HoI + Ice Bite question

So I decided to test this setup
ie, HoI+ Ice Bite + Culling strike to generate frenzy charges.

I dont have any cold damage on gear/skill aside from HoI. HoI has zero crit (obviously), 15% chance to freeze (10 from ice bite, 5 from tree). the tooltip says 517-776 damage on HoI.

I played for about an hour and Ive yet to generate a single frenzy charge from it. so Im like, fine looks like the damage is too crap to freeze anyway

so I link it to flame surge which is my ST skill with nothing else linked to pick off leftover single mobs. and low and behold, I get charges. not consistently, but still- I actually see charges being generated. the tooltip on FS is 105-158 cold damage, crit chance is ~17, crit multi is ~165, chance to freeze is 5%

so, why is my flame surge able to get charges from ice bite but hoi cannot ? Im thinking along the lines of my primary skill (magma orb)killing everything when critting and so then HoI fires a blank. but this is questionable because magma orb sometimes simply doesnt hit everything and there are straddlers.

anyone can confirm or disprove my thinking ?

"

Vipermagi wrote:

For Herald of Ice to grant you a Frenzy Charge, you need to first Shatter an enemy (which you can only rarely accomplish it seems?), there needs to be an enemy within range of your initial kill, it needs to be weakened enough for Herald of Ice to kill it, you need to make the Freeze Chance roll, and then you need to make the Ice Bite roll.

All in all that's... Unlikely?

ok thats fair...but why does it work pretty reasonably well (given my crit chance and puny cold damage) with flame surge ? Im able to shatter with flame surge obviously, and ice bite rolls fine- so the only difference here is crit on FS itself (yet crit on FS is still less cold damage than HoI) and enemy within range of initial kill ?

got it, thanks Vipermagi- knew I could count on ya ;)