Frost Blades of Katabasis - Good, Bad, Ugly

Frost Blades of Katabasis is a skill with a fascinating concept but a flawed integral design.

The dot:
- is NOT an attack, and is not affected by attack modifiers nor Precise Technique
- based on the above, guessing its NOT affected by melee damage modifiers
- receives no benefit whatsoever from weapon mods because of the deliberate changes on the tree to now state "hit and ailment damage"
- is ENTIRELY dependent on accuracy and the melee hit occurring in the first place, as the dot wont spawn without it
- likely scales is coverage by the large amount of added melee range, which is interesting

The attack:
- has an awkwardly melee radius
- does not match the cold dot radius
- creates confusion about what enemies would be hit in a line

A skill that is a melee attack (requires accuracy and x min distance from enemy), an aoe that is technically not an aoe for the sake of scaling and even initial hits, and a damage over time component that is ENTIRELY separate from the skills attack portion YET is ENTIRELY dependent on its hit portion to even start dealing damage.

Good:
- Larger damage than caustic arrow
- Cool thematically
- elemental damage with attack skills DOES scale properly

Bad:
- Dependent on hit's accuracy
- Little scaling opportunities on tree
- chilled ground isn't quite distinct

Ugly:
- melee radius mismatch with aoe dot coverage
- Heavily dependent on shadow tree or cluster jewels for true dot dmg. This results in predictable pathfinding of always choosing Elementalist or Trickster with investment into cold & dot nodes.
- Dex is supposed to be the "cold specialist", stolen by intel

Unknown:
- Does stygian frost blades result in stygian chilled ground????

Please:
- make the dot scale with increases and reductions to attack damage + melee damage.
- make precise technique properly work with the dot portion of the damage, otherwise the only other applicable key for damage is Elemental Overload...... (the skill literally needs accuracy stacking anyway to hit)
- match the melee radius to the dot radius, or make it a projectile again that leaves the dot to begin with behind it (in which case scale with proj damage + proj count scale radius instead of melee range)
- make the melee like a cone getting large as it gets farther away (less clunky)

I was honestly looking forward to this skill highly when I saw it before work this morning, as its fascinating to be the first melee dot skill, but now I learn that the only keystone that will affect it is Elemental Overload rather than the one that would actually make sense to connect to the dexterity and attack related skill, Precise Technique (regardless of anyone's thoughts of it being an "Attack Portion").

thanks for this, saved me time from using it, at least until it gets (hopefully) patched into a more usable state

I’ve been hanging out for a melee cold DOT skill, but this wasn’t the introduction I would have preferred.

Another set of suggestions:

Frost Blades of Katabasis as melee - melee hits impale enemies with frost daggers that each damage cold damage over time, stacking based on the number of daggers impaled in the enemy.

Frost Blades of Katabasis as a return to original with its projectiles - the frost blade daggers impale enemies and each damage cold damage over time, stacking based on the number of daggers impaled in the enemy.

Frost Blades of Katabasis hybrid - melee hits create a chilled ground effect that deals damage over time AND impale enemies with frost daggers that each deal cold damage over time stacking based on the number of daggers impaled in the enemy.

Impaling cold dot daggers that each last 3 seconds as a baseline. This creates a unique melee dot skill that scales via attack speed, something that doesn't currently exist in PoE. It would also help fix the idea of whether or not the cold dot should quantify as attack / melee damage, since enemies would LITERALLY be impaled with a frosty ice blade.

Elemental Overload states it only applies to hits, so that is also out of the question. I was truly disappointed to find out Precise Technique does not work. I mean you literally NEED accuracy as you've stated, this is either an oversight or a bad design decision. Either is possible given the fact they were clearly rushed out. So it's gem levels (which melee are sorely lacking in) and Dot Multi which is also pretty scarce