cold spell speed question

[swirly]

Well for a third backup spell for a fireball sorc I am building I am probably going to get either Ice Blast or Glacial Spike. Ice blast does more damage while Glacial spike freezes a group, but does less damage. Now for my actual question though. On the Arreat Summet it says for Glacial Spike: "Glacial Spike fires much faster than Ice Blast." What kind of speed are they talking about? Does it travel faster to its target, does it cast faster, or both? I am hoping to have around 120 faster cast rate and am doubtful the speed difference will be significant. I will mainly use the spell for the odd monster that is immune to my other attacks so it will more often be a single target than a group. Thats why I was favoring Ice Blast. If Glacial Spike shoots faster though then it may over time actually be more damage than Ice Blast even though each bolt does less damage individually.

So what is this speed difference between the two? I could probably buy a staff with each spell on it and test it, but I am just playing with what I find so don't actually have my cast rate yet. Its not really an important thing cause it will be a while before I bother with those skills (being the third attack skill and all), but still would be good to know beforehand. So does anyone know anything about this speed difference?

[Elric of Grans]

Hail Swirly,

I've got a Glacial Spike Sorceress - she kicks butt :D Now, I'm going entirely off memmory here, so I may later regret not booting Windows and checking this, but they cast at the same rate, though I think Glacial Spike travels faster across the screen. It's definitely faster than Ice Bolt, but that doesn't say much now, does it :)

[AtomicKitKat]

GS is faster. By about 20% if I remember the post correctly. I could have sworn though, that GS damage is higher than Ice Blast. The damage overall on GS is still higher though, since you'll be hitting a group with it. And you won't ALWAYS be using ice against a singular monster either. Fallen Shamans(including Colenzo in Normal and his minions in NM and/or Hell) are immune to Fire in Hell. Burning Undead are immune to fire too(actually, come to think of it, no undead are immune to cold except OBKs, so you're going to be using GS a lot in Act 2), oh yes, one of the Knights, Abyss Knights I think, are also immune to fire. So there you go, that's just off the top of my head. Oh yes, Venom Lords are immune to fire too. The Chaos Sanctuary is probably one of the worst places to be as a Sorc, since there are all 3 types of immunities there at the same time(lightning/finger mages, fire/mega-demons and fire/cold/knights)

[swirly]

Well at level 20 Ice Blast costs 15 mana, does 255 damage, and freezes for 6.8 (though of course this is cut down in later difficulties). At level 20 Glacial spike costs 19, does 165-173 damage, and freezes for 4.2 (again lowered in later difficulties). I don't know the exact numbers off hand, but back when I looked up higher levels of the two skills on chippydips site Ice Blast did more damage still, so its not a case of Glacial Spike doing more at higher levels.

Now as to Glacial Spike damaging the whole group. I've always read it as if it only damages the one you hit, but does freeze th ones around it. I don't know if this is the case or not though, thats just how I have thought of it from the description.

Also as to why I say that I am going to only be using my cold attack on single targets. In my first post I meantioned that it would be my third attack skill. I didn't list all the skills cause this isn't the place to talk about the whole build really, just specifics about how certain things act in the game. My second attack will be a lightning one though, so the plan is to use it for the fire immunes. This just leaves the fire and lightning immunes for the cold spell, thus just single monsters. If you are curious about the details there is an old thread for it when I first was playing with the idea. I won't have the items I meantioned there since I've decided to just play with what I find, but overall you can see what the idea of the build is. The link is here: The build discussion

So I guess that leaves two questions now.

1: In what way is GS faster? You say it is 20% faster and since Elric said that he/she thinks it casts at the same speed then I will assume that you mean it travels 20% faster? I'm not sure how much the speed it travels will really effect things. A slower travel speed can make it harder to hit moving targets, but more often than not monsters are coming towards you so its not too hard to hit them even with a slower travelling speed. So is that what you mean by faster and how important do you find that to be?

2: Does GS's splash do damage or does it just freeze things around it. I do note on rereading the arreat summit that it says "does an area Freeze attack that Freezes monsters within a radius of 2.6 yards." and the word "attack" does tend to make one think of it doing damage. Does the splash actuall do damage though and also is it the same amount as done to the actual monster it hits or is it some lesser amount?

Also I would like to say thanks for you both replying. : )

[AtomicKitKat]

Hmm, not too sure about the damage now that you mentioned it. You could always try hiring an Act 3 Cold merc and see if his GS kills more than one target at a time(he uses both spells at random, in addition to frozen armour)

Also, the speed of the relative projectiles is noticeable. As an experiment, try flinging as many IBs as you can before the first one leaves the screen. Then do the same with GS. Let's recap:

Ice Blast:

+ Better damage to mana ratio(barring area damage on GS)
+ Always cheaper to cast.
+ Available sooner(not an issue for you of course)
- Only one target at a time
- Slower

Glacial Spike:

+ Moves faster(5 GS for every 4 IBs, in theory) allowing more consistent freezelock
+ Area of effect ensures it can freezelock up to about 8 monsters at a time
+ Might do area of effect damage as well(which would make IB's damage look bad in comparison)
+ If it hits a wall, the splash can still freeze(possibly damage) nearby monsters.
- More expensive
- Might only do damage to a single target, which would make it worth less(not worthless)

Okay, I hope that's enough information for you. I might go fool around with a character editor to test the AoE of GS and whether damage carries over.

[Ruvanal]

Ice Blast velocity=12
Glacial Spike velocity=16

Glacial Spike will damage all in the blast area. To see this just use a staff or orb with this on a pack of monster in act 1 normal. You should readily see several being shattered to ice cubes simultaneously.

[Elric of Grans]

Hail swirly,

He ;)

It damages all critters in the area of effect: I often have the critters on the sides shatter before the one I am aiming at (eg aiming at a shaman, while the underlings fall).