[On Hold] Glacial Cascade Totems [ALL Content in the Game]

I'm loving this build, just posting my gear to get some fresh eyes on it and see if there's easy room for improvement (besides leveling my gems, obviously, and filling my helmet sockets). My weapons were pretty cheap, but I suspect that might be because people were undervaluing them early on, I'm not sure. I have a kaom's roots but I need the resistances right now. DPS is 87k in hideout, ~150k fully buffed.

Hatred is worth 18kdps for me. Is it time to throw it away?
I'm using vaal haste on right now and I'm not sure how it compares with vaal clarity.
While we're at it, I'm having a hard time finding solid advice for how the atlas should look this league. The consensus is complete tier 11 or 12 right?

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Loxter wrote:

Also, I think You can update the description on 1st page. Hall of Grandmasters is doable. I have completed it today (died once, but it was my fault). I had to switch GC gem into scorching ray on the way - just for 1 grandmaster (he was immune otherwise).

I've done it twice, once for myself, once again more recently to carry some friends through it. The first time I used scorching ray to defeat the aegis aurora guys, but the second time with a higher gear level my damage output just swamped them and they died to glacial cascade. Either that or there were no aegis aurora guys, but I think there's always at least one.

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magicrectangle wrote:

Here's a result:


The crit multi could be stripped and replaced with spell damage (or not, check in PoB which actually ends up better for you).

Ty a lot! Got this one today for 1 ex


My main problem is the playstyle, i just..dont know, have 5600hp, 800 ES, 1700manapool and often get die of some mobs lol, or catch oneshot from some boss :C

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TheAurang wrote:

Ty a lot! Got this one today for 1 ex

My main problem is the playstyle, i just..dont know, have 5600hp, 800 ES, 1700manapool and often get die of some mobs lol, or catch oneshot from some boss :C

Just took a look at your gear, have a few suggestions:

1) Defensive flask instead of second life flask. A granite flask can help a lot with random incoming damage. I run it particularly for abysses, though it is also nice in certain boss encounters (helps smoke phase in chimera, in particular). Granite flasks mitigate lots of smaller hits very well. If you're more worried about eating big hits, basalt instead.

2) Vaal clarity. Our 7-link totems are expensive. If you're dropping a lot of totems it is easy to be low on mana, and then all that survivability you're supposed to be getting from MoM doesn't show up. Vaal clarity linked to increased duration lasts for ~16 seconds, which is a hilariously long time, you can perm it through the whole map easy. Vaal clarity also means your dude is never complaining about mana when you're trying to get shit done - this can be pretty important if a big hit just zero'd out your mana, and a degen is keeping it low.

3) Put enfeeble on cast when damage taken. This helps considerably with incoming damage while mapping (not all that useful on bosses, as they have less curse effect). Also don't run max level CWDT. Should be:
level 1 CWDT
level 5 Enfeeble
Level 3 Immortal call
Max level increased duration (if you can spare a 4-link).

Speaking of sparing a 4-link, what's going on in your hat? You don't need conductivity for anything, you're an inquisitor, might as well get rid of that to make room for something else. The other stuff makes sense, conc is just there leveling for easy swapping for bosses, cull on the golem 'cause why not. Of course the reason why not would be that kaom's roots has you a little spare on sockets.

As for arctic armor, I'm not really sure if it helps or hurts. personally I run clear mind, but even without clear mind, reserving mana just means lowering your effective HP pool. Also faster casting can support arctic armor, so you're reserving more than you need to by putting it in that weapon.

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magicrectangle wrote:

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TheAurang wrote:

Ty a lot! Got this one today for 1 ex

My main problem is the playstyle, i just..dont know, have 5600hp, 800 ES, 1700manapool and often get die of some mobs lol, or catch oneshot from some boss :C

Just took a look at your gear, have a few suggestions:

1) Defensive flask instead of second life flask. A granite flask can help a lot with random incoming damage. I run it particularly for abysses, though it is also nice in certain boss encounters (helps smoke phase in chimera, in particular). Granite flasks mitigate lots of smaller hits very well. If you're more worried about eating big hits, basalt instead.

2) Vaal clarity. Our 7-link totems are expensive. If you're dropping a lot of totems it is easy to be low on mana, and then all that survivability you're supposed to be getting from MoM doesn't show up. Vaal clarity linked to increased duration lasts for ~16 seconds, which is a hilariously long time, you can perm it through the whole map easy. Vaal clarity also means your dude is never complaining about mana when you're trying to get shit done - this can be pretty important if a big hit just zero'd out your mana, and a degen is keeping it low.

3) Put enfeeble on cast when damage taken. This helps considerably with incoming damage while mapping (not all that useful on bosses, as they have less curse effect). Also don't run max level CWDT. Should be:
level 1 CWDT
level 5 Enfeeble
Level 3 Immortal call
Max level increased duration (if you can spare a 4-link).

Speaking of sparing a 4-link, what's going on in your hat? You don't need conductivity for anything, you're an inquisitor, might as well get rid of that to make room for something else. The other stuff makes sense, conc is just there leveling for easy swapping for bosses, cull on the golem 'cause why not. Of course the reason why not would be that kaom's roots has you a little spare on sockets.

As for arctic armor, I'm not really sure if it helps or hurts. personally I run clear mind, but even without clear mind, reserving mana just means lowering your effective HP pool. Also faster casting can support arctic armor, so you're reserving more than you need to by putting it in that weapon.

Big big big thanks to you, i'll try all three suggestions, looks pretty nice, ones i noticed that i die because of no mana for WB, lol

As for conductivity...i dont even know what this gem is doing there, maybe i put it for leveling for some reason.. And im not using arctic armor, just leveling it cuz there was a free slot

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TheAurang wrote:

As for conductivity...i dont even know what this gem is doing there, maybe i put it for leveling for some reason.. And im not using arctic armor, just leveling it cuz there was a free slot

You can link arcane surge to orb of storms there for a bit of a damage boost.

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Defiants wrote:

I'm trying to get my damage up, any suggestions? With my lightning golem out and no buffs or anything I sit at 32k DPS

Anyone have any input here? My DPS seems very low for my gear compared to what other people are saying here. Is it just the Gem selection I have?

I'm struggling with Shaped Vault boss for instance, at least partially because once he turns a pile of gold into an enemy, my GC starts aiming for them rather than the boss. So if I can't kill him in say, 20 seconds or so there's a good chance I simply won't be able to. He creates more guards from the piles of gold and thus takes even less damage because my GCs hit him even less often.

I've had to abandon a few now, which is really frustrating with the cost of sextants.

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Defiants wrote:

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Defiants wrote:

I'm trying to get my damage up, any suggestions? With my lightning golem out and no buffs or anything I sit at 32k DPS

Anyone have any input here? My DPS seems very low for my gear compared to what other people are saying here. Is it just the Gem selection I have?

I'm struggling with Shaped Vault boss for instance, at least partially because once he turns a pile of gold into an enemy, my GC starts aiming for them rather than the boss. So if I can't kill him in say, 20 seconds or so there's a good chance I simply won't be able to. He creates more guards from the piles of gold and thus takes even less damage because my GCs hit him even less often.

I've had to abandon a few now, which is really frustrating with the cost of sextants.

Well, hypothermia doesn't show on tooltip, and you have inc AoE in, so I wouldn't expect a huge tooltip number. That said...

1) Added fire isn't nearly as good once you have shaper weapons. Swap that for controlled destruction for a pretty big damage boost.

2) No diamond flask! That's huge damage you're missing out on. Always pop diamond and atziri at the start of the boss fight, they should be dead by the time the flasks are up.

3) Are you swapping inc aoe for conc on harder bosses? Honestly with long winter you can even just map with conc and still have decent range.

4) Amulet is pretty low hanging fruit for an upgrade. Doesn't even have to be a shaper one. You can life + cast speed + crit multi for pretty cheap, crit multi is big for us.

5) You're next to two 2-point jewel sockets in tree, but haven't taken them. Jewels can give a huge amount of damage.

I dunno if you're reliant on the lightning resist on your ammy, but if not here's a search:
http://poe.trade/search/akainonakikoyu

And a result:


Obviously if you need to meet resist or attribute requirements on ammy slot, you'll have to spend more, but gaining that crit multi is a substantial boost.

In regards to the Amulet, Lightning is my lowest resist, and losing 44% would force me to swap items around resulting in less HP/Mana. I'm also low on Strength, and would need to find that on another item or pick up one of those 30STR nodes on the skill tree. I actually bought one awhile back with double 15% physical damage as extra cold/lightning and a bit of global crit chance I think, and my damage actually went down, that cast speed adds so much to my DPS. The cast speed scales to my damage, but the physical damage as extra elemental only scales to the Physical damage of GC and not my overall damage. I'd like to get some more crit multiplier though for sure. I actually was just looking through Poe.trade for a better amulet, was trying to find something with crit multi, cast speed, and physical damage as extra whatever but those cost 25 Exalts + haha. Also the 19% increased ES adds 230 ES for me, which helps.

I'll swap out Added Fire, hadn't considered that.

I'll try a Diamond flask, I normally use alongside my Atziris for a significant damage boost, and it allows me to spam my mana/decurse flask and honestly all my other flasks without ever having to worry about them. In most cases that doesn't matter, but in the cases where I find I struggle most end up being because I'm dealing with a boss or a strong ranged rogue exile ( which is rare for me to struggle with, but I remember it happening once or twice, fast attack/cast speed and ranged thus killing totems very fast. ) but usually with bosses anyway. I sit at 32k DPS with my Lightning Golem, 40k with Atziris, and 45k with the chalice. So it's almost giving me as much DPS as Atziris and it allows me leeway when I panic and spam flasks, or get in a situation where there are limited mobs to regenerate flask charges. I'm not sure if it's the best choice though, and I'll certainly try a diamond flask.

I usually don't swap out gems, haven't really needed to up until now I guess. In regards to controlled destruction, do you socket it alongside Increased Crits, or do you swap it with Increased Crits? I'm leveling up conc right now though.

The jewel slots are what I'm planning on reaching as I level to 95 but, maybe I'll swap some stuff around to get them now. I was having issues with survivability, managed to get that under control, but maybe part of that is having such low DPS.

Thanks for the fast response.

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Defiants wrote:

In regards to the Amulet, Lightning is my lowest resist, and losing 44% would force me to swap items around resulting in less HP/Mana. I'm also low on Strength, and would need to find that on another item or pick up one of those 30STR nodes on the skill tree. I actually bought one awhile back with double 15% physical damage as extra cold/lightning and a bit of global crit chance I think, and my damage actually went down, that cast speed adds so much to my DPS. The cast speed scales to my damage, but the physical damage as extra elemental only scales to the Physical damage of GC and not my overall damage.

Glacial cascade is 100% physical, with some of that physical then converted to elemental (all of it with long winter). Regardless of how much of that physical is converted to elemental, it still is base physical type, and still provides full benefit with phys as extra elemental type modifiers.

Of course the phys as extra elemental type modifiers themselves don't multiply each other, if that's what you mean. That's why things like added fire and hatred become less important as you add shaper items.

Cast speed is indeed very strong for us. Even more than tooltip indicates, because it improves totem placement speed as well.

I have these two ammys myself:



The cast speed and crit multi one easily outperforms the shaper one. Ideally you want a shaper one that also has crit multi and cast speed, but as you noted, that's expensive as balls.

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I'll try a Diamond flask, I normally use [overflowing chalice] alongside my Atziris for a significant damage boost, and it allows me to spam my mana/decurse flask and honestly all my other flasks without ever having to worry about them. In most cases that doesn't matter, but in the cases where I find I struggle most end up being because I'm dealing with a boss or a strong ranged rogue exile ( which is rare for me to struggle with, but I remember it happening once or twice, fast attack/cast speed and ranged thus killing totems very fast. ) but usually with bosses anyway. I sit at 32k DPS with my Lightning Golem, 40k with Atziris, and 45k with the chalice. So it's almost giving me as much DPS as Atziris and it allows me leeway when I panic and spam flasks, or get in a situation where there are limited mobs to regenerate flask charges. I'm not sure if it's the best choice though, and I'll certainly try a diamond flask.

Overflowing chalice doesn't really do anything on bosses (other than the base sulphur flask effect), and while mapping maintaining flask charges tends to be a non-issue. Diamond flask is another modifier that doesn't show on tooltip, but I assure you it is dramatically more damage than a sulphur flask.

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I usually don't swap out gems, haven't really needed to up until now I guess. In regards to controlled destruction, do you socket it alongside Increased Crits, or do you swap it with Increased Crits? I'm leveling up conc right now though.

You run both. We're still a crit build, but the multiplier on controlled destruction is so big it is worth taking a little bit of a hit to crit chance.

Ultimately it is a good idea to import yourself into path of building and play around with the gems and flasks yourself, to see how it shakes out, as different gear setups may cause one or the other gem to become more or less optimal.

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The jewel slots are what I'm planning on reaching as I level to 95 but, maybe I'll swap some stuff around to get them now. I was having issues with survivability, managed to get that under control, but maybe part of that is having such low DPS.

Everything is easier if you kill fast. I'm sitting at 4.5k life, 2k mana. I did shaper, all the guardians, and uber atziri, all deathless. Fast, easy fights really, because they die (or transition) in the span of a flask use (for the most part). Of course you still have to avoid the big hit mechanics, but there's a lot less of it to avoid when the fight ends fast, and another 500 hp won't save you anyway.

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I went ahead and imported you into PoB. Diamond flask is more than 3x as much damage for you as overflowing chalice. It is pretty much always the best damage flask for inquisitors, so no surprise.

Your best gem setup, in order of most to least important for damage, is:
GC
Conc
Hypothermia
Controlled d
Inc Crit
Faster casting

Technically I've fudged this a little, ele focus + cold to fire would be more damage than hypothermia + faster casting, but the quality of life you get from hypothermia + faster casting is well worth the damage hit. Still if you wanted to optimize for pure damage that would be the way to go.

PoB says you should be looking at 166k boss DPS with the above (hypo + faster casting) setup, once the gems are 20/20. That's per totem, and assuming only one burst hits the boss. Bosses with bigger hitboxes will easily be taking 1-2 million DPS from your totems. That should trivialize everything below T16 - and there's still lots of room to grow, too (those two sockets would be big).

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I'm also low on Strength, and would need to find that on another item or pick up one of those 30STR nodes on the skill tree.

Your route to the templar socket and devotion is through 20 int 10 strength on the outside. The same amount of points could make the same connection from the inside and give 30 strength instead. Then maybe pick up dex on the amulet instead and free up that 30 dex node you have allocated.