Frost Splash, Worth it.

OPKossy wrote: »

Have you actually purged with it?

Aim low claimed to be a stun for years, the winged pledge + wingspan merge claimed to knock back player targets, currently demon sin skills are claiming to have the same effects as their sage counterparts, and this is barely the tip of the iceberg for unreliable skill descriptions.

I have very little trust in the effects ingame skill descriptions claim until tests prove them accurate for good reason.

^ as of this expansion I've completely lost my trust of PWI skill descriptions.

Geckofreak - Sanctuary wrote: »

Took you long enough. I learn from my own eyes.

I was trying to stay positive :<

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

Got the skill today and tested it on my fsp squad http://i.imgur.com/K5CB9MT.png
The damage is pretty mediocre as expected. I think it would only ever kill unbuffed and undergeared players.

Here's various tests I did for the shape of the AOE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHdZgSPb2d8

While the area is large the shape of the aoe is inconvenient. Barrage can attack players up to 12m behind the target but splash can only attack players at the distance of the target or closer. It also drops early if the target dies. The ideal way to use seems to be on a high HP target in the back of a large group.

This means you can't really use it effectively at max range. It's effective range is probably like 23m or so if you want to use the aoe.

The animation is also really lame and it's hard to tell exactly what you are hitting. There's no sound effect either.

Also this skill lied and does not purge. I haven't been able to purge anything with it. You can see that it does do a stun but the duration is really short.

I don't really see when I'd want to use this instead of barrage.

The animation is pretty much non-existant? It looks more like lag-numbers popping up on the mobs and no visible display of arrows being widely shot so no clue where the dmg went. BoA > Fr.Splash clearly same chi cost, more dmg with never-ending cast till target dies/out of range.

Wow...I can probably hit twice - three times as hard with Barrage on that squad...

The most use you'd probably get out of it is if you're a random g16 Nirv archer using it in conjunction with a r9rr archer barraging.



But lbr, no one wants to be that g16 Nirv archer playing support for the r9rr one.

Yeah... this skill is really... not that good... at all from what we're seeing here.

Thank you for your sacrifice, Ast.

Aeliah - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I also want to see more testing before I know if it can purge or not---as far as I understand it, you can't purge on a skill that delivers a debuff. However, what I'm not sure of is, can you purge on a skill that only *sometimes* delivers a debuff?

Aim Low and Stunning Arrow are both skills that do not grantee their debuffs. They are unable to purge even when the skills simply fail as opposed to missing entirely.

Aeliah - Dreamweaver wrote: »

It seems established that the skill is, obviously, not as useful for damage as barrage.

But maybe this skill isn't meant to compete with barrage for damage. What would you get instead... just a harder hitting barrage? Not necessary-barrage already hits really hard, as has been pointed out by everybody here.

Maybe if it didn't have 3min cd, cost 2 sparks, or had longer freeze...you can call it a debuff AOE as opposed to Barrage, and it would be fine to have something like that. In fact, as long as archers are now the "support debuff class," make it bleed every element in an AOE for all I care.

But this skill does provide some aoe cc that archers don't currently have. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think archers have any cc that is more than single target, correct?

If I understand this skill correctly, it has a chance to aoe stun and aoe amp damage. If we consider that this skill is meant to be aoe cc instead of aoe damage, then the fact that it doesn't hit too hard might be a good thing, because if the target doesn't drop too fast, then your aoe stays up longer, increasing the chance that you aoe cc ppl.

I've often seen times where barrage tends to drop quickly anyways, because ppl run, or because the target dies. Barrage is very flashy, and people notice when they are getting hit by it.

That's like saying i should use a g15 lunar bow to barrage b/c if it stays on longer i can purge more people.

If it doesn't purge then what are we popping sparks for? There are classes that can slow/freeze/stun in an AOE from range, from 6s stuns to 12s slows, so why do something half-assed when we can let the real AOE CC work and contribute chance for AOE purge instead?

However, this aoe doesn't have very much of an animation---thats a GOOD thing, because it means that people will be unlikely to react as fast to it, and therefore, they'll take the damage for longer.

Barrage is flashy but tends to hit 2 waves at a time at max range. We better "discover" a lot more "good things" before anyone can consider using it in place of Barrage.

I also want to see more testing before I know if it can purge or not---as far as I understand it, you can't purge on a skill that delivers a debuff. However, what I'm not sure of is, can you purge on a skill that only *sometimes* delivers a debuff? For example... one way to test this would be to have a barb (with non-upgraded stun) use a purge pole and mighty swing stun, and see if they can purge with mighty swing when the stun doesn't proc. (Mighty swing old version stuns 50 or 60% of the time, sage/demon).

And finally, while its not as useful for hitting targets farther away, it looks really useful for hitting targets spread out in a line left to right. The diameter which the skill hits is really quite incredible. If we consider your total damage on a group of people, if your barrage hits 3 ppl, but this skill hits 7 or 8, even if the barrage does more dmg per hit, this skill hits faster and hits more people---your total damage might be higher.

I wouldn't write the skill off as useless just yet---I want to see more of it in action in real pvp situations like TW.

Sure.

I used this skill significantly in my most recent tw (1.5 hrs) and I did find it decent at killing groups of undergeared people. I don't think it really did anything to people with good gear. I don't think it was ever really as good as barrage but it doesn't draw the attention you'd have from barrage. The lack of purge really took away any apparent benefit in that 1.5s debuff.

The cooldown is actually not an issue since the situations you'd want to use it in aren't encountered very often. That's mostly a problem with the cost and quality of the skill though. Overall it's another expensive situational skill to go alongside inferno / whisper shot.

I noticed an archer using Frost Splash in TW a few times. I was glad he did, actually -- it hardly affected me, didn't kill a single member of our fac, meant we didn't have to worry about purge, his damage threat went down the drain, and he lost two sparks.


Not something I'm expecting to have much use if I ever get it.

Jarkhen - Archosaur wrote: »

I noticed an archer using Frost Splash in TW a few times. I was glad he did, actually -- it hardly affected me, didn't kill a single member of our fac, meant we didn't have to worry about purge, his damage threat went down the drain, and he lost two sparks.


Not something I'm expecting to have much use if I ever get it.

This isn't going to do as much damage as barrage, and is not an equivalent for barrage.

Most probably shouldn't even be used in most TWs unless you have very high p-att and the opponents are relatively squishy, or there are already a butt tonne of aoe's going down and you need to react faster than BoA to assist on that aoe damage. Or you are in the enemy base and there are 60 people standing facing you. It's still pretty good damage, really comes down to target selection as to how effective that aoe is. I'm still experimenting with it.

The other major point is (pretty sure you're demon) when do you use frost arrow, or deadly shot? This may be situational but its still at the very least worth having on your skill bar somewhere. The chi cost is big but only really noticeable in TW where you're consuming chi by the gallon, in NW I find it pretty useful.

One example I was capping a flag in a war massively outnumbered by non r9rr +12s, as I jumped out of the pit with the flag had about 15 people pursuing me I turned around hit frost splash on a seeker farthest away and in the middle of the group and wiped like 80% of them. Considering the cast/channel time and the range of effect no other skill would have ad the same effect.

Also realistically once you have maxed all your passives (2-3 weeks ago) and have tonnes of bloods what are you going to use them for.

XShadowshotx - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Also the fact that Frost Splash's 5 volleys continue even if the target you selected runs out of range, so a kiting target doesn't get away.

I didn't know this I'm still testing it out, I actually got pretty lucky with the CC on it, was piling into our servers tankiest mystic who would just rebuff and self heal and could've gone on for ages but I ticked charm purged stunned and then hit frost splash, which proc'ed (ice prison effect - equivalent to a stun + amp) and killed him.

In NW I usually have so much chi I don't really notice the chi cost as much.

Verenor - Morai wrote: »

Is this for real? I read somewhere in this thread that the AoE of Frost Splash grows by the further away the target is. (30m target + 45 degree angle for aoe).

That would mean that using it in TW's on someone that's about to run back escaping the frontline with holypath/distance shrink/leap/whatever would cause a massive aoe-range and you would pretty much hit everyone on-screen? Considering it slows ppl down massively and can give a small amp that's a win-win skill. The skill isn't good when solo-fighting but with others fighting the target you strike it can be a bonus.

Indeed, if you look at the video I posted earlier up a few posts, the FCC pull of all the magic hall they were very widely spread out and obviously their range is less than my range, so if you imagine a triangle with the top point being the archer and the baseline mid point being the target, everything within that triangle gets hit. The further back the target is the bigger the triangle.

Imagine a galvanic aura followed by frost splash on a target at max range with a mass of people in that huge triangle, although the specific target dps wouldn't be that much and wont be doing much pain to tankier targets, the amount of damage you would do, in conjunction with allies attacking the same people, throw in a few HFs a few parasitic nova's BoAs and all that fun stuff, with the 20% chance per target to proc a ice prison effect with a 30% amp... I wouldn't write it off as a useless skill. Sounds support classy but hey, archers are support nowadays

Verenor - Morai wrote: »

PS: DarkSkiesx do you have a link to your current pwcalc or ss of your atk stats? Curious about your atk ratings so I could scale Frost Splash dmg to what it would be in my case (You're a lot stronger so curious whether or not I will end up hitting 1k's or can also reach 2-5k :P)

Pwcalc is lame, too much editing and work to get it right so I stopped doing it.

Unbuffed P-att high end 44.7k
att lvls 155
spirit 407

Got some more epic FS clips, such a fun guerilla hit and run skill. Will be uploading a few fights from sundays NW tonight.