[3.20 Sanctum] Self-Cast Glacial Cascade Occultist

Hey guys, after seeing this skill during the league content reveal stream, I decided that I absolutely need this.

I spent some time tinkering on Standard with some hoarded currency figuring out the possible technologies for the build, and ended up with the following key features:

• Evasion based, 100% suppression right at the league start coming mostly from the tree
• Eldritch battery
• 6+2 auras: Precision (lvl 1), Vitality (lvl 1), Grace, Hatred, Herald of Purity, Dread Banner + Vaal Grace or Vaal Haste + Zealotry (divine blessing)
• CWDT + Frost shield + Steelskin technology for more survivability
• Using meta Heatshiver + Yoke combo for more extra fire damage and shocks
• Not focused on power charge stacking
• 2 curses (Frostbite on hit and self-cast Assassin's mark on bosses)
• OK survivability during the mapping
• Very good single-target DPS
• 1 large cluster max
• Explosions from the Occultist
• Perfectly scalable from 4L league start with all the items from the floor all the way up to Pinnacle bosses cheesing

While writing this post, in Sanctum League, I had this: https://pobb.in/ZCmN8pUY3tOb (also you can look for SLVR_SANCTUM in my profile).

Current gear reference:


At bosses, it is around 17.5M without the frenzy charge on kill generation and onslaught. It was enough to clear 60% quant Feared from the first try with a few bloopers being blasted by Atziri :) Haven't tried Ubers yet though.

I think this is the first build I tried to compile myself from start to end for the first time in like 10 years, and that was a very fun experience, so I just wanted to share it with the community.

My gear progression

League start, first days

• whatever wands you pick up from the floor or trade for cheap (some spell or cold dmg, cast speed, spell crit maybe, +gems, etc)
• 5L armor with ~20% spell suppression for capping it
• whatever res, str, dex gear on the rest, keeping up with the gems requirements (155 str 155 dex)
• Heatshiver and Yoke, both being like a few chaos uniques; GC extra damage enchant goes for around 30c which is a steal
• Main links: 21 lvl GC (super cheap) + Spell Echo + Increased Critical Strikes + PCoC + Hypothermia

^ that was already enough to be blasting on the white maps until the yellows

League start, following days

• wands upgrade - more cast speed, +1 cold gems, spell crit, crit multi up to 100c each (use PoB "Trade for these items", it is amazing)
• good damage anoint like Arcane Potency (I only use the right side of the tree so it's out of the way)
• whatever Frostbite on hit ring
• high roll Le Heup of All for all res, stats
• Watcher's eye with % life leeched as life while affected by Vitality
• Eldritch enchants: cold exposure + unnerve on the gloves, aura effect, and hatred effect on the armor
• (most important) 6L 400+ ES 100 life Vaal regalia = MUST have as it enables CWDT Frost shield which bursts survivability vs rippy red map packs by quite a lot. It requires at least 960 spare ES on the Eldritch battery to burn, so it is better to be sitting way above 1k, even better 1.2k. I also take a small ES leech next to Eldritch battery for that tiny extra bit of sustain that allows me to shoot a few extra GCs when the shield reaches the max stage, usually, this is enough to boom the pack and recover everything back. The survivability burst from that was so big that I was very rarely dying all the way up to 98, when I just decided to AFK 5 ways a bit.
• Atziri's promise
• Main links: 21/20 GC + Spell Echo + Increased Critical Strikes + PCoC + Hypothermia + Increased Critical Damage (all supports being 20/20)

^ I was running something like this until the late reds

More expensive upgrades

• Taste of hate (can be up to 1 div in the league start scenario)
• Stygian's vise rolled with Essences of Rage for 50+ str, doesn't take much to roll decent life/ES/res there; put some str + life + phasing or whatever else abyssal jewel there
• Strength, cast speed, and chaos res ring + Frostbite on hit ring upgrade for good life and res; I was also buying OK rings with +1 frenzy +% chance to gain frenzy charge on hit with a spare suffix and throwing Redeemer orbs there - I hit Frostbite on Hit on the second try and was using it ever since.
• Watcher's eye with % life leeched as life while affected by Vitality and some Hatred mod
• Boots with spell supp, life, res, and onslaught on kill
• Good gloves with spell supp, life, and damage against chilled enemies temple mod; I also crafted +24% increased damage during the flask effect there (so spare prefix is a good thing to have)
• Awakened spell echo
• Cane of Kulemak +spell dmg +cast speed +3 support gems +extra chaos +arcane surge = enables using Empower as a support gem dropping Increased Critical Damage, which effectively makes level 27 Glacial cascade (given u use 21/20 for starters) with nice 666 to 999 base damage
• 3 notables Physical cluster jewel: Force multiplier is one of the juiciest nodes we can get, plus two other, ideally Furious Assault and Battle-hardened; actually easy to roll with Chaos orbs, 39 tries for 3 notables on average so could be enabled earlier in the league
• Some up to 100c jewels to fill in the spare sockets, just use PoB to find what's best, they can be as cheap as 20c by losing like 5% dmg in comparison with a few div ones.
• On LVL 100, I set up a Cast on Death + Portal combo, cause I play way more careless now :)

Videos

• T16 Hydra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9csYhgFUAFk
• Sanctum 1st floor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3AB9VJ2Ikk

POB

• Semi-budget (under 3 div) version to scratch some red tier maps: https://pobb.in/8bqqm0gXcE8q - roughly represents what I had at week 1 of the league
• My actual PoB at the moment of the post submission: https://pobb.in/ZCmN8pUY3tOb
• Higher budget current PoB (+enlighten 4, +mana reserve clusters, +Determination +Molten Shell -Steelskin +Basalt -Atziri's promise) - more survivability, less damage https://pobb.in/PTkSnBL9jD_-

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Cheers and happy new year everybody.

Added Sanctum 1st floor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3AB9VJ2Ikk video

Really wanted a Glacial Cascade self-cast build for this league. Gonna try it out and give feedback at the end.

Added semi-budget (under 3 div) version to scratch some red tier maps: https://pobb.in/8bqqm0gXcE8q - roughly represents what I had at week 1 of the league

Glacial cascade with profane bloom, two of my favorite things. I'm going to start the build today. Any recommendation or any change that you recommend at this time? Thank you

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Safaga wrote:

Glacial cascade with profane bloom, two of my favorite things. I'm going to start the build today. Any recommendation or any change that you recommend at this time? Thank you

Sorry for the late response.

Based on the "under 3 div" PoB https://pobb.in/8bqqm0gXcE8q:

Probably trying to squeeze Determination into the build ASAP, as it gives significant survivability gains (if necessary, Herald of Purity could be dropped, but it is also a tiny defensive layer because of the minions...).

Herald of Ash could help with the clears.

You could also replace the frost shield with enfeeble in your CWDT links; that is what I preferred later in the league when Delving.

Depending on the setup, Zealotry could be replaced with Haste.

Nice build ! Always wanted to play both self cast glacial cascade and profane bloom.

You talked of frenzy charge generation and onslaught, I'm afraid I missed something.

Also do you think profane bloom is worth it? I always wanted to play it but always felt like double curse was stronger

"

One_Cute_Kitten wrote:

Nice build ! Always wanted to play both self cast glacial cascade and profane bloom.

You talked of frenzy charge generation and onslaught, I'm afraid I missed something.

Also do you think profane bloom is worth it? I always wanted to play it but always felt like double curse was stronger

It adds a bit to map clear and Delve; we don't scale Chaos damage though.
Theoretically, you could get away with just Herald of Ash. Worth mentioning that the build is double curse anyway, with up to two offensive (frostbite + elemental weakness on tough targets). Ele weakness is sometimes overridden by Enfeeble on CWDT.