Ice Nova

I made it to level 60 with Ice Nova - then I got so frustrated that I switched to freezing pulse and I'll never look back. Ice Nova in merciless has huge problems in terms of:

1) Mana Cost with (needed) support gems. Just too high.
2) Damage. Even with conc effect, iron will (200+ str) and cold pen it's not good.
3) Type. Non-projectile, non-physical spells simply lack powerful support options/aura support/synergy.
4) Usability. It's dangerous. The base cast animation is long and from mid cruel on will get punished for it. I basically play a very tanky build with 5 endurance charges and Molten Shell (+ Granites) and still had huge problems in some areas to close the distance, granite and pray for a crit/freeze.

In short, you play melee with this spell without the (already few) perks of physical melee playstyle. It was fun while it lasted but Freezing Pulse is just superior in every possible area. I suggest adding a build-in knockback (and a sliver of reduced cast time) to Ice Nova to actually give this spell a niche.

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soul4hdwn wrote:

it does scale, animations don't scale yet though. or at least enough of them.

+80% AoE is the entire top and bottom of screen.

Its the microtransaction animation im asking about.

oh... sorry then.

I built my frost 1h + shield templar around this skill.
Act2 cruel and the damage really starts to become less and less effective.

I was using it with iron will (about 175 str now) + added cold damage + cold penetration. On top of that I use the frostbite curse.

I swapped to freezing pulse to see if it's any better. When freezing pulse was only lvl 5 it already outdamaged my lvl 11 ice nova.

I now use freezing pulse with added cold damage + iron will + LMP. It's simply better in every single way. Better aoe dmg, faster cast rate, better single-target dmg and it costs way less mana.

Give ice nova some love please. <3

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Vipermagi wrote:

Comparing anything to Freezing Pulse is dumb because FP is basically the best spell in the game; it does everything you need and does it ridiculously well.

So why is it ok for Freezing pulse to be so damn good?
Either Freezing Pulse needs a nerf or Ice Nova needs a (big) buff.

I think if you change just these two things about Ice Nova, it will be a lot better already:

- Reduce mana cost.
- Improve the damage and/or improve the base casting speed.

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Stravincy wrote:

I built my frost 1h + shield templar around this skill.
Act2 cruel and the damage really starts to become less and less effective.

I was using it with iron will (about 175 str now) + added cold damage + cold penetration. On top of that I use the frostbite curse.

I swapped to freezing pulse to see if it's any better. When freezing pulse was only lvl 5 it already outdamaged my lvl 11 ice nova.

I now use freezing pulse with added cold damage + iron will + LMP. It's simply better in every single way. Better aoe dmg, faster cast rate, better single-target dmg and it costs way less mana.

Give ice nova some love please. <3

I'd like to come at what I said. I've been swapping back and fort with Ice Nova and Freezing Pulse and the aoe effect from Ice Nova does wonders. I just got my aoe support and faster casting support. When I get my hands on a 6link chest, I can add those in.

I still think it would be fair to reduce the mana cost of Ice Nova though.

I really wanted to get this to work and remade a character after the first one died to Brutus in cruel. The new character is still going strong at level 50 but in all honesty I have not used Ice Nova since about level 30. Early game the skill is really cool and does great AOE damage. By the time you reach level 30 the damage is so low compared to the damages done by the Mobs that it's down rite dangerous to rely on. Ice Nova truly needs a good BUFF.

Edit: Every Skill should be practical within a 4 link. 5 and 6 link are bonus. Also while testing this I had taken all the aoe passives near Templar and witch. Sadly I had re-specked out of the passives to progress further in the game before I got the opportunity to test it in a "+2 to cold skills shield". Which would have only been a 3 link in any case.

This skill really need some love, and its generalized. I've just read the 8 pages of this tread and they are 2 things that need to be fixed as soon as possible.

First : The animation MUST scale with the increased area of effect. The large area is one of the onyl strenght left of this skill and you can't even really nejoy it since you don't feel it, don't see it. In gameplay terms thing will be a lot easier this way.

ANd the most important thing : The skill needs an upgrade in DPS. People are currently discussing two way to do that. Boost the raw damage or reduce cast time. Personnaly I'm in favor of boosting damage, here's why. First of all, it jsut fit better with the skill description. It's a powerfull 360 ice nova emerging from your body, I think it'll look a bit silly if the cast time was shorter. But, most importantly, the mana cost is already pretty high, and reducing the cast time will greatly increased the mana cost per second, making it really hard to balance it with mana regen.

Hope it'll get some rework pretty soon. GGG is talking about making new skills and thats so great. But that have to be sure that skills currently in place are perfectly balance.

Keep up the good work GGG!