[3.6] The Blizz Sorc - Icestorm/Winter Orb CI Occultist - Viable For Everything

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Zephryl wrote:

Is there any particular reason we grab Void Beacon as the first ascendancy upgrade?

Yeah. Effectively 20% more damage is great for leveling. And it opens the way to Frigid Wake as the 2nd upgrade.

If you want to grab ES first - sure. But it's not really useful while leveling as life. You leech life and use life flasks. ES is just a buffer on top.

But freezing everything is so much fun! I've seen a whole lot of HoI explosions triggered by Frigid Wake. You don't need extra ES when everything is frozen and even bosses stagger and stop.

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Kelvynn wrote:

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Zephryl wrote:

Is there any particular reason we grab Void Beacon as the first ascendancy upgrade?

Yeah. Effectively 20% more damage is great for leveling. And it opens the way to Frigid Wake as the 2nd upgrade.

If you want to grab ES first - sure. But it's not really useful while leveling as life. You leech life and use life flasks. ES is just a buffer on top.

But freezing everything is so much fun! I've seen a whole lot of HoI explosions triggered by Frigid Wake. You don't need extra ES when everything is frozen and even bosses stagger and stop.

Turns out I was still loading up an old tree without updates ascends. I feel a bit dumb now, since it's obvious just from looking.

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ReitanRyu wrote:

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Xavathos wrote:

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jerrymathew wrote:

How is this build with bonechill?

Bonechill only affects Arctic Armour in this build, but that's actually enough to make it work.

Arctic Armor is just a guaranteed chill but all cold damage has a chance to chill. I'm personally using it with Frost Bomb as it does enough damage to chill while also applying Arcane Surge/-25% cold res. I dropped Ancestral Call from Vigilant Strike to make room for this for now.

Frost Bomb chills on the explosion only and that's not the reason to use it. You use it for the debuff, which means things are planned to die before the boom. Linking it to AA gives you a passive way to affect bosses automatically by kiting.

Also, I take both skill duration clusters, as they are a perfect synergy with a lot of skill in this build.

- AA, the duration of its trail, synergy with Bonechill.
- Winter Orb, charges lasting much longer, firing faster for longer = more EO procs and less time standing still.
- Icestorm of course can last over 8 seconds each with enough int. The reason this is good is because if you trap a boss in it with freezes, it's doomed as you will have an 8 sec window of active storms raining down on it. A massive DPS potential once you accelerate into it while Chill/Freeze enables that.
- Frost Bomb will last much longer, delaying the explosion and extending the debuff time per cast. Not having to recast Bomb = DPS.
- Curses! They last longer too, which is relevant as we don't use permanent ones.
- Flame Dash trail lasts longer, which easily accounts for 0.00001% of your damage. Pure profit.

Biggest downside to me using those clusters is not being able to use my favorite warp. But dash is fine, just looks bad on my winter fashion set. :3

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Xavathos wrote:

Also, I take both skill duration clusters, as they are a perfect synergy with a lot of skill in this build.

- AA, the duration of its trail, synergy with Bonechill.
- Winter Orb, charges lasting much longer, firing faster for longer = more EO procs and less time standing still.
- Icestorm of course can last over 8 seconds each with enough int. The reason this is good is because if you trap a boss in it with freezes, it's doomed as you will have an 8 sec window of active storms raining down on it. A massive DPS potential once you accelerate into it while Chill/Freeze enables that.
- Frost Bomb will last much longer, delaying the explosion and extending the debuff time per cast. Not having to recast Bomb = DPS.
- Curses! They last longer too, which is relevant as we don't use permanent ones.
- Flame Dash trail lasts longer, which easily accounts for 0.00001% of your damage. Pure profit.

Biggest downside to me using those clusters is not being able to use my favorite warp. But dash is fine, just looks bad on my winter fashion set. :3

I really don't think those reasons are good enough to spend 6 points on Potency of Will. The duration of curses, Frost Bomb and Icestorm is already fine. AA and especially Flame Dash trail? But there is nothing alive behind you :)

WO alone is hardly worth any investment, unless it turns out so great that we can clear T16 maps with it and switch to Icestorm just for bosses/rares/syndicate. But that remains to be seen.

Hey Kelvynn,

and thank you very much for all your updates !

Just a quick thought : now that the build is "Cold Only" (and not Cold to Fire conversion), why not take the "Storm Weaver" cluster instead of the "Snowforged" ?

I know that the 30% increased critical strike chance of "Snowforged" helps for triggering "Elemental Overload", but the "Storm Weaver" cluster brings 20% mana regeneration rate and the little cold node brings an additional 10% increased effect of chill !

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Kelvynn wrote:

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Xavathos wrote:

Also, I take both skill duration clusters, as they are a perfect synergy with a lot of skill in this build.

- AA, the duration of its trail, synergy with Bonechill.
- Winter Orb, charges lasting much longer, firing faster for longer = more EO procs and less time standing still.
- Icestorm of course can last over 8 seconds each with enough int. The reason this is good is because if you trap a boss in it with freezes, it's doomed as you will have an 8 sec window of active storms raining down on it. A massive DPS potential once you accelerate into it while Chill/Freeze enables that.
- Frost Bomb will last much longer, delaying the explosion and extending the debuff time per cast. Not having to recast Bomb = DPS.
- Curses! They last longer too, which is relevant as we don't use permanent ones.
- Flame Dash trail lasts longer, which easily accounts for 0.00001% of your damage. Pure profit.

Biggest downside to me using those clusters is not being able to use my favorite warp. But dash is fine, just looks bad on my winter fashion set. :3

I really don't think those reasons are good enough to spend 6 points on Potency of Will. The duration of curses, Frost Bomb and Icestorm is already fine. AA and especially Flame Dash trail? But there is nothing alive behind you :)

WO alone is hardly worth any investment, unless it turns out so great that we can clear T16 maps with it and switch to Icestorm just for bosses/rares/syndicate. But that remains to be seen.

I agree on WO not being worth it, but I'd argue skill duration is. Besides, you spent 4 points on one cluster, and the two extra points for the other are int nodes, they're not useless.

I don't deny that in my tree those are the weakest nodes, I just don't think I need to min/max pure damage on a WI build, it has that in spades regardless. Therefor I like to pick the utility options, like potency of will and fingers of frost, over the damage nodes like Snowforged, Stormweaver or some of the higher point cost jewel sockets.

Of course when you have 100ex jewels, you will want those sockets, but I'm a mere mortal, with humble dreams. :)

There is something to say for each choice, which is evidence of a well designed game.

How does Blood Rage work with CI....

Whenever the Immortal Syndicate appears in a portal and attacks me, I'm pretty much dead. I think I screwed up with the Immortal Syndicate, because early on in levelling, I made too many of them trust each other, now I have at least 2 of them whenever Intervention happens, and even one's damage is intense with how this build levels. My advice would be to have as less green lines between members if you want an easier time and wait until maps where the build is more complete to do these mechanics.

One of the most stupid mechanics of POE are the Oneshots...Does the "tankiness" of this build avoid oneshots? or we are expose to that just like any other build outhere because we dont reach +/- 20k of energy shield in example. How "tanky" is the build? thanks.

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George20 wrote:

Whenever the Immortal Syndicate appears in a portal and attacks me, I'm pretty much dead. I think I screwed up with the Immortal Syndicate, because early on in levelling, I made too many of them trust each other, now I have at least 2 of them whenever Intervention happens, and even one's damage is intense with how this build levels. My advice would be to have as less green lines between members if you want an easier time and wait until maps where the build is more complete to do these mechanics.

Nah, some dude on reddit said that trusted/enemy don't really trigger "assistance". And playing until now, i'm actually agree with him. Most of the time, "assistance" comprised from just random dudes that have absolutely nothing in common, or just because they are in the same division. Moreover, rivals/enemies also always appear as "assistance".

Looks like, that "trusted/enemy" supposed to be only for bargaining/betraying/etc... only for chat after battle, i mean.

And i assure you, even if your syndicate wouldn't be with relationship, they would be still not alone. It's just become like this when you leveled up certain point, that's all.

P.S. I also see that your resistances not capped.
First rule of poe - "if your resistances aren't 75%, then don't even ask why you suddenly died". It applies even to normal white mobs, let alone extremely rippy syndicate guys.

Also, throw out ice bite, cold penetration woud be twice as good. Why did you even put it there? I think guide clearly stated good support gems.