Arctic Breath

The only reason one would want AB is AoE at a distance, except AB has such low AoE range that it might aswell not be there at all.

The slow looks nice, but is simply pointless as the only thing it will ever slow down are zombies in act 1 and they don't even need it. Everything else either teleports, jumps or runs too fast for you to cast this slow as hell projectile to slow them down.

If it did dmg in a line passing over everything, or had a decent aoe range, it would be a nice alternative to FP and IS, but as it stands there is no reason to use it aside from aesthetic reasons.

I just tried using this spell for 10 levels (31-41) on an alt frost templar and all I could think about was how much easier my life would be using other spells, even Ice nova did more dmg in practice. AB's damage really wasn't a problem, but applying it was.

One could make AB work with support gems such as faster projectiles, either larger or concentrated AoE, but that just begs the question of why waste several support gem slots to make AB on par with other un-supported spells.

I'm trying to like AB, even bought a high quality gem (which doesn't do jack), but atm it's simply going to sit in my stash waiting for a patch or something.

This skill definitely needs a tweak or two. While it's a lot of fun to use, Ice Spear has it beat. Ice Spear has the massive crit in second form, travels further and doesn't stop on everything it touches. Perhaps making the ground ice better, since that's the fun, unique part of this spell. Personally, I'd like to see the cast speed/projectile speed changed. It's so very, very slow. That part is really annoying, it's that slow.

Also, this is one of the laggiest skills in the game with GMP and double totems. My PC can handle it, but I've had people kick me from groups for using it. I guess it's handy to troll people with though, if you're that kind of person.

Bottom line, while fun, this spell is not worth using for any serious reason. I'm leveling it up anyway, hoping, because it's fun.

There's no reason to use Acrtic Breath over Freezing Pulse or Ice Spear. Also the trail left behind by the projectile doesn't seem to slow down anyone at all and it disappears too quickly. The trail is also supposed to do damage to enemies who walk over it.. well.. it doesn't.

Is it possible to remake the skill so that it doesn't explode on chests and things? Can't attack anything across a river or on a hill...

Would make AB more attractive, thanks. :P I'm using it to good effect on my AoE-EE build.

I would like to see some initial dmg like on fireball on this skill because cahin and pierce feel kinda useless on this skill rightnow.
Or a burning path with cold to fire would be great.
Otherwithe freezing pulse and fireball are just much stronger then arctic breath and i dont see much people using it.

This skill isn't really practical in the sense its kind of like a go between of freezing pulse and ice spear, but lacks strength in either areas to compete effectively. The only alternatives I can see is to either increase the damage or rework the skill.

I mean, it could always be changed to something like:

1. "Explode" upon collision dealing dmg to single target (or AoE like the original)
2. Upon collision, fire off some form of debris shards to nearby enemies (either all or x amount of projectiles) where range is a fixed distance which can be increased by AoE or by increasing projectile speed (so, basically expires after a certain distance)
3. The debris shards apply bleed effect or DoT of sorts (think of it like glass that explodes) which can or can't stack.

The chill can still be applied on the debris if necessary to follow along the ideas of old gem at either 100% or % chance, or simply keep the AoE slow. Damage of said debris shards possibly affected by AoE dmg modifiers. Either that or completely remove it altogether.

This would still kind of follow the theme of the gem yet would make it very unique. The only issue would probably be dealing with dmg balancing.

It should remove any fps issues, providing nothing too special in terms of visual occurs and we could just steal the bleeding visual effect from puncture (or something unique).

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Vipermagi wrote:

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King wrote:

The only alternatives I can see is to either increase the damage or rework the skill.

Arctic Breath already hits like a truck; it's an AoE and as such benefits from Concentrated Effect.

It doesn't, really. The aoe seems smaller than fireball and it hit for about 40% less damage(taking into account fireball faster cast speed), while costing a bit more mana. The perma chill is the only advantage to the spell but it's really not a great spell, even when not taking into account the massive lag it creates if you spam it quickly with multiple projectiles type stuff. I don't think it's a horrible spell since perma chill is pretty strong, but the damage or casting time seem a bit low considering other frost options. I'd boost it to .85secs cast time like fireball or increase the damage slightly, or the aoe slightly. I've tried to like this spell but I just can't, it can't really be used efficiently as a long range nuke due to damage, projectile speed and lack of aoe and if you shotgun it, it's basically worse in all regards compared to Freezing Pulse or even Ice Nova.