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

Hello there Icestorm skating exiles. I've followed this thread for a while and played my first endgame character as this build and I like it. Not sure if Kelvynn is coming back but thanks for the awesome build anyway!

As my PC is not the quickest I was afraid it would not hold the power overwhelming icestorms. After reaching the epilogue/maps I sadly realized spell cascade was not feasible. I even upgraded my GPU - bought a newer used GPU for a good price, not the highest tier but I didn't want to spend any more just for this build to play smoother. So I've had to do without it since.

That is until recently when I found out that you can optimize the (bad) performance of PoE by disabling sound effects and using predictive networking. Both of these changes re-enabled me to start using spell cascade for clearing maps and even some tight encounters are now again doable.

I got so excited that I dished out 5 exalts on an awakened spell cascade...and oh boy that is awesome! However, the excitement lasts only a couple seconds before the FPS drops bottom. Not feasible... :'(

I thought about maybe upgrading my hardware. So I did some testing and wrote up this post in the technical support section: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2734374/page/1#p22895387

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ChikenNagetsu wrote:

Is there anything useful/interesting I can do if I have a 6L WI, maybe leaving behind a wake of Vortexes?

The only difference having a 6L is how the support gems interact with Cyclone. So you get no real benefit except a marginal increase in physical damage from Concentrated Effect (but less AoE which probably is worse since we proc less crits/on hit stuff - physical damage is so low anyway). Controlled Destruction halves (or more?) the crit chance of Cyclone. Elemental Focus removes any elemental damage ailments cyclone would cause if you happen to have any such damage from gear.

The only interesting ones to link with Cyclone are Inspiration, which needs Cyclone to spend mana to generate the charges. Or Fortify, which only works with an melee attack skill.

So at most you just need a 4L staff to link Cyclone-CwC-Inspiration-Fortify.

Leaving a trail of vortexes is as far as I know only possible with the Vortex active skill itself, which we use already.

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LiNGeN wrote:

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ChikenNagetsu wrote:

Is there anything useful/interesting I can do if I have a 6L WI, maybe leaving behind a wake of Vortexes?

The only difference having a 6L is how the support gems interact with Cyclone. So you get no real benefit except a marginal increase in physical damage from Concentrated Effect (but less AoE which probably is worse since we proc less crits/on hit stuff - physical damage is so low anyway). Controlled Destruction halves (or more?) the crit chance of Cyclone. Elemental Focus removes any elemental damage ailments cyclone would cause if you happen to have any such damage from gear.

The only interesting ones to link with Cyclone are Inspiration, which needs Cyclone to spend mana to generate the charges. Or Fortify, which only works with an melee attack skill.

So at most you just need a 4L staff to link Cyclone-CwC-Inspiration-Fortify.

Leaving a trail of vortexes is as far as I know only possible with the Vortex active skill itself, which we use already.

Thanks! Sold my 6L WI back for a 55c profit since I had a perfect rolled one already; just need to 6S it and should be good to go.

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ChikenNagetsu wrote:

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LiNGeN wrote:

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ChikenNagetsu wrote:

Is there anything useful/interesting I can do if I have a 6L WI, maybe leaving behind a wake of Vortexes?

The only difference having a 6L is how the support gems interact with Cyclone. So you get no real benefit except a marginal increase in physical damage from Concentrated Effect (but less AoE which probably is worse since we proc less crits/on hit stuff - physical damage is so low anyway). Controlled Destruction halves (or more?) the crit chance of Cyclone. Elemental Focus removes any elemental damage ailments cyclone would cause if you happen to have any such damage from gear.

The only interesting ones to link with Cyclone are Inspiration, which needs Cyclone to spend mana to generate the charges. Or Fortify, which only works with an melee attack skill.

So at most you just need a 4L staff to link Cyclone-CwC-Inspiration-Fortify.

Leaving a trail of vortexes is as far as I know only possible with the Vortex active skill itself, which we use already.

Thanks! Sold my 6L WI back for a 55c profit since I had a perfect rolled one already; just need to 6S it and should be good to go.

Ok. Make sure to 20% quality it and that the ilvl is 50+ before you start spamming it with jeweller orbs. (If you have Hillock in Transportation he can give your staff 24/26/28 % quality as reward to even further boost the chance to 6S.)

Is there any clear consensus of which is best of this and the Ngamahu's Flame build (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1960309)? Or to ask in another way, what is the pros and cons between the two builds?

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Acidian56 wrote:

Is there any clear consensus of which is best of this and the Ngamahu's Flame build (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1960309)? Or to ask in another way, what is the pros and cons between the two builds?

You cant compare those two because:

-this is not a Cyclone build is an IceStorm build (Cyclone is only used to trigger IceStorm)
-this is not a Life based build is a CI ES based build
-damage for that build with full gear is around 500k
-damage for this build with full gear is around 5 million - even more
-this is not an attack based build , it is a spell based build

and so on....

That build is mediocre at least, this build can do EVERYTHING with ease if full geared.

Thanks for the good reply.

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-this is not a Cyclone build is an IceStorm build (Cyclone is only used to trigger IceStorm)
-damage for that build with full gear is around 500k
-damage for this build with full gear is around 5 million - even more

I saw that, and I thought that not supporting cyclone more would cause this build to do less dps. Which was one of the reasons I was leaning more towards the other build. Thanks for clearing that up.

I dont know if this has been asked before, but what if you are not able to get the Staff / prophecy at league start at lvl 38? That is about 2-3 hours into the new league. With trade api beeing most likely dead to this time. What to do?

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Logicmaker wrote:

I dont know if this has been asked before, but what if you are not able to get the Staff / prophecy at league start at lvl 38? That is about 2-3 hours into the new league. With trade api beeing most likely dead to this time. What to do?

Use leveling guide from this previous Occultist version of the build:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2256360

You can use Winter Orb/Freezing Pulse till you get the staff from trade. It works fine, you just need to make a witch char to get to first town and get Freezing Pulse, stash it then create a Scion and follow the leveling guide.

This is a viable variant to mines leveling guide.

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winter orb vs cyclone?

Cyclone, because Winter Orb was the main option before Cyclone was getting the Channeling tag and before the nerf of Winter Orb damage and nerf of Occultist Ascendancy.

The damage addition from a Winter Orb 5L setup vs a single gem slot occupied by Cyclone is not that important when it comes to clear speed and mobility that Cyclone gives.

And the mana cost of 2L Cyclone vs the mana cost of 5L Winter Orb is infime.

So yeah, currently, Cyclone as channeling skill is better than Winter Orb used on same purpose.