Ice Trap

so. anyone has any idea when Ice Trap stops being a meme?



on the first glance Ice Trap is the 'raw damage skill' with bigger numbers but.. that is just the first glance

the 200% added damage effectiveness Fire Trap benefits from is AMAZING with all types of 'extra damage as chaos' and various flat added from jewels/items.

along that you can also scale the DoT part - and you do not have to sacrifice the 'hit' part to do it. the scaling is very similar and even if you dont turn it into full DoT - it is simply a free damage (and various interesting things with Scorched ailment can happen)

Ice Trap on the other hand..

has 5% crit chance and just 150% effectiveness.
it hints at the 'overlapping' mechanic but with no 'floating combat text' it is impossible to check if and how does it work. it is all one giant flashy mess where anything can happen and nothing is certain

low added damage effectiveness, big starting values and no phys-ele conversion step available limit the scaling to 'more damage' and lack of crit pretty much forces Elemental Overload + Contr Destruction (or overinvesting into crit that doesnt make much sense)

good thing is that level scaling is better than for Explosive Trap and Fire Trap (you roughly double the damage from 21 to 28 vs ~75% increase for other traps).

but you need to go trough SO MANY steps to make it work when simple Icicle Mine setup outshines it in every way imaginable.

what is the intended role for this skill? Enchants dont help here - the penetration hints at 'direct, brutal hit damage'.

Cons:
- absolutely impossible to 'see the mechanic' in action
- nothing interesting about the scaling vectors. it is the Heavy Strike of spells with the least number of tags and even less scaling options
- small AOE, does not fit current POE - zoom zoom full screen meta.
- 5% crit + 150% added effectiveness.
- pure cold. that one less conversion step lowers the ceiling

Pros:
- nice numbers
- seems to scale better with levels than competition
- cold damage is always nice

Id like to see a designer manifesto answering one question: why would anyone play this skill in modern POE?

unless the runes are able to overlap ice trap will never be able to compete with explosive trap for single target.

unless ice trap gets an AOE buff it will never be able to compete with lightning trap for clear.

what is the point of ice trap?

like, obviously ice trap is supposed to be this hard hitting skill, but its just not. it just feels like a really unpolished skill, as if ggg have just left some extra mechanic out and just forgot to address it.

an easy fix would just be to change damage to phys and have it convert 100% cold. or even take it a step further - go full blast rain and give ice trap cold pen built in.