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

Hey everyone! Im having a blast with this build so far; however, I saw on an earlier post that the reason we have cwc at 15 is for ice storm cast breakpoints. However, POB calculates Awakened CWC at some 100k more dps than what I currently have; do the breakpoints of casting less ice storms really lead to more damage than having a full new storm more often? I'm curious about the math behind that, if anyone is able to explain.

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Ryserin wrote:

Hey everyone! Im having a blast with this build so far; however, I saw on an earlier post that the reason we have cwc at 15 is for ice storm cast breakpoints. However, POB calculates Awakened CWC at some 100k more dps than what I currently have; do the breakpoints of casting less ice storms really lead to more damage than having a full new storm more often? I'm curious about the math behind that, if anyone is able to explain.

Yes. No. Maybe. Probably. Sometimes. It depends.

The post actually says lvl15 or lvl1 awakened for breakpoints. The way it works is, that Icestorm drops a shard every 0.2s, and you have max 5 storms. When you make 6th storm, first will go away. Now imagine first storm has been up 0.15s since last shard when you replace it. This means you have to wait for the next shard practically 0.15+0.2s. If you had waited for 0.05s, it would go out every 0.2s.

Now we don't really know if you replace the storm at 0sec after last shard, does the first storm put the shard out (and let it fall) or is does the replacing the storm come first, making the wait actually 0.2+0.2s. So those breakpoints actually makes you wait 0.05sec after shard comes out to replace the Icestorm in case this is an issue.

This is assuming the boss doesn't move. When the boss moves, you need to put out new Icestorms at the new location of the boss. And if the boss is moving a lot, it could be better to just have max lvl CwC to make new storms as fast as possible.

And finally, PoB does not know how to calculate Icestorm dps, don't look at that stat. The number it gives is damage of one shard multiplied by how many Icestorms you put out per second. It does not understand that Icestorms stay spitting out shards. lvl16 CwC puts out Icestorm every 0.37s and lvl2 ACwC puts out storm every 0.33s. If the damage of a single shard is 100000 for example (Average hit in PoB), dps for CwC it shows is 100000/0.37 and for ACwC it is 100000/0.33.

Overall PoB dps (or average damage) should not be used to compare different builds. All it is good for is to see how much of an upgrade some piece of gear is to one build.

So generally, it might be good to have an awakened cwc(or a max level cwc) on hand for certain situations, but normally it would be better to stick to the lvl 15 because the math is funky and impossible to correctly calculate?

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Ryserin wrote:

So generally, it might be good to have an awakened cwc(or a max level cwc) on hand for certain situations, but normally it would be better to stick to the lvl 15 because the math is funky and impossible to correctly calculate?

Yes. Or you could just go for max lvl since the effect is so minimal you are not gonna notice anything.

Is there a better alternative leveling experience?
Stormblast + Orb of Storms gets pretty boring if im being honest.

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Ryserin wrote:

So generally, it might be good to have an awakened cwc(or a max level cwc) on hand for certain situations, but normally it would be better to stick to the lvl 15 because the math is funky and impossible to correctly calculate?

Not worth the hassle, it's mostly irrelevant these days. The math was done in older versions where we always used CwC and were trying to minmax every little fraction of DPS onto big immobile targets. Nowadays, since we're using the regular-cast weapon swap on most of those enemies, it matters even less than it did then.

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erisenuni wrote:

Is there a better alternative leveling experience?
Stormblast + Orb of Storms gets pretty boring if im being honest.

Freezing pulse and frost bomb in 3L then 4L/5L will take you to 33, and then switch to WI.

I had:

freezing pulse > arcane surge > added lightning > elemental focus > inspiration

frost bomb > arcane surge > added lightning > concentrated effect > elemental focus

(in order of importance, less important on the right)

I understand the math behind the level 15 CwC, and I've read through most of the related remarks in the fact that it's mostly irrelevant nowadays since we're self-casting for bosses etc., but doesn't the same principle apply to self-casting Icestorms as well? Should we aim for a staff with low cast speed as to not cast a 6th storm before 5th is over? How relevant is it actually?

I may be blind, but it looks like Replica Stampede is a straight up upgrade on the base version? It doesn't have the negative (Travel Skill cooldown) and adds to Travel Skill damage, which is meh, but.

It was also half the price - I guess Heist is more attractive than Blight.

Am I missing something?