Bjond
02-12-2020, 01:35 AM
Synopsis:
Bug: Spinning Ice misses short things (wolves, kobolds) and things not touching you.
Fix? during spin, increase weapon range and thickness.
Fix? split effect from animation, re-use Dire Charge's method of stun AE range check.
Workaround: none, though forcing short things onto objects can help.
Bug: Northwind seems to overwrite duration of Frozen Fury & Spinning ice, significantly shortening them.
Fix? don't apply Northwind on already frozen (don't put it on internal CD in that case either).
Fix? change Northwind's effect to "icy guardbreak" with 2 AP cost (already v.short duration, no need to make it a helpless stun).
Workaround: none / don't take the skill.
I swapped my build up a bit to try out WC:T5's "Spinning Ice" and does that skill have issues. First, it misses wolves almost entirely. It's not DC. Single Frozen versus one wolf in the same dungeon is essentially no-fail and Spinning has DC+4 over Frozen. After playing around with it for a fair bit with many different targets, I've come to the tentative conclusion that the "whirl" part has a VERY tiny and VERY high "hit box". So, it just "whooshes" overhead versus small targets. I had no problem freezing a pack of scarecrows around my PDK. Kobolds had the same issue as wolves. Unsure about other small critters, that was all I tried after forming a test theory.
Spinning also has almost no range. It can only hit things that are trying to climb on top of you. This constrasts strongly with Dire Charge, for instance, which has about triple the radius of spinning ice and can also hit kobolds and wolves.
These two issues make Spinning Ice worthless to me. Did not test non-PDK. PDK are the tallest race. So, this might be a PDK-only concern.
The second issue I noticed was that for some reason my freezes were no longer lasting their full duration. My character has L18 Bard. Freeze should last 18s (and it did before I took WC T5) and spinning should last 9s, but they were often only lasting about 3s (LE Baba). After a bit, I noticed that only the ones I was attacking were released from freeze too soon. My guess is that "Northwind" is interfering with the duration of an existing freeze effect and overwriting it.
I do like the now-and-then free freeze aspect of Northwind, but 6 AP for an effect that also randomly removes my 18s freeze is just not worth it.
BTW, it also might not be Northwind that's shortening freeze, but it's the most likely candidate out of Northwind, Howl, & Chant (couldn't be spinning, didn't spin on top of frozen fury .. unless it has some kind of hidden passive effect). I've since returned to my T4 WC build and Frozen Fury (without Northwind) is again lasting 18s.
Hmm. It's not stated, but if Frozen Fury (or Spinning Ice) has subsequent DC-checks to break free, that could have been the cause, too. DC90~107 in T4 build (w/o & with divine presence) and DC89 in the T5 WC build. That didn't seem to effect initial freeze chance, but if there are unstated break checks, it might have mattered.
And another potential complication: my PDK bard was using a short sword with a weapon skin for a long sword (enduring conviction). I haven't noticed any oddities as a result of doing that before, but it's worth noting in case someone wants to do more thorough and deliberate testing. All of the above is from a personal trial build change. I wasn't trying to actually test and/or isolate issues.
Bug: Spinning Ice misses short things (wolves, kobolds) and things not touching you.
Fix? during spin, increase weapon range and thickness.
Fix? split effect from animation, re-use Dire Charge's method of stun AE range check.
Workaround: none, though forcing short things onto objects can help.
Bug: Northwind seems to overwrite duration of Frozen Fury & Spinning ice, significantly shortening them.
Fix? don't apply Northwind on already frozen (don't put it on internal CD in that case either).
Fix? change Northwind's effect to "icy guardbreak" with 2 AP cost (already v.short duration, no need to make it a helpless stun).
Workaround: none / don't take the skill.
I swapped my build up a bit to try out WC:T5's "Spinning Ice" and does that skill have issues. First, it misses wolves almost entirely. It's not DC. Single Frozen versus one wolf in the same dungeon is essentially no-fail and Spinning has DC+4 over Frozen. After playing around with it for a fair bit with many different targets, I've come to the tentative conclusion that the "whirl" part has a VERY tiny and VERY high "hit box". So, it just "whooshes" overhead versus small targets. I had no problem freezing a pack of scarecrows around my PDK. Kobolds had the same issue as wolves. Unsure about other small critters, that was all I tried after forming a test theory.
Spinning also has almost no range. It can only hit things that are trying to climb on top of you. This constrasts strongly with Dire Charge, for instance, which has about triple the radius of spinning ice and can also hit kobolds and wolves.
These two issues make Spinning Ice worthless to me. Did not test non-PDK. PDK are the tallest race. So, this might be a PDK-only concern.
The second issue I noticed was that for some reason my freezes were no longer lasting their full duration. My character has L18 Bard. Freeze should last 18s (and it did before I took WC T5) and spinning should last 9s, but they were often only lasting about 3s (LE Baba). After a bit, I noticed that only the ones I was attacking were released from freeze too soon. My guess is that "Northwind" is interfering with the duration of an existing freeze effect and overwriting it.
I do like the now-and-then free freeze aspect of Northwind, but 6 AP for an effect that also randomly removes my 18s freeze is just not worth it.
BTW, it also might not be Northwind that's shortening freeze, but it's the most likely candidate out of Northwind, Howl, & Chant (couldn't be spinning, didn't spin on top of frozen fury .. unless it has some kind of hidden passive effect). I've since returned to my T4 WC build and Frozen Fury (without Northwind) is again lasting 18s.
Hmm. It's not stated, but if Frozen Fury (or Spinning Ice) has subsequent DC-checks to break free, that could have been the cause, too. DC90~107 in T4 build (w/o & with divine presence) and DC89 in the T5 WC build. That didn't seem to effect initial freeze chance, but if there are unstated break checks, it might have mattered.
And another potential complication: my PDK bard was using a short sword with a weapon skin for a long sword (enduring conviction). I haven't noticed any oddities as a result of doing that before, but it's worth noting in case someone wants to do more thorough and deliberate testing. All of the above is from a personal trial build change. I wasn't trying to actually test and/or isolate issues.