Frost Wall

I would like to add sth too

First of all - I must agree with TPxErebus

If anyone was watching Kripparrian streams/vids then you should already know that atm this skill is very very wrong.
I also thought that it is defensive skill to stop charging enemies or projectiles. BUT... how is it possible that my attack is getting through it ??? Kripp showed that it can be abused as hell. Even better in tiny corridors - none of the mob can attack or even touch him. And he just puts wall over wall over wall and gets closer and closer to the enemy, then kill them without any risk using Ground Slam THROUGH THE WALL ! This shouldn't be possible. I agree that he just used game mechanic to his advantage, but again - it shouldn't be possible

Frost Wall should work like this (in my humble opinion):

1. Enemies can't go through it, as well as any projectiles (not using PIERCE ofc), but caster also can't use skills or projectiles through it

or

2. you can't move through it but projectiles can fly above it - yours and your enemies

OR

3. Number 1 or 2 PLUS: any damaging skill used by caster through Frost Wall will destroy it

Reagards

1 would make it situational, 2 would make it useless. It's whole reason for existence right now is as an archer block and closing melee block in conjunction with a pierce skill. The problem is that ground slam pierces it (ground slam is a fantastically powerful melee spell for it's ranged abilities already), and that it covers so much for so long as it levels higher and higher.

My suggestion would be to nerf the duration to a flat-at-all-levels 2 seconds, 3 with support. Keeping it up continually while still damaging enemies would then become difficult, but it would still keep its multiple uses.

Frost wall is fine in terms of duration and length of the wall when cast by a player and not a totem. It's an important survivability tool for squishy builds. At gem level 12 fast mobs still run around a single wall effortlessly. Nerf length/duration and the skill becomes useless in open areas.

I think GGG needs to take a careful look at what skills can go through. Supposedly only piercing projectiles can cross but obviously that's not the case. I doubt spamming frost wall and ground slamming through it is intended.

Also totem support is OP. It should probably not be possible to put Frost Wall on a totem.

GGG do you not think the duration with the new patch is a little to low and there was nothing about the heavy nerf in the patchnotes oO

2.1sec wtith lvl 18... thats... useless

Agree. Nerfed too much without mention of it in the patch notes. It may even be unintentional? Duration halved, physical length substantially reduced.

Luckily I didn't spec the same build I had pre-patch, because otherwise I would've been stuck with a gimped build.

Duration passives are now definitely not worth getting for this skill anymore because the base duration is so short that they have little effect. The physical length of the wall I now also found too short but that might ramp up more with gem level, I don't know - my test gem was level 8.

Prior to patch 0.9.12 the duration of a level 16 gem was 4 seconds. Boosting that with a high level duration support gem (requiring lots more mana and 80 strength!), used to get you a 4.0 * 1.8 = 7.2 second duration.

Post patch the base duration of a lvl 16 gem is 2 seconds. Boosting that with a high level duration support gem gets you a 2.0 * 1.8 = 3.6 second duration which is not enough for it to justify occupying a skill slot with.

I would have to further increase it with + duration passives, which really hurts my build by requiring investment in too many connective passive nodes, and it would only add a second to the duration.

My level 44 int/dex CI bow ranger build with rain of arrows and ice spear totem made use of frost wall (without fully being able to depend on it) to let the energy shield recharge, while firing over the wall. (And ice spear fires through it but that fact wasn't very useful to my specific build relying on bow damage).

Frost wall was useful to protect myself from being overrun by large groups of strong monsters, archers and casters. I felt that it has limited practical use. For example some mobs run away once you cast it, stopping you from damaging them. Some monsters flickr strike across it or cast a spell over or through it, and other mobs run around it. Because my horizontal arrows do not pierce I have to fire over the wall with rain of arrows which costs a lot of mana. You also might not cast it perfectly and leave a gap or encumber yourself with it and so on. The longer the duration of frost wall, the longer it stands in your own way, too. It makes targeting mobs much less efficient in practice, while slowing your progress. If you could get a 10 second frost wall I probably wouldn't use it.

My frost wall at level 8 had a 3.2 second base duration. This was boosted to 4.6 seconds by three 15% skill effect duration passives that my ranger went out of her way to get. In fact because I had to go out of my way to get them, I decided that I should probably make better use of having moved in that direction, which I did by doing this.

I then still felt I had to level the gem much more or get a duration support gem for it, because I felt I needed it to be at least at 6 seconds to be worth using. I was hesitant to use a duration support gem because of the mana cost, which acted as a limiting factor to the maximum duration I was willing to go for. The support gem can add about 80% to the duration, opposed to 45% if you use the passives only, but it has a 150% mana modifier and requires a lot of strength which my character doesn't naturally have.

I had to give up a lot of defensive nodes to get those duration passives. Too many, in fact - it was not a very efficient build because I was wasting far too many points on purely connecting/pathing nodes, just to get the added duration.

After the patch, without knowing Frost Wall was nerfed, I in fact used my respec to change my build plan around for the better. I went without the added duration passives because I felt it wasn't worth wasting so many nodes going to the central tree area. This was before I knew frost wall's base duration was nerfed, which reduces the bonus gained by getting the duration passives. I also had to give up on the 3 +4% area of effect nodes in the central tree area, which was OK because I felt that an area of effect support gem does a better job of that anyway. My char now has a lot more energy shield, and is just much more skill point efficient, not wasting as many. Dropping frost wall allowed me to do this.

Now I am very glad I did this because post 0.9.12 patch there is no way in hell I would consider going out of my way to get the + duration nodes for boosting frost wall. Simply because the base duration is so short, a +45% increase really doesn't help much at all. Even with those passives and a level 16 support gem it would result in 4.6 seconds which is still about a second short of becoming more useful than an annoyance that slows you down because you have to cast it over and over, stopping you from using other skills meanwhile. Coincidentally, 4.6 seconds is what my frost wall was at when I used the level 8 gem pre-patch, with the passives. A duration I found was too short, and I wanted to boost it further with a gem...

The point where frost wall is worth using to me is 6 to 9 seconds, so I have time to fire/cast something a few times before it ends. Anything less than 6 seconds I wouldn't bother using in the long run. I'd rather then cast temporal chains to slow mobs down or find another more practical solution than having to cast frost wall over and over.

I agree that with no nerf at all, the frost wall can potentially have a duration that's a bit too much.

BUT:

Do realize that this is already offset by mana cost (support gem, +50% cost on top of the already expensive to cast skill at high levels). The duration support gem also requires 80 strength if you want it to give you +80% duration, which is another investment in passives.

It might be a good idea to move the skill effect duration passives to a more convenient location, add more of them in other locations (in such a way you can't easily grab them all) or to improve the central tree area so it's worth going there to get the existing duration passive nodes.

Regardless, I'd still want the +skill effect duration passives to be optional, not a requirement, for frost wall to be useful.

Currently, this is what you need for frost wall to be barely useful:

Level 16+ frost wall gem,
Level 17+ duration support gem,
Mana passives or enough mana leech,
74-84 strength (unnatural to an int, dex, or int/dex build)
AND the 3 hard to get +15% skill effect duration passives to add ~one second.

I don't know the reasons for this substantial nerf (pvp? kripp?), or what build it was that was OP because of this skill. Lacking that knowledge though, based on the experience I do have, I would suggest reducing the nerf to *0.75 at the worst, instead of *0.5, and making sure each class has a viable escape. Also,

"

MorriganGrey wrote:

I think GGG needs to take a careful look at what skills can go through.

I don't have a Ground Slam character high enough to test, but does Ground Slam still "go through" Frost Wall?

"

spiritplx wrote:

I don't have a Ground Slam character high enough to test, but does Ground Slam still "go through" Frost Wall?

Firestorm, Rain of arrows and Ground Slam are all ways to cheese with Frost Wall. Also anyone with high pierce chance can just spam through their own walls. (untested since at least 0.5) :)

Although I agree that it could use a single extra second of base uptime. It was too long at some levels. Having to wait for it to disappear after killing mobs. Halving it might have been a bit drastic.

Spamming frostwall to knockback players (via namelock or a totem) will desync them.

Does Frost wall have decent time length now or what? GGG are you going to make this skill viable? I don't know how a couple seconds would be useful.

viable for what though? you can use increased duration passives or support gem if you feel its too short. leveling it up increases duration and width too.