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

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Kelvynn wrote:

I still don't see any clear confirmation of CwC costing mana. The line from ITEM BALANCE:
"Modifiers on items that Trigger a Skill now have a 100% Cost and Reservation Multiplier, unless stated otherwise."

- that's clearly about item MODS that trigger skills, like "Trigger XXX on hit", etc. So that has nothing to do with The Whispering Ice and Icestorm.

CwC and Awakened CwC are present in the Support Gem Balance section, but the only changes are the generic damage nerfs similar to other gems.

I would definitely like to know if Cyclone - CwC - Icestorm is going to cost 24 mana or just 2 like before.

Self-casting is going to be terrible for sure. Apart from costing probably 200 mana, stopping to cast Icestorm (with the base 0.75 sec cast time) is not good.

Found it. Was said in the livestream (I guess) but also in the developement manifesto under Trigger Effect Costs: "In 3.15, triggering skills through support gems will require paying their mana cost."

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3147157

Any triggered skill will now cost mana. So far the only exception is Mjölner which now specifically says "no cost".

I recently refurbished a lvl 93 Templar I had in Standard and respecced it into a Hierophant and finetuned it into somewhat decent numbers and tested Archmage + self cast. It did work out, kind of - bossing taking too long time unfortunately.

Now archmage got nerfed from behind and beyond. But it is a way to actually use mana cost to your benefit. Hierophant got stolen of its ailment immunity - but speccing into anointed flesh may still be a good way to get up to 100% reduced effect for ele ailments.

I do not believe the base dmg increase is enough at all. The skill became too clunky in 3.13. This is the main reason selfcast feels so bad (or arcanist brand for that matter) - CwC felt better because you could cast continously.

The mana cost is gonna be painful for sure. Archmage or no - imo no matter which build variant will work best from now on I stand in that Icestorm still needs a revamp of how the skill hits. It needs faster hits and more hits - a tiny bit more dmg right now is just not enough.

EDIT: I may have to clarify that you can actually use archmage as a support for triggered skills now. So it would work to use Cyclone+CwC+Archmage for Icestorm.

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Cjin wrote:

Found it. Was said in the livestream (I guess) but also in the developement manifesto under Trigger Effect Costs: "In 3.15, triggering skills through support gems will require paying their mana cost."

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3147157

The video is not a real proof. In the following Q&A Chris himself admitted that some things in it were inaccurate. Other things could have been just general statements.

That's why I pointed out the lack of precise information in my post above:
- the video says that triggered spells cost mana (note that it doesn't say "all");
- the dev manifesto says "most" triggered spells will cost mana;
- the patch notes say nothing at all to that effect (item mods are clearly not what we are talking about).

The patch notes should have been the ultimate source of information. They list the exact changes to the affected skills and mechanics. Yet all they say about CwC is that it lost its damage mod. And they don't have neither the general statement from the video, nor the "most" version of it from the manifesto. Odd.

Anyway, we should consider the possibility that CwC Icestorm will cost mana. How much mana do we need to sustain it?

Icestorm's base mana cost is 22. Let's factor in the supports:

- Inspiration: 35% reduced (lv 20+1 in the staff) and 120% multiplier
- CE: 150%
- EF: 140%
- CD: 150%

That's 22 * (1-0.35) * 1.20 * 1.50 * 1.40 * 1.50 = 54 mana per cast.
Plus 2 for Cyclone, so 56.

CwC triggers every 0.35 sec, or 3 casts in 1.05 sec, consuming 56 * 3 = 168 mana.

According to my Ascendant 3.12 PoB, this build regens 151 mana per second, or 158 mana in 1.05 sec.

That means, with a small additional investment in mana regen or -mana cost of skills, we'll be able to sustain Icestorm even if it costs extra mana now. For example:
- mana regen at the Templar start instead of the inc damage;
- Deep Thoughts is totally worth 2 points;
- 5 int / 20% mana regen node at the start;
- Dreamer for 3 points if we really need that;
- Clarity, if really needed.

The actual problem will be having enough mana for Vortex, Frostblink, and how the CWDT curses will actually function.

That last one is even a bigger puzzle than Icestorm, actually:
- CWDT firing Ball Lightning lv 1 supported by Hextouch will consume:
12 * 2.50 * 1.4 = 42 mana
Possibly every 0.2 sec if you are tanking?? That's 210 mana per second. Oof!

BUT. What about the curses procced by the Hextouch? Do they also cost mana? That would be quite insane! For example, you are fighting a pack 10 enemies, and BL fires. It hits all nearby enemies 5 times per second, proccing lv 20 Enfeeble and Frostbite on each of them. IF that actually consumes their mana cost, it will drain:
(33 + 50) * 1.40 * 10 * 5 = 5950 mana in 1 second!!

Things like that is another reason that makes me unsure of what GGG meant. They can't be serious about ALL possible ways to trigger spells costing mana, can they?

I guess we'll see in 2 days, unless GGG issues a clarification sooner.

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LiNGeN wrote:

EDIT: I may have to clarify that you can actually use archmage as a support for triggered skills now. So it would work to use Cyclone+CwC+Archmage for Icestorm.

Archmage?

Let's say you have 3k mana. Icestorm would have the base mana cost of 5% of that, or 150, instead of 22. If it actually costs mana to trigger via CwC, then with Inspiration, CE and EF it will cost:
150 * 0.65 * 1.2 * 1.5 * 1.4 = 246 mana per cast

How can you possibly sustain that? Icestorm is not a brand that you cast once and then keep recalling.

Actually, it's such a bullshit that you need to solve the fucking puzzles in order to play your favorite t2-t3 build.
Icestorm is obviously not OP and it requires a lot of investment of time and currency to make this build viable in the endgame. But looks like GGG decided that it's not enough, and that even t2-t3 builds shouldn't be fun to play at all.
I do get all the nerfs for the damage multipliers, but this shit with mana cost is driving me crazy.

P.S. Syndycate operative meta incoming

P.S.S Let me just spin and freeze things T_T

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Kelvynn wrote:

BUT. What about the curses procced by the Hextouch? Do they also cost mana? That would be quite insane! For example, you are fighting a pack 10 enemies, and BL fires. It hits all nearby enemies 5 times per second, proccing lv 20 Enfeeble and Frostbite on each of them. IF that actually consumes their mana cost, it will drain:
(33 + 50) * 1.40 * 10 * 5 = 5950 mana in 1 second!!

Things like that is another reason that makes me unsure of what GGG meant. They can't be serious about ALL possible ways to trigger spells costing mana, can they?

I guess we'll see in 2 days, unless GGG issues a clarification sooner.

Hextouch already has the mana multiplier applied to the triggering skill, BL. It would be very broken if you had to pay for the curses as well LOL.

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Kelvynn wrote:

Archmage?

Let's say you have 3k mana. Icestorm would have the base mana cost of 5% of that, or 150, instead of 22. If it actually costs mana to trigger via CwC, then with Inspiration, CE and EF it will cost:
150 * 0.65 * 1.2 * 1.5 * 1.4 = 246 mana per cast

How can you possibly sustain that? Icestorm is not a brand that you cast once and then keep recalling.

Archmage is a very different build. You will use a different tree, scale mana as well as Int (both scale dmg/hp), as well as mana regen. And obviously Inspiration is a bad support so you don't use it. I'm not saying its better more giving hints on what might work or not. It may very well be worse than the traditional Int stacking. But numbers wise you want 8k+ mana. Arcane Cloak is huge at those amounts of mana and would be better than IC by far (if actually going archmage). AM also is viable on life based/MoM builds as well as Agnostic but I wouldn't really want to delve into how viable that is going to be for Icestorm right now LMAO the PoB headache.

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LiNGeN wrote:

Archmage is a very different build. You will use a different tree, scale mana as well as Int (both scale dmg/hp), as well as mana regen. And obviously Inspiration is a bad support so you don't use it. I'm not saying its better more giving hints on what might work or not. It may very well be worse than the traditional Int stacking. But numbers wise you want 8k+ mana. Arcane Cloak is huge at those amounts of mana and would be better than IC by far (if actually going archmage). AM also is viable on life based/MoM builds as well as Agnostic but I wouldn't really want to delve into how viable that is going to be for Icestorm right now LMAO the PoB headache.

Right. Archmage won't work with this build. It would require a complete rework, probably a different class (Hierophant?), life based instead of CI, with completely different mechanics and scaling. I was hoping to adapt this build to 3.15 unless it gets too broken.

OK, from talking to people, it seems to make the most sense that:

- GGG somehow forgot to include the major change to triggered mana costs in the patch notes, but they will cost mana as if they manually cast. This means sustaining Icestorm will cost mana. Possibly as much as 78 mana every 0.35 sec.

- Curses with Hextouch won't cost mana because they are not actually triggered, you don't cast them, they are applied by the hits from the carrier spell (such as BL). But CWDT - BL - Hextouch itself is pretty damn expensive now if triggered constantly.

With that in mind:

- Need to invest in some mana regen and/or -mana cost. Both of those things on the tree come with increased mana pool too.

- Need to adjust the CWDT links, otherwise tanking something like Minotaur will quickly drain all mana.

Maybe go back to the Occultist and have 1 curse on Blasphemy, with the added bonuses of Profane Bloom clear speed and auto-cursing bosses without waiting for them to hit you. In that case Enfeeble can be triggered less often by a higher level CWDT.

But that will require solving the mana reservation issue caused by the nerf to Flesh & Stone in 3.14 - need to grab Sovereignty or Enlighten lv 3 early, or farm the lab for the reduced reservation enchantment. I heard that it was made easier now, but exactly how easy is it? Ideally, the reduced mana mod for either Discipline or F&S, and the other one will be in the link with Blasphemy - Frostbite - Enlighten.

Regarding Flesh and Stone: in my Standard char, I replaced it with Arctic Armour, which seemed better than nothing.

Also, about the mana issues: we still don't know the new flask mods. Perhaps a carefully crafted mana flask can help. Especially seeing that there will be some new ways to auto-trigger flasks.

Just another thing that we need to find out.