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

I did some comparisons in PoB between some of my builds from 3.14 to the recent 3.15 update that came yesterday.

Two of my SSF builds that are common (BF/BB Poison Assassin & Eartshatter slam Berserker):
72% & 64% less dmg, respectively, along with up to 4x the mana cost on avg.

Now those were without tweaking/adjusting the skill gems/passive tree to the new changes, but the impact of the nerf is quite evident.

I also compared my Icestorm hybrid aura stacker from Harvest league to new numbers (new PoB has updated to the new base dmg values of 3-5 dmg per 10 Int).

The new Controlled Destruction absolutely decimated my crit chance (80% less) so I had to replace that with Increased Critical Damage. But aside from that I made no changes:
3.14 avg hit: 556k
3.15 avg hit: 461k

That's 18% less dmg. I haven't compared with a more standard version of the build using EO instead. And I have now updated my PoB so I would need to download an older version and redo the test. But you will certainly do less dmg than before - but compared to other commonly played meta builds they got hit way harder in terms of dmg output.

That said... my Earthshatter Berserker with 100% SSF gear still does more dmg than my gigapimped Harvest Ascendant with a couple mirror-tier gear pieces. More importantly it is more flexible in terms of movement & defenses and can be achieved in SSF.

Icestorm deserves more flexibility, imagine if there were no clunkiness.

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loczek123 wrote:

If CwC will cost us mana and Cyclone too, what's the point of playing CwC instead of Selfcast with two extra Supports?

I don't think it's too bad since Cyclone doesn't require to be linked with other gems, except CwC. Pre-3.15, Cyclone needed to be linked with Inspirational to generate charges for Ice Storm but since triggered skills cost mana in 3.15, Ice Storm can generate Inspirational charges itself. Therefore, you can drop one more link for Cyclone, reducing its mana cost.

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lucre280893 wrote:

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loczek123 wrote:

If CwC will cost us mana and Cyclone too, what's the point of playing CwC instead of Selfcast with two extra Supports?

I don't think it's too bad since Cyclone doesn't require to be linked with other gems, except CwC. Pre-3.15, Cyclone needed to be linked with Inspirational to generate charges for Ice Storm but since triggered skills cost mana in 3.15, Ice Storm can generate Inspirational charges itself. Therefore, you can drop one more link for Cyclone, reducing its mana cost.

Not sure if inspiration is worth it anymore tho.
The mana reduction is obv. nice but since we spend a shit ton of mana it is kinda inconsistent and we are going to constantly lose all charges due to the high mana consumption of ice storm.... not sure if fixing mana reg on gear and passives + using a better support would benefit more to the dmg output.

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Kelvynn wrote:

Hi guys! I came to check out the new league.

btw Kelvynn, since you skip the last league, just an FYI, if you don't know, now you can anoint corrupted amulets, so basically you can have "You can apply an additional Curse" and "Allocates Tranquility" very easy. :)


oil: https://pathofexile.fandom.com/wiki/Tainted_Oil

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LiNGeN wrote:

EDIT: Nvm they did remove it. I must've missed that when reading the patch notes OR they forgot it in the first upload. RIP.

yep, well need to see dat autoflask use, if it ok antifreeze gona be ok.
if not, witch better)

Correction about Vortex-Bonechill: the actual dev (Mark_GGG) clarified that the 44% increased chill effect from Bonechill will still apply to its chilling area, thus making the enemy standing in it take 14% increased cold damage, not the default 10%. That is still significant enough to keep.

I'll try to preserve that link then. The DoT part of it got nerfed and is Vortex'es own damage is totally irrelevant now, so Vortex lv 1 for 13 mana will do. Surely we can still afford that.

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archwerewolf wrote:

well i in confusion, cause with profane bloom so fun to play, but with so much nerfs...and yeah inq asc now no alin immune, so mb witch antifreeze gona be best xD

Occ's freeze immunity is great when you have high enough stun avoidance. But that's a part of the problem I mentioned: it only comes with good gear and high levels, and until then you will suffer.

Dealing with freeze in 3.15 shouldn't be too hard. They already showed auto-triggered flasks. That will provide a more reliable protection than the pre-nerf Inq, as the game will hit the flask for you instantly rather than waiting for the Inq holy ground to randomly appear under you - very nice for map clearing where you constantly move.

All important unique flasks have been nerfed heavily, some of them are not worth using anymore. I'm sure we'll have a slot for an automatic anti-freeze flask.

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loczek123 wrote:

If CwC will cost us mana and Cyclone too, what's the point of playing CwC instead of Selfcast with two extra Supports?

Same as always: mobility and cast speed. Nothing has changed there. CwC still overrides cast time and lets you cast while moving. We'll deal with the mana cost, the benefits of CwC are definitely still worth it.

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Kelvynn wrote:

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archwerewolf wrote:

well i in confusion, cause with profane bloom so fun to play, but with so much nerfs...and yeah inq asc now no alin immune, so mb witch antifreeze gona be best xD

Occ's freeze immunity is great when you have high enough stun avoidance. But that's a part of the problem I mentioned: it only comes with good gear and high levels, and until then you will suffer.

Dealing with freeze in 3.15 shouldn't be too hard. They already showed auto-triggered flasks. That will provide a more reliable protection than the pre-nerf Inq, as the game will hit the flask for you instantly rather than waiting for the Inq holy ground to randomly appear under you - very nice for map clearing where you constantly move.

All important unique flasks have been nerfed heavily, some of them are not worth using anymore. I'm sure we'll have a slot for an automatic anti-freeze flask.

Though keep in mind that they hit the flasks themselves as hard as they did because with the new enkindling orb you can make the flasks have like alot more flask effect at the cost of not being able to recharge during the flask duration. I think for alot of flasks is definitely worth it to still use enkindling orb but to run 2 of the same flasks to still get perma uptime. In general the decision to run two of the same flasks should be pretty interesting now . I have tried PoBing this build a little build on my own , I don't think the build really suffered a whole lot by comparison . The mana cost is roughly 70 per cast with conc effect and slightly less with inc aoe . Both atziri's and wise oak are probably still worth it as a burst dps boss flask with the enkindling orb.

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TheFearlessOne wrote:

Not sure if inspiration is worth it anymore tho.
The mana reduction is obv. nice but since we spend a shit ton of mana it is kinda inconsistent and we are going to constantly lose all charges due to the high mana consumption of ice storm.... not sure if fixing mana reg on gear and passives + using a better support would benefit more to the dmg output.

Yeah, that's an interesting point. Let's look at how it's going to work now.

Right now, before 3.15, when you start channelling Cyclone you instantly gain 2 Inspiration charges, and then 2 more every 0.35 sec. I don't know why 2, but you can clearly see it happening. Hit the Cyclone button and don't hold it, so it doesn't even get to cast Icestorm yet, but you already have 2 charges. When Icestorm starts costing mana, you will get 2 charges when you start channelling and then 3 charges every 0.35 sec. And after that, every time you lose the charges while continuing to channel, you get back to 5 charges in 0.7 sec.

Cyclone - CwC, Inspiration, AS, CE, CD.

Mana per cast = 22 * 1.4 * 0.65 * 1.2 * 1.3 * 1.5 * 1.5 + 2 = 72

Every 13 casts you hit the 922 mana threshold and lose all charges. And then for the next 1 cast you'll have 3 charges. So it's going to be like this:
3 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 0
i.e 11/13 of the time you have 5 charges, 1/13 time 3 charges, and 1/13 time 0 charges, that's average of 4.46 charges, or ~22% MORE damage.

Damage-wise, that's definitely weaker than 35% MORE mod on Cold Pen or EF, and much weaker than 40% MORE mod on their Awakened versions. Awakened EF will give you 15% MORE damage (1.4 / 1.22 = 1.15). Cold Pen probably even more with typical boss resistances. But at what cost?

Cyclone - CwC, AS, CE, CD, EF

22 * 1.4 * 1.3 * 1.5 * 1.5 * 1.4 + 2 = 128

Oof! Can we really afford 384 mana every 1.05 sec? That needs to be seen. Perhaps with some extra investment. It's a question of spending X skill points to gain 15% MORE damage this way vs spending Y points to gain the same damage in some other ways.

This will require theorycrafting in PoB after it's fully updated and the league is live. But for the start of the league I would definitely go with Inspiration. I highly doubt that it will be possible to afford the mana cost without Inspiration while leveling to 70-80.

Note: this is another reason to go Ascendant. Occultist will simply not have enough unreserved mana to upgrade Inspiration to AEF/ACP.