Frost Blades

Didnt notice any change with the patch in how my Frost Blades performs, so i guess the shotgunning bug was quite rare.

As for leveling with Frost Blades, sure Multistrike helps a lot, and even nerfing yourself with Melee Splash can help, but to be honest, after playing an FB char to 90 i think i've grown accustomed to it's targeting.
I used the skill as a Ranger in one of the 12m Descent Bursts recently and found i actually performed quite well with it without any supports.

Also, in comparison to Twintales experiences with physical FB, my build is elemental and there Added Lightning and Added Cold are my 5th and 6th support by quite a large margin over things like Faster Attacks or the physical/melee/projectile supports.
Those two also have the benefit of being versatile in alternatives, meaning i can easily switch to say Increased Rarity on easy maps, or Ice Bite on vulnerability/no regen maps where Blood Rage becomes quite painful.

After having problem with lagging / FPS crazily dropped, I've come to a conclusion that Frost Blade, with Lock Step mode, is related to the said problem.

When using Frost Blade with Chain / Fork, I noticed a huge spike in latency. Normally my latency is around 60-80. But when the Frost Blade projectile starts to fly out, the latency would ramp up to more than 150.

That, combine with the Lock step (somehow), dropped my FPS down to < 10, even on a potato mode.

Switching back to deterministic mode seems to help smoothing both the latency and FPS by a huge degree. :v

Now level 87, playing low / low-mid level map.

I don't know how would things be at the higher level maps, since I could found only 74-75 maps.

Currently, my Frost Blade setup, with WED / Hypothermia / Chain / MultiStrike / Cold Pen, is rocking 23k DPS with 7 frenzy charges. This seems to be a good number considering damage would be a lot higher since the DPS is not including Hypothermia not Cold Pen.

My averages played time should be around 20 - 30 hours a week. But I've gather enough fusing to buy a Soul Taker, which is the final key for my build. The "Physical damage can chill" seems to help a lot to trigger damage bonus from Hypothermia.

I also have Frostbite linked with Curse on hit with Herald of Ice. So the explosion would curse nearby mobs, and granted higher damage / higher chance of Freezing / Shattering bomb.

Considering the above point, I think my build seems to be one of the most success in my exiles career.

How does FB interact with sire of shards btw ?

it's bug skill Multi target not 3 Projectile.. trash ..

need patch.. bugbugbugbugbugbug

My dual crit-claw Cyclone Ranger (Warbands) used Frost Blades for leveling until i got Cyclone.

The targeting mechanic needed some time getting used to but my overall impression was very positive.
The damage is good, the skill feels interesting and the clearspeed is also good against small groups, even without heavy supports. The increased range makes FB interesting as a single target boss killer skill with Faster Attacks and Melee Phys. Especially since my build was rather squishy early on, i ended up using this version for the added safety over the higher damage of dual strike.

Initially, i had only intended to use the skill until i got cyclone but ended up basically alternating between cyclone and FB until i got to endgame and had to optimize all of my available sockets.
Not sure how it performs as a (heavily supported) main skill in endgame but for leveling and as an alternative skill, it was really fun to use!

Holy.... Looks like Frost Blade would really get some love now.

When the skill released, it was already at "good enough" level in my opinion. Now when they triple the projectiles, make it fasted, and longer weapon range, Frost Blade would be a lot stronger since ppl don't have to put extra AoE gems for boosting clear speed.

Yes it seemed very effective when I used this skill, I imagine at higher levels and with special character designs this skill though requiring positioning every so often could be used to good effect

Why do Support Gems like Slower Projectiles not work with Frost Blades?

It would be nice if such Support Gems did work with Frost Blades to make this Skill Gem a little more interesting since the secondary part of Frost Blades is categorized as 'Projectile', anyway.

Furthermore, allocating Iron Grip does not increase the damage of Frost Blade's Projectiles, which is another disappointment.

Iron Grip specifically says, "The increase to Physical Damage from Strength applies to Projectile Attacks as well as Melee Attacks." and it lies, because Frost Blade's secondary attack is Projectile.

I must also mention that every Projectile node in the Skill Tree with 'increased Projectile Damage' does not increase the Damage of Frost Blade's Projectiles, YET Projectile nodes with 'increased Projectile Speed' does work?!

The mechanics of Frost Blades is riddled with contradictions regarding its Projectiles.