Why Ice Shards is a well designed skill and all other Core skills need to match it

Sorcerer
1

For now lets ignore the pure damage output of the Sorcerer core skills, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Ice Shards is the best designed skill sorcs have when considering the aspects that pair with it. Here’s why.

A good skill is something you can fall in love with early on and continue to use. If you were one of the people so saw ice shards early game and enjoyed using it, congrats, you rolled a 6.

Ice Shards grows as you grow. It starts to richochet. The richochet becomes more reliable as you get barriers, or you can choose from vulnerable (but of course you won’t because every sorc in existant takes frozen nova due to its insane power).

Then you get the aspect, either from drops or from the dungeon, that allows it to pierce. It grows again. It loses some damage, but the pierce + richochet makes up for it. And it looks and feels great.

Then, as I mentioned, you add in vulnerability and all the vulnerability perks. Maybe you add the Ice Shards enchantment.

This ability grows so well with you, and it’s easy to stay in love with it.

Now lets look at something light Chain Lightning.

CL is amazing low level. It’s fun, punchy, looks good, and is strong. But it quickly falls off. As pack density increases the relative damage on CL drops significantly. To be comparable to Ice Shards it would need a chance for each bounce to double, or get a free bounce, or both. But instead it gets a rare [25 - 35%] chance to chain 2 additional times. This is completely insignificant.

Back to Ice Shards, you get some amazing synergy and choice in making it spammable, namely with Avalanche. CL has no such option, and STILL costs 5 more mana for some reason.

We could do a similar analysis for every ability other than Ice Shards, and they all need a significant rework to be at this level of FUN and POWER.

Ice Shards might do a bit too much damage right now, and a small damage nerf in one form or another may be warranted, but the real fix for sorcs is to fix every other core ability so that they grow appropriately with you as you level.

Oh, also Mastery skills are awful and should be stronger and on a short cooldown.

2 Likes
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It is a good skill. That, combined with the early unlockable aspect makes it the most ovcious choice for people analyzing their builds.

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Lol sorcs cant even run high tier dungeons and you think it needs a nerf

7 Likes
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They can’t run high tier dungeons easily.

But they can run them. I think the top tier dungeons shouldn’t be possibly without absolute top tier gear - for every class. I would like to see other classes builds that steamroll high tier dungeons nerfed too.

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Would love to see any sorc running tier 80 and up, they get 1 shot by anything around 65.

But id love more to see the devs forced to run tier 100 in perfect BIS gear before they nerf anything.

1 Like
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its not really that well design of a skill, its just good up until u can burst damage ur way through early and mid game content. once u hit lvl 40+ dungeon aka the wall that , its a complete different story. when u cant burst ur way through any more, its useless in late game dungeon 50+ lvl.

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Just got to world tier 3 on my lightning sorc, level 54ish. Really noticed today that when I switched out chain lightning for other spells like frost nova, the damage jumps immensely. Which is sad, because I really wanted to go lightning/fire to 100, but looking like I should probably switch over to an ice build based on the damage I can do to huge numbers of mobs. Lightning is great for smaller groups of enemies :frowning:

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Ice Shard is NOT a well designed skill. You need perfectly rolled items on 2 slots just for it to function properly and outside of CC the skill does 0 damage, which are all boss fights. It also locks you into Avalange, which is really bad passive compared to the others.

Overall the skill costs too much mana, needs very specific items to function and does 0 damage outside of CC. The saddest part is, that’s the best We’ve got…

2 Likes
9

Anyone saying sorc needs nerfs has 0 experience with them.

4 Likes
10

I’m running Shatter key passive with the Shatter Aspect, you don’t need to run Avalanche, you just need a reliable mana Regen which Ring of the Prodigy covers.

Same as Inferno, it’s nice but not necessary, I much prefer Deep Freeze as an extra method of survivability and cooldown resets, the ability to screen clear ranged mobs as they’ll get hit with Shatter is also nice to have.

The weakness is while you’re a room clearing juggernaut, you literally have awful single target damage without adds to trigger Shatter/Extra shards

I really do think that Vs bosses they should allow the shards to proc and treat the boss when you hit Frost Nova as if it has Frozen applied (a debuff that triggers your extra damage effects)

I’d happily take a reduction to stagger meter to be able to burn down bosses with a build that is absolutely a brilliant performer when it comes to room clearing.

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Yes you do. When you have to hit a single target for more than 4 casts, which is the case against every single elite in NM60+, because Sorc does 0 damage, you would be OOM in an instant :smiley: . Shatter is great for white content, that can be done naked, but in anything remotely dangerous, Sorc doesn’t have the mana to afford playing without Avalanche.

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I prefer avalanche, once you get a mana sustainable build the next thing you need to focus on is attack speed so you can become an ice shard machine gun.

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Aspect of the Prodigy: using a cooldown restores 15-24 mana.

Cooldowns: Teleport, Frost Nova X2, Deep Freeze (resets your cooldowns)

You literally don’t need to run it if you have a 20+ mana roll

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This is where I know you don’t understand the class. This is the most useless aspect ever. It physically hurts your character to have it on. It’s like Fists of fate. You are better off without the item equipped. Also you don’t have a slot for it. You are playing Remnant and 2 Legendary armors. 1 is with 50% armor stackable and the other is with 25% DR from vuln targets. You can’t afford to have it on either way, because you would be getting 1 shoted by white mobs… well more than usual.

15

Uh huh, not having extra damage that instantly explodes packs like they’re not even there versus spamming one button on a core skill and can no longer explode packs with the same efficiency.

Can tell you read a build guide and Don’t figure things out for yourself

But lemme explain why eh?

Shatter Aspect: Key Passive deal [30-40%] increased damage if enemies die while [Frozen]

Shatter Key Passive: After Freeze expires, enemies explode for 25% of the damage you dealt to them while Frozen

So with a max roll aspect enemies explode for an extra 65% damage of what you delt to them frozen

This is on top of your Ice Shards damage.

I never oom unless it’s a purely single target, even then I don’t just sit spamming ice Shards until oom.

I instantly explode packs

Don’t tell me how my set-up plays when I know how my set up plays.

Edit: read it before replying

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Dude, the 30% increased CD is from the base CD and the CDR isn’t applied to it for some reason. I know there is a bug that reduces the Nova CD from 1 sec to 2 sec on frozen kill, but you still have 14 sec CD on Frost Nova with 40% CDR and 9 points in it. You can not afford that, when Frost Nova is your ENTIRE damage.
Also I told you, you DO NOT have an armor slot available to use it, because the 2 DR aspects are mandatory for anything above NM60. The Frost Nova Aspect is the biggest noob bait after +2 Def on amulet :smiley: .

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Yup you absolutely read a build guide and didn’t figure anything out.

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How are you not getting the fact that you do not have an armor slot available for it? Forget the bait and the interactions with the aspect, you don’t have the armor slot available :smiley: .

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Yes because I’m really taking a lot of damage during that 8 seconds of immunity.

The biggest noob trap is reading a build guide and thinking it has all the answers and thus you have all the answers.

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Ok, dude, have fun doing white content and think you are being a useful class :D. Sorc generally is garbage and the build you think you are doing well on is even more garbage than the most optimal one :smiley: .

1 Like