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

A cold converted spell sounds good or perhaps we can try to do a full fire conversion and run like blazing salvo/fireball on unleash?

Or perhaps a 6l ice trap?

"

Oldern365 wrote:

Spoiler

The whole discussion at this point is moot when it comes to comparing old IC to new.

Why? Because lets face the hard facts first, before trying to create a new build.

1) In the old version, we literally had zero tradeoffs to make.
One stat scaled with everything: it was INT.

Int gave us:
- ES
- Mana (irrelevant, with an asterisk)
- Duration for capless Icestorms
- Damage for capless Icestorms

So for pumping and investing in int, beside the defensive properties, we got "X(>20) amount of current storms on a stationary boss with spell power of y*(>20) individual storms pumping out damage.

It was a squared damage increase.
Now?

Now, all we have to figure out is this:
Is stacking Intelligence up to 3-4000 worth it, when:
a. It now only gives us energy shield
b. It now only scales FIVE concurrent storms at max?

The answer, for me, seems to be: no. We next then should figure out whether Icestorms @2000int (a realitisically hittable target without major sacrifices and multiple exalteds) or even @1500int will allow us to start stacking +energy shield, +aura reservation, +spell damage and other sources of +added spell damage/more spelldamage stats instead. We can, for example, forgo selfcast and go for a [core spell] and add cast on crit instead, and use increased critical multiplier or crit chance for it. Then invest in crit and see exponential gains. We could rely on shock+high crits to deliver higher endgame damage than stacking int purely.

I have a few ideas, but I have zero to no experience with CoC builds.
One is: arc + coc. Shock, more damage...it should/could be the perfect combination for mapping. Bosses though... no chaining, so a bit less than ideal maybe.
Other is: ice spear+coc. Insane crit chance/multiplier for second stages, we could even do GMP (which were irrelevant before, but STILL added 2 more projectiles, so we could get 15 projectiles per storms, instead of 10, if my memory serves me right).

Then there are other alternatives, Kelvynn already suggested adding a second CWC spells. Which ones?

Maybe lets look at:
1) Storm call: shock calue, stackable, good for bosses, less bursty on map clearing
2) Stormbind instead of Cyclone: upgradable tiles, shock, might scale well with enough +spelldamage,etc.

I have a feeling that a combination of both would suffice: arc+coc+wi staff for mapclear, and stormcall+cwc for bosses?

That is just my two cents. We would have to stack heralds, of course.
(Someone can look at the new skills too, or Blade Vortex as a second spell?)

Shock ain't happening unless your lightning damage hits certain hp thresholds, so it's a very unreliable choice on a build that doesn't focus all it's effort on super high average lightning hits.

Even Archmage BL and Arc builds barely hit level 30 shock reliably without pumping gear and passives with +shock effectivness.

So a build like this would either need skitterbots (17 base shock i think?), which it can do with or without a lightning spell, OR, it would probably average at level 5-10 shock at it's best... and that would only be on trash mobs. You can forget shocking a boss on a build like this.

Not to mention, this is all moot because the last thing we need is losing Ele Focus on our ice storms.

"

SkylerOG wrote:

"

Oldern365 wrote:

Spoiler

The whole discussion at this point is moot when it comes to comparing old IC to new.

Why? Because lets face the hard facts first, before trying to create a new build.

1) In the old version, we literally had zero tradeoffs to make.
One stat scaled with everything: it was INT.

Int gave us:
- ES
- Mana (irrelevant, with an asterisk)
- Duration for capless Icestorms
- Damage for capless Icestorms

So for pumping and investing in int, beside the defensive properties, we got "X(>20) amount of current storms on a stationary boss with spell power of y*(>20) individual storms pumping out damage.

It was a squared damage increase.
Now?

Now, all we have to figure out is this:
Is stacking Intelligence up to 3-4000 worth it, when:
a. It now only gives us energy shield
b. It now only scales FIVE concurrent storms at max?

The answer, for me, seems to be: no. We next then should figure out whether Icestorms @2000int (a realitisically hittable target without major sacrifices and multiple exalteds) or even @1500int will allow us to start stacking +energy shield, +aura reservation, +spell damage and other sources of +added spell damage/more spelldamage stats instead. We can, for example, forgo selfcast and go for a [core spell] and add cast on crit instead, and use increased critical multiplier or crit chance for it. Then invest in crit and see exponential gains. We could rely on shock+high crits to deliver higher endgame damage than stacking int purely.

I have a few ideas, but I have zero to no experience with CoC builds.
One is: arc + coc. Shock, more damage...it should/could be the perfect combination for mapping. Bosses though... no chaining, so a bit less than ideal maybe.
Other is: ice spear+coc. Insane crit chance/multiplier for second stages, we could even do GMP (which were irrelevant before, but STILL added 2 more projectiles, so we could get 15 projectiles per storms, instead of 10, if my memory serves me right).

Then there are other alternatives, Kelvynn already suggested adding a second CWC spells. Which ones?

Maybe lets look at:
1) Storm call: shock calue, stackable, good for bosses, less bursty on map clearing
2) Stormbind instead of Cyclone: upgradable tiles, shock, might scale well with enough +spelldamage,etc.

I have a feeling that a combination of both would suffice: arc+coc+wi staff for mapclear, and stormcall+cwc for bosses?

That is just my two cents. We would have to stack heralds, of course.
(Someone can look at the new skills too, or Blade Vortex as a second spell?)

Shock ain't happening unless your lightning damage hits certain hp thresholds, so it's a very unreliable choice on a build that doesn't focus all it's effort on super high average lightning hits.

Even Archmage BL and Arc builds barely hit level 30 shock reliably without pumping gear and passives with +shock effectivness.

So a build like this would either need skitterbots (17 base shock i think?), which it can do with or without a lightning spell, OR, it would probably average at level 5-10 shock at it's best... and that would only be on trash mobs. You can forget shocking a boss on a build like this.

Not to mention, this is all moot because the last thing we need is losing Ele Focus on our ice storms.

Damn. Good to know, thanks.
So Shock is out. Crit now has to provide that much more to combat ele focus (which I completely forgot about).

What remains is a fast hitting spell and tons of added damage+spell damage scaling?

"

Gracieux wrote:

I invite everyone to go read this forum thread about WI. It has started recently and there's quite a few interesting posts about recent changes. There's a guy saying that the build will probably be one of the best boss killer builds for Heist league. Here's the link:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2936012

The guy who wrote that plays selfcast WI. I don't know how well that fairs with all different endgame content except good single target damage. There are some interesting archmage options this league though. But you'd have to selfcast :O.

"

Gracieux wrote:

There's also a Guardian variant which has been updated to 3.12. Might have some insight about how to play the build now. Here's the link:

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2748434

Guardians usually get more ES through Ascendancy but Ascendant is the way to go imo. Don't see anything interesting with regards to 3.12 there.

"

Oldern365 wrote:

Now, all we have to figure out is this:
Is stacking Intelligence up to 3-4000 worth it, when:
a. It now only gives us energy shield
b. It now only scales FIVE concurrent storms at max?

The answer, for me, seems to be: no.

Yes. Because Int still scales base damage. It now does it even more.

"

Oldern365 wrote:

I have a few ideas, but I have zero to no experience with CoC builds.
One is: arc + coc.

Spells can't trigger CoC. Otherwise it would be overpowered and used by everyone:

"

"Must support both an attack skill and a spell skill to work. The attack skill will trigger a spell when it critically strikes an enemy."

the 5 storm cap is literally just a damage cap for anyone that plays this build. scaling only does so much with int, spell dmg, cold dmg, etc.

the strong point of this build was the fact that we could stack (not endlessly) a lot of storms to give us survivability and damage.

5 storms at .2 hits per second wont help with ES recov.

we used to be able to net thousands of ES per second from hits. Using Kelvynn's 93 pob data:
ES Leech Cap: 2817
ES Leech per hit: 1221
ES gained per hit: 28

leech is gonna cap no matter what, its the ES gained on hit that i worry about.

lets just give a rough number of 10 storms normally (i know it can be more just an example) at 0.1 hits per second. thats about 2800 ES per second from just the hits

now with 5 storms at .2 hits per second, its gonna be about 700 per second from hits.





in reference to damage cap:

"If anyone is interested I have modified the Firestorm/Icestorm Google spreadsheet linked on the wiki used for calculating DPS.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11eQmjpfq5GorGuJt7Rgh1OZFscjKqKD3tYDpz0lx4lM/edit?usp=sharing

Just input your values in the respective sheet (pre-nerf or post-nerf)."

this is from LiNGeN in a diff thread

"

Oldern365 wrote:

"

SkylerOG wrote:

"

Oldern365 wrote:

Spoiler

The whole discussion at this point is moot when it comes to comparing old IC to new.

Why? Because lets face the hard facts first, before trying to create a new build.

1) In the old version, we literally had zero tradeoffs to make.
One stat scaled with everything: it was INT.

Int gave us:
- ES
- Mana (irrelevant, with an asterisk)
- Duration for capless Icestorms
- Damage for capless Icestorms

So for pumping and investing in int, beside the defensive properties, we got "X(>20) amount of current storms on a stationary boss with spell power of y*(>20) individual storms pumping out damage.

It was a squared damage increase.
Now?

Now, all we have to figure out is this:
Is stacking Intelligence up to 3-4000 worth it, when:
a. It now only gives us energy shield
b. It now only scales FIVE concurrent storms at max?

The answer, for me, seems to be: no. We next then should figure out whether Icestorms @2000int (a realitisically hittable target without major sacrifices and multiple exalteds) or even @1500int will allow us to start stacking +energy shield, +aura reservation, +spell damage and other sources of +added spell damage/more spelldamage stats instead. We can, for example, forgo selfcast and go for a [core spell] and add cast on crit instead, and use increased critical multiplier or crit chance for it. Then invest in crit and see exponential gains. We could rely on shock+high crits to deliver higher endgame damage than stacking int purely.

I have a few ideas, but I have zero to no experience with CoC builds.
One is: arc + coc. Shock, more damage...it should/could be the perfect combination for mapping. Bosses though... no chaining, so a bit less than ideal maybe.
Other is: ice spear+coc. Insane crit chance/multiplier for second stages, we could even do GMP (which were irrelevant before, but STILL added 2 more projectiles, so we could get 15 projectiles per storms, instead of 10, if my memory serves me right).

Then there are other alternatives, Kelvynn already suggested adding a second CWC spells. Which ones?

Maybe lets look at:
1) Storm call: shock calue, stackable, good for bosses, less bursty on map clearing
2) Stormbind instead of Cyclone: upgradable tiles, shock, might scale well with enough +spelldamage,etc.

I have a feeling that a combination of both would suffice: arc+coc+wi staff for mapclear, and stormcall+cwc for bosses?

That is just my two cents. We would have to stack heralds, of course.
(Someone can look at the new skills too, or Blade Vortex as a second spell?)

Shock ain't happening unless your lightning damage hits certain hp thresholds, so it's a very unreliable choice on a build that doesn't focus all it's effort on super high average lightning hits.

Even Archmage BL and Arc builds barely hit level 30 shock reliably without pumping gear and passives with +shock effectivness.

So a build like this would either need skitterbots (17 base shock i think?), which it can do with or without a lightning spell, OR, it would probably average at level 5-10 shock at it's best... and that would only be on trash mobs. You can forget shocking a boss on a build like this.

Not to mention, this is all moot because the last thing we need is losing Ele Focus on our ice storms.

Damn. Good to know, thanks.
So Shock is out. Crit now has to provide that much more to combat ele focus (which I completely forgot about).

What remains is a fast hitting spell and tons of added damage+spell damage scaling?

So far, the best thing I'm looking at is moving Vortex to our 6L body and scaling it up, then adding Frostbolt to our WI along with a Frozen Trail jewel and Dying Sun flask.

That's 5 Frostbolts + 5 scaled up vortexes exploding on those frostbolts + ice storms.

Vortex is instant cast, so it doesn't interfere with cyclone at all. You can literally hold it and cyclone down at the same time.

Can also just 5L our WI staves with Conc Effect/Spell Cascade in the single gem slot (So Cyclone + Cast while channeling + Ele Focus + Controlled Destruction + Frostbolt linked), so no need to 6L it.

OR, you can 6L the staff, forego spell cascade since we'd have high damage vortexes all over the place, and replace conc effect with cold penetration? Not sure yet, will have to test that to see which way is better.


I believe this could be a solution to our issues.



ETA: What would you guys suggest for applying Ele Weakness and Frostbite if we did something like above?

Allright. I'm going to compare post-patch with pre-patch with my Harvest character Plant_Icestorm_Reap_FPS.

Right now I will run:
1. A Simulacrum
2. A T16 magic Purifier Elder Guardian Promenade with +40% Monster Resistance
Using these sextants:
3. And finally a T16 Blighted Promenade

* I have respecced into a defensive tanky version with an ES on hit Watcher's Eye.
* I have removed Awakened Elemental Focus, Awakened Controlled Destruction & Hypothermia from the staff and will only use Cyclone, Lvl6 Awakened CwC, Lvl 21 Concentrated Effect (as well as Fortify & Infused Channelling for immortality's sake <:-} )

Tomorrow when the patch is released. I will do the same thing over again to try out all the new mechanics. I have a 2nd Simulacrum, a 2nd identical T16 Resistant Purifier Promenade & another Blighted Promenade ready waiting for that when the time comes.

I will record all the runs.

Edit: Ofcourse I will take out my explode chest. I will use this piece instead that is from my Delirium character:

"

LiNGeN wrote:

Spoiler

Allright. I'm going to compare post-patch with pre-patch with my Harvest character Plant_Icestorm_Reap_FPS.

Right now I will run:
1. A Simulacrum
2. A T16 magic Purifier Elder Guardian Promenade with +40% Monster Resistance

Using these sextants:

Unavailable

Unavailable

Unavailable

Unavailable

3. And finally a T16 Blighted Promenade

* I have respecced into a defensive tanky version with an ES on hit Watcher's Eye.
* I have removed Awakened Elemental Focus, Awakened Controlled Destruction & Hypothermia from the staff and will only use Cyclone, Lvl6 Awakened CwC, Lvl 21 Concentrated Effect (as well as Fortify & Infused Channelling for immortality's sake <:-} )

Tomorrow when the patch is released. I will do the same thing over again to try out all the new mechanics. I have a 2nd Simulacrum, a 2nd identical T16 Resistant Purifier Promenade & another Blighted Promenade ready waiting for that when the time comes.

I will record all the runs.

Thank You for this! Should be super helpful in theorycrafting!

Looks like a lot of questions can't be answered easily without seeing how the new Icestorm works. So let's cover some basics first...

1. Start/early leveling: is there some new skill that's great for leveling? My favorite start has been the mines (currently in the leveling guide). After Freezing Pulse was buffed, I tried it again in 3.11, like in the old times. Made a Witch to get the gem, stashed it and made the Scion. But even after the buff, FP felt very underpowered compared to the mines, and I switched back right after Merveil. All bosses are so much easier with the mines than with FP. So I'm going to keep recommending the mines in the leveling guide, but there are many new skills, maybe there is something even better now?

2. Farmville is not getting added to the core game, right? That means you can forget about mirror tier items for everybody and aim at whatever is realistic. The new enchantment mods on armour should help. Explode chests and synthesized boots are out, or is there still another way of getting them with a reasonable budget? Is the Unnerve mod (gloves?) reasonably obtainable?

3. With the boot selection getting back from godly stats to normal, is The Stampede going to be worth using again, for the QoL value?

4. All useful Watcher's Eyes got nerfed by 50%, including ES on hit. Combined with there being only half as many hits, and a very limited number of storms, looks like the value of this jewel is going down big time. Not sure if I'm going to bother getting it this league.

5. Herald of Ice, maybe? Extra added flat damage that's going to work better now, and with bigger single hits we may see more explosions? May be good for clearing.

6. Frost Shield looks interesting. I don't see any numbers how much ES it's going to drain from you, but I assume it's not a lot, possibly the same 4x910 as the amount of life it has. And then it 'buffers' that life to be used against enemy hits. This should be nice against bosses that try to 1-shot you.

7. @LiNGeN: Was the crit version just an exotic high budget thing, or do you think it can be viable with cheap items too?

"

ultra_super_hyper wrote:

"

LiNGeN wrote:

Spoiler

Allright. I'm going to compare post-patch with pre-patch with my Harvest character Plant_Icestorm_Reap_FPS.

Right now I will run:
1. A Simulacrum
2. A T16 magic Purifier Elder Guardian Promenade with +40% Monster Resistance

Using these sextants:

Unavailable

Unavailable

Unavailable

Unavailable

3. And finally a T16 Blighted Promenade

* I have respecced into a defensive tanky version with an ES on hit Watcher's Eye.
* I have removed Awakened Elemental Focus, Awakened Controlled Destruction & Hypothermia from the staff and will only use Cyclone, Lvl6 Awakened CwC, Lvl 21 Concentrated Effect (as well as Fortify & Infused Channelling for immortality's sake <:-} )

Tomorrow when the patch is released. I will do the same thing over again to try out all the new mechanics. I have a 2nd Simulacrum, a 2nd identical T16 Resistant Purifier Promenade & another Blighted Promenade ready waiting for that when the time comes.

I will record all the runs.

Thank You for this! Should be super helpful in theorycrafting!

Uploading videos now. Will publish tomorrow when I've done the remaining three post-patch tests.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

1. Start/early leveling: is there some new skill that's great for leveling?

I went with FP in Harvest, but I agree, it feels weak. Only after getting the Threshold jewel & Bitterdream did it start kicking off but thats in Act 5 where we could probably buy the staff in Act 6 already.

I am thinking about going with Wands. Lightning Tendrils/Mine until Merveil & then Creeping Frost & Wintertide Brand. After rescuing Tolman in Act 3 Spellslinger with Cold Snap & Power Siphon. The rest is fairly similar skill gem wise. I got the inspiration from Badger's Coldslinger leaguestarter build, it uses a lot of similar gems and is based on cold damage as well as a passive tree path that is not too deviating from ours. Link to leveling section here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdoHPedhC68&t=1585s

"

Kelvynn wrote:

2. Farmville is not getting added to the core game, right? That means you can forget about mirror tier items for everybody and aim at whatever is realistic. The new enchantment mods on armour should help. Explode chests and synthesized boots are out, or is there still another way of getting them with a reasonable budget? Is the Unnerve mod (gloves?) reasonably obtainable?

No its not. Synthesized items may or may not get added, but GGG will do it later on according to prior announcement (they obviously aren't sure what to add). I suspect the new labyrinths will stay, weapon & body armour enchantments seems to be coming in Heist so those will probably stay. I guess Winged scarabs/Infused Beachheads will also stay. I think its just the GG gear crafting from Harvest thats gonna get wiped. Getting Unnerve/Culling gloves is possible via alteration spamming the desired affixes and then Awakener Orb merging, but you will have a RNG-fest to get good Int/ES/Resist rolls along with that without Harvest. Both of these affixes have a weighting of 250 and both are going to be untagged mods in Heist (previously Unnerve had a Caster tag). So you would have to spend tons of chaos/alch-scour/alteration-regal spamming on them - but they are fairly possible to craft on their own.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

3. With the boot selection getting back from godly stats to normal, is The Stampede going to be worth using again, for the QoL value?

I've still never used them. I'll leave it to Breken or someone else to answer - but since he used it in Harest I assuem its fine. I've seen plenty of other players go with Stampede.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

4. All useful Watcher's Eyes got nerfed by 50%, including ES on hit. Combined with there being only half as many hits, and a very limited number of storms, looks like the value of this jewel is going down big time. Not sure if I'm going to bother getting it this league.

Yeah the nerfs are kinda meh because we also got a nerf to the main skill at the same time. However, there are useful offensive mods for Hatred & Zealotry (which also has Max ES Leech mod).

"

Kelvynn wrote:

5. Herald of Ice, maybe? Extra added flat damage that's going to work better now, and with bigger single hits we may see more explosions? May be good for clearing.

I would be more interested to try out the explosion effectiveness rather than expect a good damage buff (the flat damage added is quite meh even with 60% of it, compared with reserving your mana elsewhere). I doubt it will be useful unfortunately. I think you have to both get base crit chance for HoI (which has zero crit chance to start with) as well as some investment into crit chance overall for it to chain explosions effectively. I tried it out in Harvest with my crit respecc, took off my explode chest and all, there were some explosions going off but nothing remotely as good as the explode chest.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

6. Frost Shield looks interesting. I don't see any numbers how much ES it's going to drain from you, but I assume it's not a lot, possibly the same 4x910 as the amount of life it has. And then it 'buffers' that life to be used against enemy hits. This should be nice against bosses that try to 1-shot you.

The numbers are in the bottom of the gem tooltip, its a fixed amount and in my opinion its quite weak for the endgame content. There's also a cast time of 0.5s I believe. So no instant cast. It does however add Crit chance. We'd have to test it alongside everything else for sure.

"

Kelvynn wrote:

7. @LiNGeN: Was the crit version just an exotic high budget thing, or do you think it can be viable with cheap items too?

I think it can be viable, but you need to reach a certain threshold with crit chance for it to really beat EO. You'd have to allocate some crit chance from the passive tree instead & this will unavoidably replace some defensive nodes somewhere.

Without flasks my crit chance came from 4 sources:
1. a lvl 21 Zealotry with 271% increased non-curse aura effect. Its base 40% increased crit chance was multiplied by 3.71 into 148%.
2. Emperor's Wit - 30%
3. Any consecrated ground gives a natural 100%
4. Serpent Stance crit wheel right to the left of EO - 100%

Crit multiplier:
* Serpent Stance - +50%
* Inquisitor ascendancy to enemies affected by any ailment - +30%
* A jewel or two with 1 crit multi mod.

Now, I think there's a more viable crit option by going for Maligaro's Virtuosity & focusing on crit chance only. It certainly is cheaper as investing into crit chance & crit multi takes a lot more. I would go with EO as a starter if channelling still works and then experiment with crit later on after a week or more.