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

You only care about the boots, wands and spirit shields. Can use random rares in all other slots for life and resistances. Wand + spirit shield is nice for both damage and defense.

If Tarkleigh doesn't sell 10% ms boots, make them yourself. Any white boots will do. Stats don't matter, you just want ms. You get a Quicksilver flask from the Medicine Chest quest.

Recipe: White boots + Quicksilver flask + Orb of Augmentation = 10% ms boots

Sell random magic and rare junk for Transmutation shards until you have 4 Transmutation orbs. Use them to buy an Augmentation orb for the recipe.

Further upgrade the boots at lv 15 and 24.

Recipe: N% ms magic/rare boots + Quicksilver flask + Orb of Augmentation = N+5% ms boots

Use any essences you find on wands and spirit shields. Keep the ones that roll +ele dmg to spells and increased cold/spell/ele dmg mods.

The first two items you should get after the beginner mapping gear are Astramentis and The Stampede. The amulet solves all your stat issues and gives you a ton of damage. The boots have an incredible QoL value. And they are both anointable. Steelwood Stance on the amulet (teal, teal, azure). Path of the Savant on the boots (sepia, amber, verdant).

It is often cheaper to buy 3 The Polymath cards than the amulet itself. Check the current prices.

In some leagues Astramentis is too expensive early because it's used in some meta/streamer builds. You'll do just fine with a rare amulet or talisman that gives 90+ Int and enough Str/Dex for the gems.

If you manage to get a decently high (70%+) CDR on the boots, you won't have to upgrade them ever again. When you can afford the oils, anoint them with Tranquility (prismatic, golden, silver). Get 3 red sockets using Jeweller orbs. Start with 2R craft, then keep adding and removing the 3rd socket until you get another R.

Buy a synthesized %Int belt. It should be ilvl 74+ to have a chance of decent Str or resist mods, and a 13-15% Int implicit without quality. Scour it. If the implicit is not 15% use a Blessing orb. Use Intrinsic catalysts for 20q (and 18% Int). Use a Deafening Essence of Spite to get the top Int suffix. Craft anything useful depending on the empty affixes.

It's worth buying two bases and re-crafting one when you need different resists or Str later on without ruining the one you are using.

On the gloves you want 45+ Int, two good resist mods (or 1 resist and 1 empty suffix to craft the other), and 100+ ES.

Use any Eldritch currency to roll %Inc Damage per 100 Int (blue) and Unnerve on Hit (red).

What you want is 45+ Int, 300+ ES and 1200+ Evasion. The more the better. But no crafted prefixes. And an empty suffix to craft 6% Inc Attributes (unlocked by unveiling body armours with a Hillock veiled mod).

You can craft one yourself: buy a base with a T1-2 Fractured ES or ES/Evasion mod and use Deafening Essence of Spite.

Make it 6S and dump Fusing orbs on it until you get a 5-link. You might even get lucky and 6L it (to add Culling Strike to the curse link).

Use blue eldritch currency to get 1% less damage per N Int. Use red eldritch currency to get spell crit multi.

Buy two 8-node Cold clusters ilvl 68+ and alt/aug spam them until you get Cold to the Core. It will be easier to hit if it's ilvl 68-74 (but the prices may vary). Regal them for another random mod.


Buy two Split Personality with Int/anything. This will allow you to switch to the cluster tree for a big power spike.


Buy and vaal Natural Affinity. The chance of getting Corrupted Blood immunity is low. You will want that eventually. But you can start using the jewel anyway. Buy a corrupted rare jewel with that mod and some Int and use it until you get lucky with Natural Affinity.


Buy a Watcher's Eye with Clarity mana recoup and anything else useful for Clarity, Purity of Elements, Zealotry or Discipline.

Kalandra (mirrored) rings will give you the most Int and help you max resists. Just don't take any negative mods that would ruin the build.

Avoid mods that result in life loss/degen, they will kill a CI character.
Note: "-Max Life" mod is fine, it doesn't do anything to CI.

You need an ilvl 75-79 Sunfire Circlet base. It must not have any influences or be fractured or synthesized.

Craft it with Deafening Essence of Spite until you get a decent resist mod, at least one high tier ES prefix, and an open prefix to craft more ES. You want 300+ ES total. And an empty suffix for the Hunter mod. If all suffixes are taken but the stats are really good, you can try annulling an unwanted suffix.

Before using the Hunter's Exalt, re-check that:
- ilvl is 75-79
- it's not influenced, fractured or synthesized
- all prefixes are taken
- there is an empty suffix
If these conditions are met, a Hunter's Exalted orb will guarantee the %Int mod.

%Int and Damage per Int are the two key mods. With some stats on top. This is a big damage spike, but you lose a lot of Str and Dex from Astramentis. You can use lower level red and green skill gems to require less Str and Dex. You can also craft Str on the belt and Dex on rings.

Depending on the current price of the Awakener's orb, you can choose to craft it yourself or just buy it.


For crafting, you need two ilvl 80+ amulets: one Shaper and one Crusader. The damage/Int mod on the Shaper one is pretty common, you can just buy one that already has it. Or you can alt spam it. The Crusader amulet will be your main base. Choose one with an implicit that gives you the stats you will need after replacing Astramentis. Scour the base, make it 20q, then alt spam the T1 %Int mod.

Very important: each amulet must have only the desired influenced mod and no other Shaper/Crusader mods! The Shaper one must have "The Shaper's" dmg/int prefix and no "of Shaping" suffixes. The Crusader one must have the T1 %Int suffix "of the Crusade" and no "Crusader's" prefixes.


Right-click the Awakener's orb, left-click on the Shaper amulet first, then left-click on the Crusader amulet. You will get a dual influenced amulet with the two desired mods plus random others. You may get lucky and roll a good stat suffix. Or an empty suffix to craft more stats. Finish crafting it with whatever makes sense depending on the empty affixes. Anoint Whispers of Doom and free up 4 skill points.

At this point you can farm uber pinnacle bosses. Depending on the knowledge of the fights, experience and skill, of course.

Cold to the Core + Blanketed Snow, preferably with some stats. Crafting these requires too much luck or currency. It's cheaper to just buy them.


Split Personality with Int+ES.

On the final gloves, you want T1 Int, high ES and some Dex (for a good body armour). You can craft a Warlock Gloves base that has a fractured Dex or ES mod with Deafening Essence of Spite until you get a good enough result.

When you have the gloves that won't need further upgrading, craft the high end boss damage/Int Eldritch implicit (5% instead of the cheap 3% one).


Use Grand or Greater Eldritch Ichor to get the 4% dmg/Int mod "While a Unique Enemy is in your Presence" (not the generic 4% dmg/int one). Use Exceptional Eldritch Ember to get a random high tier red implicit.

Now you need to upgrade your blue implicit to Exquisite (5%) using Orb of Conflict. Every time you use one, it randomly upgrades the tier of either the red or the blue mod and downgrades the tier of the other one. It's weighted towards upgrading the one that's lower - this is why you need the Exceptional red one.

With a good roll: your blue mod gets upgraded and the red one gets downgraded. Use another Exceptional Eldritch Ember to get a new random high tier red mod.

With a bad roll: your blue mod gets downgraded and the red one gets upgraded. Use another Orb of Conflict to fix that and get back to the previous step.

There are multiple tiers of eldritch mods with the same value. For this one, Greater, Grand and Exceptional tiers all show as 4%. Hold the Alt key to see the actual tier.

Eventually you will get the Exquisite (5%) blue mod. Use cheap red currency to roll the Unnerve mod, any tier will do.

Upgrade to a body armour with better stats. Once you get a really good one, get an Exquisite blue eldritch mod the same way as on the gloves. And a good red mod.

Crafting a really good body armour can be hard. I cannot recommend a reliable method that couldn't get very expensive. It's often cheaper to just buy one.

Note that the new top Int/Dex bases require a lot of Dex to use. Also note that it cannot have a crafted mod because you want to craft the 6% All Attr mod on it (unless that's what it already has).

Finally, you can use Tailoring Orbs to add an enchantment that increases the magnitude of Defence mods. There are several different enchantments like that, including one that also reduces attribute requirements (if you are struggling to get your Dex high enough).

You can upgrade your body armour in several steps, especially if you started with a cheap self-crafted one. Remember that your total ES from it is ES + Evasion/6.

The new top ES helmet base is Lich's Circlet. However, it doesn't drop below ilvl 84. Hunter's Exalted Orb does not guarantee an %Int mod on helmets above ilvl 79. There are 3 extra Hunter suffixes at ilvl 80. If you want to go for max possible ES: that requires ilvl 84, and the chance of rolling the 9-10% Int mod will be 1/5. If you have the currency for it, that's a viable option.

But there is also a 'budget shortcut': use an ilvl 75 Lich's Circlet. It cannot drop naturally, but it can be manufactured using the Recombinator. When you combine 2 items, it chooses one of their 2 bases randomly, and the item level of the result is the average of their item levels plus 2.

To get an ilvl 75 Lich's Circlet (with a 50% chance of success), combine:
a) ilvl 84 Lich's Circlet + any ilvl 62 helmet;
b) ilvl 85 Lich's Circlet + any ilvl 61 helmet;
c) ilvl 86 Lich's Circlet + any ilvl 60 helmet.

Ilvl 60-62 helmets are sold by Act 8 town vendor or can be easily found in Act 9 areas with those monster levels.

Once you have an ilvl 75 Lich's Circlet, craft it the same way as your previous helmet (#7 above).

Balance your resists for The Wise Oak (remember that you can switch them around with the Harvest currency).

Get the base ES close to max values on the chest, helmet and gloves with Sacred orbs.

Divine all %Int mods to the max value.

Buy Forbidden Flesh/Flame jewels for Ambush and Assassinate.

Buy a Watcher's Eye with Zealotry resist penetration and Clarity mana recoup.

Buy Enlighten (lv 3 is enough) and craft Aspect of the Spider Lv 30 (Fenumus + Black Morrigan) on any item with an open suffix.

Buy Rational Doctrine.

Once you have a decent budget, you can make a ring with an absurd amount of Int which will also cap your resistances.

Such items are created with Reflecting Mist. When it's applied to an item, that item is destroyed (and you cannot restore it from an imprint). Two mirrored copies of that item are created. Each mod from the original item has its value multiplied by a random number between 1.5 and 2.1. One copy receives that new value as a positive number, the other copy gets a negative version of it.

Buy a Helical Ring base that is not corrupted, mirrored, synthesized or influenced. Split is fine. Fractured is OK if the mod is harmless. Any item level, the lower the better (fewer possible unwanted mods).

Craft with Deafening Essence of Spite until you get 22-24% All Res. Helical Ring multiplies the mod value by 1.5 but you can hold Alt to see the base value (15-16% in this case).

Once you have the All Res mod (plus the Int guaranteed by the essence), you need to annul any mods that can be bad if turned negative by Reflecting Mist.

KEEP HARMLESS MODS! Any mods than don't matter for this build are actually good to have. It is unknown how the system decides which mirrored copy of the item receives the positive or negative version of the mod. But it seems that getting all positives on the same copy is almost impossible. The system favors an even split. Your chances of getting the positive values for Int and All Res on the same ring are much higher when there are extra mods. You can add a mod with an Exalted Orb and hope that it's harmless. You can beast craft any Aspect - they don't have negative values and stay unchanged when Reflected. You can craft a low tier of something completely irrelevant at the crafting bench.

Use Intrinsic Catalyst to get some extra Int at 20% quality.

Apply Reflecting Mist and hope that you get the positive Int and All Res on the same ring. The chance of success is 33% with 3 or 4 mods, and 40% with 5 mods.

Reflecting Mist's multiplier seems to be weighted towards lower values. The lowest roll (1.5) is the most common. The high rolls (2.0+) can take a few attempts.

Kalandra's Touch is usually less expensive than crafting another ring, it's a great choice for the other ring slot.

Failed crafts can be vendored 5:1 for a brand new Helical Ring that is not mirrored or split. You effectively get 2 Helical bases back (after splitting) from 2 failures and 1 success. Sell them for a nice 'cash back' or try crafting again for a higher Reflecting Mist multiplier.

One catch: you cannot vendor both rings from the same failed attempt together. They have the same name and the vendor will give you a Chance Orb for them! Swap them with friends (or ask for a swap in this thread) to get ones with different names. Or just do some more crafting until you have 5 failed rings with different names.