwavering Focus on Megalo. You can acquire Bottled Faith with 50% stun avoidance. I am currently immune to stun while cycloning, same as the Ascendant.

But the Occultist is also immune to chill and freeze, and the Ascendant is not. Which is a big deal in certain content. So that's the other side of the trade off. One version is immune to stun but has to take steps against freeze/chill, the other is immune to freeze/chill but has to mitigate stun.

Overall: the Ascendant is easier to gear and start playing, but the Occultist can achieve better game play.

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Mutant21slayer wrote:

Wouldn't it be considerable to take the Vile Bastion ascendancy?
I don't know what we would switch for it...maybe Profane bloom? Of course we would lose some clear speed I guess but still we would get a fat ES regen and literally stun immunity. I mean it's not stuff like chance to avoid stun, stun recoveries etc...You just forget what stun is while you gain a big sustain.

Vile Bastion is an option too. If the stuns bother you too much. Until they stop being an issue when your gear gets decent enough. But the appeal of Profane Bloom is very strong. At any level before 96, even if you occasionally die by running into a pack of stunners with rippy mods, you still get more xp overall from just exploding everything.

There are several options against stun that let you play just fine without Vile Bastion.

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Dracolich56 wrote:

One thing to consider is replace ball lightning with phantasmal wave of conviction. I don't think having them in two separate links is that great and I don't think having both is necessary. This frees up a socket for Vaal RF or Frost Shield or whatever else you want.

I ended up having them both in the 6L chest. Since one of the curses is Blasphemy, the Occultist has a free gem slot for it.

As far as dropping BL goes. I definitely would not recommend that without very good gear. BL is really good at applying those curses early on.

However, now that I have very nice items, I keep noticing that I rarely get hit at all during mapping/delving. And when I do get hit, the source of that hit is usually near me and just WoC is enough to hit it back. So I am replacing BL with lv 10 Frost Wall for deep delves currently.

But...

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And as a last note, holy shit the energy shield on hit watcher's eye was huuuuuuuuuuge quality of life. Really felt like a transition point with the build for me.

THIS. The nerfs to Watcher's Eye in 3.12 caused the prices to drop. All you need is that 1 mod (ES on hit), and it became more accessible. The extra leech became too small to matter. And the extra ES from Clarity is not worth the price unless you really have nothing to do with your currency (it's only ~1500 extra ES for 50 ex).

But if you drop BL then you will greatly diminish the defensive power of this jewel in mapping. BL fires as often as CWDT can trigger, and it hits everything in its path 5 times per second. WoC has a cooldown, moves slower, travels a shorter distance and only hits 1 time. The difference in healing can be very large in a packed map.

So, it's been 1 month since the league start. For me, the time flew so fast and I've had so much fun that I can safely say that this is the best league ever.

The Ritual mechanic is absolutely perfect for this build. And the re-introduction of Harvest is also very good: it does not consume most of your time anymore, while still making gear crafting so much easier.

The new Atlas expansion is great. Although the Maven herself seems kinda pointless. Her loot sucks. Except for that 1 rare drop Orb that sells for a lot. But overall I found her not worth the effort. You still get Sirus along the way, and he is much more profitable.

The new Atlas trees are AWESOME. You can focus on whatever you like the best: Harvest, Delirium, Delves, etc. New watchstones with various buffs are great too. I found the most use in the Titanium ones that give me more Zana and Niko with better results.

The Uncharted tree is the best of them all. +50% Sirus gem drop buff is real. It makes Sirus a far better target than before, and much better than The Maven. The extra Zana options (Paths Not Taken) is fantastic: I have found more Harvests, Deliriums and Cortexes via Zana than by any other means.

I highly recommend spending the 12 Uncharted points on:
- the full Sirus/Awakening branch (6 points)
- Paths Not Taken (4 points)
- Secrets of the Stones (2 points)

Now, as far as this build goes. I'm 38/40 challenges already, lv 100 easier than ever before, and will be finishing 40/40 sooner than in any other league.

I'm 100% happy that I decided to try the Occultist. This is the most power I've felt except the broken unlimited Split Personality stacking back in Delirium. Clear speed was the final piece that the build lacked, until now. Now it's just perfect.

Stuns have never bothered me too much even before I outgeared them. I'm going to pay special attention to the stun mitigation when I get free time to fully update the Occultist guide (after reaching 40/40). Brine King, Blasphemy Enffeble, Fortify, Unwavering Focus, Bottled Faith, stun/block recovery flask, jewel enchantment - there are many ways to deal with stuns, and they are more efficient than dealing with freezes on the Ascendant.

The only current issue is the stupid 5-storm limit, which is a massive nerf to single target DPS. However, there are exactly 2 targets where it actually matters: Sirus and the Maven. And it only matters until you get serious gear (like my current stuff) - which is much easier to get now with the addition of Harvest. 2 weeks into the league, when I made the Sirus AL9 video, I had to spend 2 minutes chasing him in the final stage. Now he dies in less than 30 sec even when he's trying his best to get away from me. The regular map bosses just get stomped and die as quickly as their phasing mechanics allow. I even 1-phased Oshabi when I found the Heart of the Grove the other day. The lack of single target DPS is not really a big deal with good gear. But we still need it un-nerfed to enjoy the build while gearing up.

Overall, the game is tons of fun for this build, and I'm totally enjoying the Occultist.

In case anybody was wondering what Zana looks like with Paths Not Taken:



Of course, Cortex is rare. But it does happen often enough. And there are maps for all possible farming targets.

If you have some clever Harvest crafting ideas, please share. I'm sad I keep missing my Crusader orb roll on my chest (and there aren't many chests out there to roll on.) If there's some weird Harvest craft that allows me to reroll the crusader orb roll.......

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Graiaule wrote:

If you have some clever Harvest crafting ideas, please share. I'm sad I keep missing my Crusader orb roll on my chest (and there aren't many chests out there to roll on.) If there's some weird Harvest craft that allows me to reroll the crusader orb roll.......

You mean remove/add influenced modifier?

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Graiaule wrote:

If you have some clever Harvest crafting ideas, please share. I'm sad I keep missing my Crusader orb roll on my chest (and there aren't many chests out there to roll on.) If there's some weird Harvest craft that allows me to reroll the crusader orb roll.......

Chest? With Harvest, it's now even easier than helmet, except for being only a 50/50 chance.

- Buy an ilvl 75-79 non-influenced Vaal Regalia with good ES and Int.
- Use Harvest to get rid of non-Int suffixes.
- Crusader slam
- Craft 6% attr

50% chance to hit an %Int suffix. 25% chance of it being T1. But even T2 is good enough.

Once you have your first decent set of gear (probably T2 chest, helmet, cheap Int/resist/Aspect gloves, Astramentis, cheap int/resist rings) - then start working on upgrades. Slam more chests and helmets to get T1 %Int, a good resist mod on the helmet, good ES and resist on the gloves.

And then keep working your way up. Use Harvest to spam Defense rerolls on ilvl 86 regalia bases. Eventually you will hit something that you can slam and either sell or keep. Remove/Add Influence is too expensive for my taste. Only buy it when you have a REALLY good regalia with a wrong Crusader or Shaper mod.

Use resist type changes to max and equalize resists. You no longer need to look for specific resists, just for their total sum, and then it's just a matter of math how to spread them around to get them all nice and equal for The Wise Oak.

Getting the precise resist numbers is also easier with the resist change Harvest crafts than with Divines (that can lower ES/Int) or paying and trusting strangers on The Forbidden Trove. For example, if you have a 42% resist mod and need it to be 45% - keep changing to to another element and back until it ends up being 45%. Each change rerolls the number.

Cluster jewels can also have resist mods, very helpful.

I did my probably final round of upgrades yesterday.

You can't realistically craft these kind of numbers yourself. I bought these items with different resists and adjusted them myself. And no, it's not super expensive. You work your way up: farm the currency to buy the next item, then sell your previous item and get most of it back.

Finally, there are rings. And you can definitely craft them yourself.

I bought the 6% int base for 8 ex, Spite spammed it until I got a T2 resist (should have gone for T1 really), then used Harvest to remove the random 3rd suffix and one of the prefixes. Of course, that's the expensive option. Use regular rings until you can afford it. Once you can - make this ring and then craft the other one to finalize your resists.

The other ring is there just to get the remaining resists with Prismatic Catalysts. It can be made the same way: chaos spam T1 Int and 1 T1 resist mod, then craft the 3rd resist suffix.

I took that 1 step further: buy an ilvl 84 Cogwork base, chaos spam or Spite Essence T1 Int and 3 total suffixes, then use the Fracture Suffix harvest craft. With 1/3 chance you lock the Int. And then just chaos (or fossil) spam two T1-T2 resists and craft the final one.

Hope that's enough crafting ideas :) I'll try to find time to maybe make a guide or something.

well i think i gona stop
too lazy to farm and play. still good enough results.
really wish they removed 5-storm cap, cause it's hit hard our progression. in top gear it's nothing. all dying in 1-2 hits, and bosses dissappear with 5 storm, but not in low-mid really :/

ended with 3853 int, 17410k es, ton's of dmg :D

hm with bis mirror tier amulet and one more ring with int/%int it can be reached 3950+int, with boots near 4100 int(and +1.7k es+-, in total ~20k, crazy numbers. but stampede boots just too good quality of life )

in conclusion me satisfied that picked occult version over ascendence, profane bloom just what's our icestorm build needed.
well about stun, got enought lucky of 80% on jewels and if play little bit more i think 100% stun reachable )

first try and maven orb lvled up %int! yay but 2% just too boring :/

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Cjin wrote:

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Graiaule wrote:

If you have some clever Harvest crafting ideas, please share. I'm sad I keep missing my Crusader orb roll on my chest (and there aren't many chests out there to roll on.) If there's some weird Harvest craft that allows me to reroll the crusader orb roll.......

You mean remove/add influenced modifier?

See, that's the problem. I've never seen that modifier, so didn't know it existed. I guess I should check out poedb.tw's information on Harvest crafts...

Re Kelvynn's comments, yeah, my former chests were ilvl 75-79. I missed the 50% chance twice. So I switched to a better chest at ilvl 84 or so, and missed the 30% chance. Your idea to form the chests using Harvest is a good idea, thanks. The issue is crafting a 2-3 prefix 1 suffix chest, of course.