Arctic Breath

Released in 9.12 and still almost completely useless?

They keep adding new skills to the game, however there are lots of existing gems that no one bothers to use because they're so bad...

Would love to see a dev posting about plans (if any) to improve skills like this one that no one can make useful.

I quite like the spell with lmp, totem and faster casting, i guess with gmp and in a 5-link with something like increased AoE the spell would be quite good crowd control.

However, ice spear seems to be superior due to crits and it's stopping power and whenever I need extra help i exchange AB in my 4-link with IS (which I keep just in case in a 3-link with increased critical damage and cold penetration against bosses).

So yea... although I like it, some more love could be of use to make this skill competitive. Maybe bigger AoE as default?

Clearly we all need to go onto the Unofficial wiki and make accounts and actually use the "talk" page of the unofficial wiki (being the game's community and all) to discuss specific skills as well as relevant interactions and keep skill information up to date.

So.. it's me again. I tried hard to like the arctic breath, but when things get nasty at lvl 70 I just can't cope with using it on my totem. Especially in tight places or planks in the 3rd act slums where it goes off on invisible walls. Ice spear is better in every way (freezing most of the time, nice crit damage, doesn't go off on rubbish or ledges - it even attacks through closed gates!). It feels lame like hell, since I'm using lmp ice spear on the totem AND as a beefed up single projectile ice spear when I want to concentrate fire on bosses, but AB just doesn't offer much.

I was thinking of how to make AB more interesting (i.e. what would make me pick it up again), and I was wondering that maybe it could apply cold penetration with each hit, which would have a few second duration and could stack up to 3 times?

So lets say it applies 5-10% cold penetration per hit and could stack 3 times for a few second, which would work well with other cold-based skills. For my cold caster crit shadow I would still go for Ice spear because I'm rather wimpy and prefer to freeze than do a bit more damage, but for a close-range ice hammer templar I would actually consider arctic breath (if modified) since damage is an issue I always have with tanky templars.

Anyway, just my 5 cents, this skill is really fun but currently there are much better alternatives.

I love this skill!

I use spell totem + LMP with arctic breath and I let it spam chill on everything while I blast them with fireballs ^^ it's working pretty well so far. I just use AB totem to provide CC, not for damage but it still does pretty good dps (130 dps with lmp)

The spell effects can get a bit laggy though sometimes

I have also been checking it out for a few days now and like it alot, used to be icespear witch and wanted to try something else than ice spear, so i tried arctic breath because of more base dmg per lvl than ice spear in exchange for way less crits.
I use AB with lmp, added chaos, culling strike and sometimes with fork instead of cs when i farm sarn etc. for my main attack.
The base dmg is quite nice at lvl 17, good at crowd control and hard hitting at close range when lmp focuses together for single targets, i can easely handle myself in 66-68 maps.
Looking forward to lvl it to lvl 18 :)

There are some out of the order things about this spell though, it has heavy animations and rather odd hitboxes, it makes fps drop alot and the hitboxes are so dominant that the AB projectiles will explode on many small objects laying around in a zone:
Docks is a good example, with ice spear u can hit monsters below u and they can hit u, same goes if there is small rubble on the ground between me and the monsters, we can hit eachother.
With AB this is not possible, i have to move around alot to always move to locations where there is no small rubble between me and the monsters in order of being able to hit them properly, meanwhile they can target me effortlessly, same goes for when monsters are a platform below or above me and there is no stair between me and the monsters, the AB will explode on the edge of the platform before reaching its target, fireball fx doesnt have these problems.

Another thing btw, i also noticed was that the area dmg passives dont seem to influence the AB, neither does the Conecentrated Effect gem, is this on purpose or just beta?

Anywhoo, this is my experience with this spell, its fun to use/try out and usefull endgame (u can start mapping with it at AB lvl 16-17), but it could use some fixing/editing to be a bit better in fps and hitboxes ;)

"

bjarky wrote:

Another thing btw, i also noticed was that the area dmg passives dont seem to influence the AB, neither does the Conecentrated Effect gem, is this on purpose or just beta?

I should note i am level 47 in act3 cruel, my Arctic Breath is level 9 on a 5L with LMP/ColdPiercing/Concentrated effect/ManaLeech, man is mana leech useless at his job but i can't pay for another increasing mana cost gem an i got a 5L so meh it stays.

The radius works on the chill effect on the ground but i also felt like the blast radius didn't increase and i went for all the increase radius and area damage nodes i found(10 nodes).

The concentrated effect has a visible effect on the damage for me and the size of chill on the ground at impact. Infact i just removed increase critical strike to test it and i will be keeping concentrated effect, the dps lowers greatly in numbers on the icon but i realy do A LOT more damage.

I was hoping with chain the blast would happen on all mob hits but it only works on the last one making it useless for Arctic Breath(another one to add to the list where chain aint good, no wonder they are 10x cheaper now).

Piercing was awesome at lower level but i switch to cold piercing for more bang because it wont blast if it pierce though when youre low level with op gear you can afford to look cool.

The whole "it chills and slow things down" is a gimmick, if it wasnt id still be using piercing because it did an awesoem job in mobs but in the end it's fkn useless, its best to blast on the front line. On all my char i use cold damage on one of my skills and im not any less gimp.

The percentage Quality realy should be the first thing changed to something useful before anything. I wouldn't spend 2chaos for a 15% right now.

Anyway ill keep using it if only because it looks cool, the effect on the ground looks cool and it's one of the few spell sound i actually like. In fact it's the only sound i like, when it goes long and does that "whizzz", if you use it you know what i mean. I used to like the sound of my spark witch but it's been "nerfed" somehow and i realy don't like it anymore, it sounds flat and weak.

yeah i didnt bother to much with conecentrated effect since the tooltip doesnt show the increase, but after testing it on sarn and a 66map, it does seem like an increase in dmg when i exchange it with added chaos.
cold pierce works quite nice as well, so depending on wether its an half regen map or not i'll use that instead of culling strike as well :)
also have a 5 link where i usually have an iq sitting, wich i can switch out with reduced mana when needed, for half regen maps fx.

My thoughts...

1. Increase the spell's area of effect radius.
2. Remove the frosty ground effect.