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

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Firestrike9 wrote:
Glad to see you're playing this league again Kelvynn, I also PoB'd it with trickster and while the extra defensive layer looked nice (30% chance to evade just from helmet, ES overleech and es on kill) we are losing stun immunity, perma conc ground and everything else scion gives, for me it shows as if Scion has 25% more damage than Trickster using the cluster tree.

I feel like for me the choice is between witch and scion, I have a feeling Scion is the winner here despite Witch having 10% more damage and profane bloom, with the reservation nerfs it will be much harder to get it going,

Maybe your PoB wasn't optimized enough. Mine shows the boss damage pretty much on par with the Occultist, i.e. higher than the Ascendant.

I've updated the Occultist. Sustaining mana is a pain now. Need Enlighten lv 4 and 2 extra nodes, if you want to keep Aspect.

The main attraction of the Trickster is the overleech. Plus the evasion (I have 44% in my PoB even without flasks). Plus the rotating 40% less damage from hits/dots. In maps that guy should be just about unkillable. And he should have the easiest time with the bosses too. No mana issues. Stun is covered by the jewel enchants - Harvest crafting that mod should be super easy now.

It remains to be seen how it all actually works. But since I've played both the Ascendant and the Occultist many times, I'm very open to try the Trickster. Gonna post that version soon.
Thats encouraging.
I've been following this build on an off for many years, played it several times back when the Icestorm was killing everyone's FPS.

I'm happy it still thrives! Looking at Kelvynn's 40/40 it's obvious the build can do all the difficult content, plus can avoid dying too much on the way to 100.

But can you explain the source of the tankiness to me?

In PoB for the high budget version I see massive amounts of ES, 120k EHP (that's great!), a lot of ES leech, stun immunity, cannot be slowed (Stampede), buffed consecrated ground. I am assuming Icestorm also chills stuff so it's safer, plus the defensive auto Enfeeble.

Is this enough? (I mean it has to be, as demonstrated)

What worries me is non existent Armor, Evasion and low-mid block chance.

Doesn't the build die to random high crit elemental / physical hits? (no crit immunity) Or is the strategy in the vein of - as long as we're leeching we're fine and high ES pool protects from freak damage spikes?

I am soooo tempted to try it this league, I haven't played Whispering Ice since they fixed the FPS. I'm a bit worried though that I won't be able to clear uber endgame content in a fashion demonstrated by Kelvynn because the build is too squishy for an average player like myself, who makes lots of mechanical mistakes in fights.

But I am one good, convincing argument away from giving it a go! :D
Shavronne wrapped Kaom's waist,
with her gilded purple boots.
"You want my sockets?"
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Jadran wrote:
I've been following this build on an off for many years, played it several times back when the Icestorm was killing everyone's FPS.

I'm happy it still thrives! Looking at Kelvynn's 40/40 it's obvious the build can do all the difficult content, plus can avoid dying too much on the way to 100.

But can you explain the source of the tankiness to me?

In PoB for the high budget version I see massive amounts of ES, 120k EHP (that's great!), a lot of ES leech, stun immunity, cannot be slowed (Stampede), buffed consecrated ground. I am assuming Icestorm also chills stuff so it's safer, plus the defensive auto Enfeeble.

Is this enough? (I mean it has to be, as demonstrated)

What worries me is non existent Armor, Evasion and low-mid block chance.

Doesn't the build die to random high crit elemental / physical hits? (no crit immunity) Or is the strategy in the vein of - as long as we're leeching we're fine and high ES pool protects from freak damage spikes?

I am soooo tempted to try it this league, I haven't played Whispering Ice since they fixed the FPS. I'm a bit worried though that I won't be able to clear uber endgame content in a fashion demonstrated by Kelvynn because the build is too squishy for an average player like myself, who makes lots of mechanical mistakes in fights.

But I am one good, convincing argument away from giving it a go! :D


I've played this build for the past 3 leagues and I can't tear myself away from it because it's so fun. The only downfall is it's slower to level, but whatever. The tankiness does come from what you just said. High amounts of ES, Leech, being immune to literally everything. The crit spikes are a real concern, but I believe immortal call helps with some of that. You'll have a lot of oh shit moments where you almost die, but you leech right back to full. I'd say if you're on the fence, go for it. It took me a league to really get the build perfected, but now it's like second nature getting it put together. I may try to Trickster version just for shits and giggles.
Glad to see people saying the Trickster variant has promise, I was planning on forcing it this league start and I'm sure my PoB isn't very good :D
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Jadran wrote:
What worries me is non existent Armor, Evasion and low-mid block chance.

Doesn't the build die to random high crit elemental / physical hits? (no crit immunity) Or is the strategy in the vein of - as long as we're leeching we're fine and high ES pool protects from freak damage spikes?

Don't underestimate block. 40-50% is a very serious defense layer.

Armour is also not non-existent. Steelwood Stance is awesome. It gives just enough armour to provide a reasonable phys mitigation before the diminishing returns.

Anomalous CWDT - IC - ID link keeps IC up a lot.

We are in fact immune to repeated crits, from Solaris. And the mod that made some rares randomly 1-shot on the first hit (Powerful Crits) is gone.

Multiple layers of defense combine in this build. You can see the results in the many videos I've posted over the years.
Last edited by Kelvynn on Aug 19, 2022, 12:42:59 AM
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Kelvynn wrote:
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Firestrike9 wrote:
Glad to see you're playing this league again Kelvynn, I also PoB'd it with trickster and while the extra defensive layer looked nice (30% chance to evade just from helmet, ES overleech and es on kill) we are losing stun immunity, perma conc ground and everything else scion gives, for me it shows as if Scion has 25% more damage than Trickster using the cluster tree.

I feel like for me the choice is between witch and scion, I have a feeling Scion is the winner here despite Witch having 10% more damage and profane bloom, with the reservation nerfs it will be much harder to get it going,

Maybe your PoB wasn't optimized enough. Mine shows the boss damage pretty much on par with the Occultist, i.e. higher than the Ascendant.

I've updated the Occultist. Sustaining mana is a pain now. Need Enlighten lv 4 and 2 extra nodes, if you want to keep Aspect.

The main attraction of the Trickster is the overleech. Plus the evasion (I have 44% in my PoB even without flasks). Plus the rotating 40% less damage from hits/dots. In maps that guy should be just about unkillable. And he should have the easiest time with the bosses too. No mana issues. Stun is covered by the jewel enchants - Harvest crafting that mod should be super easy now.

It remains to be seen how it all actually works. But since I've played both the Ascendant and the Occultist many times, I'm very open to try the Trickster. Gonna post that version soon.


Yeah I probably missed something and calculated the DPS as all I did is unallocate nodes and connect to the shadow start, if you can share the Trickster PoB before league start that would be awesome, thanks!
What ascendancies are you taking?
I'm hyped to try the Trickster too. Always loved the cowled guy.
Shavronne wrapped Kaom's waist,
with her gilded purple boots.
"You want my sockets?"
Kelvynn already posted preliminary trickster based build here https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3294484/page/2
I added a section for Other Versions to the guide. You can find the links to the Occultist and Trickster versions there.

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