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

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Kelvynn wrote:
Hey guys! I'm back for the Heist league. I skipped the Harvest league (quit it after 5 days) because managing the farm was taking much more time than mapping, and watching the grass grow is not my idea of playing this game :)

I was going to ask about new developments and how the top players adapted after the end of the Delirium Golden Age. How hard was it to obtain the cluster jewels, which ones were still good, etc etc

But then I saw the patch notes...

50% more base damage with half the hit rate. That's a nerf...

Lower base duration is not really a big deal, especially with the duration nodes. Not a lot of bosses stand still for 5+ seconds.

The impact/area change is a BUFF, making each icicle much more likely to hit the target. This can prove a big positive change. It was always hard to calculate how many icicles actually hit. Now it looks like most of them will hit, or even all of them on a large boss.

Increased effectiveness of added flat damage may make Aw Added Cold worth using? Will need to check in PoB when it's updated.

But the 5 storm limit confuses me. It doesn't make any sense! Especially seeing as Firestorm is limited to only 3. So, if you cast Firestorm with ASC - do you just LOSE 2 storms out of the 5???

If somebody knows a good place where this question can be asked, can we find out? Maybe that limit doesn't apply to additional storms created by SC/ASC and all storms created by 1 cast are counted as 1 towards that limit of 5? That way, if you use ASC, you can actually have 25 storms (or 15 with the regular SC).

If the limit is 5 total storms regardless of how they were created, then SC/ASC is dead right now. Same as it was dead back in some league when they changed something about it and SC stopped working with channelled skills, and we played without that gem for a while until it was fixed. But I'm sure it can't stay that way forever, if only because of the obvious nonsense with Firestorm + ASC.

Another idea that I see already mentioned is adding a secondary channelled skill. Firestorm is definitely not it, since it scales in a completely different way, and this build has almost nothing for it. But a cold skill maybe? Cold Snap? Freezing Pulse? Those have a very high added flat damage effectiveness as well.


Cell phone post here but yeah glad to see ypu back. Harvest was mirror tier gear for almost everyone. I personally tried to push the build to its limits and did a summary of it a couple days ago. Agree totally with the"gardening" it doesn't feel like it belongs in this type of game.

I made the same conclusions so far about the nerfing. I.e. what are they really thinking with 5 storm limit. I put in Awakened Added Cold Damage in PoB and manually calculated it with 60% effectiveness, its better but not really surpassing Aw Cold Penetration.

I used the firestorm google spreadsheet and modified it to new values. Storm limit makes it a headache but the damage loss per se is only for targets that you hit for longer than 6 seconds with 2.5k+ Int (or targets where you can ramp it up with precast). Lingering storms will no longer exist so area coverage is a lot worse I guess.

As for SC I believe they count Storms not casts so we might be looking at a strange period indeed.
Still waiting for confirmation from GGG. The language does appear clear, though: "Now has a maximum of 5 storms at a time" so I believe we will need to take it at face value.

The big defensive thing will be that we will be squishy at the high end. The +ES on hit Eye becomes drastically less effective, and that was (for me at least) the item that made me significantly less squishy at red maps/level 90+.

Offensively, I used spell cascade on the conquerors because the wider spread of storms ensured that it was more likely I was getting a successful leech. And stacking the storms was important for many bosses.

We'll just have to figure out ways to increase the damage.
I'm having a play through leveling a scion, what's the best way to level from league start as a scion? I'm using ice shot atm but feels slow.

Any suggestions?

Would love that to be added to the guide. :D

Just a leveling section ready for 3.12 using freezing pulse and what to link with it etc
This is how my Ice/Fire 2k INT performed with crap items using Less duration to simulate the future.

But remember, the hits will be more consistent due to decrease area of effect and increased shard area hit... and the First fire hit will do 150% more dmg

The E.E makes it feel a bit better... maybe

https://youtu.be/c0wFMH_6ZSs
Last edited by whiterockx on Sep 16, 2020, 9:13:00 PM
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whiterockx wrote:
This is how my Ice/Fire 2k INT performed with crap items using Less duration to simulate the future.

But remember, the hits will be more consistent due to decrease area of effect and increased shard area hit... and the First fire hit will do 150% more dmg

The E.E makes it feel a bit better... maybe

https://youtu.be/c0wFMH_6ZSs


I tried the same thing but against minotaur aswell for single target.

You're better off dropping firestorm and having that extra dps gem.

5 storms will be more than enough to clear maps.
Everyone needs to think about it like this....

Every .2 seconds you're casting twice the damage with more getting hit by each explosion.

Don't think of it as a trail of storms but as a 5 explosion cycle resetting instantly with a storm tick of double damage every .2 seconds

Now that flat damage will scale slightly better you can cast 5 storms per second so it would be no different to an ice crash build without stopping to use ice crash?
Last edited by Hemzokuken on Sep 16, 2020, 9:31:29 PM
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Hemzokuken wrote:
Everyone needs to think about it like this....

Every .2 seconds you're casting twice the damage with more getting hit by each explosion.

Don't think of it as a trail of storms but as a 5 explosion cycle resetting instantly with a storm tick of double damage every .2 seconds

Now that flat damage will scale slightly better you can cast 5 storms per second so it would be no different to an ice crash build without stopping to use ice crash?


My idea adding behind add Firestorm is:

1 - Fill the gaps between shard hits (this is my main priority);
2 - 1st Firestorm hit will be the "Meteor", that is the one who does + dmg (150%);
3 - Since shards hit alternadly, Elemental Equilibrium apply -50% resistence, and could be better than have an Awakened Cold Penetration linked;
4 - The Firestorm limit is 3, so you will be hitting with +150% dmg hit often.
5 - I'm running out of ideas xD!

I updated my PoB with adding Firestorm just for shits and giggles, and it actually doesn't look terrible.

Like 180k average hit icestorm and 60k average hit firestorm.

I've got a curse setup of elemental weakness + frostbite + flammability, along with a CWDT setup of frost bomb + wave of conviction + blade blast(unnerve), and of course vortex + bonechill.

So it's like world of debuffs.

It looks hilarious, too.

I know these won't be the numbers after patch, obviously, but was just messing around.

https://pastebin.com/YKY7ybzZ


As Kelvynn said, it's probably much better finding a cold spell to drop in there instead of firestorm.

Maybe ice nova or frost bolts? Expand our vortex's? Don't know. I'll wait for the experts to weigh in, as usual.
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Hemzokuken wrote:
Everyone needs to think about it like this....

Every .2 seconds you're casting twice the damage with more getting hit by each explosion.

Don't think of it as a trail of storms but as a 5 explosion cycle resetting instantly with a storm tick of double damage every .2 seconds

Now that flat damage will scale slightly better you can cast 5 storms per second so it would be no different to an ice crash build without stopping to use ice crash?


Totally agree. I feel like this is simply a rebalance. It's gonna be different of course, but not bad. I am taking that optimistic train of yours. To WI or not to WI? That AIN'T a question. DO IT!
Maybe we go full fire conversion on it and use a better spell for single target in chest? (Maybe arma brand/cremation)

Or perhaps try to generate charges somehow for a single target discharge?

Edit -
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Gracieux wrote:
To WI or not to WI? That AIN'T a question. DO IT!


Definitely!!
Last edited by ultra_super_hyper on Sep 16, 2020, 10:08:52 PM

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