Frozen Legion

Just got an Inquisitor to maps in Ruthless, currently level 71, using Frozen Legion alongside Ice Crash. Very limited gear+links, my Ice Crash is only a 3L and my Frozen Legion is only supported by Pulverise right now.

Using the skill in tight corridors feels incredibly awkward with how many of the statues don't get placed due to the tight confines of the area. While it sort of makes sense, it leaves the skill really unreliable and finnicky, especially because the spawning of the statues is dependent on the direction you cast your skill in, so sometimes in confined spaces you'll only get a single statue off if you're facing suboptimally. Given there's some amount of game logic to ensure at least one statue is always placed while you're in a narrow walkway and casting directly into a wall, it would feel much better if this logic was extended to allow for more statues to be placed (ie. if the space could fit two statues were you facing the right direction, having it always fit two statues in instead of limiting you to one).

There's also some bugs or unfortunate interactions that limit the skill too (bug report thread here). First, that using the skill while inside a Temporal Bubble from a rare monster will cause the skill to keep recharging slowly once you leave the bubble, until you're recovered all 6 of your charges. Secondly, that allocating Ancestral Bond prevents Frozen Legion from dealing damage, which is unintuitive given the skill states you're summoning icy statues to attack for you, and that other similar clone-esque summoned units, like Mirage Archers, aren't affected by this.

Anyway, to not be entirely negative, the thematics and visuals of the skill are fun, and the build options opened up by the unique mechanics the skill offers are genuinely interesting to play with. I like what the skill is trying to do, it just feels like it fell a bit short of what it could be, given the unexpected difficulties in playing it.

Currently lv 75 Inquisitor in Ruthless utilizing the following 4L for Frozen Legion:

Frozen Legion - Pulverize - Culling Strikes - Endurance Charge on Melee Stun

Overall Frozen Legion has a few big pain points that really trip it up. The first is its "double penalty" for stuns, where if I get stunned mid cast it cancels, but even after I successfully cast it, if I get stunned while my statues are out they *also* get stunned it seems, so the "stun window" is extremely long and makes the ability get cancelled by stuns more often than not. You are basically forced to take stun immunity for the skill to even feel playable.

Second this skill is basically useless in anything less than an open map. Even the tiniest of obstacles will cancel some statues and prevent their spawn. Something as simple as a small rock can cause me to take a -1 statue penalty and that feels really bad. Pillars, rocks, etc, all constantly hit me with random penalties and you can feel the damage loss.

Id propose that Frozen Legion mitigates this by simply just raytracing out a collision vector from the player and, if a collision occurs with an obstacle, summon the statue there rather than not at all.

Yes, technically this does allow players to "stack" statues by standing in a corner, but this exact same trick is something players can do with ricocheting abilities like Spark and GGG doesnt seem terribly concerned about that niche "damage boost" case there.

However out in an open area where all 6 statues can reliably spawn, the skill feels really good. It is deeply satisfying to pop off the move and cosplay as Daresso, so I really hope GGG fixes these big pain points for the skill so it actually feels fun all the time, instead of just sometimes.

At this point I am forced to supplement Frozen Legion by utilizing Generals Cry + Ice Crash, as that combo helps shore up Frozen Legions "weak point" (close quarters), but it would be really nice if Frozen Legion could actually stand on its own two legs as a skill unto itself.

This is from the point of view of a character using frozen legion of rallying as its only 6 link skill.

The current cooldown feels slightly too long.

The cast speed of the spell is 0.7 seconds, to recover all 5 charges in that duration needs 115% increased cooldown reduction speed. To get this ,without using charms which for the sake of this post im assuming wont be in future leagues, you need a combination of:

Saboteur, 30%

20% quality, 20%

Crusader belt, 20%

Crusader boots, 15 or 20%

Ashes of the stars or Diallas malefaction, 30%

Abyss jewels at 3% each

As you can see this requires a sub-optimal ascendancy and chest/amulet or an ungodly amount of abyss jewels just to get the most dps out of this skill.

However being a shadow naturally paths you through 8% increased cast speed courtesy of the notable Coordination. This increases the cast speed to 0.65 and the increased cooldown reduction speed needed to recover all 5 charges to between 130% and 133% (PoB was being inconsistent depending on where the icdr was coming from) depending on if you need to be at or under 0.13s cooldown per charge.

To be honest the level of investment needed to get the most out of the skill is disproportionate to its power.

If charms stay in the game however it feels ok to get 30% from there allowing you to drop ashes/diallas or change ascendancy possibly avoiding the cast speed reducing the needed abyss jewels from 4 to 0.

I don't get why GGG is so afraid of letting this skill shine. It has many cool aspects to it that are dumpstered by strange choices. The skill has so many tags but barely uses them.

Let us trigger frozen sweep with other skills like generals cry without disabling the legion button to give us some utility.

lv96 inquisitor - tried frozen legion and frozen legion of rallying.
Primary issue is the position required for statues to spawn.
If you're in an open area, you have an absolute blast.
If you're in a corridor or passage way you have a bad time.
Edit: Including scenario when mob is in a corner, example: Crimson Temple Map boss teleports to a corner, frozen legion can't summon or hit with more than 1 statue in this scenario.
Even if you get all statues to cooldown within the cast time, you only summon 1x because space restrictions. Feels incredibly bad.

If you fight a temporal shield mob, all the statues spawn outside of the shield.
You have to be half in the shield, so that a few statues spawn within the shield. Bad time.

The skill is limited to literally one weapon https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Marohi_Erqi
I have tried to theory craft a t0 rare, math'd every other weapon.
Nothing comes close.
Scaling Phys & Cold is limited, you're also required to wear https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Heatshiver and scale chill to even increase the damage to high end.
Then you end up wearing https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Legacy_of_Fury and running herald of ash.
You are no longer living the cold fantasy, just bound by specific uniques and the space around you to enable fun with this ability.

Default frozen legion is positioned as secondary skill. You play your main skill and occasionally use it like you would a vaal skill. As a standalone skill it currently is rather poor.

One of the main ways you scale damage on almost every melee skill is attack speed and that doesn't scale frozen legion at all.

The effectiveness of added damage isn't bad at all for a burst damage skill but when you consider that this doesn't scale with attack speed its not that impressive anymore, this gets worse the better geared the character gets.

As a pseudo vaal skill this skill could simply do with some higher numbers to make it a more enticing option.

Some other ideas

Each consecutive frozen legion sweep has more AoE and deals more damage.
You get a short duration buff after using frozen legion.
Make frozen legion somehow scale with attack speed.
Allow frozen legion to store more uses but still have a maximum amount it uses per cast.
Make it freeze as though dealing 100% more damage. This would also position it as a somewhat defensive option which could be interesting.

Frozen Legion: Frozen Sweep now has 194% Effectiveness of Base and Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 170%), scaling up to 332% at gem level 20 (previously 281%).

332/281 =~ 1.18

I'm confused why this skill was buffed by such a tiny amount compared to other melee skills. I don't think anyone had this skill on their top melee skills list. Buffing other melee skills by 100% and barely touching this ensures its irrelevancy.

Frozen legion is stronger in 3.25 and will be a worse option than in 3.24