Freezing enemies feels better then in any other gamne
Killing Frozen enemies feels better then in any other game
The Bad (All 3 Betas):
Basically any mana-management strategy was dependant on getting a “Umbral Aspect” or “Prodigy’s Aspect” Legendary, and therefore to random. Outside of that, constant mana-starvation was a frustrating issue for boss fights. Any reachable talents and tools to fight this where not potent enough at all.
Staggering would seem like it would be a thematic strength of Frost specilizations. How ever compared to what rogues can achieve, frost spells are hilariously outperformed with staggering speed (Footage above shows heavy investment into Rogue’s CC, but it really pays off). Just to much difference here. Also never felt like a rewarding strategy.
Building up “chilled” is very thematic, how ever within the level scope of these betas it did not feel rewarding/fast enough. There are options later on to tune that aspect as a player, but the early game feels very acward if you are depending on your Frost Keywords.
Spells / Enchants
Frostbolt
With the build tests i did, i only ever found use for it, as a tool to at least fight manastarvation a little bit “Glinting Frost Bolt”. That was not rewarding/helping enough at all.
The Enchant seems like a nice option to boost staggering against bosses. but as mentioned earlier it will not be able to compete with a staggering rogue at all.
Frozen Orb
It allways felt acward to play this spell optimaly. There are enviroments where it really shines, but outside of that i felt other Frost options do to much of a better job.
Also not a helping mana-management option with “Destructive Frozen Orb”
Similarly to how it feels as a Spell, the randomness of the procc, ontop of its geometry and bad controlability made it very unatractive.
Ice Shards
The Spell i want to build my builds around, since it seems like a fresh take to me. I totaly dislike that the spell stops your turnrate (once clicked, you cant keep aiming). On big enemy hitboxes it also seems like it does not aim similarly to other spells. Mana-starvation really hindered its performance against bosses.
The Enchant was probably the most picked frost Enchant, from my expirience online. It was also my pick since it alowed for incredibly strong clearing speeds combined with frost nova. It was falling flat in bossfights how ever, since it only counts staggered bosses as frozen.
Frost Nova
In the March beta (very visible in the video above) there where times where i felt that the CD was to short. In the Summer Slam i felt that a nerf was a good idea, but now even with putting 5 points into it you wont get the cooldown feeling good. The nerf seems right but overtuned.
Ice Blades
Also a fresh take, that i did not put enough attention to. I Like the idea but imagining a pure frost summoner would need one more spell of this kind to get me hooked. As a Cooldown Reduction (CDR) tool, it did not seem potent enough, if used in a build that does not intent to spam it.
The Ice blade spam build needed to be adressed, tho the Enchant seemed to be hit to hard by its nerf.
Blizzard
At first i felt like its area is to small. After getting used to it i noticed that its hitbox is actually way bigger then whats clearly visible. It did not enough damage in the betas to really fit any other use then applying chill. After the Frost nova nerf i used it to achieve more “frozen” keywords around me, wich was also affected by how chill builds up in these levels. I wish the animation would be more visible/present near its area’s borders.
The Enchant make me feel like i need to adapt a movement pattern, that might not fit with the encounter im currently facing. I would consider it against some bosses, unlikely but maybe.
Deep Freeze
Very underwhelming as an Ultimate - performance wise. hard to give it a good use in my build ideas, even after the buff. It looks very pretty tho.
Other things
The Passive “Elemental Attunement” is not really a good option for early game, since you cant really achieve good “lucky hit” and “crit rate” stats there. The internal cooldown (ICD) seems necessary, but in combination with the requirements for the procc, this seems like it belongs way deeper in the tree and then buffed for that new position.
The Passive “Protection” seemed to strong in the march betas. Now with 2 seconds uptime, i feel like it has been nerfed to hard.
When using Ice Shards as the main damage output against bosses, you are forced to build up mana and wait for “vulnerable” and - for example - “self barrier” windows to unload all your mana into it. This is now even more hard to achieve, since all these time windows are now super tight, even when not considering boss mechanics.
What i felt most is that …
Ice Shards was realy held back by the early game’s mana-management.
freezing and chilling enemies was never as beautiful and tactile in any other game.
freezing and chilling was to hard to achieve.
bossfights where a general weakness for Frost.
dungeon clearing seems like our strenght.
if i had one wish for frost sorcs:
please make Ice Shards casts more agile
Please see this feedback within the context of what was playable for me. This context also matters tho
I actually thought this was the best and most fun of the sorcerer ultimates. I played frost first on the beta and enjoyed it but it felt much weaker and slower than fire and lightning. I think when/if I do end up playing a sorcerer I will end up doing a hybrid with frost utility.
I see deep freeze as being only useful on world tier 3/4 as mainly a survival tactic that can also regen hp/mana if spec’ed correctly and restore cooldowns. obviously its a weak offensive move
unstable currents with arc lash as the shock skill will probably be meta for frost. you will just get continuous free casts of ice shards and ice blades. ice blades will greatly benefit from the 25% attack speed and with all the ice blades casts it might even bring meaningful cooldown reduction
further, and correct me if im wrong, it would be synergistic with avalanche key passive to give 40% damage increase to ice shards. even more impactful if you have the aspect of frozen memories for a second cast of avalanche
What an intriguing idea! It is not “pure frost” but my actually planned build also includes some fire passives now (devouring blaze), since its requirements is either provided by team mates, or just simply the firebolt enchant.
But i have to massage your idea into my brain for a while to really understand it. Automatic spell casting sounds fun
ah sorry, for the Avalanche part.
Wording is very strict within the Talents. Avalanche states that it affects “casts”. Triggered spells are not considered “casts”
ahh i see. That’s disappointing
Still, part of avalanche would be wasted as a key aspect of it is no mana (free cast) which is wasted on unstable currents as, correct me if im wrong, but your already getting free casts.
so perhaps you dont get the extra 40% damage but it would still afford a ton of ice shards and ice blades. just seems like it would melt bosses but of course i would need to test it out.
You cant discount the damage from arc lash either. It’s surprisingly powerful for a basic skill and you will be spamming that move for the full 10 seconds of unstable currents. In theory it just seems like it would completely outclass the other ultimate moves by a large margin in dps
i do agree that arc lash seems very nice, and better than frost bolt. Also the reason why rogue stagger builds are so strong is because when they CC, they apply full CCs. Chill is not a full CC and only 100% chill is one full CC. So Arc lash would also apply a full CC with Stun.
very attractive aspect
and any keyword you can afford to ad, means interoperability between team mates builds
my main concern with pure frost is that you only have 6 skill slots and frost requires so many skills by default because of requirements/synergies
I was very disappointed to find that in the server slam i was unable to drop the basic skill (with being constantly resource starved)
so you need your basic skill. Frost nova and ice armor are non negatable for frost. and then you ideally want to have your core skill… most likely ice shards
so 4 of 6 slots are accounted for. There is very little build variety if going frost. you constantly need a barrier up, you need to keep enemies vulnerable, and you ideally want mobs chilled or frozen. so you simply have to select these abilities out of necessity
you WILL be using an ultimate skill. especially if unstable currents is as powerful as i think it will be
so congrats, 5 skills are accounted for and you get your choice out of a whooping 1 skill from the tree
flame shield would be nice as would teleport, but you simply cant afford the slots. frozen orb doesnt make sense… a 40 mana move when you already have a 30 mana move in ice shards and already fighting for mana
lightning speer and hydra would both be nice but you cant afford to use either.
I guess the frost build variety will come down to “blizzard vs ice blades”
the other 5 skill slots seem accounted for
Oh yes. My Lightning sorceress ran Frost Bolt in her enchantment slot because it made every direct attack apply chill. Defensively it was a minor boost I suppose. Against dungeon bosses it was quite nice seeing the stagger bar continuously increasing and generating their knockdown period where I could fully unload on them.
Staggering is fun when it happens. I Also think the window got longer in the server slam. Happened a few times now against Ashava. Feel like Frost is not the master of staggering still
my plan for dungeons / mob farming was ice shards in enchantment slot 1 and fire ball in enchantment slot 2.
but for bosses neither of these are reasonable. if your concern is CC, consider simply switching frost bolt to your enchantment slot. “direct damage from skills applies up to 15% chill”. I dont know what the “up to” is supposed to mean exactly. But notice it doesnt say frost…it just says direct damage from skills.
arc lash is a skill.
you can apply both stun and chill at the same time
Disappointing. I really wanted to play an orb sorc, but that just sounds frustrating based on your feedback.
I feel like I had this problem with any active class/subclass I played. The only thing I played that didn’t have this problem was the zookeeper Necro, but that had entirely different problems altogether.
i am currently planning to run with a Barb and a druid. And banking on getting my critrate high enough to leverage “devouring blaze”. Gotta keep testing frost shards, i just have to.
I really think the game we were able to play so far, really was to limited to make a final judgement on viability of Frost. But damn did it feel held back
