Arctic Armour

I'm quite offensive in my tone that is true, but there are just too many shitty replies that come down to: 1. Didn't read your post and 2. Get a f'n clue. Since no attempt at moderation is made to keep threads civil I have no issues changing my tone once that has happened in a thread.
Call it my way of protesting for more moderation, anyways calling someone a prick for a prick comment doesn't seem harsh at all and it is your own conclusion whether you are an idiot or not (see didn't call it directly).

That said since you take the time to write a proper reply I will answer some of the questions.

At the time of introduction of Arctic Armour several chats/ reddits and forum messages from developers were about skills being added to make melee more interesting and improving their survivability. Arctic armour hit the game and you get a great defensive skill, but it is especially great for ranged characters and not for melee. Ranged classes already have far more numerous ways of dealing with damage. Armour, block, evasion, CI they are all more viable being ranged.

Arctic armour in its design works best vs several ranged attacks, the matter is that vs melee attacks, which often tend to be slow but very hard hitting arctic armour has a similar effect as general armour as in: it becomes less effective. Still its is damage mitigated, but beyond that you have the chill effect. 30% attack speed slowed, that makes the slow heavy hits.... very slow hits, too bad this doesn't quite work.

In the end it seems tailored to ranged classes, with the stand still and the dmg mitigation more effective vs ranged than melee (in general). The general consensus however before introduction was that it would be useful to melee, which due to its nature and ineffective chill is arguable, but it isn't useless! Than clearly the "on move" penalty. Without this penalty ranged classes would have superior movement speed (quality and ice patches) to enemies and more damage mitigation. This and I think you will agree would be way too powerful, so the movement penalty makes a lot of sense when you think about this.

This on a hindsight also hits melee insanely hard to make use of it. Mana leech is quite strong to help out, but ranged will have more use out of mana leech. Melee in the end still has to close the distance, between targets. For this it is best to use flicker as it doesn't seem to trigger the penalty.

If at the time of introduction this would have fairly been advertised as: "damage mitigation designed around ranged classes," I strongly doubt the player base would have been positive, because melee was and still is in trouble. I know that GGG are working on it. The many melee orientated players have left. I pretty much am a melee only guy, I know a lot of melee only players. Most of my friend list is inactive. Some still run and try new melee builds, like me. Most like me have their true mains and successful characters ranged classes. By the # count melees tend to die and not reach endgame it pays off to have at least 1 guy ready to farm for you. Apart from this personal experience there have also been people that made posts about leaving due to no viable melee. Or many posts that say that the viable builds are far too limited.

Here is such an old post from February:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/168970/page/1

You can use google search yourself with
site:http://www.pathofexile.com/ melee quit build diversity and other keywords (beats using forum search).



If these are the given facts than having a skill tailored too much to ranged classes or in fact a freebie skill doesn't make sense at all.

You got a ranged class tailored to this skill I am doing the same with melee (not quite there yet for the high lvls, since chill doesn't work that great at all I in fact I use moltenshell until I can go all the way with AA). For the same reason you are doing it, to try something different. To explore the boundaries of the game. I think that at the high levels it needs some better balance/ tweaking w.r.t. mana degen and damage mitigation, not a lot but if you make some trend curves in excel you quickly get what could be tweaked.

What I find more important is why boost builds not tailored to this skill? The free movement speed bonus at level 1 AA. Due to the stand still it is far to easy for ranged classes to benefit from this skill at lower levels, where it already is quite powerful. I say up the costs, change something about the MS. Make people work and level into this skill. You don't see moltenshell work at level 8 to 14 at merciless. No it would add far too little and blow up far too soon. Enduring cry giving only 1 charge instead of 3/ 4 or 5 at the end game is a big difference. Slightly more worth it than moltenshell, but unless you can level it properly it won't be worth it.

If adding some melee (physical) mana leech makes it more viable for melee, what is wrong about that? If this had to be a mitigation skill tailored for ranged classes, than why not also make a frost armor tailored to melee (only developers can answer this one)? If this is something for both melee and ranged, than I think my arguments for tweaking it better or changing its design are quite sound.

Just so you know, I've mapped successfully as melee, solo (until I died! :P - though that was due to stupidity and tiredness, rather than inherent flaws in the character)

Personally I wouldn't object to some mana leech effect on the skill, but than again I'm not convinced that is the best way to approach it.

I strongly disagree that mana costs need to be increased, I feel on my EA guy, I'm already pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of mana regen and 'always on', though the addition of the Atziri's Foible which wasn't around when I made the character, would alleviate things partially-yet once again with a survivability trade off.
Perhaps the design intent was that the skill would never be always on, if so, I'd say in was poorly conceived as the micro management of constant toggling is cumbersome in my opinion.
It's perhaps worth noting if mana costs were increased, it would quickly reach the stage where level 20 always on would be simply impossible to sustain for any character. Is that a satisfactory design choice having a skill which you simply cannot utilise to it's fullest potential? (without going off topic too much I'm aware there are many other gems where levelling beyond a certain point, or at all, is partially or totally useless)

What I do agree with is the MS issue. I would propose a simple solution: Quality affects something different (perhaps area of effect of chilled ground?) and that if the MS bonus is to be retained it simply be baked in to the level of the gem, thus encouraging higher levels, a true bonus for the sacrifice of being able to sustain the mana costs.

"For someone building towards it, I think you should of rest of the game" I think you missed a word or two from this line so I'm unable to respond.

Anyway, lets hope the incoming melee buffs are effective, rewarding and inventive.

Don't know what that last line was or meant to be, might have survived some editing.

I don't fancy upping the total cost at all, in fact I would favor lowering it a bit near the end. The figures on the skill and the balance is really wonky, but I think it might make sense if you look at certain mobs and what amount of damage they do (which would suggest lvl-ing the gem, like other gems, with the game content is an intended feature). If I have to interpret the graph it looks to be dissected into 4 sections: normal, cruel, merciless and endgame +.

Some details in spoiler since I can't upload the pic for now.



The endgame+ section is quite a bit lower (lowest) I would like to see that ratio (the increment per level) improved or somewhat follow the curve that I dubbed the "merciless curve." The damage mitigation should grow harder or the mana cost per level should grow less in this region (buff to arctic armour)

That said what I would support is if stand still and mobile costs are combine in 1 cost that is always present. Currently the philosophy is: take the hits and turn off, or be mobile (doge yourself) and have mitigation on. The latter being the more expensive one. This can be valid, but you can also say that like righteous fire you have to choose for this skill and hence you always face the highest mana costs, which is quite the case for melee (though you can stand still + flicker quite well to circumvent this somewhat as melee). I rather see a more elegant rework, but I do think this creates the right awareness what truly investing into this skill costs and would mob up the freeloader crowd.

Oh wow at the 'fix'

I decided to try out a arctic armor EK witch during monthly.

Now even with Both mana flow nodes, a near perfect Atziri's Foible, the witch mana and regen nodes, giving up armor for hybrid or pure ES gear, losing all that possible ES to Eldritch Battery, i can now no longer run my lvl 18 arctic without losing mana.
Giving up inner force would lower my regen anyway and lose me allot armor i needed to make up from gear loss as well.

As it wasnt in patch notes i didnt notice till i saw 90% my health vanish to a multi proj voidbearer.


Think next time i make a build i just stack health and endurance charges with blood magic gems like everyone else.

The fix forced me to scour my level 8 arctic armour down to level 7... I play a strong level 82 end-game witch build (hardcore so I really value the damage reduction) and I've been trying my best to put this skill to good use, but the mana drain when I run is far too high. At higher levels I find myself having to either stop moving every 5 seconds before it falls off or recast it constantly. I think the standing drain is perfectly fine, but I wish the movement drain were something else... either lowered or something else entirely like preventing all mana regeneration while moving. That's my two cents.

Ever thought of using Lightning Warp?

A high lvl high quality warp seems to be at least comparable to regular walking since the recent boost to it...

Somebody please tell me why this doesn't work with reduced mana gem? IF they want to make the movement speed penalty work like other skills then why not make the reduced mana work as well...

Out of curiosity, would it be too much to ask to make this skill Blood Magic compatible?

"

Courageous wrote:

Out of curiosity, would it be too much to ask to make this skill Blood Magic compatible?

most likely: yes

based on high life, high regen toons imo

Great skill but the mana degen needs to at least go back to how it was pre nerf. Its very hard to include this skill in a build without major sacrifices in other areas and godlike gear because of the ridiculous degen.