Why are Cold spells so BAD?

So I decided do a little prep work before new league and wanted to try a cold sorc.

I was pretty well geared for the get go as had lots of basic currency and gold from playing at league launch. I can say the damage of cold skills fells terrible.

I got my cold infusions going well, spec'd heavy into damage and penetration on tree, had 6-link gems tried all the different combo's using the different elements and infusions on top off cold skills and the single target felt bad all the way through the campaign and my first map I was like nah this is too bad to actually play.

I freely admit that I am not the best gamer but when you much have better gear and gem links etc. than you would usually have going into maps and you still have to get multiple infusions going to then do multiple combo's to kill a single rear mob something definitely fells wrong/bad. Maybe cold spells get buff in new league because man do they need it.

Thanks

Comet is the most powerful spell in the game, used by entirely too many people. It's a cold spell. Even if you ignore Comet you can have a great clear speed and clear all content in the game with cold spells.

What Ascendancy did you pick? As a Stormweaver you can chill enemies by 70% and there are two uniques you can wear together (until .5 when they likely remove it because it's fun) that cause your own chill to be reflected on to you but to boost your speed instead of slowing it, so you're zooming around and casting in fast forward while the rest of the world is in slow motion.

hmm comet as a standalone skill is very bad, true but frost nova is pretty viable, snakepit frostbolt is still a thing, there are plenty of negative chill builds. Frost bomb is probably among one of the most universal skills ingame. I think they not that bad.

Cold damage does both dps AND has slows and freezes.

So yeah it makes sense the raw dps of Ice spells would seem worse in paper than Fire or Lighting.

But it can get really powerful. My tip is to consider the cold passives at the top right of the tree. Specially the one that makes Frozen Enemies ignore positive resistances. After that you have to invest a lot on Freeze Buildup.

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vexorian#9572 wrote:

Cold damage does both dps AND has slows and freezes.

So yeah it makes sense the raw dps of Ice spells would seem worse in paper than Fire or Lighting.

But it can get really powerful. My tip is to consider the cold passives at the top right of the tree. Specially the one that makes Frozen Enemies ignore positive resistances. After that you have to invest a lot on Freeze Buildup.

I've tried to make cold sorc work since patch 0.1. Tried all related uniques too, like icestorm from whispering ice. Aside from comet trigger loop, cold sorc sucked before infusions, and it sucks with infusions. Trading damage for slows and freezes (in a game where you're supposed to oneshot all non-boss enemies) has no sense. GGG had also nerfed freeze to the ground since 0.1.

Problem is, self-cast cold spells are all clunky by design.

- Frost bomb: cooldown and fuse delay, no single target potential.
- Frost nova: needs conversion to be cast on target point, low damage without infusion spam, no single target potential.
- Frost bolt: projectile, needs alot of projectile investment, clashes with aoe investment needed for other skills. no single target potential.
- Frost darts: also a projectile, chaotic mechanics, shit dps without infusion spam, no ailments, no aoe potential.
- Snap: Payoff skill, no ailments, not spammable, cooldown
- Frost wall: nerfed to the ground, no more spell cascade dps on large targets
- Comet: impossible to self-cast, you'll be swarmed/shot by fast enemies.
- Eye of winter: only good generic self-cast spell, but nerfed via huge cooldown
- Icestorm: shit dps even with full investment and several storms overlapping
- Elemental storm (acsendancy): shit dps even with several casts overlapping.

So, each cold spell has some crippling drawback, making them just not fit for poe2 endgame where you have no time for piano combos. Even without running for remnants.

While both fire and lightning sorc has generic skills you can scale singularly to good effect (solar orb, incinerate, arc, etc)

GGG nerfed the hell out of spells in 0.2 then forced us to play garbage infusions in campaign. You want to play mono element? Too bad for you. You going to deal less damage.They want you to play spells how they want you to play.
Infusion printing are not a problem in the endgame tho. I spend like 500 divs to make fully Lightning Stormweaver (no Comet) that can survive at least 50 room juiced temple. At the same time its an insane price to power those nerfed spells compare to some good bow setup that can be achieved cheaper. Even after that I STILL NEED infusions to make my setup work.


P. S. Snap is a meme skill lol

Yea, cold is bad. This is partially because of infusions and how they made cold spells to be after infusions, but they were quite bad since the beginning tbh

There are ways to scale some of the cold spells but they all feel like a self imposed challenge where you're playing the shit version of another skill

You're acting like infusions are hard to maintain. Throw on siphon elements with harmonic remnants and most of your casts will be infused..

Make an actual build design to do cold damage. Grab a pair of leupold's so you can push enemies down to negative 50% resistance through penetration and exposure instead of zero. Either use EW+Cold Bomb to lower resistences if you want a more active play style, or grab a well rolled permafrost so you're adding 50%+ exposure per hit and have a chilling aura if you'd prefer a 1-2 button build. Have cold penetration on your jewels and pretty much any enemy you in the game has an effective -50% cold res against you.

If you're using Archmage or a weapon that has gain as damage then use embitter as one of your socket support gems so all of that damage hits as cold and penetrates to -50%.

If you're on a sorceress you can take the ascendancy to make all of your damage cause shock and double shock, which adds 30% more damage.

These are multiplicative changes, they make a massive difference.

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AbyssianOne#1625 wrote:

You're acting like infusions are hard to maintain. Throw on siphon elements with harmonic remnants and most of your casts will be infused..

Make an actual build design to do cold damage. Grab a pair of leupold's so you can push enemies down to negative 50% resistance through penetration and exposure instead of zero. Either use EW+Cold Bomb to lower resistences if you want a more active play style, or grab a well rolled permafrost so you're adding 50%+ exposure per hit and have a chilling aura if you'd prefer a 1-2 button build. Have cold penetration on your jewels and pretty much any enemy you in the game has an effective -50% cold res against you.

If you're using Archmage or a weapon that has gain as damage then use embitter as one of your socket support gems so all of that damage hits as cold and penetrates to -50%.

If you're on a sorceress you can take the ascendancy to make all of your damage cause shock and double shock, which adds 30% more damage.

These are multiplicative changes, they make a massive difference.

Cold spells suck mechanically, before we talk damage scaling. What you said here can be used on monk/ranger as well, and work much better because base skills (cold attacks) are miles ahead of spells.

Work much better than blinking through fully modded t16 overrun maps clearing everything on the screen in a hit, sometimes two?

What is it you think you're missing out on? I'll never understand the mindset that if something isn't the absolute fastest moving highest damage dealing build possible it must be trash.