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

Just checking in after final decision to give this a go: What is your guys' leveling approach?

I for one lean towards starting cold dot trickster. Yes yes, Vortex, I know. Fact of the matter is: Dmg untouched, mana costs are covered by clarity, and the cast time can be offset by taking a caster mastery which gives 6% faster cast speed for each non instant skill (vortex, CS, CF, Frostblink, Arcanist brand = 40%) which makes the entire rotation actually faster than before once u have one single mod on gear.
3h til blood acqueducts, 2h heisting from 60-71.
Only contemplating to swap right there (Heist should enable enough money for Astramentis) or to actually keep going up to like 90 atlas completions and more like level 90. The fact that we are int-stacker and therefore have more demands on the tree lets me lean towards the later swap.

What do you guys normally do to optimize early league?

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Vennto wrote:

Just checking in after final decision to give this a go: What is your guys' leveling approach?

I for one lean towards starting cold dot trickster. Yes yes, Vortex, I know. Fact of the matter is: Dmg untouched, mana costs are covered by clarity, and the cast time can be offset by taking a caster mastery which gives 6% faster cast speed for each non instant skill (vortex, CS, CF, Frostblink, Arcanist brand = 40%) which makes the entire rotation actually faster than before once u have one single mod on gear.
3h til blood acqueducts, 2h heisting from 60-71.
Only contemplating to swap right there (Heist should enable enough money for Astramentis) or to actually keep going up to like 90 atlas completions and more like level 90. The fact that we are int-stacker and therefore have more demands on the tree lets me lean towards the later swap.

What do you guys normally do to optimize early league?

I'd be interested to know everyone's strat as well. I usually follow Kelvynn's guide and do Icicle Mines. It's convenient, but slow to get rolling.

@Vennto: Vortex's damage got nerfed also.

I generally always end up with Freezing Pulse/Frost Bomb. Drop frost bomb ahead, and run through. If monsters are tougher, use FP.

I've tried mines and can't stand the drop then detonate mechanism.

Once I hit level 33, I switch to the staff and it doesn't matter after that (though I usually have to wait until 39 to do that as typically the staff doesn't show up on trade until a few hours in.)

Yeah, for me it takes 15-20 hours to hit maps because the staff doesn't really kill all that fast in the beginning, mobility's always slow (either stop and cast, or slow cycloning), and I spend time on gear and ensuring I have all of my gems in place by level 40ish. (Note: I've levelled up Toxic Rain and Necro summoner builds to maps in < 10 hours, so I don't think it's a skill issue. It's basically a lack of a powerful instacast fire and forget AOE spell.)

I would be delighted to try a different levelling build that doesn't require a major respec and doesn't require any specific uniques, but have yet to find one.

Okay let's give it a shot. Possible levelling cold spells are:

Freezing Pulse (1)
Frost Bomb (4)
Creeping Frost (12)
Ice Nova (12)
Ice Spear (12)
Cold Snap (16)
Eye of Winter (28)
Vortex (28)
Glacial Cascade (28)

Ice Nova/Ice Spear/Cold Snap look like a good alternative to Freezing Pulse/Frost Bomb.

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Graiaule wrote:

@Vennto: Vortex's damage got nerfed also.

Ye this is how this community reads the patch nodes. Hit-dmg got nerfed by roughly 36 %. Do you know how much the hit dmg contributes to the overall dmg of Vortex? Roughly 5 % to the overall DPS. So we lose 1,8 % damage from the Vortex-nerf in total. If this constitutes a noticeable nerf in your opinion, then by all means, don´t play it.

Apart from that - AerO_ is preparing an Ice Nova Leaguestarter. Maybe this is something worth to look into.

My Strategy is to chill while playing, I am through the campaign after about 10 days :) So I really dont care what the fastest way is.

But i guess that strategy is wothless for people who want to reach maps fast.

I usually just try to have fun with the repetitive playing of the campaign, trying out new gems I didnt play before.

I usually start as herald / aura stacker, with Frost blink as move skill + damage dealer.
For bosses i use eye of winter or explosive trap.

You can check my characters, all named "ATEST" are lvl pratice characters.

Follow 2 gameplay exemple videos both with a10 kitava under 6 hours:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR5yrZ8PL2A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_LnH6wn4Yw

One as aura stacker, and another with hatred / hereald.

There wont be instant vortex anymore, so the gameplay "for me" will be:

Frostblink aways when CD is ready
For blue/yellow mobs, cast from far Cold Snap + Unbound ailments + bonechill then frosblink on top, it probably will delivery a killing blow;

For bosses probably explosive trap or eye of winter... maybe vortex, lets see on the start how it feels...

Hope it helps!

A question: how good is anathema on this build, is it worth as a replacement of one high tier ring? Considering a possibility of adding power charges with new ascedancy?

With the new cyclone speed buff, the Stampede doesn't seem worth it. This opens up some extra int on boots options, but we loose the ability to dobule-annoint, which means loosing an aura without enlightenment lvl4.

Any ideas on how the get the last few % reservation we need ?

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ccarles wrote:

With the new cyclone speed buff, the Stampede doesn't seem worth it. This opens up some extra int on boots options, but we loose the ability to dobule-annoint, which means loosing an aura without enlightenment lvl4.

Any ideas on how the get the last few % reservation we need ?

See page 297.

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Vennto wrote:

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Graiaule wrote:

@Vennto: Vortex's damage got nerfed also.

Ye this is how this community reads the patch nodes. Hit-dmg got nerfed by roughly 36 %. Do you know how much the hit dmg contributes to the overall dmg of Vortex? Roughly 5 % to the overall DPS. So we lose 1,8 % damage from the Vortex-nerf in total. If this constitutes a noticeable nerf in your opinion, then by all means, don´t play it.

Apart from that - AerO_ is preparing an Ice Nova Leaguestarter. Maybe this is something worth to look into.

Okay, thank you for the clarification. I'm still reloading my brain after a year away from the game.

The key is not to level up with a build that requires too many respecs -- whiterockxx's unfortunately seems to take about 35, though. I suppose the trick is to use the levelling trees but hack the spell gems to maximize dps... (or make enough currency fast enough you just buy the respecs.)

Ooh, I see you have posted a partial cold dot trickster build. You've got the important part, the gems! What I'll just do is to go ahead with the normal WI tree but use dot trickster gems. I'd guess a 50% dps loss but that's fine if that gets me to maps on day 1.