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

@Walkiry -- that's fascinating! Thanks!
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whiterockxx wrote:
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Palts wrote:
Is Scion still the recommended ascendancy for a beginner or does Trickster's sustain and leech make it easier?


I recommend respec into whispering ice only after have jewels enought to do it... coz it will be little pain to get then.


?? I've always started using the staff between level 33-39. There's more than enough int from the passive tree to make it useful for the acts.
Hey guys! I've been waiting for the PoB update to see the exact consequences of the curse changes, etc. but they seem to be running very late this time. It's Wednesday and still no new PoB. Hmmm...

I'm very busy in December and my play time will be less than usual. Then again, there are no major balance changes that affect this build. Not much needs to be changed. That's great since I won't have time to spend on development.

Looks like the Occultist version got gutted. It already had mana issues, and now they made it even harder, plus the Malediction nerf? Oh well.

Stun avoidance got nerfed. Which doesn't affect the Ascendant in any way. Still gonna be the easy and beginner-friendly version. For the Trickster, it's going to be a test of how much stun avoidance we really need.

I'll just play the Trickster again. It's been by far the strongest overall version. Now there is new exclusive loot on the uber bosses. Explode flask on Uber Sirus, a big prize that should be worth quite a lot, and super useful for this build too. That boss was a pain on both Occultist and Ascendant because of the degen ground. But nothing special for Mr Trickster!

Brute Force and Fertile Mind are corruption-only jewels now. I don't actually know if this is going to make them more or less common. People used to just destroy or vendor most of the byproducts of jewel corruption. Plus all the jewel cards are going to give corrupted ones. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

For the curses I'd really like to see an updated PoB. It only matters for the uber bosses though. Everything else gets destroyed. Frostbite and EW -should- be a little stronger now, even in the Hextouch version. I don't like the idea of self-casting curses on the bosses since they are not instant.

There is also a new support that creates a cursed ground. It may be useful against some bosses, but we'll have to see how that works and what's the size of that ground.

Punishment may be an option instead of one of the elemental curses too. Just for some specific targets (e.g. Uber Sirus and Uber Maven).

The biggest overall issue I see is the state of crafting. In the last 2 leagues we've enjoyed some really OP crafting methods that are not available anymore. And Harvest got destroyed. So now it's back to how it was before 3.11, except that Exalts are dirt cheap. Still, crafting an endgame amulet or chest will be a whole lot harder than in the last 10 leagues. Now, instead of 2.7-2.8k Int you should realistically expect 2.5-2.6k Int with the same budget. The overall damage will be lower, the uber boss fights longer. And that's another reason to go with the Trickster - his survivability.

Harbingers should be super useful again. Spec into them and you'll have tons of annuls and the new fracture orbs. This will make crafting good gloves trivial. And some decent rings before you can afford synthesized ones.

Anything else I'm missing? I'll check for new PoB tomorrow and see if anything needs to be updated. But there shouldn't be any significant changes to either Trickster or the Ascendant (RIP Occultist; I won't have time to deal with all the nerfs there).
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I'll just play the Trickster again. It's been by far the strongest overall version
I'm planning on playing this for the upcoming league would you say trickster is that much more powerful or could someone get away with going Ascendant? I've never bothered playing an ascendant to endgame and have done various shadow ascendancies several times. If its not that massive a difference I'd probably like to try ascendant.
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FourArmz wrote:
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I'll just play the Trickster again. It's been by far the strongest overall version
I'm planning on playing this for the upcoming league would you say trickster is that much more powerful or could someone get away with going Ascendant? I've never bothered playing an ascendant to endgame and have done various shadow ascendancies several times. If its not that massive a difference I'd probably like to try ascendant.

The difference in damage isn't significant, but the survivability of the Trickster is a level above the other versions. He's virtually unkillable in maps and has a much easier time vs uber bosses.

Ascendant can't facetank Uber Eater's tentacles or survive his invulnerability phase without good luck. She has a hard time dealing with the degen ground at Uber Sirus. Trickster mitigates most of it with overleech and damage reduction from his Ascendancy.

Uber bosses were pointless until now. But now they have their exclusive uber loot. And I'd very much like to farm it. Trickster can kill them much earlier than the other versions in terms of gearing progression/budget.

The only open question is stun. Ascendant is immune to it, Trickster is not. And we can't easily get 100% stun avoidance with jewels anymore. So it remains to be seen how much mitigation will be needed. There are different things that can be done about it.
Last edited by Kelvynn#6607 on Dec 8, 2022, 4:36:50 AM
@kelvynn I like the Trickster version. I am however thinking about trying next league in Ruthless. Which version would be more suited to item scarcity?
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Kelvynn wrote:
Hey guys! I've been waiting for the PoB update to see the exact consequences of the curse changes, etc. but they seem to be running very late this time. It's Wednesday and still no new PoB. Hmmm...

I'm very busy in December and my play time will be less than usual. Then again, there are no major balance changes that affect this build. Not much needs to be changed. That's great since I won't have time to spend on development.

Looks like the Occultist version got gutted. It already had mana issues, and now they made it even harder, plus the Malediction nerf? Oh well.

Stun avoidance got nerfed. Which doesn't affect the Ascendant in any way. Still gonna be the easy and beginner-friendly version. For the Trickster, it's going to be a test of how much stun avoidance we really need.

I'll just play the Trickster again. It's been by far the strongest overall version. Now there is new exclusive loot on the uber bosses. Explode flask on Uber Sirus, a big prize that should be worth quite a lot, and super useful for this build too. That boss was a pain on both Occultist and Ascendant because of the degen ground. But nothing special for Mr Trickster!

Brute Force and Fertile Mind are corruption-only jewels now. I don't actually know if this is going to make them more or less common. People used to just destroy or vendor most of the byproducts of jewel corruption. Plus all the jewel cards are going to give corrupted ones. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

For the curses I'd really like to see an updated PoB. It only matters for the uber bosses though. Everything else gets destroyed. Frostbite and EW -should- be a little stronger now, even in the Hextouch version. I don't like the idea of self-casting curses on the bosses since they are not instant.

There is also a new support that creates a cursed ground. It may be useful against some bosses, but we'll have to see how that works and what's the size of that ground.

Punishment may be an option instead of one of the elemental curses too. Just for some specific targets (e.g. Uber Sirus and Uber Maven).

The biggest overall issue I see is the state of crafting. In the last 2 leagues we've enjoyed some really OP crafting methods that are not available anymore. And Harvest got destroyed. So now it's back to how it was before 3.11, except that Exalts are dirt cheap. Still, crafting an endgame amulet or chest will be a whole lot harder than in the last 10 leagues. Now, instead of 2.7-2.8k Int you should realistically expect 2.5-2.6k Int with the same budget. The overall damage will be lower, the uber boss fights longer. And that's another reason to go with the Trickster - his survivability.

Harbingers should be super useful again. Spec into them and you'll have tons of annuls and the new fracture orbs. This will make crafting good gloves trivial. And some decent rings before you can afford synthesized ones.

Anything else I'm missing? I'll check for new PoB tomorrow and see if anything needs to be updated. But there shouldn't be any significant changes to either Trickster or the Ascendant (RIP Occultist; I won't have time to deal with all the nerfs there).


When new league will get started will you update the 1st page (core of build and branches of Tree )? will you update The Scion and trickster version? I gonna go this build in new league.
Btw which league will be softcore? What is "ruthless"?
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sullon79 wrote:
@kelvynn I like the Trickster version. I am however thinking about trying next league in Ruthless. Which version would be more suited to item scarcity?

None. You will never find the staff in Ruthless. Or the support gems. Or any good rares. Ruthless is for the builds that scale entirely off the skill gems. Seismic Trap and all that.
Updated for 3.20.

Just some minor updates reflecting the changes in the recent leagues, plus new videos from 3.19.

PoB is still not updated, so just follow the 3.19 tree for the start. I don't think anything used by this build got changed there anyway.

Read through the Ascendant guide and... play the Trickster version in 3.20! It didn't get nerfed, so just enjoy being an unkillable demon king (oops, wrong game!) :) The lack of stun immunity and static ES regen is not hard to deal with.
We need an extra skill point to apply an extra curse now in PoB, where do we replace it?

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