Freezing Pulse

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ImpishX wrote:

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Vipermagi wrote:

...Do you have anything to improve its Damage? Added Lightning, +1 Gem levels or flat Spell Damage? Anger, Wrath?

Obviously. I tried several aura setups, and I had 96% increased cold damage and 40% more damage from elemental overload 100% of the time. If that's not enough, then no amount of damage support can help Freezing Pulse. It's just too weak.

I am sorry, but you must be doing something wrong.
I use FP on more than half my new characters on temporary leagues, it's my favorite skill, and you can easily make it efficient.

Some advice :

• forget non-cold additionnal damage, focus on cold and cold penetration, so no wrath, added lightning and such, FP has a build in chance to freeze, you want that cold damage and cold penetration.

• cold penetration is mandatory, most rare monsters have elemental resistances (and bosses), cold penetration support gem will multiply your damage by 1.4 to 3 times depending on monster resistance, it is a huge multiplier, if you don't want to use the support gem, then consider cursing, the point is you need a strong source of penetration.

• projectile speed is mandatory, the damage is 100% at projectile start, and fades to 0% at the end. I would say +30% is roughly the minimum you should aim for, but more is always better, if you can't get at least that much from quality/level/equipement, you should use a projectile speed support

• cold cluster is bad choice, for leveling at least, because stacking increased damage is less and less efficient, also, getting and filling that cluster takes way to much points

• once you reached more than 100% increased damage for FP from all sources (from increase spell and cold damage), dont focus on getting more increased damage, as it will be 50% less efficient, rather focus on cast speed, crit, cursing, whatever.

• as FP has a build-in chance to freeze whitout crit, cast speed is a bit more interesting than usual.

• Elemental Overload is plain bad idea, you can easily achieve decent crit stats from tree and equip, and you want that extra damage and thus freeze time when you crit.

• support gem to consider : LMP, added cold (at low levels), power chages on crit, increased crit dmg, cold penetration, increase crit chance (if mana cost is too high), cast speed, increased projectile speed and spell echo

• support not to use (unless very specific builds) : added non-cold, controlled destruction (most FP builds use crits), elemental focus (you want to freeze and chill), Elemental Proliferation (don't, just don't), Hypothermia (you do not realiably chill, unlike chill ground), GMP (unless you already have too much damage), mana/life leech (you have other sources of mana regen and survial, dont waste a support spot, unless you have a 6L)

• be carefull of spell echo, it is not a no-brainer, high damage boost at the expense of longer immobilization, and longer time between crits (double non crit).

• if mana cost is too high, spell echo is good, it will only increase mana cost/sec by 5%, as the echoed cast is free and give a solid damage boost.

• It's a shame but dropping LMP or GMP for one the recommend gem obove will insanely increase your damage, you'll deal 20% to 50% more damage depending on the gem. (the 6th link is a big deal)

• focusing on spell damage and using a flame totem on the side is great for leveling.

I repeat : projectile speed and cold penetration are really mandatory.

Some might disagree, but this is my opinion.

I love FP but its areal coverage is just bad. So, my suggestion: make the width of the pulse modify-able by either add the AoE keyword to FP or change the interaction between the skill and LMP / GMP.

The manual choosing of the projectile overlaying feels really bad without shootguning removed. Maybe implement automatic perfect projectile non-overlay on max proj lenth? i dont know but right now it does feel unrewarding.

Wall of text incoming:

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EnafAequi wrote:

((somewhat paraphrased))
• forget non-cold additionnal damage, focus on cold and cold penetration, so no wrath, added lightning and such, FP has a build in chance to freeze, you want that cold damage and cold penetration.

• cold penetration is mandatory ... consider cursing, the point is you need a strong source of penetration.

• projectile speed is mandatory, ... more is always better, you ((maybe))should use a projectile speed support

• once you reached more than 100% increased damage for FP from all sources ... focus on cast speed, crit, cursing, whatever.

...

• support not to use (unless very specific builds) : added non-cold, elemental focus , Elemental Proliferation , Hypothermia , mana... leech

• be carefull of spell echo, it is not a no-brainer, high damage boost at the expense of longer immobilization, and longer time between crits (double non crit).

...

Some might disagree, but this is my opinion.

This guy gets it, there are only a couple things I disagree on. FP is a viable and, in my opinion, almost perfectly balanced skill in terms of power level. It's not OP, it's extremely safe (the high crit chance -> shatter REALLY helps with the survivability as well as making clearing more efficient i.e. against crabs), and it can be built in a number of different ways. Best of all, the skill feels like it linearly responds to upgrades in gear, so it's not expensive but it can tolerate a lot of investment.

My tips:

Frostbite is a very valuable curse, probably moreso than Assassin's Mark. The quality on Frostbite is extremely valuable for a freeze-based build, and the skill is underestimated so it's relatively easy to get a high-quality gem. Quality on Frostbite grants +%increased Freeze Duration.

Freeze Duration is essentially a More multiplier on your damage for the purposes of Freezing. Mobs that are Frozen are even less dangerous than mobs that are dead due to bearers, porkies etc, so freeze duration should be a priority. You can get it on the tree (two nodes on the tree might be worth getting, one node next to Heart of Ice and the other the passive node called Elemental Focus), jewels (aim for 13-15% on each, freeze chance doesn't matter at all, life is also great on these), and of course Frostbite. It doesn't take much investment to get at least 60% duration, and again, that's like a More multiplier on freeze. With Inquisitor it wouldn't be impossible to perma-freeze, say, Malformation Piety, if you build for it.

Ascendancy classes: It's really hard to say no to Inquisitor, it allows you to drop Cold Pen from your gear which is a REALLY big deal. Obviously Assassin would work. Meybe you could even do something with Occultist, the free PCoC is certainly nice. Necro would be awkward since you shatter absolutely everything. Ranger is a good start for FP, so Pathfinder or Raider would be good; Deadeye sadly has 0 viable 6-point trees for FP, so that's sad.

Added Lightning is almost an interesting gem to consider, as FP's high damage effectiveness and crit chance mean you'll shock most things. However, if you can shock with FP you can definitely freeze with FP, so I think it's usually more worthwhile to build straight Cold damage.

Dual-wielding daggers is best. The Dark Arts cluster, opposite Heart of Ice, is fantastic for casters that use Whirling Blades, and dual-wielding also provides its own More APS. Dagger implicit crit is Not Bad. It's not hard to get Krises with acceptable spell dmg, crit chance, and crit multi if you level Vagan and Catarina to craft those stats. Once you have those, craft either Flat Damage or Attack Speed, which is a tough choice. Divinarius is a trap.

GMP is really nice, try to get enough damage to run it. It's a big clear speed increase, and it makes Spell Echo less painful to run as you're less likely to miss. Also, you'll take fewer surprise Leap Slams.
Also Spell Echo is a complicated gem with Freeze Pulse. The double-cast kind of your crit damage ~Lucky, since it's rolled twice per critical strike, and this somewhat-cancels out Echo's 90% damage multiplier. However, you still need to stack cast speed if you go Echo, as it's technically a 15% Less multiplier on crits/s (1.7/2=.85) . Faster Casting is worth trying out instead, although I ultimately did go with Echo.

Lastly, on mana sustain, think about running a mana flask as an alternative to running Warlord's Mark. It's nice to have 2 available curses for this build. Frostbite and Temp Chains are a great combo for FP, as they're both multipliers to your Freeze Duration -- do note that Temp Chains doesn't actually increase your effective freeze damage, it only multiplies the duration of inflicted freezes; however, it's still a really strong defensive bonus. Poacher's Mark is a last suggestion, for a heavy-flasking variant of the build.

Freeze Pulse has the advantage of increasing in defensiveness as it increases in damage output, it's definitely not a weak skill.

tl;dr build for maximum freeze damage and consistency. Offense is defense, don't forget to also get real defense though.

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ThatsSoGoodman wrote:

tl;dr build for maximum freeze damage and consistency. Offense is defense, don't forget to also get real defense though.

This only works at low tier maps and mobs. At higher tier maps when mobs actually get good mods freeze doesn`t even last 0.2 secs and most of the time doesn`t work at all.

tl;tr

Freeze at low lvl is godlike
Freeze at endgame plain sucks.

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kindevu wrote:

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ThatsSoGoodman wrote:

tl;dr build for maximum freeze damage and consistency. Offense is defense, don't forget to also get real defense though.

This only works at low tier maps and mobs. At higher tier maps when mobs actually get good mods freeze doesn`t even last 0.2 secs and most of the time doesn`t work at all.

tl;tr

Freeze at low lvl is godlike
Freeze at endgame plain sucks.

How low tier is low tier? When I did FP in talisman I perma-froze bosses up to T8 maps (with maybe 4ex total investment in gear, .5ex daggers each, 2ex 6link, 1ex misc.), I wouldn't think trash mobs in higher level maps would be tankier than T8 map bosses? Maybe some rare devourers/stone guys, but those are easy to kite. You are right that the "mobs cannot be affected by elemental status ailments" throws off the build some.

I really think FP is fine, as I said, it's not OP like spark but it's totally viable for high levels.

I am trying a Freezing Pulse Inquisitor now and up to tier 10 rare maps , it works alright . Reflect needs to be mitigated trough Purity's and Potions so in order to get FP to highest tiers of maps a Shav's is required. To help in Double Reflect maps you can keep a 20 Quality lvl 1 GMP in your CWDT set up (with Arctic Breath) and use it instead of your lvl 20 GMP/LMP to further decrease your damage in Double Reflect situations. The one thing that I dislike about Freezing Pulse at the moment is when you are close to walls or you open a door you can't even touch your opponents as the skill will dissipate in the edges of the doors or walls for no apparent reason. I tested it with different positioning , my ping is 10-15 but the skill keeps dissipating in the edges of the door and so you have to open a door and go behind your enemies or in the middle of them in order to kill them.
Any advice on how to improve this terrible thing is greatly appreciated. Can it be changed so that you don't have to throw yourself in harms way in closed rooms? Or is this designed , to face tank a room in order to kill it or wait outside for the mobs to come one by one hoping they find the door and kill them,decreasing your clear speed.

So, I decided to write a little feedback on the Freezing Pulse gem. I have a lvl 86 occultist with a 6L FP. I'm using:

- freezing pulse (q20 lvl 19)
- faster projectiles
- faster casting
- increased critical strikes
- power charge on critical
- LMP

I run with 7 power charges. The (self-made, I don't copy) build in general is quite good. I have basically a life/ES defense that can survive a lot. I can do merciless Malachai without dying, do merciless Izaro with relative ease, run heavy dmg maps like Poorjoy's etc. FP has its flaws, however. Let me write a little pro/con:

PROs:

- has a long potential range, depending on how much projectile speed you stack
- with LMP or GMP it's easy to hit and freeze spread out mobs
- nothing else, really

CONs:

- damage is merely OK, good at close range but bad at distant targets, no matter how much projectile speed you get
- behaviour around any obstacle is terrible, the spell will often not execute, or only visibly execute, meaning you see the FP go over an enemy but no hit occurs
- even if you're not at an obstacle yourself, the FP will stop as soon as it hits anything at all, doesn't matter whether it's a huge wall or a tiny rock
- faster projectiles and LMP/GMP are mandatory supports to expand the hit area into something you can clear with, meaning you effectively lose 2 support slots just to be able to run the spell

What this means is that you need to carry additional damage spells just for when FP decides not to work, which is quite often. Indoor maps (dungeon-style etc) are a huge pain, I find myself pushing my Ice Nova more often than FP when I run one. On top of that, a 6L FP is very underwhelming, due to Faster Projectiles + LMP. It means I only got to link 3 "real" supports.

All in all, I think the spell could use a buff. The very least that could be done is to expand the effective range so that Faster Projectiles isn't a mandatory support. Right now, I feel like my 2L Glacial Cascade on a +1 cold gem wand clears faster than a 5L Freezing Pulse. FP takes a fully dedicated skill tree + a 6L to be merely decent, where every other gem would make you god-like at that point.

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Miathan51 wrote:

So, I decided to write a little feedback on the Freezing Pulse gem. I have a lvl 86 occultist with a 6L FP. I'm using:

- freezing pulse (q20 lvl 19)
- faster projectiles
- faster casting
- increased critical strikes
- power charge on critical
- LMP

You might swap out some links if you feel the damage is just OK. Currently you don't have a single More multiplier on your gems. If you're Occultist you shouldn't need PCoC. Replacing that with Cold Pen would help I'm sure. Replacing Crit Strikes might also be helpful, although that gem is really nice to make sure you never miss a crit. Faster Casting over Spell Echo is also a strange choice to me, unless you're using a Pledge of Hands.

I agree that FP is clunky around obstacles. It's hard to shoot it through doors, since the projectile is almost as wide as the door itself, so it barely goes through if you line it up right. Standing next to a rock, sometimes I can't even cast at all, the rock eats my projectiles no matter what direction I'm shooting. FP's collision with terrain needs to be smaller, but its DPS hitbox should stay the same, I'm not sure if the technology is there for that, on GGG's end.