I was really excited to try and play Cold Aura of Decay and freeze everything and put out massive frostibite stacks and be Death itself. Until I just read there is no conversion for Cold Death so it’s a dead skill.
They need to fix this before launch and have either poison or bleed chance from all sources converted to frostbite. Until proper support can be added across the board.
The only way Cold Death works is if and ONLY if you get Bleed/Poison converted to Frostbite chance. Unless the new build planner is wrong? So I just scraped that build there is no way you can play a cold version. There is almost no frostbite from gear (and forced into some bad options) or the tree. Where there is massive options for Bleed/Poison in the tree and gear.
I will say they did Flay correctly as ALL bleed chance from all sources is converted to Frostbite but why not do that for Aura? So now I feel forced to play Bleed Aura of Decay instead of a cool cold theme. Since Cold Aura has zero support. Which also means I can’t take Flay cold version and will stick with it’s base bleed.
Cold Aura has no support to even make it function to be viable, on the flip side you can take Bleed Aura and do 500 times more damage with actual support because of infinite options.
Which brings me to another topic there just needs to be more Cold oriented gear and build support for all classes. Every season I want to do something with Frostbite/Cold and you can’t do it because it’s just doesn’t have the support.
Just kinda killed my excitement because it’s the first build I was gonna try but the new node is dead on arrival. Guess I’ll have to play Bleed Aura but that should be fun as there is infinite options there and the new Primordial bleed unique with other gear to make it complete bonkers. So I guess I should be happy about that.
PS - Season 3 should be super fun just wish they didn’t willy nilly throw in Cold Aura without support and feel ALL Cold skills are the red headed step child and hated for some reason.
If you only care best dmg then yea bleed is for you. Start with bleed and beat everything with it and then do cold build just for fun?
Cold is more of a Alternative theme anyway because cold hasn’t been never Acolyte’s MAIN dmg type.
First off don’t we want to fix this before the patch goes live? I don’t think you understand.
Cold isn’t viable. It’s F tier. I’m not going to have fun playing something that has no support for it and isn’t viable. There needs to be some support to make it playable. There is nothing to theorycraft for the build because it has no support. It’s DOA.
Damage isn’t the only thing that matters it’s about making viable functioning builds that can do content to pick up loot in an ARPG. The build needs to have support to function to achieve that.
Currently there is ZERO support. It says it has a 40% effectiveness but 40% of zero is still zero. Since there is no support to make the cold skill playable.
I will play the skill when they fix it. Hopefully it’s sooner than latter.
It feels like Cold is an alternative theme for every class. It’s just bad in general, has little support for every class especially in gear. There needs to be a huge update to cold gear and skill for EVERY class. Not just Acolyte.
Where is the frostbite belt, rings, shield, axes, swords, ammy etc. (Again until we have these items… THERE NEEDS TO BE A CONVERSION TO COLD AND FROSTBITE in the skill)
Don’t think I’m asking for a lot just for the skill to be fixed so it can function and have support which clearly it doesn’t in it’s current state.
I rather they not add the skill or node AT ALL if they aren’t going to do it seriously and have actual support for it. Put something else useful there instead of dangling a Cold node there just for funzies when it does nothing.
So there is no support for the skill if there is no conversion on poison or bleed into frostbite. It’s just a dead skill if this is true and needs to be fixed.
The biting frost passive nodes gives 56% Frostbite and Bleed chance. Which is really your only source of frostbite for Aura in passives.
Meanwhile if I’m Blood Font and Bleed Aura I can convert that passive nodes Frostbite into Bleed chance for 112% bleed chance. Then of course all the other Bleed chance passive nodes. I can also convert the passive tree poison chance into bleed via the unique for Aura.
Not to mention just the crazy Bleed gear like flayer pride and plethora of options so it doesn’t matter if Bleed Aura is only 30% effectiveness because 30% of infinite is infinite while Cold Aura 40% of zero is still zero.
I just feel like they kinda threw Cold Aura in at the last minute without realizing there is no support. There absolutely has to be some poison or bleed conversion for the skill or it’s just dead. I’m not being hyperbolic, it’s just the reality. Which I hope it gets addressed.
with Cold conversion AoD uses your chance to inflict frostbite. So you want it to use both - your frosbite chance and your poison chance? wouldnt that be double dip?
it is same thing like when a skill’s damage is converted to other element you can only buff its damage with the % element increase it was converted to. For example, if Flay is converted to Cold damage you can’t buff it with %physical damage increase stats.
That’s how all skills are supposed to work though in the coversion so you can get to a meaningful amount. Every other skill works this way. since they updated conversions.
The new skill Flay converts Bleed chance from ALL sources into Frostbite for example.
Warpath converts ALL sources of Bleed into ignite.
Etc…
So that means the Bleed passives are now frostbite passives as well as wearing Bleed gear and frostbite gear to create a build. It’s 100% supposed to double dip so there is actual synergy. or the skill is dead.
It has to work this way for it to be impactful, (have support) to create a build.
Which is nothing. Sorry 1 item which is 40% effective isn’t going to cut it. That’s still zero.
Highly unlikely. It would be better to not even add the skill if it’s DOA because it has no scaling support.
Yea cold needs massive buffs across every class via talents, passives and items.
Again I’m just trying to paint a picture here. Blood font Bleed Aura has infinite scaling potential due to the fact of completely busted gear and talent/passive synergy. I can convert every other ailement into Bleed chance for Blood Aura. Not to mention the busted other things I can with duration and more multipliers.
Now lich also gets 10% more damage from an axe, blood tether which is 1% more damage per stack of bleed. Bleed Aura will likely be super fun. Near unlimited options in gear.
Cold Aura has like 2 items and no support because there is no coversions of other ailments it just functionally doesn’t work. It has no legs to stand on. There is no scaling, no synergy.
I’ve looked at every new Unique and Primordial item, I’m a nerd so I’m super excited about Season 3 and realized this problem is all. It completely kybashed my original build idea because for some reason they didn’t add in an ailment conversion for cold.
I was thinking like Llama and it would be there from the original text but it’s not.
No it does do it at 40% effectiveness just like the Poison Aura of Decay. It’s just for some reason poison on hit stops working for Cold Aura lol. This has to be some oversight.
Poison Aura and Bleed Aura are completely fine. It’s only Cold Aura because you need that conversion. Realistically you should also have it for Bleed in the skill as well but there is so much support from gear and can get coversions that way you don’t. Not to mention passives as well.
I think they were like there is tons of Bleed gear and the new Bleed Unique so Bleed Aura doesn’t need a conversion and why it’s only 30% effective? Then forgot that Cold has no support or synergy.
PS - The new Bleed primordial unique gloves will be so crazy to make ailement builds around since it converts every ailement into bleed chance, even shock. It makes me think EHG hates Frostbite and is worried we will freeze bosses or something if cold is strong.
With that said time for work. They nerfed the one Primordial Unique spear already cause it was gonna be busted (after the community pointed it out) maybe they can fix this skill in a hotfix or before launch.
One final thought before work. When I was excited to create a Cold Aura build I didn’t think it was going to be strong, I just thought there was going to be some synergy and support via poison chance to frostbite.
I could then use Viper belt which was buffed at 80% and use decaying form passive for 130% etc and be able to just create a build and see what I could do.
With no poison coversion you can’t even make a build, there is nothing to tinker with or create around with no support in passives or gear.
I only made this thread because I want Cold Aura of decay to be able to function (key word function) in Season 3 and have passives and items to support building around it. Hopefully EHG can address this problem because without the conversion it’s just not playable.
So you want to play a Frostbite DoT build. Honestly, AoD has never been good at just applying DoT stacks and killing things that way. It is better at support type things. If you had a skill that does more damage per stack of Frostbite, then it seems fine. Otherwise, AoD seems really good at slowing/chilling enemies.
Sadly, even with the changes, I don’t think AoD will be able to play like an RF build.
I didn’t quite understand you.
The description states that the bonuses from the chance to inflict poison do not apply. That’s correct. This is because it now depends on the chance to inflict frostbite. Why should it also depend on the chance to inflict poison? Were you expecting to deal massive damage from frostbite? That’s strange. In the update, you’ve been granted bonuses based on your chance to inflict ailments. Don’t forget that this was not the case before. AoD will deal more damage based on the trigger frequency, and the higher the frequency, the more stacks of ailment will be on the target, and the bonus from your ailment chance will also be applied to each trigger. THIS IS JUST A BONUS. You are already dealing more damage from the aura,than before the update.
It will be fine with applying Poison or Bleed just not Frostbite. There is also a lot of Aura decay support as you can increase the frequency also in the Flay talent tree.
Which Bleed has with Blood tether. You get 1% more damage per stack of bleed.
You can just still do that without converting it to frostbite. Since the chill node is before the Cold node. So just stick with Bleed or Poison and still chill.
It will be a very strong Aoe and add insane damage for Bleed. The Bleed version has infinite scaling so we are talking about it doing 1,000’s of times the damage in a bleed build vs frostbite.
The Poison one is fine as well as there are decent items and support in passives. Bleed Aura of Decay is going to be super crazy though since you can convert every ailment into bleed and with all the other bleed duration gear/items and passives.
Which is why I’m asking for some fixes for Cold Aura and a change in the conversion so you can play it and it has enough support to function.
Why would you opt to utilize Cold AoD in this situation? To keep the kit on-theme? That 1H Axe and Harvest is the combo.
And Harvest’s node is proof of the argument here.
Harvest’s cold conversion:
4% Frostbite chance per Intelligence
Bleed Chance from ALL Sources converted to Frostbite
Base Damage converted from Necrotic to Cold
+2 Cold Melee Damage per Dexterity
Aura of Decay’s cold conversion:
Aura of Decay’s inherent Poison Chance converted to Frostbite Chance
Aura of Decay’s inherent Poison-related effects change to Frostbite-related. This does not apply to passive skills, like Three Plagues, that gives Physical/Necrotic/Poison Penetration. The only place for any Cold Penetration on the class is a threshold point on a single node, for 8%.
Only gains increased Frostbite chance at 40% effectiveness, of which there is a SINGLE PASSIVE NODE in the whole Lich tree, worth a whopping 56%… which becomes 22.4%. Any other source is external equipment only (and VERY limited).
Very specifically, the node state that Aura of Decay no longer benefits from poison chance on hit (this is also on the Bleed Conversion node, but is less relevant due to external means to convert, as mentioned by others).
The amount of gear that has external ways to apply Frostbite, to Aura of Decay specifically, is counted on a single hand, with fingers to spare:
Frostbite Shackles
Snowdrift
And that is it. Everything else is either ability-specific (Warcry, Acid Flask, Puncture), or cannot apply to Aura of Decay due to how it functions (Melee Hit, Spell Hit, Minion).
The complaint here is very valid, in that it is entirely a trap node at this point. If skills are going to convert element, there should not be “exceptions” when it comes to damage over time stacking like this. Bleed has the same base damage per stack as Frostbite (technically slightly more).
Frostbite does not even have the key line of “Increased Effect applies additional Penetration” that both Bleed AND Poison do have (in addition to Poison also stacking up to -150% Poison Resistance, from an inherent -5% Poison Res per stack, up to the first 30).
If the point of the Aura is to make it a support skill, then that design goal needs to be clearly stated. Which it has not been. It is still placed largely as an offensive skill, which in 2/3 of it’s forms, will work very well. But given this was THE Lich Rework patch, 2/3 shouldn’t be the end result.
TBF, I can see where you’re coming from, I’ve asked on discord 'cause this kind of thing is best clarified by a dev.
I’m reading the “all of it’s effects” bit as converting poison chance to frostbite chance to then be used by the skill 'cause if it didn’t do that it’d just be bad. If it was just taking the mechanics of how it applies poison stacks & converting that to applying frostbite stacks (40% of your chance to frostbite on hit applied to each of AoD’s ticks), that’d be ok/fair (not sure it’d be “overpowered”).
