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Post by stuffinator on Feb 1, 2011 6:05:31 GMT -5
Alright,
so I've been quit busy searching forums and wiki's to find an answer for this and I found a few helpfull things, but mostly I found splitted factions. So basically there are several detailed information about both skills + synergies and buffs that increase their damage, but unfortunately there is no significant difference between both in the endresult and I really don't know how to decide.
At first, here are some facts.
Frost Breath
- decent amount of damage
- with Frost Bite applies chill to every target it hits with 100% guaranty
- very energy consuming
Snow Storm
- good amount of damage
- with Eye of the Storm it does a lot of damage to mobs that attack you
- chance to apply chill only 15%
- less energy consuming
- if casted as long as possible, Snow Storm continues to deal damage for a few seconds which give the player the opportunity to interact even while Snow Storm attacks
At this point Snow Storm seems to be the obvious winner.
However, Frost Breath w/ Frost Bite doing the 100% chill status on mobs makes it the perfect pre-skill for Shatter.
Shatter
- decent amount of damage
- almost double amount of damage to chilled targets
- almost tripple amount of damage to chilled targets with the Cold Snap buff which you can get via Ice Sheath
- shatters all ice structures on battlefield causing additional damage
- returns energy for each chilled target
- consumes chill debuff on mobs :/
Thats what I got so far from visiting the official forums, some inofficial forums and some wiki's. The only thing that makes Frost Breath worse is the very high energy consumption and most people say that this fact makes Snow Storm the superior skill. However, right now I'm pretty satisfied with my Frost Breath and the energy consumption doesn't seem be that bad.
So my two simple questions to more experienced players are:
1. Does energy gets more important later in the game and therefore disqualifying the Frost Breath + Shatter build? Or
2. Is this build worth the high energy consumption?
I'm fully aware that question number 2 aims to opinions only, but I'm open for all kinds of feedback and I want to base my opinion on others opinions.
Also sorry for excessive coloring ^^
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Post by healspam on Feb 1, 2011 6:39:28 GMT -5
I don't play your archetype, but taking a look at the two powers on the wiki, I'm inclined to say Frost Breath.
I personally feel that reliability is more valuable than potential cost-effectiveness.
For example, Power A does 50 damage all the time ,but Power B deals 25 damage with a 50% chance of dealing 75 damage - I'd take Power A any day. It would take an extremely great potential for Power B to make it choose it over Power A (although it is possible).
In this specific case, I personally feel that Frostbite sounds better. The damage looks good, and I think I'd rather pay a little more Energy for a 100% guaranteed Chill than use a more cost-effective Chill debuffer, but which may not even trigger Chill when I want it to.
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Post by stuffinator on Feb 1, 2011 7:31:33 GMT -5
In this specific case, I personally feel that Frostbite sounds better. The damage looks good, and I think I'd rather pay a little more Energy for a 100% guaranteed Chill than use a more cost-effective Chill debuffer, but which may not even trigger Chill when I want it to. It's not quite clear to me what you're trying to say. Sounds to me that you would prefer Frost-Breath w/ Frost Bite + Shatter. That means: 1. Frost Breath chills all targets on very high energy consumption with decent damage 2. if Cold Snap buff is applied to my character, then I do tripple damage to chilled targets with Shatter, but all mobs lose the chill-debuff -> that means I have to do Frost Breath over and over again in order to do enough damage with shatter. while with Snow Storm it would be like: 1. Snow Storm does a lot of damage to targets that attack me + average damage to mobs that don't attack me + what I forgot to mention in my first post, snow storm continues to deal damage after I finished casting (if I maintain the cast long enough) 2. that means while Snow Storm continues attacking I can block, do other attacks or whatever 3. chance to chill are only 15% means a Snow Storm + Shater combination seems useless this beeing sad it's massive damage + high energy consumption vs. a lot damage + low energy consumption |
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Post by dysmetria on Feb 1, 2011 7:42:05 GMT -5
You seem to have not taken into account that Ice Blast also has an advantage that benefits from the chill effect.
Hard Frost has been letting me dispatch super villains and every archtype I've gone toe to toe with in PvP with ease for almost 20 levels now.
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Post by KenpoJuJitsu3 on Feb 1, 2011 8:33:18 GMT -5
It's a toss-up depending on how you want to play.
1) Frost Breath + adv. for guaranteed chill and then combine this with Ice Blast + Hard Frost or Shatter (I prefer tap spamming Hard Frost)
2) Snow Storm + EoTS is big damage and it lingers even if you don't fully maintain it. Keep that in mind. A full maintain is not required for the linger, it just makes the linger longer. While it's doing it's damage you can do other powers as well including iceblast, shatter, etc.
Also, down the line, if you're playing glacier at Level 40 you'll unlock Avalanche. Start up a Snow Storm and then while that AOE is going on add Avalanche to the mix for two solid damaging AOE's at once. When that's done anything that's left will likely be low on health and/or chilled. Hard Frost spam for the finish.
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Post by stuffinator on Feb 1, 2011 9:22:01 GMT -5
Ok so that means my Frost Blast (w/ Hard Frost) benefits from Frost Breath (w/ Frost Bite), while with Snow Storm and Avalanche I can somehow "dual-AOE" at lvl 40. So it's still somehow a tie, am I right? Ok honestly I was more looking for an answer to the question: Should I spend resources and time on rebuilding my character to a Snow Storm user or is it ok to continue building my Frost Breather without having a major disadvantage? Even though I found a few answers I wasn't sure if there are differences between gold and silver players, because most threads I found were about free-form characters. But, the few answers I got here are enough to convince me that I'm fine with my build and I'm thankfull for your help and feedback  If I'm still missing something I would be gratefull if you would let me know about it. |
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Post by dysmetria on Feb 1, 2011 9:33:51 GMT -5
Ok so that means my Frost Blast (w/ Hard Frost) benefits from Frost Breath (w/ Frost Bite), while with Snow Storm and Avalanche I can somehow "dual-AOE" at lvl 40. So it's still somehow a tie, am I right? In that context, (and excluding Shatter,) it's a tie. At 40. From 1-39 Frost Breath seems (at least to me) to be the superior choice. If you prefer to use the Snowstorm/Avalanche combo at 40 tho, you can always respec into it then. |
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Post by PoochieHellhound on Feb 1, 2011 10:23:03 GMT -5
I think, from a tanking perspective, Frost Breath is more useful, basically because it sets up for excellent use of Frost Blast, your main threat power, and Shatter, your main damaging power.
However, if you want to go the damaging route, Snow Storm is a very superior choice.
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Post by KenpoJuJitsu3 on Feb 1, 2011 10:23:27 GMT -5
In that context, (and excluding Shatter,) it's a tie. At 40. From 1-39 Frost Breath seems (at least to me) to be the superior choice. If you prefer to use the Snowstorm/Avalanche combo at 40 tho, you can always respec into it then. Pretty much ^this for archetypes as long as you have the energy for frost breath. If energy is an issue then you will still be able to get more DPS out of Snow Storm with tapped Ice blasts and the occassional shatter. |
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Post by Roxstar on Feb 1, 2011 13:02:14 GMT -5
<---- Does not like Snow Storm  |
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Post by PoochieHellhound on Feb 1, 2011 16:51:08 GMT -5
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Post by stuffinator on Feb 2, 2011 3:20:37 GMT -5
Alright, thanks for all the feedback it really helped a lot |
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Post by Susanno on Feb 10, 2011 4:59:29 GMT -5
is it just me or is the frost breathe (+adv) + shatter combo's damage really lol ? even on henchmen i need to repeat it 2 or 3 times to kill them, and it's even worse on vilains lol besides it needs loads of energy to perform!
with ice sheath the dmg is ok but i still prefer using ice blast(with adv) even against groups it's faster and less energy comsuming! cuz ice sheath + chill + ice blast = 2 hits for supervilains and 1 hit henchmen!
am i doing something wrong ?
and is snow storm + avalanche combo really good for pvp ? cuz that's what i'm aiming for!
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Post by PoochieHellhound on Feb 10, 2011 5:05:21 GMT -5
Granted, I don't PvP, but I can imagine a combo of Snow Storm and Avalanche with a few Ice Blasts thrown in for Crippling Challenge to be viable in PvP.
And the damage for Shatter isn't really that good unless you crit with it. If you get some structures with Frost Breath and shatter them it would do some respectable damage, but otherwise the overall damage of Glacier is good, but not spectacular.
It is a tank, after all.
Ice Blast is overall more useful in the lower levels, but once you get Ice Barrier at 32 I can assure you that Shatter will become much more useful to you. The combo of Ice Sheath->Ice Barrier->Shatter is just monstrous. More on this is in my guide, link above.
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Post by Susanno on Feb 10, 2011 5:26:29 GMT -5
yeah i read it and i love it lol, it's only thanks to your guide that i'm still playing lol i'm lvl 28 now i can't wait till i reach lvl 32 (lvling is kinda slow now lol) ps : in my previous post i meant to say the damage is really low not lol  |
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