Ice Spear

Nearly every league i think: "i would really like to try out Ice Spear again" then i remember how it went the last few times, delete the fresh lvl 2 character and go cry in a corner (slight exaggeration).

Now, in light of the substantial damage buff, i might really give it another go! :)

Would it be possible to get the critical strike chance of the second stage on the character page? Normally it's pretty simple to work out by simply adding 42% to the first stage, but it gets trickier when taking modifiers such as Increased Critical Strikes support, Assassin's Deadly Infusion, and Marylene's Fallacy into account.

Thanks for increasing Ice Spear damage!

I'm close to level 90 (solo self-found) and I've been using Ice Spear as my main skill. I had tried to build an Ice Spear character in the past (long ago, desync era) but the damage just wasn't there before. Now the skill feels pretty good. It's not overly strong, but it's workable and fun.

The problems & possible solutions with Ice Spear:

1) Only its second form matters. The first form has nothing to offer.

2) Mobs keeps on rushing toward the caster, so hitting them with the 2nd form is a problem. You'll find yourself in melee range most of the time because the damage of Ice Spear just isn't high enough to kill enemies from range.

3) First form needs something like a knock-back effect. Or better yet, remove the 2nd form and apply the former's effect to the first form. Less gimmick.

4) Maps with small corridors like Prison makes Ice Spear obsolete.

5) Freezing is virtually impossible against bosses. The utility gimmick becomes useless.

6) For the 2nd form, allow the projectile to explode (similar to Fire Ball) whenever it crits.

7) A bit more damage wouldn't hurt.

"

Genmaicha wrote:

The problems & possible solutions with Ice Spear:

1) Only its second form matters. The first form has nothing to offer.

2) Mobs keeps on rushing toward the caster, so hitting them with the 2nd form is a problem. You'll find yourself in melee range most of the time because the damage of Ice Spear just isn't high enough to kill enemies from range.

3) First form needs something like a knock-back effect. Or better yet, remove the 2nd form and apply the former's effect to the first form. Less gimmick.

4) Maps with small corridors like Prison makes Ice Spear obsolete.

5) Freezing is virtually impossible against bosses. The utility gimmick becomes useless.

6) For the 2nd form, allow the projectile to explode (similar to Fire Ball) whenever it crits.

7) A bit more damage wouldn't hurt.

I really do like this skill, but i have to agree with it's inconvenience in current game.
Most notable one for me is that this skill sets your mindset to stay at range because of second form bonuses, but then you can't use reliably most abused warlords mark skill with blasphemy. On first glance its kinda ok since you freeze stuff and you don't need to leech as much (but not guardians yet), but you lose mana leech as well which is a pretty big thing. So at this point it's manual casting curses or leech gem?
In this regard freezing pulse is a lot better- it hits whole screen, promotes point blank where you can leech too, and deals like 1.5x more dps- all convenient.

There is another thing to mention, this speed meta. I think that this skill's range superiority is sort of obsoleted. It was a thing back then in beta days, but now standard build kills everything in a split of the second and some times some fast mobs (or lucky ones) manages to throw ranged attack before death, in this context there is no tactic importance to make killing range matter most of the time (since most ranged skills hits whole screen anyways).

damage is not worst, its possible to get pretty nice numbers after extended experimenting time with "path of building" (500k+ LL dual wield inquisitor and assassin).

tldr i think that this skill utilities became nearly irrelevant nowadays.

My suggestions to improvIe ce Spear:

Make Frozen Trail jewel apply to Ice Spear as well. Or make a new unique jewel with similar effects.

Mana cost is too high compared to other powerful spells. Make it onpar with Frostbolt.

Hello Forum!

Okay here is my suggestion for Ice Spear.

Most off the times I've come across the thought that the Stages should be swapped.

The Second form, with 0% pierce be the first stage that is casted, with no bonus to critical strike chance. Perhaps to compensate, a 100% chance to knockback would apply to enemies hit (more below on why).
The First form, with 100% Pierce be the second stage with the increased chance to crit.

Here are my thoughts and how I imagine this skill would work in real life.

On the first form the character forms a not yet fully formed spear, rough shape of the final product. Still being bulky and heavy punching. This giving the knockback effect when an enemy is hit.
Then the second stage, the 'spear' is formed due to friction with the air that occurs during traveling, making the Ice Spear an actual spear. Thus creating the piercing effect when hitting an enemy. After piercing an enemy, the spear becomes rougher again and the the spear dulls, with each passing enemy, eventually not being able to pierce anymore. Thus limiting the amount of enemies pierced.
Perhaps with an enemy being pierced, the second form is able to 'penetrate' the enemies defenses (cold res), since piercing for me is going through matter (armor and flesh)

So to summaries.

The player Casts an Ice spear.
First Stage does not pierce, knocks enemies back.
100% Knockback + Knockback Distance

Second Stage has a set pierce chance or Higher Crit chance. Cold penetration.


Just my thoughts over the years playing. =)

Damn so long no one has written here anythng... well I got a question to the new ice spear.

Is it intended that it works with volley fire the same way as with lmp? I like its new single target potential of the new modified skill. For mob clearing you nead herald of ice and maybe of thunder to get those aoe clearing.

A quick review after 24h. I played this skill Act2-Act10 see 4.

1. How does it work?
Ice Spear casts a number of projectiles one after another(like barrage). The projectiles travel in 2 phases. first "unarmed": the projectiles are slow and travel all roughly the same path without piercing. Second "armed": the projectiles become much faster get additional crit and crit-multi. Further, projectiles pierce and are more spread-out.

2. Is it good?
The first phase deals low damage and the "unarmed" range is pretty large. The upside is that all projectiles will hit the same target. The downside is they don't pierce, so they are gone if it is some white monster. This is probably the biggest disadvantage of this skill.

In the second phase, the spread is so big that most projectiles will not hit the target. Except if it is a boss with a big hit-box, than we shotgun. Further, the spread is random, therefore it is not guaranteed that any projectile will hit the target. I regularly encountered single strugglers.

This brings the skill in an awkward spot. It is really bad for close-range encounters. It does not deal concentrated damage on range against single targets due to the spread, but the spread and hit-boxes of the projectiles are too low to be used for efficient clearing.


Pierce is nearly mandatory, especially against all kinds of "allies cannot die" or spawning monsters. the pierce jewel helps a lot, but 1 pierce is still not enough.

3. Interaction with the current league.
The current syndicate masters do not have a big hit-box. They deal a lot of damage, have a lot of life, spawn adds and are very fast. This is probably the worst combo for ice spear as frequent repositioning is required. I can not give a definite verdict here because I use a wand and therefore do not have whirling blades, which is bad for repositioning. It is terrible for me.

4. How to get it work?
I use it in a CwC setup with Winter-Orb. Winter-Orb is good at clear but terrible at single target. it seems to prioritze targets that are close so it can be used to clear white stuff in front of you. It also deals damage while repositioning for ice spear.

Of course this is just a band-aid. We pay by damage scaling, as we need 3 gems to obtain a usable skill. And it is debatable whether a pure Winter Orb setup might still be better. Still, this combination is fun.

I do not see that any of the typical choices of totems, traps or mines will solve the problem, because they all have to deal with the "dead" zone. Self-cast or CoC-Barrage are probably the best.

5. Conclusion
This skill has massive downsides(AoE, dead-zone) for an upside that is watered down by a large spread. This is probably the most complex skill to use in PoE. And it really shows.