Cold Effectiveness

@Chris

I worry about saying this for fear of ability stacking going away altogether, but Cold Effectiveness seems really amped up this patch. I'm really able to slow enemies down quite a bit, especially given the Ice Field effect seems to be stacking with the Ice Arrow effect. It gives the Water tree a great flavor of control to the skill tree.

But I think the stacking effect is too direct. I love seeing enemies slow to a noticeable crawl when I am stacking my abilities, but I'm getting 55% slow from Ice Field and 41% from ice arrow and it seems to be over 90% slow stacked. I feel like maybe the most potent slow should be applied first, then the second most potent at half, and if there is a third then half that again. If one falls off, promote the others as appropriate.

So instead of 96, it would be 75.5% (If hit with another 40% slow that counted for stack it would got to 85.5%). If Ice Field wore off, Ice Arrow would be promoted to the full 41% slow. I like slowing things enough to notice, but a near stop I will admit is a bit much.

 

Ya, they did not always stack, one would override the other before.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the stacking. It feels fun. Just think it should be a little more diminishing returns.

 

I better try this before it gets adjusted

 

It sounds like a bug to me. I don't think that it's intended for slowing effects from different abilities to stack.

 

Ice Field seems to stack with other movement slowing effects period. Disabling Shot for example does stack with Ice Field. Ice Arrow/Disabling shot would overwrite each other. So likely buggy, but IMO - giving an incomplete root to a tree that has limited damage output seems fair imo.

 

clearly should be a bug report, these should not stack like the disabling and ice arrow overwrite.

there are many issues with overlapping skills / buffs / . . . . .

 

I am not sure if it is a bug - in theory, it doesn't make sense to have two overlapping movement debuffs, but the mob in question has now Taken an Arrow to the Knee while slipping around in on a giant sheet of ice. One would assume he'd be barely able to move.

Regarding whether or not these two ice spells should stack with each other, at this point it appears that it takes two spell casts - and additional time and Focus cost - to get a nearly single target root, or other form of single target CC - other trees get this kind of thing (if not better) with just one spell. Given that the entire water tree as it is now is basically a utility tree, I think this isn't adequate enough. I want those mobs to actually freeze solid.

 

They did not stack before. And Ice Field itself does no damage. Them stacking would be a good balance shift for the tree given it lacks the damage output of earth/fire trees at similar skill level. Though, as I said, maybe it needs to be only half as effective as it is now when it stacks.

I am deep water tree with something like 120 attunement and 80+ skill in Field/Arrow. I did not notice the pinning shot/ice arrow overwrites as I don't use a bow.

 

Since there is an obvious counter (get out of the circle), I think they should stack. Otherwise it will be a useless spell.