Huntress - Ice Shot - Freeze Build Up

Hello,

Earlier today, and for countless days before, I would use Ice Shot with one-shots on minor mobs typically shattering them into ice. At the moment, I am noting chill building, but I appear unable to build any freeze at all on mobs. No proc of Combat Frenzy. No proc of Herald of Ice. Where there would be shattered ice before, there is now just the bodies.

I haven't made any material changes to character. I have checked to make certain I haven't somehow added a support that negates ailments. Currently using Elemental Armament II, Cold Pen, and Cold Attunement.

I assume this is something I am doing an not a bug. Any guidance?

Thanks!

Quick update...

Took my level 65 huntress to act 1. Removed all other forms of elemental damage passives and gear other than cold. Bow I am using only does physical and cold. I am, as expected, one-shotting everything with Ice Shot. However, not one of them has shattered as ice. Just dropping as bodies as if not affected by cold.

Doing cold damage by itself does not apply any degree of freeze buildup. You need some source on your gear or support gems that says "#% more freeze buildup" I think is the specific stat.

That being said I tried making a Lightning Spear Amazon, I abandoned it at level 50. Having to jump through hoops to freeze or electrocute just to get 1 frenzy charge to empower 1 attack because otherwise Lightning Spear does no damage was miserable. Yea I get you can take Culling Strike gem or whatever its called to generate charges, its fine up to a certain point. At some point theres just too many mobs and it becomes too inefficient to spend all that attack time on a single target strike just to get a charge etc etc. You can see what the devs were going for combat wise with the way some of these gems work, but then they abandoned that vision later in the game for more traditional PoE 1 mob density and screen-clear combat.

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EsoEs#4803 wrote:

That being said I tried making a Lightning Spear Amazon, I abandoned it at level 50. Having to jump through hoops to freeze or electrocute just to get 1 frenzy charge to empower 1 attack because otherwise Lightning Spear does no damage was miserable.

I'm doing fine with Fangs of Frost, the amazon is designed to do both melee and range attacks.

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EsoEs#4803 wrote:

That being said I tried making a Lightning Spear Amazon, I abandoned it at level 50. Having to jump through hoops to freeze or electrocute just to get 1 frenzy charge to empower 1 attack because otherwise Lightning Spear does no damage was miserable. Yea I get you can take Culling Strike gem or whatever its called to generate charges, its fine up to a certain point. At some point theres just too many mobs and it becomes too inefficient to spend all that attack time on a single target strike just to get a charge etc etc. You can see what the devs were going for combat wise with the way some of these gems work, but then they abandoned that vision later in the game for more traditional PoE 1 mob density and screen-clear combat.

This is almost similar to my Amazon in terms of generating charges. I don't mind the combo because it follows the VISION. I think my Amazon is good enough to do most of the content. However if you look at other class/builds, for less effort, they can do more damage with less combos or no combo at all and do even more juicier maps.

My expectation is both builds should be strong but those who combo more should be rewarded more because it follows the vision and because you do more work which follows the vision too.

But the reality is the vision seems to just pure vision. At some point it lacks execution.

I am not sure if you play Tekken. You can string moves and do damage and win. But mastering combos are far more impactful. So you get rewarded more when doing combos than stringing single moves.