Frozen Status Effect
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With the recent balance patch nerfing most forms of CC, we are now left with just Freezing as the only CC with a long duration which wasn't touched.
For those that don't know how this works, a target becomes Frozen when it reaches 100 chill stacks. The frozen effect always lasts 4 seconds, and during that the target has +300 to all physical defense, and -200 to ice resistance.4 seconds is a long time, there is also no way for the target to cleanse it. Cryomancy is full of spells which benefit from the target standing still (ice spikes, shivers, cloak of frost), so the damage that you can receive in those 4 seconds can be very high.
Now, I have seen some suggestions regarding making it harder to freeze a target. I partially disagree on those, since freezing a target is what frost mages do, and if you make it too hard, it kind of makes them less fun.
I would prefer to make the freeze effect a bit less dooming. Have it break at the first instance of damage, but drop cold resistance by 400 instead of 200 and turn the next attack suffered into an automatic critical hit.
This way, the frost mage gains 4 seconds to set up a big attack, but it does no longer have 4 seconds of free play on the target.
This would also finally give a reason to exist for icebound blast, since it is the single biggest source of damage for cryomancy (allow it to crit) and would become the perfect spell to burst a frozen target. It also has AoE.
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lets try it!
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As a new player who only started since last test I dont really see the issue with freeze.. The CC on the other hand was pretty big and being able to chain it. Still some outlying issues with it but better than last test & learning how all the resistances like fort, will , evasion interact with skills. Bigger issue is going to be explaining to new players how important those 3 stats are to reduce damage, stacks, etc
Been dueling a lot since last play test plus this one and maybe can count a handful of times I was frozen if that. A lot of complaints seem to be coming from permafrosts massive stacks. Only done a handful of group fights but with most skills friendly firing you're not going to see massive freezing unless the group is coordinated. Also as usual high fortitude negates a lot of this stuff to begin with.
Currently you have the 4 elemental shields that negate the secondary effects while massively increasing your resistance. You also have the elemental absorb shield that can mitigate the damage. I feel like its self balancing currently with the options available.
