Glacial Cascade - Calling the Hivemind to think-tank it's usage

i just started levelling a selfcast dual divinarius discharger. now i think i have the perfect skill to generate power charges (also using vols protector) .

the damage and aoe coverage is pretty good and hitting 2 mobs bumps me to 4-5 power charges instantly. i 2-shot most mobs on my level (41) without crits as well.

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torturo wrote:

It doesn't look that bad. Cold damage is lower than FP, but the phys part in addition will help with resistant mobs, providing damage anyway.

What bothers me is the 80% effectiveness and the fact skill could be effectively boosted only by % spell increase. Elemental and cold increase won't do the trick, as the physical part is important as well.

Hatred + Added Fire Damage.

Now the physical component is pseudo boosted by elemental damage.

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SVD wrote:

i just started levelling a selfcast dual divinarius discharger. now i think i have the perfect skill to generate power charges (also using vols protector) .

the damage and aoe coverage is pretty good and hitting 2 mobs bumps me to 4-5 power charges instantly. i 2-shot most mobs on my level (41) without crits as well.

This can happen because icicles hit the target multiple times, probably depending on how much the hit box of the target is large... It is very difficult to estimate the real damage (not tooltip) of this skill without knowing how many of the icicles can hit each target

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piov1984 wrote:

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SVD wrote:

i just started levelling a selfcast dual divinarius discharger. now i think i have the perfect skill to generate power charges (also using vols protector) .

the damage and aoe coverage is pretty good and hitting 2 mobs bumps me to 4-5 power charges instantly. i 2-shot most mobs on my level (41) without crits as well.

This can happen because icicles hit the target multiple times, probably depending on how much the hit box of the target is large... It is very difficult to estimate the real damage (not tooltip) of this skill without knowing how many of the icicles can hit each target

thats why i wrote this :D.

quality effect (had to throw 2 gcp on it ..) is 0.5 % area damage (10% on 20% quality). so quality is 99% wasted on this gem.

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BisuProbe wrote:

so this means that if you support it with conc effect, does it change the amount of icicles in the area?
or does it shrink the size of the icicle along with the area instead, allowing to hit an enemy with more icicles on top of the boosted dmg?

I don't think it works quite like that.

I've been using Voll's to do some testing - obviously, if I crit and an enemy has been hit multiple times by Glacial Cascade, I'll get 2+ power charges.

With Concentrated Effect and no other AoE modification passives/effects I was not able to generate multiple power charges from a single enemy.

With Increased AoE (level 19) I've only been able been able to generate 2 power charges from a single monster once - which makes me suspect desync more than a second hit.

I'm changing some things around so I can test on a character with 52% increased aoe in passives. If that doesn't produce multiple charges per monster, I'm going to say Glacial Cascade can't make multiple hits vs a single target.

KG31459 might i employ you to add "knockback" support gem to your set-up and see if a knocked back enemy is able to create multiple power charges?

It might be that you are able to knockback an enemy in the next aoe radius delivering multiple hits if knockback is successful.

Just a thought i think is worth testing.

Peace

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Boem wrote:

KG31459 might i employ you to add "knockback" support gem to your set-up and see if a knocked back enemy is able to create multiple power charges?

It might be that you are able to knockback an enemy in the next aoe radius delivering multiple hits if knockback is successful.

Just a thought i think is worth testing.

Peace

Knockback seems to cause enemies to be damaged twice by GC. It isn't as easy to test (I don't have a high-level Knockback gem), but I was able to generate two power charges and also heard a distinct double impact noise.

Again, the generation of two power charges with Glacial Cascade + Knockback seems to be independent of AoE increases/decreases. I've managed to generate 2 charges via knockback with totals of both -30% aoe and +84% aoe.

I could still be wrong, but nothing indicates that Glacial Cascade can hit a single enemy twice without knockback.

seems to hit multiple times to me.. based on watching monster hp go down in stages

I don't have volls so can't test it

I tested it on someone with AOE passives

My testings:
very close enemy- damages twice
mid ranged enemy(the vast majority of its aoe)- damages enemies 3 times(with a very rare 4th hit)

Knockback can trigger each time the enemy is damaged, thus can be knocked back several times with one cast. knocking your enemy back doesnt change the number of times they are hit by it unless it knocks them out of the aoe. although it may just be that it only rarely knocks an enemy back so that they get hit for the fourth time.

Conc effect had no effect on number of the times the enemy was damaged.
Inc AoE had no effect on number of the times the enemy was damaged. (and after further tests, a LOT of inc AoE will actually REDUCE the number of times the enemy is hit to 2)