The combo system incentive makes skills extraordinarily unbalanced.

Playing a very generic straightforward lich with 7 active self cast frost spells made me conclude that the spells are incredibly unbalanced relative to each other in the basic face value state, with or without the best support gems. I will rate them with DPS values from 1 to 100 which will be the point of this feedback. It's not going to be very accurate but approx enough to give you the idea.


Right-mouse-button I have frost nova who's only purpose is to freeze enemies, because it deals around 5-25% of max life as damage to white average mobs(WAM) as a frame of reference going forward, dps value being 4.

1st KBI (keyboard input) is Frost Bomb that's used for exposure appliance and moderate damage, almost one-shotting WAM's. DPS value is probably 15-20

2nd KBI is cold snap which is pretty much the main combo with RMB that slowly clears WAM's. I freeze with nova, and finish off with either frost bomb or do massive damage with cold snap depending on the situation. DPS value is 20-25 (as a side note, I think it was unnecessary to piss me off by not allowing to use Frost Nexus support just because the skill already takes away freeze. If you're going to restrict us from using multiple supports of the same type, don't be cheeky on top of it about it.)

3rd KBI is a curse

4th KBI is frost wall which is just there to spawn-frag enemies as each ice pillar does almost as much damage as cold snap or frost bomb, but it happens multiple times depending how fat or how many enemies get in it's way. It works with around 95% of monsters. The other 5% includes some bosses like the snakelike one from act2. DPS value is all 100. Which is absurdly overpowered. Only thing holding it back is the cooldown which isn't a big deal. The spell is basically original GLACIAL CASCADE from POE1 (which I loved to self-cast), but you can cast it anywhere and it's horizontal instead of vertical from player character's POV. It's the only satisfying thing about this build.

5th KBI is convalescence.

MMB is frostbbolt which I just use to cast frost nova from a distance with, otherwise it's useless with the dps value of 5 being very small travelling AOE.

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On a side note, I tried every other frost spell and can say that
1. COMET could be decent with a dps value of maybe 10-15, but the +1 seconds to cast makes it either trash, or who's only purpose is to be left over "cast on X" skill only. It's cringy.

2. Eye of winter is extraordinarily undertuned. On it's own it has a dps value of 1 at best. I can cast solar orb, orb of storms, frostbolt for the trail of cold and it will still be inferior to casting ANY other frost spell in damage, utility or anything. It is that G.A.R.B.A.G.E I cannot stress this enough. It needs damage to be baseline buffed 3x, and so that all projeciles have infinite pierce, for the spell to be decent. That's how bad it is.

I know this feedback sounds emotional, because I did make a conscious effort to add some flare to it, but I also tried to be as fairly constructive as I could. I'm sure there are elaborate builds that can make each of this spell fast clear and do millions of DPS, but that doesn't change the state of their balance, or lack their of taking them at face value. The reason I'm using these strong words like "extraordinarily" is because I'm genuinely convinced that these spells have never been more unbalanced since poe1 beta or whenever the newer ones were introduced to the game. Is this really the vision?

Hope it helps make the game better. Sincerely.

Heh - I'm (a new player) following a stormweaver cold damage guide.
I pretty much use all the same skills as you, and with the same feelings (except I don't use frost nova).

The cast times are pretty frustrating (I've had to stack a lot of that). As is the inability to fire at your feet, which means anything that leaps at you requires you to roll away from to hit.

It's not been a fun build so far compared to 0.1 where I did minions :)

The cold sorc is really not on par yet. I messed with all cold spells, I tried to make a build in both 0.1 and 0.2 and was unable to make a build strong enough in maps...stuff get frozen all the time but stuff dies VERY slowly, basically taking 25-30min to clear easy maps so my sorc is currently parked, waiting for buffs, sadly.