Arctic Breath

I played an Arctic Breath build in Betrayal league and really enjoyed it. It wasn't insanely strong, but it was solid. I think I took down every big boss except Uber Elder and Uber Atziri. My favorite thing about the skill was how awesome the ground effect looked creeping toward enemies.

I just tried it again this league while leveling and the ground effect is horrific. Before, the ground effect stayed in place and slowly expanded toward enemies. Now it's just a VERY ugly ground blob that appears to be floating a few feet above the ground. The entire ugly blob moves around instead of expanding like it used to.

I don't know why this changed, but it's one of the few times I've seen something in the game go from looking amazing to looking like rotten ass. Please rework this skill visually. Just going back to the previous version would be enough. It's tragic what you've done to it.

I recently tried out a Spire of Shards+Trap Support+ Arctic Breath build, it was pretty good for DoT and shotgunning enemies. Fun, and effective~ The pools are great for telling you if there are nearby enemies offscreen too!

However, it seemed like each individual trap had it's own 10 puddle limit. While throwing multiple traps a second, this wreaked havoc on my PC and the PC of my friend. :P

I've been playing an cold-dot occultist up to level 88 and have been running all three of Cold Snap, Vortex and AB.

Quickly summarized, AB is really lousy. I have AB in a 6L chest, Vortex in a 5L staff and Cold Snap in a 4L Rime Gaze. Guess which one does the least damage? It's not even close.

The creeping ground effect for AB is a mechanical mess, with it being way too slow and not lasting long enough to provide any value.

The ONE upside that AB has over the other two cold-dot skills is that it has no cooldown, but that's a false benefit because almost all of the damage from this type of build comes from a dot that doesn't stack. I'd way rather it be a decent skill with a cooldown, rather than a worthless spammable skill.

Suggestion:

Get rid of the silly-looking creeping ground mechanic, and replace that with a projectile that explodes and applies a fast-ticking AOE dot.

Either that, or make it a non-channeled cast-ray that applies a dot on everything it hits (more breath-like).

The current design doesn't really have a future IMO.

hi, can you make Arctic Breath move faster on the ground, its a nice skill but would like too see it move faster.
and not curser Bound something like go to the end of the screen and every time it hits an enemy it creates a small Version of the now one, and max of 20 or 30 of those Arctic Breath Ground things.

REWORK THIS SKILL

you know that "cold breath attack" Tul, Creeping Avalanche does??

i think thats what arctic breath should be, it lives up to its name



and people dont really play this anyway as cold DoT when u already got cold snap + vortex combo

One of the things that really bothers me about this game is that so many of the skills are hot trash and not remotely useful.

It's nice that we have choice and options, but when there are so many bad ones it takes away from the experience a bit. Arctic Breath, in my head, is dog's breakfast of mechanics and none of them really work satisfactorily. I'd honestly prefer they just removed it altogether rather than leave it in the game as it is. I know it's stupid but it just sits there...taunting me that it's baiting me to try and make it work at things Cold Snap and Vortex objectively do way better.

projectile speed is still too slow.

also, ground dot could use a boost in movement speed.

Ok, anyone working or read


testing testing

the gem is now called "Creeping Frost", the thread need to be renamed

Played a life-based tri-curse occultist with triple cold DoT (6L vaal cold snap, 4.5L vortex, pseudo 6L AB). I used AB and VCS for clear, and all 3 plus frost bomb for bosses.
Easily shattered all endgame content, but ultimately fully respec'd because:
a.) the build didn't meet my standards and
b.) it was INSANELY laggy in 90% of maps (the AI of this skill is bugged? no idea)

Arctic breath or rather creeping frost needs a rework. No, seriously. Right now it's more of a "filler" skill if you got tired of playing the usual vortex+cold snap, but it lacks its own identity and soul.

Base aoe is too low for clear, so like with many other projectile-based skills - you have to use gmp. It also feels bad without pierce, meaning you either sacrifice a jewel slot, or another support link. Damage is between vortex and cold snap, but both of those skills easily outperform AB. The only good thing about AB is its low cast time. Oh, should I mention the shotgunning potential for a non-DoT build? Yeah, you can shotgun with this skill. But so can you with fireball, which has THREE times (literally) as much hit damage and damage effectiveness.

The worst part of this skill is ironically what the new name suggests: "creeping frost". The cold puddles are ridiculously slow, and there is only one way to make them creep around slightly faster (38% uber lab helmet enchant). That alone makes this skill unfun to use and quite ineffective. I cannot imagine playing it without a secondary cold DoT spell.

Suggestion #1
Make the movement speed of the cold DoT ground scale with something. Chill effect, cast speed, your overcapped cold resist, really anything... Or make it move much faster if created on/near another creeping frost ground - this would also mean that investing in additional projectiles gets rewarded but doesn't feel mandatory, instead of the usual mundane "link gmp because otherwise it's simply unplayable".
Suggestion #2
Introduce vaal creeping frost: You hurl a huge projectile at target location (either piercing anything on its path, or flying above like an artillery missile). Upon landing it creates a strong DoT puddle, and shoots a few smaller projectiles around it (similarly to cremation, but only once), which then create minor DoT puddles.

boring skill, degen is too low and the creeping part is too slow even with alt quality