[3.20] Ice Dancing Queen - Icestorm/Cyclone/CI - Viable For Everything
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@lingen
I can't wait to see your before and after videos. I will be levelling a scion in anticipation. Are the passive trees going to change at all for levelling? |
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So it looks like we can just go with the good old classic version of the build for the first few days. I don't see any problems with leveling through the campaign. With the league starter items you could hardly have more than 5 storms going on anyway.
One thing I really want to keep is Cyclone+CwC. The value of casting while moving is just too much. I'd hate to go back to self-casting. That means there are still 4 other sockets in the staff to experiment with. SC is the most likely candidate to be dropped with the new limit. Also, casting Icestorm too frequently looks pointless, since the new storms will just replace the old ones without adding any DPS. So I plan to experiment with various other cold skills in that last socket. Perhaps something may be cast between Icestorms that adds some value. However, that value needs to be greater than using another support gem for Icestorm. Duration cluster may be another thing to drop, if no additional skill is good enough. In that case we can focus on maximizing Icestorm damage while keeping the duration just long enough to match the channelling frequency (i.e. 1 storm should last as long as it takes to channel 5 times). |
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" I think this is going to be the winner. I've been running Cyclone, CWC, Spell Cascade, Controlled Destruction, Hypothermia, and Conc Effect in recent leagues (non-trivial chance to freeze with my setup provides great cleanup and defense and is actually higher hit against bosses than pen), swapping Cascade for Ele Focus for bossing. My plan is to swap to Cyclone, CWC, Controlled Destruction, Hypothermia, Cold Pen/ Added Cold (whichever maths out highest with my setup/ available pen), and Inc AoE for clear, swapping to Conc for bossing, or a total staff swap to change Cold Pen/ Added Cold and Inc AoE for Ele Focus and Conc. With the new overlap values, I'm crossing my fingers that this setup will allow us to clear with reasonable reliability, assuming our hit damage stays high enough to not have to worry about stragglers. Also thinking that running Herald of Ice will be much more worthwhile now, given the increased effectiveness of added damage and the value of the cleanup, now that we'll be truncating storms as we move (another reason why not running Ele Focus for clear to allow for freeze is valuable). |
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^ Indeed, bringing back Inc AoE to replace SC might just work the best for map clearing. With the impact area changes, the loss of hits from increased spread may not be an issue anymore.
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If we are worried about high end single target damage, would a fire conversion and a flamethrower trap be any good?
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the only thing that made this build feel tolerable mapping was spell cascade or awakened cascade.
with both options gone due to 5 storm limit, i cant imagine myselfmplaying this build anymore. 5 storm limit is such a lazy fix, GGG hasnt been putting much effort into their league balances lately. Pretty demoralizing when they nerf your favorite build because they simply dont feel like figuring out a way to balance it. |
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" I'm guessing that a single top WI player was consuming 10% of one server's resources when he was going full out stacking 100+ storms... This was, first and foremost, GGG reducing server load. And your CPU load too. Regardless, it's a done deal, let's move on and see if we can make it work again. I agree that Spell Cascade was useful -- I used that all of the time, even with the lower DPS, simply because the increased coverage gave me more leech (including boss fights.) Now, with increased AOE in there instead of SC, maybe it's still acceptable. The thing I am most curious about is, can we level up with other than mines or freezing pulse? Is there some OP levelling path? ... Regarding mines, I hate them with a passion (it's the syncopation of MMMMMMM D <move> that annoys me to no end. I just want to do M and move on.) There was a random suggestion (for another build) that you use Smoke Mine, and put the Detonate on the RMB. That both moves you away, gives you defense, and also blows up any other mines you have out. Nice combo perhaps. Last edited by Graiaule#7461 on Sep 17, 2020, 11:21:01 PM
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I have looked at the additional spells that could be added for clearing instead of SC. Nothing seems to be worth it.
The best damage was Frostbolt with the Frozen Trail jewel. But still too 'meh'. Each bolt does about 1.5x damage of a single Icestorm hit, and they move slower than I spin around with The Stampede (or Quicksilver), so I constantly overtake my own frostbolts. LOL. Inc AoE instead of SC (and CD instead of CE) works just fine for clearing, even with the pre-patch hit model. Everything dies quickly enough. So now we just need to see how much that 5 storm limit is going to suck. Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Sep 17, 2020, 10:44:39 PM
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"I just ran a ton of maps with Frostbolt as that additional spell. 5-linked my WI staff with Cyclone + Awakened CWC + Awakened Ele Focus + Awakened Controlled Destruction + Frostbolt. And then Conc Effect on it's own. Then added Frozen Trail jewel in the socket NW of EE (need 40 int in radius to trigger +2 frostbolts), so with 3.33 trigger rate, I'm getting around 10 Frostbolts per second on top of my ice storms. Then I moved Vortex to 6L body with Bonechill + lvl 14 Arcane Surge (which is just 2 vortex casts to proc) + Awakened Swift Affliction + Awakened Controlled Destruction + Conc Effect. Then moved Elemental Weakness + Frostbite + Enfeeble to a 4L with Bane to apply all 3 curses in one very quick cast on a huge AoE radius. You don't even need Spell Cascade for clearing. The Frostbolts are flying everywhere and Vortexes are dropping all over the place with ~3 second duration and quite potent cold DoT's. You can literally hold down Cyclone and Vortex together seamlessly with zero interruption or slowdown to ice storms. Give it a shot. It works and is tons of added DPS between the Frostbolts and the Vortex DoT's. Your entire screen fills up with them. Last edited by SkylerOG#3817 on Sep 18, 2020, 1:05:10 AM
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"You need to pump up Vortex as one single vortex cast will produce 5 vortexes on top of the 10 Frostbolts that cast each second. That's 5 ice storms + 10 Frostbolts + 5 Vortexes (each with a 3s DoT duration) every second. After 3 seconds, you have 15 overlapping Vortexes constantly. Just sayin. |
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