Frost Blades

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Cergic wrote:

I'm currently playing with this skill on a new character.

I have one question which i am itching to get answered: Will this gem be viable with a pure elemental weapon/build, rather than a weapon and build that relies on converting phys to elemental damage? Will the EDPS from a good ele weapon fully convert to the projectiles? Is it possible to for example use Hyaon's Fury and recieve good results?

My Frost Blades build is elemental. I killed Atziri and Merc Malachai with it this weekend and have no trouble whatsoever with the bosses or warbands of the levels my map pool is at (72-74).

Note that i do use a single target attack and a vaal skill alongside Frost Blades.

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Toverkol wrote:

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Cergic wrote:

I'm currently playing with this skill on a new character.

I have one question which i am itching to get answered: Will this gem be viable with a pure elemental weapon/build, rather than a weapon and build that relies on converting phys to elemental damage? Will the EDPS from a good ele weapon fully convert to the projectiles? Is it possible to for example use Hyaon's Fury and recieve good results?

My Frost Blades build is elemental. I killed Atziri and Merc Malachai with it this weekend and have no trouble whatsoever with the bosses or warbands of the levels my map pool is at (72-74).

Note that i do use a single target attack and a vaal skill alongside Frost Blades.

Very nice, thank you. I thought that the weak convertion of phys>cold and that entire aspect was a trap, and figured that this would shine as a pure ele-skill. Thank you for confirming.

I use double-strike as single-target, but i consider swapping to frenzy. Which are you using for ex. atziri?

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Cergic wrote:

Very nice, thank you. I thought that the weak convertion of phys>cold and that entire aspect was a trap, and figured that this would shine as a pure ele-skill. Thank you for confirming.

I use double-strike as single-target, but i consider swapping to frenzy. Which are you using for ex. atziri?

I use Wild Strike for the novelty factor and it has some benefits as semi-aoe against say three warband members. For Atziri i switch to Frenzy, but that's more because i normally generate my frenzy charges on kill with Blood Rage, or Blood Dance earlier in the build.

I think Double Strike will do fine too though. I actually use Vaal Double Strike as the Vaal skill :).

Having player with the Frost Blade for the whole month, now my duelist in Warband is now level 86.


TLDR :
Bad for leveling.
The worse for a gem available at level 1.
Getting better after A4N
MANA!
Great for late game AoE, but need more than 4L.
Not the best for single target. Pick another skill for single target.
Choice of supported gems are plenty.
It was fun, but need some nice weapon.


Bad time leveling:

In short, as people have already said, Frost Blade is bad for being a level 1 skill. During the early game, the skill might even be worse than Lightning Strike. It was a hell trying to lock on a moving target since when I locked a target, most of time, it would move away, or running to me. And make the skill miss horribly, wasting precious mana.

I proudly say I did switch to Molten Strike as the main skill during that time. Frost blade became a "just there" gem, only for leveling up.

The skill got a little bit better when I got Fork. Now the skill became better since the spread is wider. BUT at the same time, I found Wild Strike doing a better job of clearing mobs. Since both skill required kind of similar supported gems (WED / Faster Attack / Added Fire), so, again, Frost Blade was not really in used.

I was until the end of Act 4, that I could get Multistrike, when Frost Blade could show its potential. Now the skill do its job properly without frustration. Finally I could drop the Wild strike, and shift Frost Blade to be my main skill. (Molten strike was still my best choce for single target)


Mana management needed
During Cruel, Frost Blade was really fun to play with. Especially when I could easily shatter mobs by adding a jewel with % chance to freeze. With 4 link, The skill drain lots of mana per second. I think it was around 20-ish per usage. But that was solved by using a couple of mana gain on hit jewel, along with the spirit void node.

YES, I needed those, along with a mana flask to sustain the skill. Reserving 75% from Hatred and HoI is pretty much needed to do some decent damage. But this is kind of manageable, and seems to be norm for most attacks build during this era.

At the same time, I was switching around between Fork and Chain. Most of time, both of them performed equally in clear speed. But chain was giving me more hits, which resulted in more mana gain on hits. So I mostly sticked with it.

Fast Forwarding - Merciless
The life was hard during the time. My overall damage fell behind the strength of evils in merciless pretty fast. Though it was still good since I could o some master cradfing. And during the time, I pickup Point Blank, and it gave me an impression of better damage, even with chaining.

Core gems: FB + WED + MS + Chain / Fork

Then came, a 6L.

I consider myself lucky finding a 6L quite early. I think it was one of those first dozen of maps I ran. With a 6L available (RRRGGG), I started playing with gems combination.

5th links
Added Fire damage : No down side. So it goes directly to my 5th link.

6th links
Hypothermia : I love shattering mobs, so this gem did what I like. Chaining and Point Blank helps freezing / chilling mobs, and shatter / explode them.

Physical Projectile Damage: More consistent damage boost. But since there was less freezing, it was not my main picks, unless I roll a map with +cold resist, or mobs evade status aliments.

Added Cold Damage : was not good enough. dropped.

Ice Bite : I already use Blood rage. So chance to gain a frenzy charge here was unneeded. dropped.

Cold pen: I'm considering adding it for maps with +cold resist. But I cannot find one yet.


The gems setup was finalized with FB + WED + MS + Chain / Fork + Added Fire + Hypo / PPD.


It was like that, until today, that I swapped out Hypothermia / PPD, for ....... LMP / GMP

Now, that was weird. I got less damage per hit. But now I clear the whole room faster. I think it was like how Power Syphon was popular with chain + LMP / GMP, lower damage per hit, but higher overall. With an addition of using Point Blank, which was not even worth considering in anyways in that build.

I found LMP is better than GMP since with GMP, unless mobs are in a very big pack, most of the extra projectiles would missed. And GMP really lower my, already bad, FPS. LMP was enough for most of the time, when mobs running at me in a nice cone shape.

I still have to test it a bit more, but LMP is currently taking my 6th slot.

I'm currently testing how the skill perform with and without point blank. However, since my single target skill is Molten strike, the weight seems to be biased to "better with point blank".



My current inner rage is : "What is the damage of my extra projectiles?". It would be nice if, one day, GGG could find a way to show damage of skills in detailed.

Note: It's funny how Frost Blade is really similar to Lightning Strike. . But having homing property alone really make Frost Blade a lot more useful.

I've been playing PoE back and forth sence first closed beta. I have never got frustrated with anything really in this game. I am generally a very calm person. But this ******** ******** ******** skill makes me want to puke! Targeting? Try targeting the ******* eyes in the harvest. F*ck this skill.

From the 2.0.2 patch note:

Fixed a bug where multiple projectiles from a single Frost Blades attack could hit the same target.

Was there a case like that? Unless it's a bug in a very rare condition, I don't think I've ever notice it >_>?

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twintales wrote:

From the 2.0.2 patch note:

Fixed a bug where multiple projectiles from a single Frost Blades attack could hit the same target.

Was there a case like that? Unless it's a bug in a very rare condition, I don't think I've ever notice it >_>?

I'm not sure. I always kill the the enemy behind the melee attacked mob faster even if he is stronger. I'm not sure but it feels like shotgun is enabled here. I use FB with GMP and the dmg is awesome, so perhaps 2.0.2 will be a huge nerf...

A Small Quality of Life Tweak for this skill IMO is it should definitely proc the blades when you destroy breakables as well.

So, has anyone tested it? I saw Warester was in the thread regarding client crash when using FB. What was the changes in the patch note about?

I've been levelling a 1H sword Ranger with FB from level 1 (now at lv55), and I disagree that it's bad for levelling. If you give it a good weapon and work on your positioning, it just melts through everything, especially with both fire and cold heralds active.

I'm using a 4-link setup: FB + MPD + Hypothermia + FasterAttacks/ColdPen/PPAD (still can't decide, I'm swapping these around depending on situation), and am picking physical damage in my passive tree, not elemental, since that way I boost both damage components.