Icy Avalanche does not scale well (and maybe some changes)

[Pockolock]

Icy Avalanche is a Warframe Augment Mod for  Frost that grants allies within the radius a protective coating of ice for each enemy that is frozen by  Avalanche. At base, the amount of damage they capture per enemy hit is 60, which is moddable with strength.

Sounds good right? Was quite excited myself when I first discovered this mod as one of the only 6 Frost players out there. Jokes aside, I've got to say the augment is good, for enemy levels under level 50. The Ice coat health you get has no damage reduction to it (Adaptation does not reduce the damage it takes either) and it's also not affected by armor, which is one of Frost's main stats as it also affects his globe. It gets shredded easily and just one look from a SP corrupted heavy gunner and its like the ice coat wasn't even there to begin with. What I'm saying is that this augment could be a lot better, either straight up increase numbers, letting it be affected by armor, providing a grace period of invulnerability like when you lose a Mesmer skin charge, etc.

or

Make it  similar to Mesmer skin. Where each enemy hit by Avalanche would give 1 charge of mesmer skin/ice coat. Along with the grace period it also gets per charge depleted. But what if there are no enemies around? Provide it some base Ice coat charges affected by Armor (This way you have another good reason to build armor on Frost). Each charge would be an equivalent of 100 armor. Frost Prime has 300 Armor so therefore he would only have like 3 base charges of Ice coat and the other charges you'd get from hitting enemies with avalanche. Of course there would be concerns that like Mesmer skin, its just free invulnerability. So I would suggest a cap of charges you can get from avalanching enemies but no cap on how much base charges you can have (though if too unbalalanced, may cap charges from 1500 armor?). For example, Hitting around 20 enemies with avalanche but the fixed max ice coat charges you can get could be 10-12 (or maybe less?). 

Thats my take on how Icy Avalanche can be improved. I would appreciate the feedback on how to improve, what to change, and of course you're also free to disagree. Thank you!

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Pockolock

[Rathalio]

Tbh today I mostly use it as a status immunity passive more than something to help tanking a lot because it's just bad at its main purpose for some reason.

Making it work like mesmer skin would maybe be a bit greedy even though I wouldn't mind tbh. But there is at least a QoL they could definitely make which would be either letting us stack the icy avalanche and/or make the amount of health it gets scale with the enemy level.

[Pockolock]

9 minutes ago, Rathalio said:

Making it work like mesmer skin would maybe be a bit greedy

I was expecting this. It's a fair point and I thought that it being an augment mod for your ultimate flashy 4 ability you have to slot in compared to revenant who can do it without an augment and has no cap as long as you keep dumping ability strength on him would be fair. Alternatively instead of straight up invulnerability it could just provide 75-90% Damage reduction affected by mods (90 being the cap) and increase the number of charges you can get on base charges and charges from enemy hit. 

19 minutes ago, Rathalio said:

But there is at least a QoL they could definitely make which would be either letting us stack the icy avalanche and/or make the amount of health it gets scale with the enemy level.

That is the very least they could do and it's something i've been hoping for some time. DE might not do reworks on old frames but augment improvements are not impossible at least.

[vixenpixel]

Yeah, I like my frost tanky and honestly when I saw what this augment did I didnt even try it. Never tested it. Hope they do a rework. :)

[blackovercoat]

personally i think if DE could have make the Augment scale with amount armor that Icy Avalanche removed * Streng it gonna be enough, because technically it gonna scale with both streng and range also it make the Augment synergy even more

Edited June 7, 2023 by blackovercoat

[Leqesai]

This is a mandatory augment in my endgame Frost build. With large power strength numbers it is very helpful. It doesn't make you immortal but avalanche is an ability you cast very frequently for the armor strip so it is fairly easy to refresh the armor. 

As mentioned, one of the significant pros of this augment is the status immunity, which frees up a slot one might use for Primed Surefooted.

If you don't run with a lot of power strength (200%+) and a lot of range I can see how this augment would be disappointing, but with a lot of range and a lot of strength it is pretty easy to look at 2K+ armor on repeated cast, especially in steel path.

[Pockolock]

5 hours ago, Leqesai said:

This is a mandatory augment in my endgame Frost build. With large power strength numbers it is very helpful. It doesn't make you immortal but avalanche is an ability you cast very frequently for the armor strip so it is fairly easy to refresh the armor. 

As mentioned, one of the significant pros of this augment is the status immunity, which frees up a slot one might use for Primed Surefooted.

If you don't run with a lot of power strength (200%+) and a lot of range I can see how this augment would be disappointing, but with a lot of range and a lot of strength it is pretty easy to look at 2K+ armor on repeated cast, especially in steel path.

I'm glad you're able to put Icy Avalanche to good use. I don't think the same can be said for a lot of other people. the complete status immunity from Icey Avalanche is nice but if I had to pit it against PSF, I'd take PSF as its a lot more consistent knockdown immunity, and for status effects you can always slot in Rolling Guard. 

The frequent casts would be fine if Frost's energy even with a primed flow was not so low. But I suppose you can always fix that with Archon shards. And I doubt DE is gonna do some stat buffs for old icey boy.

Personally I don't think 2k is much especially if there's no type of damage reduction on it. You'd also have to factor in Eximus units who won't get iced from Avalanche who'd just shave off your 2k Ice coat health in a instant (In Steel Path) even if you're moving around. But perhaps that just me. I hope I didn't come off as rude!

[Leqesai]

8 minutes ago, Pockolock said:

I'm glad you're able to put Icy Avalanche to good use. I don't think the same can be said for a lot of other people. the complete status immunity from Icey Avalanche is nice but if I had to pit it against PSF, I'd take PSF as its a lot more consistent knockdown immunity, and for status effects you can always slot in Rolling Guard. 

The frequent casts would be fine if Frost's energy even with a primed flow was not so low. But I suppose you can always fix that with Archon shards. And I doubt DE is gonna do some stat buffs for old icey boy.

Personally I don't think 2k is much especially if there's no type of damage reduction on it. You'd also have to factor in Eximus units who won't get iced from Avalanche who'd just shave off your 2k Ice coat health in a instant (In Steel Path) even if you're moving around. But perhaps that just me. I hope I didn't come off as rude!

You've made some good points and I didn't mention this but yeah I should have shared a bit more about my build. It certainly isn't a build most players would be using as it requires archon shards and whatnot. Endgame setup for sure. Here are a couple of screenshots for my favorite Frost build:

Archon shards are:

Casting speed, 2x regular power strength, 1 tau power strength, 1 extra energy