Frost Wall Pierce Nerf - Devs please explain!

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Galtrovan wrote:

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pabrt wrote:

I'd like to know how/why Frost Wall's interaction with Kinetic Blast and Pierce was changed, whether it was an intentional nerf to any build, and whether it can be reverted or fixed.

Previously, the KB projectiles would cause explosions for each projectile that pierces each frost wall.
With the new patch it behaves differently: https://youtu.be/Wxy_cdkUCFg

As you can see in the video, piercing now creates significantly less KB explosions. When I take off most of my pierce chance, shooting the wall creates many more explosions. This demonstrates the severe impact this change has on builds that utilize Pierce + Kinetic Blast + Frost Wall.

Please respond with information on what the actual change was that causes this, whether you did it purposely to nerf a build, and whether you would consider reverting or fixing it. Many people are waiting for this information, so I would greatly appreciate an answer.

Thank you for reading & for your time.

In my opinion, it was a bug that KB explosions were occurring when piercing. You can have KB-explosions-on-pierce back when Fireballs get to explode when they pierce, which has never, ever a thing, and would be OP if it was.

Game mechanics 101... when a projectile pierces it doesn't explode.

KB is intentionally designed to explode when piercing monsters. Fireball is not.

The frost wall issue is a matter of consistency with this fact, not balancing between two different skills.

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Aziraphale wrote:

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clan_iraq wrote:

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Aziraphale wrote:

Could you please explain the permeability of frost walls?

projectiles seem to randomly go through frost walls even without pierce. Is this intended?

I can explain for you.
This is a more or less intended consequence of the change to shotgunning. Since a single target can only be hit by a single projectile out of multiple projectiles generated from the same cast/attack, a frost wall segment can only be struck by one projectile from attacks/spells with more than one projectile, the other projectiles in it go through. EX, a porcupine beast blows up in front of your frost wall. It ejects 8 quill projectiles. One gets blocked by frost wall, the other seven can go through

That would make sense, except I'm noticing this with my archer character, and attack skills never shotgunned in the first place.

Tested with almost every bow skill, with/without lmp/gmp.

With an 8 arrow split arrow, sometimes 2 or 3 projectiles will be blocked by a single cast of frost wall.

It seems to me that the sections of the wall simply are not touching, and there is room in between for projectiles to fly through.

Edit: Even just firing single basic shot arrows, they go through the wall.

*BUMP*

Can anyone clarify?

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Galtrovan wrote:

Wait... what?... If KB gets to explode on pierce then when does Fireball get to explode on pierce?

There's a significant difference between a projectile creating explosions nearby when hitting a thing, and the projectile itself actually exploding. These are not directly comparable.

I'm still confused. Don't both KB and Fireball explode when they hit something? KB may be multiple, nearby explosions at the point of impact and Fireball may be one explosion at the point of impact, but they both explode when they hit do they not?

So why then when KB pierces at the initial point of impact does it get to have multiple, nearby explosions at the point of impact and then continue on and have more multiple, nearby explosions when hitting a subsequent object/enemy? And why then when Fireball pierces at the initial point of impact does it not to explode at the point of impact and then continue on and explode at the second point of impact?

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Galtrovan wrote:

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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Galtrovan wrote:

Wait... what?... If KB gets to explode on pierce then when does Fireball get to explode on pierce?

There's a significant difference between a projectile creating explosions nearby when hitting a thing, and the projectile itself actually exploding. These are not directly comparable.

I'm still confused. Don't both KB and Fireball explode when they hit something? KB may be multiple, nearby explosions at the point of impact and Fireball may be one explosion at the point of impact, but they both explode when they hit do they not?

So why then when KB pierces at the initial point of impact does it get to have multiple, nearby explosions at the point of impact and then continue on and have more multiple, nearby explosions when hitting a subsequent object/enemy? And why then when Fireball pierces at the initial point of impact does it not to explode at the point of impact and then continue on and explode at the second point of impact?

No, not at all. KB is a standard wand projectile, and whenever it hits something a bunch of explosions are generated. The projectile itself does not explode.

mark, can you give a update on this here pls, i want to play my KB again.

It looks like this change also affects lightning arrow. Projectile effect triggers if you have no pierce, but if you pierce the wall you get nothing. Kills a pretty fun build I was hoping to play again.

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xakary wrote:

It looks like this change also affects lightning arrow. Projectile effect triggers if you have no pierce, but if you pierce the wall you get nothing. Kills a pretty fun build I was hoping to play again.

It still works with lightning arrow. I made a character and it 3-4 shot most bosses. Maybe you tried it without high pierce, because i found it very effective.

At some point, a couple weeks ago I think, this change was quietly removed and kinetic blast will currently create its explosions when piercing a frost wall. However, the build is extremely nerfed compared to how it used to be, due to the effects of the shotgunning change- each frost wall can only create explosions from a single kinetic blast projectile, and thats the real nerf.


Honestly, I think its worth bringing up the larger question of whether frost wall should be subject to the shotgun nerf at all. I don't think thats simply a question of whether the wallblasters should be unnerfed, I think maybe its okay if that particular build stays gimped, but frost wall in general is a really finnicky and clumsy skill right now that doesn't work as expected.

Because shotgun projectiles will ignore a frost wall, frost walls won't reliably block enemy projectiles who have multiple projectiles. Whether its rare mobs with the splitting affix, or mobs who have it implicitly, or things like porcupine goliaths or spark casters, frost wall is very unreliable now at blocking enemy projectiles to keep you safe.

I think one solution might be to keep the shotgun nerf in place for frostwall on player projectiles, but make it block enemy projectiles as if the nerf never happened

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YourMessiah wrote:

It still works with lightning arrow. I made a character and it 3-4 shot most bosses. Maybe you tried it without high pierce, because i found it very effective.

If it is working, the behavior is inconsistent. I have 100% pierce chance. I tried it with single projectile, LMP, and GMP, and at best, I sometimes can see a the secondary effect trigger. It requires an enemy to be near the wall, and even then, when an enemy is clear in range of at least one projectile, many times it fails to proc. WIth 0% pierce, I can see one secondary projectile hit 1 enemy consistently, though depending on which direction the wall is oriented, projectiles pass through it quite frequently.

My best guess is that it may be counting whichever projectile hits the wall first, and will create the secondary from that exact spot and from no other projectile. I hadn't played for a few leagues before this one, but I can tell you that the interaction with LA + frost wall is wildly different than it was before.

This would make sense if it is a result of the shotgunning nerf, but not all skills behave this way. For example, ice shot: LMP, GMP (doesn't matter) every projectile that passes through the wall triggers the ice explosion and the ground ice. The shotgun nerf was applied to normalize the behavior of spells to attacks. Look no further than tornado shot's continued ability to shotgun with secondary projectiles.

Which is the bug, which is intentional? Do you see a reason why lightning arrow and ice shot would behave so differently? I'm just swapping the ice shot and lightning arrow gems in the same link, so there is no other variable in play.

*edit: typos