Freezing Pulse

Any chance of Chain or Fork not applying their damage reductions to this skill now that it's possible to prevent certain skills from benefiting from support gems, IE Ice Crash with Multistrike?

I am currently using Freezing Pulse as a secondary skill on my Ice Spear Shadow in the 1m league since it offers a ton more DpS against single targets and/or when enemies get close.

The Damage is quite nice and it scales added damage from weapons, HoI and supports very well but the short range, small width and diminishing damage at range make it difficult to use for anything other than that.
However, the damage decay can be worked around by stacking projectile speed as well as getting quality on the gem - but what remains is the samll width of the projectile at higher range.


Based on that i thought about an idea to make the skill itself more viable and more fun overall as a main skill:
How about the projectile gets wider as it dissipates in strength?


Imagining something like roughly 200% of the initial width at max range seems like an interesting idea. This could open up additional possibilities for using this skill instead of the pretty much mandatory LMP/GMP support.

For example by using range not only as a limitation to damage but also as a tatical opportunity for a skilled player:
a) fight at close range to quickly deal a lot of damage against a tough opponent
vs.
b) stay at range for greater coverage against larger groups of weak mobs.

I know you guys at GGG are probably sick to death of hearing about how bad mana regen is, but I think it's probably especially bad for Freezing Pulse, with pretty awful single target without swapping gems around it makes sustain a real hassle on a skill that, in my opinion, is struggling at the moment. My signature points out that it was hit much harder by the shotgun removal than Incinerate, and I think it was in a position where a nerf was called for, but I think it could be brought up a fair bit, depending on how the mana issue is being tackled (indirect buff etc, Blasphemy is a buff in an of itself, for example).

gave FP a whirl for the first time after shotgun removing and I must say that it just feel bad. Its like this skill lived and died with shotgunning.

No matter how much you buff it this skill NEEDS shotgunning.

-Single FP is dreadful for clearing any map so it's out of the question. It's radius is just not enough.
-FP with additional projectiles is ok for clearing maps, but the damage loss is just not worth its radius increase.

So people end up not using it at all because they feel they have to swap gems at every single target and in general the spell not being on par with others except when used on totems.

Can't believe so much time has passed and you still haven't realized it. Why do you balance skills with the pace of a snail? Will you balance it at 3.0????

DO NOT BUFF FP AGAIN. IT WON'T SOLVE A THING. INSTEAD, GIVE IT SHOTGUNNING FUNCTIONALITY. At least a percentage of damage increase when projectiles overlap.

I doubt shotgunning will come back in any form, that's just beating a dead horse.

But the mechanics of FP was designed with shotgunning in mind and right now doesn't make any sense at all!!

With shotgun removed, FP with GMP / LMP needs to have a fixed spread that maximizes radius without any gap, like you get when targeting 15-20 units away. The concentrated beam only made sense for shotgun and it's very clunky to have to target close to the character. Since there's now an optimal spread, it needs to have it all the time.

This is a simple, basic usability fix, please include it in next patch. Thanks!

So I've leveled a character to 40 trying to make a build using Freezing Pulse, and I'm about done with it. Freezing Pulse is the weakest skill I've used in the game so far. I just skip yellows because fighting them is a joke. Every hit does about 5% of their health. This is even with the new Elemental Overload 40% more damage buff, along with 96% increased cold damage, in Normal.

There needs to be a huge damage buff or a heavily increased chance of freezing to balance out the fact that this skill does no damage.

"

Vipermagi wrote:

...Do you have anything to improve its Damage? Added Lightning, +1 Gem levels or flat Spell Damage? Anger, Wrath?

Obviously. I tried several aura setups, and I had 96% increased cold damage and 40% more damage from elemental overload 100% of the time. If that's not enough, then no amount of damage support can help Freezing Pulse. It's just too weak.