Frost Wall

This skill in conjuction with CwDT is... not OP as fuck, but one of the strongest support abilities in the game, especially for builds with high pierce chance or Arc. I love it on my Arc witch, it is infinitely better than the CwDT/EC/IC setup I used to employ.

I'm not sure it should be nerfed (having the wall possess some sort of Life would do it reasonably well), but that's not the point. The point is that this skill makes a strong case for GGG to add similar "environmental support" skills in the future.

Mark(_GGG) once mentioned that he enjoyed the relationship between Molten Shell, Arctic Armour and Tempest Shield as the different defensive abilities of each Element that nevertheless have their own identity. Frost Wall, too, needs its Lightning and Fire companions.

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ephetat wrote:

This skill in conjuction with CwDT is... not OP as fuck, but one of the strongest support abilities in the game, especially for builds with high pierce chance or Arc. I love it on my Arc witch, it is infinitely better than the CwDT/EC/IC setup I used to employ.

I'm not sure it should be nerfed (having the wall possess some sort of Life would do it reasonably well), but that's not the point. The point is that this skill makes a strong case for GGG to add similar "environmental support" skills in the future.

Mark(_GGG) once mentioned that he enjoyed the relationship between Molten Shell, Arctic Armour and Tempest Shield as the different defensive abilities of each Element that nevertheless have their own identity. Frost Wall, too, needs its Lightning and Fire companions.

Sparked memories of playing my Firewall sorc back in D2. Good times.

Back on topic, I tried to find a way to use this with my cyclone build but I just couldn't find the answer. I want to try a pierce build just to use this soon.

I would like to report a bug with interaction between frost wall and ice spear.

Frost wall is impassable barrier for projectiles, both, enemy's and yours. Shooting through it requires piercing.

Ice spear have build-in piercing effect on close range targets. It works as intended - ice spear goes through frost wall when fired from close range, and it hits it if fired from afar.

The problem I encountered using ice spear with few supports that are essential for my build and seem to be designed specifically for this skill.

My thinking: Ice spear goes through close (melee) enemies, damaging and chilling them, to archers standing on back lines hitting them hard (+600% crit chance). Its quite intuitive to mix this skill with (lesser) multiple projectiles to widen the melee mobs chilling effect, aswell as hitting whole formation (usually line!) of archers at the back. To take full advantage of this skill's unique effect (+600% crit chance) its quite obvious it should be used in conjunction with chain. This two support gems change this skill dramatically. Three projectiles go wide piercing through close melee enemies, chilling and slowing them down, which increase casters survivability. When those reach the back line and transform into heavy hitting (criting) form, they chains hitting (critting!) and freezing 9 (!) targets doing short work of fragile caster and glasscannon archers. Some projectiles do 180 degree turn to help protect the conjurer from melee attackers. <- that is theory.

In practice this skill could often benefit from frost wall. Sometimes enemy back line casters are so close, that ice spear do not transform to its second form and pierces through all enemy lines without chaining effect which is grievous waste. Sometimes there is not enough (or not in line formation) enemies in the back line, so that all three (or five) projectiles hit their target starting chain nuclear reaction.

Here comes (or I should say, should come) frost wall to help. Placing frost wall behind close enemies should ensure that every pojectiles that pierces through enemy lines, hits frost wall and starts chaining back to enemies. Or in boss scenario, Ice spear projectiles should chain between frost wall and boss releasing doom and destruction upon him.

Sadly that doesn't happen. Ice Spear's Projectiles just ignore frost wall, hit boss and chaining effect is missing. Lots of mana and damage is waster (50% less dmg) and game becomes frustrating.

That you for your time and hope to see a fix for this. This skill with those support feels so much different to the plain version is mind blowing. The whole use of it changes from long range single target nuke, to long to short range cone of freezing Javelins :). Lots of umph and very satisfying.

TL DR: Frost Wall doesn't work properly with chaining multiple ice spears (ice spear + chain + lesser multi pojectiles)

The preloading on this skill needs to be improved, at least in combination with Cast When Damage Taken. The first time it's used it freezes the screen with load time almost as much as the way Summon Skeletons used to. Almost a full second.

FW + Spell Totem: Quite good when Beyond dudes popout of the ground

This skill need reduced damage effectiveness. Since heralds release damage output is too high as for support skill.

I tried using Frost Wall to block my arrows, in order to get a shotgunning effect with Explosive Arrow. For some reason, it doesn't work. My arrows go through the frost wall as though it isn't there. It works with stuff like Fireball, though.

this skill need a longer cooldown in pvp when used with CWDt

Is there any good combination with 4l gear for FW + Spell Totem?

Frost wall is currently bugged and does not have the same logic when it comes to projectiles piercing it and exploding like it did on both 1.3.0 and closed beta