Glacial Cascade

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

anyone determine the gems to use with this thing?

Knockback + faster casting works really great.

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Albert_Dark wrote:

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

anyone determine the gems to use with this thing?

Knockback + faster casting works really great.

I did that, sans faster casting. I do like the additional nodes Fending and knockback distance nodes.

I think I prefer EK over this so I'm selling this if anyone is interested

b/o 2 exalt

With ele dmg its like dual curse is a must. Curses op and throw off ele balance.

I'm at the point where I really don't care about this gem at all... Maybe I'm missing something, but its a bit weak without AoE and it feels a bit weak.

When i first saw this gem drop and actually looked at it, I thought Oh neat I'm bored let's make a build with this.

It wasn't until i found a brutal shine in act 1 normal though that i realized just how beautiful this gem is. With Knockback, you effectively turn a skill that was balanced for 2-3hits, and make it a shotgun 8-10hits single cast. Not only that, but it wasn't until i used it with knockback, that the skill felt and functioned as it was casted.

In all honestly the quality bonus of the gem needs to be changed to .75-1.5 knockback per percent. The skill just feels natural with knockback. With 15% i would easily forgo the run for the passives, however with 30% i would keep for 100% chance.

Also avatar of fire / three dragons on a crit caster is absolutely retarded with this, everything just melts and melee attackers are NEVER an issue. For range or bosses use shield charge to get in their face and then hit them hard. The physical on this is great for scaling with hatred/added fire, however alone is extremely small and end game will get mitigated 50%+. Not to mention resistance on mobs being 50%-75% for ele. AoF REALLY shines on this skill as it gives you that 50% of the physical that was effective anyways, and allows you to apply fire penetration to the entire dmg. Not to mention works great with AA for reflect dmg mitigation. Don't let the tooltip mislead you.


**ALSO for those using it, I've noticed their is a sweet spot with it's AoE radius and casting speed. Casting Speed seems to make the time between each hit shorter/longer, and Radius the distance between each. Going to be gone for a week, just got the build viable but wont be able to do the testing to figure out what of each i'll need to REALLY take advantage of knockback with the skill. If anyone else is going with this setup would be great if you found at least a rough idea of how much or less of each needed to make the most of knockback.

I agree with knockback it is fun; however, the knockback gets seriously annoying later on in groups. I got the fending node with it and it was straight bananas.

The issue I have with the skill is that it does no damage... how do you augment the damage on this thing?

Added damage gems (Chaos, Lightning) and possibly Concentrated Effect. Usually at least two hits against enemies with 80% damage effectiveness makes those supports very good for GC. And well, crit should also do the job.

p.s.: Nice single target in a Rime Gaze.

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Lord_of_Error wrote:

Added damage gems (Chaos, Lightning) and possibly Concentrated Effect. Usually at least two hits against enemies with 80% damage effectiveness makes those supports very good for GC. And well, crit should also do the job.

p.s.: Nice single target in a Rime Gaze.

This.

but Catchafire plays Invasion so I'm not sure how good a crit build would be, crit with Glacial Cascade against either ele or phys reflect is pretty dangerous.

Anyway, Added Chaos and Conc Effect are always great on Glacial Cascade.

Aweful skill. Weak damage, both in numbers in it being split, too easy to miss the target, not real aoe, and couple all that with nonsensical mana cost. Crap skill is crap.

I have a guide with my thoughts on this skill up for anyone who wants to try this skill out.

Guide