Cyclone Cast on Critical Ice Nova Assassin Passive Tree and Gem Links

Out Of Date

March 5th, 2023, 15:07

Path of Building

Path of Building for the build can be found here.

We use the Path of Building Community Fork for all of our builds, which is highly recommended. If you are encountering errors importing the build, please ensure you are using the Community Fork.

Passive Skill Tree

Final Low Life

This is our recommended skill tree for the build.

You have some options for cluster jewels. In our Path of Building we included an example that uses a single Large Cluster and two Medium Clusters.

For Large Cluster Jewels, you’ll want to search for some with 12% increased cold damage as the small passives. It’s very valuable to have Dexterity on each of the small passives as well, as this build requires a high amount of Dexterity (210+). These notables are preferable:

Blanketed Snow
Prismatic Heart
Widespread Destruction
Disorienting Display
Vengeful Commander

For medium cluster jewels, there are many options. In our examples we chose to use those with small passives that had 10% Increased Effect of non-damaging Ailments and 10% increased Area Damage. Our notable picks:

Cold Conduction: To get reliably shocks on enemies
Astonishing Affliction: Improved Freeze and damage on targets
Vast Power: Very valuable; huge area of effect increase and damage boost
Magnifier: Area of effect increase and damage boost

There are many other powerful combinations to experiment with, but these are a good baseline to get you started.

Life Based

This is our recommended skill tree for the build. While there is a lot of flexibility in the gem links and gearing, it is relatively difficult to make adjustments to the tree without making meaningful sacrifices. Doom Cast could be dropped once end-game gear is fully acquired, as the Critical Strike is not as necessary, and a well rolled Jewel is more valuable.

The main goal with the tree is to acquire the necessary damage nodes, while still picking up a fair amount of additional Life and a staggering 8 Jewel sockets. The Jewels can be saved for last, but form a large part of the build’s power spikes in the end-game.

Start by taking the Life notables close to the Shadow starting wheel, as well as Doom Cast, before moving up towards the Witch area. Head through Blast Radius into Power Charge and Cruel Preparation. Continue down to the Templar wheel and start working your way through the Life and damage notables there. Finally, head towards the large Constitution wheel of life.
It is very important you understand how attack speed corresponds to Cyclone and Cast On Critical Strike Support synchronization. It is highly recommended that you read the Cast on Critical Strike Mechanics Explained section of the FAQ before allocating any additional Attack Speed (such as the Coordination node). Depending on your current gear setup you can actually lose DPS if you attacks per second are improperly aligned with Cast On Critical Strike Support triggers.
You may have to allocate additional Accuracy, such as one of the Depth Perception or Eagle Eye nodes, in order to cap your Cyclone hit chance. This can be done either by annointment or simply by pathing into more accuracy. With optimal gear and gems this is unnecessary. If you are league starting, however, this might be a necessity early on.
This tree can easily be converted to Chaos Innoculation for better defense and even more leech. One of the main downsides of this, however, is that the already expensive baseline of gear shoots through the roof. Since you no longer have to path down to Constitution, new options become available as well, such as heading up towards Zealot’s Oath and Arcane Potency. If you wish to convert your build to Chaos Innoculation and have the necessary capital to do so but are unsure of how to facilitate this please feel free to ask for advice in our comments section.

You want to scoop up as much Critical Strike as possible early on to ensure you are generating consistent triggers of Ice Nova as soon as the internal cooldown of Cast On Critical Strike Support is available. Assassin has a relatively easy time getting nearly 100% Critical Strike chance using this tree. If you are league starting, care must be taken early on as you will feel squishy early in the mapping process without sufficient gear to fuel both damage and defense. In proper gear, however, your character should sit with around 6000 Life and 1200+ Energy Shield, as well as the additional defensive layers that have been incorporated into the build. While this is by no means an extremely tanky setup, it is sufficient to grind level 100 [assuming competent gameplay] and ideal for high tier maps.

Gems

Ice Nova is the main “damage dealing” skill within the build, and therefore, much of our build is optimized towards increasing its effectiveness and damage. Cyclone Cyclone is used as the “trigger skill”, and will proc all our damage via Cast On Critical Strike Support. Frostbolt creates additional Ice Nova casts, and is socketed in Cospri's Malice with another Ice Nova so that it triggers automatically, effectively doubling our damage.

Vortex Vortex is used to increase our Chill effect and apply the effects of Bonechill Support and Unbound Ailments Support. Our Critical Strike chance also benefits, via the 60% increased Critical Strike Chance against Chilled Enemies that Cospri's Malice affix it has.

Below, the entire setup for gem links is available, with recommendations for optional gems included.

For all the gem links we provide below, keep in mind that we list the gems in order of priority, meaning that if you lack the required number of sockets to fit all the gems, the first ones to drop are the ones at the bottom. Also note that in-game, as long as the sockets are linked, it makes no difference at all what order the gems are placed in.

Final / Low Life

Cast On Critical Strike Support Ice Nova 6-Link

Increased Critical Strikes Support should be used instead of Added Cold Damage Support if your Critical Strike is below 85% effective chance with full buffs and power charges in Path of Building

Cyclone — Use “Divergent” variant when you can afford for extra move speed
Awakened Cast On Critical Strike Support
Ice Nova
Hypothermia Support
Inspiration Support
Awakened Added Cold Damage Support

Cospri's Malice Ice Nova 3-Link

This link triggers automatically.

Frostbolt
Frost Bomb
###item:greater-multiple-projectiles-support#

Prism Guardian Auras 3-Link

Auras 4-Link

You should be able to run a Level 21 Precision without Mana issues at full build, but you can tailor it to an appropriate level while easing into maps. If you don’t have Discipline corruption on shield you can run it in this link in place of molten shell, or in an extra gem slot elsewhere.

Vortex 4-Link

Summon Skitterbots 4-Link

Life Based Version

Cast On Critical Strike Support Ice Nova 6-Link

This is our primary link, and the first one you should aim to fully upgrade with 20% Quality and/or Level 21 gems. The sixth gem is very flexible, and should be adjusted based on the content you are doing. Having a white socket(s) from Vorici’s Syndicate rewards can be very useful in allowing you the greatest degree of flexibility.

Here are a few options for the sixth link, once you acquire it:

Fortify Support: The best option for defense and stability. Your damage will be more than enough to deal with T15/T16 bosses, and it feels great against the Syndicate. A good option for players farming to reach Level 100.
Increased Area of Effect Support: The best option for clear speed on some maps, particularly the more open layouts.
Concentrated Effect Support: Highest possible damage option, at the expense of clear speed. Recommended to swap in for very tanky bosses, such as Uber Elder, Shaper/Guardians, or Aul, the Crystal King.
Increased Critical Damage Support: A great all-purpose option for damage if you prefer not to gem swap.

Cospri's Malice Ice Nova 3-Link

This link triggers automatically, with the Frostbolts providing additional spawns for Ice Nova and Vortex Vortex (read the tooltips of these skills if you are confused). Life Leech Support is not required, but does add a lot of defensive smoothing that is recommended.

An important function of Cospri's Malice to take note of is that the socketed gems trigger in order from top to bottom. We want the Frostbolts to spawn and then gain the additional casts of Ice Nova from them, therefore, you will want to ensure that Frostbolt comes before Ice Nova in the link.

Auras 4-Link

This is one of the most important links in the build, and it greatly boosts our general defenses and survivability.

While Act/Map bosses have 60% less Curse effect, and Guardians/Shaper/Elder have 80% less Curse effect, this Enfeeble setup is highly valuable for most other situations and virtually required for Guardian and Elder Maps in order to prevent random deaths.

Vaal Discipline ( Discipline active — only with recommended Watcher's Eye) OR Flesh and Stone
Enfeeble
Blasphemy Support
Enlighten Support (Level 3/4)

Discipline is the best possible option for this build if you are using a Watcher's Eye with the Discipline mod +Energy Shield gained for each Enemy Hit while affected by Discipline. This is optional, but it does add a massive defensive increase to your exile that allows you to play with confidence. The ideal second affix on Watcher’s Eye would be Gain % of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield while affected by Clarity, however, this will force you to use a Level 1 Clarity Clarity somewhere else in the build.

Vortex 4-Link

This can also be reduced to a 3-Link if necessary, for example, if you worked in an extra gem such as Decoy Totem, or you were using a pair of Bubonic Trails with 2 Abyssal sockets.

Vortex
Bonechill Support
Unbound Ailments Support (all round) OR Vaal Righteous Fire (maximum boss damage — do not activate Righteous Fire)
Arcane Surge Support (Level 6)

Additional Auras and Cast when Damage Taken Support

Precision can be leveled up or down depending on how much Mana you have unreserved and how much Accuracy you need to stay capped at 100%. Level 4 Enlighten Support in your main auras link allows you to level Precision up to much higher levels in this link. If you are using Flesh and Stone instead of Discipline you will also be able to level Precision higher. Remember to spec out of as many Accuracy nodes on the tree as you can if you are able to level Precision up.

Herald of Ice
Precision (Level 5)

The other two skills in this item or link are entirely player’s preference. By default, we recommend Cast when Damage Taken Support (Level 10) and Immortal Call (Level 12), however, these are far from required and can be dropped if you feel stable enough without them. Some example recommendations that can also be great choices:

Phase Run increases clear speed
Vaal Righteous Fire increases boss damage and allows the use of Unbound Ailments Support in the Vortex link
Decoy Totem makes bossing safer
Vaal Grace or Vaal Haste can be used as another active effect

There are plenty of viable choices depending on playstyle and preference.

Mobility Skill 3-Link

Pick one of Leap Slam, Shield Charge, or Whirling Blades for mobility, based on preference. Our default recommendation is Leap Slam due to the advantage of being much more versatile in areas with many gaps or walls such as the Labyrinth or Shrine Map, and our penchant for dual-wielding foils in Patch 3.8 Blight League.

Check out the main page of the guide or use the menu on the right side of this page to navigate to the other sections of the guide.