Last week we talked about the changes to Ice Spear as part of our Cold Spells revamp in 3.5.0. Today we're discussing the updates to Ice Nova and Vortex, which have received some cool new interactions.

Ice Nova

The skill now adds cold damage to hits against chilled enemies, as well as having a damage rebalance, making it much more useful as a standalone skill while also having some casual synergy with effects that reliably chill enemies.

If you cast Ice Nova while you have a Frostbolt within a large range, it'll cast again on two additional Frostbolts, with a short delay between each repeat, letting it cover a large area. Because this lets you cover a much larger area with multiple bursts of damage, the skill's area of effect is slightly smaller when cast on Frostbolts. We've also removed the damage bonus to the skill when cast on Frostbolts, as the added cold damage to chilled enemies fills this role now.

The skill now has a unique interaction if supported by Spell Echo and cast on a Frostbolt: the player only casts once, with the repeat automatically occuring on the Frostbolt. The player still benefits from the cast time and damage increases of the Spell Echo Support.

Vortex

Vortex is now Instant, with a 1.8 second cooldown. It gains cooldown recovery speed as the gem levels, reducing the cooldown to just over 1 second at level 20 of the gem if you have no other cooldown recovery speed modifiers. This unique behaviour lets it work as a standalone skill that you can cast while moving or by using it while also casting other cold spells. You can also use it as an instant slowing effect in any build!

The size of the ongoing Vortex effect has been increased, and now matches the damage area, making it much easier to catch large groups of enemies in the damage over time effect.

When cast while you have an active Frostbolt, it'll cast again on four additional Frostbolts, with a short delay between each repeat, letting it cover a very large area. It is a very effective clearing tool alongside a supported Frostbolt. With slower projectiles on your Frostbolt you can get a lot of hits on a tougher enemy, while keeping them slowed in the Vortex effects.

Because of the powerful nature of these changes, the skill area is now slightly smaller when cast on Frostbolts, including its ongoing Vortex. The skill no longer has a damage bonus when cast on Frostbolts.