Frost Bomb

Initially, I wasn't a fan. I'm aware it was introduced as a means of giving players more stuff to cast. And honestly, I don't like that notion. To me, the fewer buttons I press, the better. However, now that Blasphemy exists, it's not such a big issue, and it's actually very nice for increasing your cold damage.

Well, that's just me.

The cooldown and duration makes it clear that this is meant as a supporting spell, but it does seem quite strong if you ignore that. So I'm going to try to work around these limitations, of course.

I was really looking forward to this skill and played around with it for a while. I clear faster than it takes to go off typically so it didn't provide much actual damage, so I linked it to reduced duration and increased aoe.

While fun to watch explode, and as a nice ranged aoe option its fine. The actual debuff does last for 2 seconds after the explosion so its still doing its thing. I just kept going back and forth on using it as an attack or as a debuff skill, ultimately settling on neither.

Instead I just link Orb of Storms to Curse on Hit and Elemental Weakness like I imagine most people are doing. This really works wonders, it lasts longer than Frost Bomb, and debuffs WAY more too.

If I were pvping someone using RF/vitality then I'd be popping out frost bomb to watch them crap themselves. Other than that the skill is inefficient both as a damage source and as a debuff. If each pulse from the bomb actually chilled enemies then it would have much greater utility. Mobs wouldn't wander away from it so easily, and you could drop it defensively like you would Cold Snap only it wouldn't freeze until it exploded.

I do like that it is ranged, something orb of storms is not. Orb requires you stand next to your targets for full effect, which with enough aoe passives is a relative term. Frost bomb you can just set it and forget it. It just doesn't really do much for you if you don't really need to kill something's regen. Stacking it with elemental weakness/frostbite would obviously help, but that is way more set up to actual DDing then I typically need to do.

Now that I've tested it, I have a suggestion on how to improve this skill.

Right now, the 3.5 seconds duration before exploding plus the cooldown makes it very ineffective as a source of damage. The cooldown can be worked around with Trap, but the duration is a bigger problem. There aren't enough ways to reduce it, and at most you can get it down to maybe ~1.3 seconds with heavy investment.

So why not give it an enchantment that reduces the duration, rather than one that improves damage like it has now?

Alternately, introduce more ways to reduce duration. Maybe change the quality. Until then, I'm gonna have to pass on this skill. It's not worth using.

I'm actually for the current duration of the skill, however I think it needs another effect to really be special.

The duration, even with less duration support is quite long for offensive use and somewhat redundant for support. The skill casts it's debuff 4+ times on the same enemies fruitlessly, then explodes (which looks great btw).

IMO the duration is fine considering it's offensive support, it's the effect being applied multiple times that needs 'something'.

I have 2 suggestions...
1.) Chill or movement speed nerf effect added to the pulse for 0.3-0.6 seconds or so. This way, a player that wants to use it purely for support can link it with increased duration and stack duration to slow enemies effectively. While offensive users can use less duration. This will help keep enemies in it's AoE.
2.) Count the pulse effect as a hit. Not sure if this is already the case, but I don't see how it could hurt.

I'm currently running it on a crit saboteur, linked with trap, cluster trap, and reduced duration. As well as sunblast and warped timepiece to speed things along. My basic strategy is throw trap, lightning warp to traps (ele equilibrium), and then blade vortex (knockback, PCoC) until they explode.

Skill has two "times" - 2s and 3.5s - Which one about debuff and which one about Explosion?

-20% res - it apply with stack? (-20% -> -40% -> and so on)

Can i set it in Trap? Is it possible to evoid "1 bomb" limit.

Faster puls - it is indication of time to exploud? Or each puls deal something (see up)

To answer the last 2 posts:

It is indeed possible to link to Trap and have more than 1 bomb active at once, but the effects do not seem to stack (it would be too strong if they did).
Still, it's a good way to increase coverage.

The skill is obviously not inteded to be used 100% on its own (the damage is there but the timer is annoying) but as a complement to your main cold skill.

I came back to the game after a long time and I'm using it as a boost to Ice Trap (+Cluster +Cold Pen +stuff) and it's a great tool to both ensure a pack clear and minimize mana costs.


The only thing I'm not getting is why this skill seems to have 2 durations.
From what I could find, it seems that the debuff lasts 2 seconds and can't be modified by any support gem.

This seems unnecessarily complex and it would also mean that Frost Bomb's damage is being applied after the debuff already ended.


I'd prefer a more streamlined approach:
3 seconds duration, modified by supports, after which the damage happens and it consumes the debuff.
This way there's actually a choice between longer debuff time for other skills VS faster damage.

My suggestion for the skill to make it viable end game would be-

Add multiple charges to the skill, similar to flash dash. 2 charges would be enough.

Aoe increased by 25%. The aoe is just not quite enough, it needs a bigger boost.

Duration reduced by 20%. You can find ways to reduce the duration, but again, it's not quite enough to be viable.

I played with the skill using everything possible to make it viable. Double divinarus/carcass jack/quality reduced duration/warped time piece/20% cdr helmet enchant and it was decent but not quite good enough to be viable.

I evidently hadn't played any cold skills since this was introduced, so I just tried it out for the first time. I can only speak for the leveling process up to level 34 so far. I'm not using any twink gear.

This skill feels fantastic while leveling. It gives some worthwhile variety to combat and adds a pretty significant damage boost, especially against bosses. Cold resistance reduction isn't that easy to come by early in the game.

I feel like the damage it deals when the duration's over is a trap, though. I tried to use it as a damage source for a while. It's just not worth it due to the long duration and the fact that monsters often either move away or die before it finally pops. I started using it purely as a cold resistance reduction spell pretty fast.

I think the best links will end up being Faster Casting, Increased Duration, and Increased AOE. It's just a weak extra curse once you do that, but sometimes that's what you need. I really doubt it'll prove to be worth the socket space once I hit higher levels, though. Still, fun spell and very nice addition to the game.

This gem is fun to use against exiles like igna and xandro >:D along with void beacon

also a cool tool in pvp.