Ice magic related thoughts and suggestions
With Ice magic, deer and unarmed being looked at next, at least for their survival/tank option, no time like the present to start another long winded post and thread. This specific one will target ice magic so feel free to offer your own 2 cents and maybe cross some fingers.
(Beware this is a very long post. You have been warned)
General overview:
Ice magic is kind of a mix of control, mid to low range damage and survival but the effectiveness of each is somewhat suspect at times. It shines in the control department but plays the middle to lower ground in the tank and damage fields.
Another thing to note is literally half this darn game is resistant or immune to ice damage in general which is a HUGE problem that needs addressed. Some bosses being immune or such I understand but it severely hurts when half or more of the higher level zones either immune your damage or resist it by 50%+. To the best of my knowledge no other damage type is this handicapped by far. At the very least reducing the amount of immune non boss mobs would go a long way considering currently outside of a very low damage ice lightning you have no other effective options beyind ice damage.
Abilities:
Chill
Everything about this basic attack ends up terrible. Why does it do trauma when nothing else in the skill line does? Why is it such a short range at 10 yards? Fires is 30 and gets the benefit of being fire so all the +fire damage actually effects its basic. While it won't be amazing changing it to ice damage and anything more than 10 yards would go a long way. The only mod it has for it gives 16% increased crushing damage on the target but adds 4 seconds to the cooldown. Outside of this really probably only finding use in a staff/ice build the added duration when double stacked is a bit much. Two second per seems a bit more reasonable.
(I go further in to explaining how trauma could be an effective secondary damage type of Ice magic below. In the case of that Chill being trauma would make sense)
Cold Protection
Same thing with most buffs it's short 5 minute duration makes it tedious for no reason. Outside of that I feel either this skill should give more cold protection in general or at the very least a large bump in the direct protection and leave the indirect the same. Fire gets strong mods that add that type of protection vs fire while Ice has just this ability which does very little. One would think masters of ice would be a little more resistant to chilly weather.
Ice spear
The bread and butter attack of Ice. Has a decent amount of mods but a few are rather low in % or useless for their effect. There seems to be an idea of big variance in damage built in to ice and it's mods and this is the perfect example of it. The ONLY mods that add flat damage to this ability add 1-245 at max level. Couple this with Ice magic's two mods that add a 33% chance for single attacks to cause 48% more damage and with a dice roll this ability can either hit respectably hard or have you feeling like you slapped them with a wet noodle. In ways I'm a fan of this idea and concept I just feel the lows can be too low sometimes when the highs aren't exactly that high compared to most anything else. A large part of that is probably the % damage mods this ability gets.
- Ice Spear Damage +33%
- Ice Spear and Ice Lightning damage +26%
A total of 4 mods to equal what most abilities get in two. I get that Ice lightning is on the second but that ability hits for literal nothing to begin with and it really is only used for the fire vulnerability that can be modded on to it. Separating and combining the spears to 53% per mod and turning the other into an actually good damage increasing mod for ice lightning would be a nice change to reduce the mod bloat while also giving a better direction. Very few Ice magic combos will ever use ice lightning to begin with in it's current state so it feels weird increasing damage for it.
- Ice Spear heals you for 46 health after a 15 second delay
No idea what the idea or purpose behind this was. Wasted space mods that even buffed feel out of place for this ability. Tons of options as to what you can replace these with but anything is better than what it is now.
- Freeze Solid resets the timer on Ice Spear (so it can be used again immediately)
Kind of a weird mod. You waste a mez with a long cooldown to reset the cooldown on an 8 second attack. Suppose it's meant for fire/ice giant nuking with their combined 90% increased ice damage taken but outside of that extreme cheese seems weird. Would make slightly more sense having frosbite be the trigger.
Ice nova
Its a generic aoe with generic crap damage. A few mods try to add survival utility to it but the numbers are relatively low.
-You regain 36 Health when using Ice Nova or Shardblast
Really low number even double stacked. Could use substantial buffing if you want to continue the idea of it being a survival damage skill.
- Ice Nova restores 55 Armor to you
Same thing as the above. Too low considering the mod investment to make the ability do any damage or return any health/armor.
- Ice Nova and Shardblast deal +58% damage
The only damage increasing mods this ability gets. Couple this with extremely low base damage and you are left with an overall bad ability. This ability needs a clear direction to it. If you are wanting it to be defensive the above mods need buffed as well as something baseline should be added to Ice Nova to point out its purpose as such. Something as simple as a knockback would do.
Shardblast
Perhaps the worst ability I have seen in this game. Like Ice nova it has very low base damage and is just another generic low range aoe with conditions applied on top to even use it. The ability requires ice armor to be active to use which is a 30 second cooldown and costs 51 power. When Used it removes Ice armor from you to do its pitiful damage but don't worry you can use the below mod to reset the cooldown of ice armor so you can spend another 51 power to get it back up.
-Shardblast resets the timer on Ice Armor (so it can be used again immediately)
The idea of requiring Ice armor to be up I can stand behind but the removal of it and all the above is just a silly mess. Should require but not remove to start with and something unique needs added to the ability so it isn't just an annoying to use fart blast.
-It needs better base damage
-A better focus to make the ability unique. Maybe make it do equal parts hp to armor damage or even do an entirely new damage like trauma if you are going to keep the basic attack the same damage type as it is. Could easily make trauma the second damage type of Ice magic and further open up builds or give options.
Ice Lightning
The only lightning damage ability ice magic has and a very low damaging one at that. It's main use are the two mods below.
- Ice Lightning boosts your Core Attack Damage +85 for 7 seconds
- Ice Lightning causes the target to become 17% more vulnerable to Fire attacks for 7 seconds
The first is actually a very nice mod and directly benefits a lot of skill pairings or even just on Ice spear itself. The problem being the ability itself is hard to warrant using unless you use fire and want the second mods fire vulnerability. The ability comes with no flat damage increase mods and even when every % increasing mod is taken the damage is low due to the above. Either simple adding more base damage or that plus mods that do the same would help. I also feel like deciding on a second damage type for ice would be beneficial in the long run. Like I suggested on the ability above trauma could easily fill that hole and a damage type niche that very few skills have currently. Turning this ability, Shardblast and keeping the basic trauma would give options to still doing damage to the many many ice resistant or immune mobs in this game. Alternatively you could just do that with electric and turn them all to that but thematically trauma seems to fit better.
Ice Armor
The main defensive ability in the skill and serves quite a few purposes while having downfalls of its own(reduces speed for duration) It has quite a few mods that do various things but the numbers they give considering the time it gives them in could do to be tweaked some.
- Ice Armor restores 170 Armor over 30 seconds
- Ice Armor restores 80 Power over 30 seconds
Seems to tick every 3 seconds for 17 armor. When double stacked you get two ticks of 17. With the general state of armor and how quickly it's depleted the armor returned over the time seems to be somewhat lackluster. The power aspect once the cost of the ability is taken in to account gives back a net gain of 109 power over 30 seconds when double stacked. Not particularly amazing by any means especially considering the relatively high cost of most abilities in ice magic. Maybe even just making each mod also reduce the power cost of ice armor to the point its free when all are taken would be enough of a change. Hard to say.
- Ice Armor instantly restores 79 Armor, and Fire damage no longer dispels your Ice Armor
Plugs up one of the major weaknesses of Ice armor but the added armor restore while being very low number wise also is a bit of an awkward addition. The duration of the ability is 30 seconds as well as the cooldown so unless you just don't use ice armor till you need the 79 armor restore it really doesn't serve a purpose. I guess you get a free maybe useful maybe not 79 armor when you recast it during boss fights? Seems good intentioned but not fully thought out. Could just be changed to further enhance some defensive nature of the ability. Maybe more mitigation or elemental resist? Considering it makes fire not dispel why not have it also add reduced fire damage taken. Makes sense and adds a niche to ice magic defensively.
-Ice Armor boosts direct and indirect Trauma Mitigation +42 and all attacks taunt +20%
Somewhat low taunt % increases but regardless the only time I found this useful was the Frost Hippogriffs in FR but their bleed was changed so I'm not sure where else this is useful. Either way it's a rather large increase and relatively unique in mitigation type when compared to all the tanky skills.
- Ice Armor boosts Cold attack damage +26
Outside of the ice spear randomized mod and frostbites base damage mod the above two mods are the only way to increase base damage to every other ability. Considering that the numbers seem somewhat low.
Freeze Solid
Not much to be said about this ability. It's a mez that functions and can do somewhat low to ok damage when modded out. As mentioned above I do feel the ice spear reset mod is a bit strange to be placed on this. The only non damage mods it has are mostly useless. Some armor after a long time or cheaper spells for a few after cast. The latter being the only kind of useful thing.
Cold Sphere
it's big and looks neat other than that its almost entirely useless. Even with all the mods it has it does virtually no damage and dies easily. Really not sure how they can even go about making this thing worthwhile considering it would either need a ridiculous damage increase or some other purpose or function beyond just damage. Possibly turn it in to a side bar ability and have it debuff/snare the enemy or cause it to suffer ice vulnerability? The mods could be turned in to further or different debuffs. Food for thought i guess either way it's a dead ability currently.
Frostbite
Solid ability in all that it does. A bit lower on the base damage but it does get two mods that increase that and add a unique effect. Most of it's mods are at least useful in some aspect. The mod below seems a bit weak at first but with tank like skills getting a lot of flat mitigation as of late it might be too strong with a buff, hard to say.
- Frostbite causes target's attacks to deal -18 damage
Blizzard
One of the pillars that makes ice magic so great. While once again the damage potential isn't enormously high the the range coupled with some of the mod effects are what makes this ability. Baseline it applies a 35% snare to effected enemies which I find somewhat lackluster. Maybe tweaking it up to something like 55% or so to see if it makes a noticeable difference and can adjust from there if it seems too strong. As is you can barely notice the snare on most mobs. Why this matters so much I will explain a little below on one of the mods this ability gets(increasing the snare via a mod would also not be a bad route considering some of the other mods for this are pretty lacking due to scaling)
- Blizzard has a 75% chance to cause all sentient targets to flee in terror
An absolutely amazing addition and one of my favorite mods ever since I first rolled it on a piece of gear. It's also the reason I feel slightly upping the base snare would help with the scattering nature fear tends to cause. Often times I have to cover the fear with tundra spikes root to not cause mass mayhem. It's major downside being it only effects sentient creatures but I feel that is at least understandable considering its power.
- Blizzard deals +16% damage, generates -765 Rage and taunts -830
Somewhat low % increase considering blizzards lack of base damage increasing mods and lower base damage. Regardless the negative rage generated is nice. The detaunt does not really make sense considering a lot of ice is all about increasing taunt in mods so this kind of seems to be a weird addition. Maybe removing that aspect and putting a higher % increase or more -rage generated would be a change more in line with ice magic's theme. You cold also attach the snare increase I talked about above to this in it's place.
- Blizzard deals 248 armor damage and generates -120 Rage
The armor damage seems amazing at first glance but in application ends up being much worse than just adding base damage. The problem lies in the fact the armor damage is just a flat number added after and does not scale in any way. I also feel this really isn't the ability that makes sense to cause increased armor damage. Tundra spikes fits that roll much better and I will explain that more a little later. Simply change this to some flat damage added would be nice and help elevate blizzard to do respectable numbers and differentiate itself from Ice's other aoes. The -120 rage aspect seems entirely too low of a number and should probably be adjusted if not changed to something else entirely. The snare increase also could be attached to this in it's place.
- You regain 60 Health when using Blizzard
Somewhat strange ability to place a small heal on. Not entirely sure the direction behind this. Even buffing the number still makes it awkward at best. With ice nova already taking the role of defensive aoe this just seems like wasted mod potential. Could instead be any of the things I mentioned above or just be removed entirely.
Tundra Spikes
Probably the biggest heavy lifter in Ice magic's arsenal. Applies a 7 second root to all effected enemies baseline but comes with a hefty cost and an awkwardly short casting range. To the point one will generally get punched in the face trying to cast this ability which seems weird for a ranged magic user. Making it castable at the same range of blizzard would be a rather nice quality of life change(20 meters) but even just a bump up from it's current 12 to 15 might be enough to notice a difference. As per most all attacks in ice magic it has no flat damage increase mods so even fully loaded it's still somewhat low on the damage scale.
- Tundra Spikes deals +19% damage, gains +8 Accuracy, and lowers targets' Evasion by -16 for 20 seconds
Double stacked this has become one of my favorite things. Effectively cancels out High evasion enemies for your whole group if the ability lands
- Tundra Spikes stuns all targets after a 10 second delay
An absolute must mod when playing Ice magic. The only problem I see arising is every level tier the delay goes down so eventually it will stun way before the root ends making higher level versions of the mod much worse than their lower counterparts. Since the last patch I've had gear drop that now shows this mod at 8 seconds even though my current 80 pants still have it at 10. Feel like This mod should have a static number in the 8-10 range and maybe add some secondary aspect that can scale as the levels progress so there stays some growth to the mod.
- Tundra Spikes deals 220 armor damage and taunts +600
The taunt fits with Ice magic's role and theme so no qualms there. The armor damage suffers the same problem as mentioned above for blizzard. Since there are no flat increase mods for tundra mayhaps making tundra also slightly damage armor baseline too would allow it to scale and give a better role between the two aoe's. Tundra could become the armor shredder which would seem to fit the name of the ability while blizzard is the rage reducer and bigger damaging attack of the two.
Ice Veins
(Long story short a good heal that is made bad due to conditional effects)
A shorter cooldown heal that both requires and dispels Ice armor thus making it a very expensive and unwieldy heal to use. You sacrifice your defense to heal leaving you then defenseless and waiting for ice armor to come off cooldown to use. This is made worse the more mods you have put in to Ice armor as using the heal then stops the armor/power restore or the damage and mitigation provided by the ability. Just requiring ice armor up itself should be enough of a negative and the cooldown can be adjusted if deemed to strong after the fact. The mods for this ability all just increase either the healing or add a heal over time.
Cryogenic Freeze
Oh boy this ability, I don't even know where to begin with this. It's an extremely strong defensive and offers a ton of protection baseline and even more with the heavy amount of mods provided. The problem being you are effectively a frozen stunned block for the duration and cannot cancel the effect. Heat restore is also attached to this ability so it's moderately annoying stunning yourself forever back to peak warmth. Simple allowing one to cancel the effect any time during the 10 second duration would be a much needed change and still allow this ability to be used for it's purpose. The values of mitigation might need to be changed if its viewed as too strong or can cheese mechanics but regardless It should still be cancelable. I'll list all of the mods below to give you a better understanding of the power this ability can be modded to.
- Cryogenic Freeze restores 135 Health(2)
-Cryogenic Freeze restores 201 Armor(2)
- Cryogenic Freeze restores 85 Power(2)
- While in Cryogenic Freeze, you are 100% resistant to Fire damage
- While in Cryogenic Freeze, you are 100% resistant to Poison damage
Afterthoughts:
With how damage is calculated from damage type vulnerabilities I feel fire/ice's calefiction mod that increases ice damage taken by 90% when double stacked is a bit too much. Even just the smallest number change in ice effectively skyrockets for this one particular build. I hate to ask for nerfs but for the health of ice magic and it being able to stand on its own two feet damage wise that needs some adjustment. Feel free to yell at me over this just my honest opinion.
Ice magic gets these double set of mods below.
- All Ice Magic abilities that hit multiple targets have a 20% chance to deal +50% damage(2)
- All Ice Magic attacks that hit a single target have a 33% chance to deal +48% damage(2)
While I like the theme of randomized spikes in damage the % chance seems to be a bit low especially on the multiple target one.
On the note of damage vuln only fire and rabbit have the option to increase ice damage a mob takes. Perhaps adding that to another skill would help open up more builds and synergies. On the flip side you could also add another damage type vuln to ice magic to accomplish the same thing. Maybe increased darkness damage taken or trauma?
I hope some of the feedback did not come off as overly harsh Ice magic just has a lot of strange half thought out abilities or mechanics that need tweaking. It has a lot of potential just needs a helping hand to bring the whole package together.
Thanks again for taking the time to read my giant blurb and I hope some of what I said makes sense or gives a better understanding on the strengths and pitfalls of Ice. Nonetheless feel free to add suggestions of your own below :)
