Arctic Breath

i rather see the messed up hitboxes fixed and the animation performance increased.

effect radius can always be buffed with the support gem.

This spell works very well on a totem with LMP+chain in combination with EE and another primary elemental attack. The totem will CC and slow mobs and proc ice EE resistances, leaving the target wide open for some lightning and/or fire damage. I have not had much success with the ability as the primary elemental attack, but it works very well as the EE primer ability. Spark as the primer provides more offensive potential, but artic breath as the primer is great defensively, and allows for more offensive based curses like projectile weakness instead of using enfeeble.

I agree that this is rather a support spell than a damage dealer.

It is the only way i can think of atm to perma-chill bosses like Piety, Vaal, Kole and the like in merciless. This can be abused if you use it on a GMP-Totem in conjunction with the Temporal-Chains-Curse, wich I call Temporal-Chill.

I use this on a Marohi-Erq-Templar that uses Infernal Blow and Ground Slam. As I have limited possibilities to make my attacks faster, instead I chose to slow my opponents down to the ground. The 30% chill-slow effect of Arctic Breath Totem and the 33%ish slow of temporal chains seem to add up to 63%, slowing any affected Boss down to 1/3 of it's original move/attack speed, 1/4(!) if you manage to somehow get a 20q-lvl20-temporal chains. The curse alone only slows them down to 2/3 of speed, 1/2 if you max your curse.

It is so much fun watching Kole initiating an Attack, hitting him with Multi-Ground-Slam and then moving sideways, being somewhere else long before his attack has even a chance to connect.

I can farm merciless Piety with this skill while still being able to lvl my char!

Another nice-to-know-fact: stun duration is trippled by Temporal-Chill as well.


I conclude that arctic breath is definitely a spell worth using, although not just on its own.

I tried a totem arctic breath with temporal chains few months back too, and yes it is really really good in slowing all mobs to a crawl including Piety. I recommend linking a chain support gem to spread more ground ice to more mobs. I also had some faster projectile speed then and it was awesome watching the projectiles flying in all directions (because of chain) and ice covering almost the whole map! :)

I named my char "WalkingBlizzard" then and really everywhere he walked, ice dragon projectiles will be flying around him and the ground will be covered in ice...

Its hit box is the main drawback imho. Sucks terribly as your projectiles get block by almost everything on the map. Otherwise I think this arctic + gmp + chain + temporal combo is one of the best cc combo to get.
Another good combo I found is also arctic + gmp + pierce + temporal + projectile weakness, but requires dual curses.

I really hope devs can buff this gem as it has a lot of potential and the animation rocks!

Sucks, too low dmg, feels clunky, nothing special.

Although the skill feels a bit slow for the damage it causes (both in cast speed and projectile speed), overall I'm liking it. I'm sure that the biggest issue with it has been mentioned already in this thread; arctic breath will explode against the smallest obstacles around in the map.

I think that Arctic Breath behavior should be similar to how Ice Spear works (float above cliffs and precipices to allow hitting monsters at the other side), but at least Arctic Breath should not be blocked by things such as the border of the "sidewalks" in Warehouses.

Mana Cost Too High, Damage too low, Cast Speed too long

Hey GGG, you remember when you made this skill? You remember designing it, making the models & textures, working out the damage & aoe & going to all the effort & $ to add it to the game?

Well so far all that dev time has been completely wasted. This skill is unusable, I would wager that there are less than 5 people actually using this skill.

-It causes fps lag
-The mana cost is too high
-Projectile speed is too slow
-Projectiles don't pierce at short rage meaning that no enemies ever walk in the ground ice
-It causes lag
-Damage is low (see mana cost)


A frosty skull leaving a trail of ice should be one of the coolest skills in the game, please give this skill the future it deserves.

Im not sure what's wrong with this skill. On paper it is pretty good. In reality I have the feeling I'm shooting dummy bullets instead of doing damage. The tooltip tells me 2.7k dps, but my 2k dps ice spear spell freezes and shreds much much better.

Do duration passives and supports increase the duration of the chill effect or the duration of the ground ice or both?

I have a 37 VS shadow going heavy into skills with duration. It's very guerilla intensive. I already use ice wall, but I'm considering using AB for the chill (instead of or as well as the wall remains to be seen).