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

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Graiaule escribió:

<begin complaint>

Level 90, 2 days 20 hours played, and I am still looking for the last 2 eternal lab trials. Note I've done every Zana map that offered a trial, also.

I'm aware I can use /global 820 to look for trials. I've always felt that was cheating, and decided to stop doing that 2 leagues ago.

When I stopped, that caused me to be 5/6 trials in harvest (level 91) and now 4/6.

I'm also aware I can buy prophecies or use them.

Hopefully this will improve in 3.13. I'm hoping there is no Lab in POE 2...

<end of complaint>

That was the same for me since 4 or 5 leagues. At the end i bought the one i miss. Its all leagues another what doesnt appear. I had over 30 burning rage what i needed last league but no swirling fear this league.

I reached all this leagues 90 without having all trials to come to uberlab. and every league there is missing one of them.

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Hemzokuken escribió:

Threw a few more vaals into my gloves....they have taken like 30 now! lmfao

30... I hope you know average person bricks it at 2-3. :D

Hello Icestormers. I decided to stop playing Whispering Ice for the first time since I began playing PoE in January. First I just wanted to move into SSF as I find playing the game more of an accomplishment this way - I don't really like how trading is used by some players and how the power creep goes. It makes so many things obsolete when you can just buy items for a couple chaos orbs.

So I ran a little challenge of mine to see how far WI could go in SSF without too much gear investment. After some comparisons in PoB I rolled as a Guardian instead of Ascendant because of a lot of easy access to ES & free charge generation. I went with crit instead of EO for more damage per spent skill point. I opted for more dmg mitigation rather than damage for survivability in SSF by utilizing high atk & spell block, Fortify through Vigilant Strike as well as 4 endurance charges.

The results: Not having ailment immunity can be tricky as a Guardian - esp. Shock. Only after rolling a good set of flasks did this feel fairly mitigated. I got as far as T16 maps and killing the first Sirus at AL5. The damage was not so great, yet doable. At this point however, I got fed up with how much we need to invest into the build post-3.12 Heist league that I actually rerolled and started testing out new builds.
The major points for me is this:
* Storm limit of only 5 - Yeah, preaching to the choir? But this has effectively killed any good chances of clearing blights/legions. You got a 5-way blight? RIP.
* First impact is 0.2s instead of 0.1s from before - This may not look like a big deal on paper. But have you not noticed how delayed it now feels before the first strike? Since we are channelling through Cyclone, this is actually important for generating leech/boss kiting/killing packs of mobs in tight corners before an eventual shotgun on you. Try chasing a Tormented Spirit and you'll see what I mean...
* The new sound effect actually. I find it too loud and just noisy. I don't want to be forced to mute my game audio. The old smattering was actually enjoyable to listen to (until you got over a certain breakpoint of skill duration and the sound started to glitch! ;-)
* Gear dependancy has now increased as some of you have already mentioned.

So I'll wait and see if something is done with Icestorm next league. I might do some meme thing with my existing character but no promises. I still read this thread and will probably stick around.

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schattenwulf escribió:

Got a question about the gameplay with cyclone and icestorm. I noticed that cast-while-channeling seems to cast the Icestorm centered on the mouse cursor's location.

Spoiler

Since Cyclone is a movement skill, while using it your char keeps moving to where the cursor is placed - which basically leads to icestorm being cast wherever you're moving. Being able to actually target the icestorm only really becomes noticeable when your movement gets stuck while cycloning (like moving against a cliff or obstacle while the cursor is further away from the character).

Now I was wondering if there's any way to make use of this to aim icestorm at a distance. Like when there's a boss I don't feel comfortable spinning directly on top of - which cyclone forces me to do to aim the icestorm casts at the boss (since char keeps moving at cursor, and cursor needs to be on boss to cast icestorm there).

Was thinking something like 'holding shift' to prevent your char from moving, like it works with default attack or bow skills. Though doesn't work with cyclone. Is there any way to do so? Or no way to 'decouple' the icestorm aiming from the cyclone pathing?

It's not possible to cyclone in place with cursor pointed away unless you are moving into an obstacle. The only way to attack from a distance is to spin back and forth moving your cursor to the opposite of target and then back at it. You will deal a lot less damage because more than half of your storms are off target. This worked ok in pre-3.12 as both the impact time was 0.1s lower and there was no storm limit. Now in Heist this playstyle is very inefficient at attacking from distance and forces us to facetank in 99% of cases.

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Graiaule escribió:

<begin complaint>

Spoiler

Level 90, 2 days 20 hours played, and I am still looking for the last 2 eternal lab trials. Note I've done every Zana map that offered a trial, also.

I'm aware I can use /global 820 to look for trials. I've always felt that was cheating, and decided to stop doing that 2 leagues ago.

When I stopped, that caused me to be 5/6 trials in harvest (level 91) and now 4/6.

I'm also aware I can buy prophecies or use them.

Hopefully this will improve in 3.13. I'm hoping there is no Lab in POE 2...

<end of complaint>

By level 90 you should have a ton of low tier maps. If you're missing a trial you can use them to proc the missing one. But I wouldn't feel too bothered by this. As an Ascendant this just means 3 skill points & the Pure Talent Ele Pen % mod. You'll get it eventually.

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Phate4219 escribió:

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schattenwulf escribió:

Hm.. how important is the vortex/bonechill combo?

Is simply having frostblink with bonechill enough to apply bonechill?
Or is there another reason for using vortex other than applying bonechill?

It's just for bonechill/arcane surge. You could do it with frostblink, but vortex has much higher quality of life. Frostblink would probably be enough for bosses, but vortex makes it so much easier to chill entire packs.

You don't need to link frostblink to vortex/arcane surge/bonechill, that fourth socket is essentially a free spot. I have it in my helm as a 3-link, with the unsocketed fourth being flesh and stone.

Bonechill applies to the chill effect only as long as the target stays chilled. Frostblink therefore is not good to use with Bonechill. You want a reliable way that guarantees chill. I used Cold Snap on a cwdt setup sometimes, it is not optimal but it is ok. The cooldown is enough to create chilled ground on a target attacking you as long as you take the damage to proc cwdt. Vortex & Skitterbots are better for this.

So with divergent clarity it gives us a 20% damage boost and with cyclone only 3 linked it costs 3 mana. With the syndicate craft -3 mana to channeling skills this is now free.

We can do no es or life regen maps with a cyclone that costs 0 mana at the cost of 1 prefix slot on 1 ring. :D

Going to make life so much easier and gives a 20% damage boost.

I'm selling both of these if anyone wants to buy them let me know.

< 16ex

< 20ex

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Hemzokuken escribió:

So with divergent clarity it gives us a 20% damage boost and with cyclone only 3 linked it costs 3 mana. With the syndicate craft -3 mana to channeling skills this is now free.

We can do no es or life regen maps with a cyclone that costs 0 mana at the cost of 1 prefix slot on 1 ring. :D

Going to make life so much easier and gives a 20% damage boost.

I don't think this will work, unless you give up all your auras. Full mana = full mana, with none reserved. I could be wrong. Check your tooltips before and after turning on clarity.

Just tested it. There is no damage increase from being at full mana minus the reserved amount. The only way to get the bonus from this would be to run it in a "no mana reserved" item, and not use any auras. Or to run it off blood magic, and that's impossible for CI.

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ichbinwerichbi escribió:

Still not doable for me are blight maps. now i can do the lowest of them but tier 5 and above is a pain and i still fail.

Blight maps are pretty easy in this league. The towers got buffed, and the mobs got nerfed. You can do any tier blight maps with this build at any budget, as long as you have 2k+ Int.

You don't kill everything yourself anymore, like back in the day. Spell Cascade is dead, and you can't have sustained storms going on all over the place. You just use towers to kill 90% of the mobs, and kill the rest yourself, mostly the bosses.


1. These are your best friends. Start with this combo. Towers do 40% more damage and cost 40% less money.

2. Run the map as white or blue. There is no reason to alch it. Map quantity/rarity doesn't do anything on the blight chests.

3. Pick an element: fire, lightning, or cold. Whatever is your favorite tower: flamethrower, meteor, arc, or freeze bolt. Anoint your rings for those to do more damage.

4. Start the encounter. Look which element is not resisted. If your favorite is not resisted - great. If it is resisted - still fine, use something else for this map.

5. Build clusters of towers: 1 empower surrounded by 2 or 3 of the chosen element. Fully upgrade them. It's very cheap with these oils. Build 1 such cluster on each side of the pump, up to 4 sides.

6. Build additional towers: tentacles, ice prisons, ranged/winged minions.

Blight maps are not hard at all.

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Hemzokuken escribió:

What are people's thoughts on using a helm that has a ball lightning enchant?

Ball lightning shoots an additional ball. That would be OP having double balls popping out everywhere haha

Not worth it. 1 ball already curses everything. I would keep any enchant that does anything for the auras: less mana or more effect.

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McDuda escribió:

This is a noob question, but can't Wave of Conviction also proc the curses if socketed in the body armor instead of Ball Lightning? This way it would apply both exposure and curses and free up a gem slot?

It can but it's less efficient. Lower range, slower movement, only 1 hit instead of 5 hits per second, only 1 wave at a time instead of repeatedly proccing balls when tanking.

Can use it when you really need to save a gem slot. But I would drop it only after culling and IC duration.

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Hemzokuken escribió:

Also using divergent clarity gives us 20% more damage while on full mana. :)

20% Increased, not 20% MORE. You won't even notice it.

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Madrac escribió:

Divergent Vitality gives 20% increased damage too and it has a low mana reserved at lvl1.

Same here. 20% inc damage is not even worth a gem slot for this build.