Frost Blades

Frost Blades is a cold melee attack skill that strikes with increased range, then has the secondary effect of releasing projectiles behind the struck enemies.

Skill functions and interactions
An attack with Frost Blades consists of two parts:
 * Dual Wielding: Since Frost Blades has no weapon restrictions, attacks will alternate between both hands while dual wielding.
 * An initial melee hit with the keywords Cold, Attack, Melee
 * A projectile attack with the keywords Cold, Attack, Projectile

When an enemy is hit by this skill, multiple projectiles fly out from behind the enemy and target nearby enemies. This skill increases the melee range by an appreciable degree. Unlike, if the initial attack does not hit an enemy, then no projectiles are released.

The projectiles have the same damage multiplier as the initial melee hit, with the same cold damage conversion. However the initial melee attack scales with melee damage modifiers (such as Melee Physical Damage), whereas the projectiles scale with projectile damage modifiers. Both components scale equally with (unspecified) attack, physical, and cold damage modifiers.

uses the increased attack range of this skill when selecting targets to attack. does not release additional projectiles from secondary targets struck by the initial melee splash, nor does it splash the projectiles' damage. will increase the speed and effective range of the secondary projectiles. scales all the damage of the projectiles, but not the initial melee attack: attack speed is NOT reduced since the attack animation itself is melee, rather than projectile.

Note: the tooltip DPS shows only the melee attack component damage and DPS. It does not show damage values for the projectile component. To calculate the projectile component, use the formula at the bottom of this page.

Interactions:
 * Hydrosphere - Attacking a will make the projectiles from frost blades release. This allows characters to stay out of melee range of monsters, while still releasing projectiles.

Projectile Damage Calculation
To calculate the projectile damage (or DPS) given the melee tooltip damage (or DPS) use the following formula:

where:


 * IAD = Sum of all % increased attack damage (not including either melee or projectile specific increased damage nor effects from Strength)
 * IMD = Sum of all % increased melee damage (including effects from Strength)
 * IPD = Sum of all % increased projectile damage (including effects from Strength if Iron Grip is applicable)
 * MMD = individual % more/less melee damage modifiers
 * MPD = individual % more/less projectile damage modifiers

All % values are expressed as decimal, e.g. 20% = 0.20. Reduced and less damage modifiers are expressed as negative values.

projectile_damage = tooltip_damage * (1.0 + IAD + IPD) / (1.0 + IAD + IMD) * (1.0 + MPD) / (1.0 + MMD) If there are multiple more/less damage modifiers, then repeat the multiplicative terms (1.0 + MMD) and/or (1.0 + MPD) individually for each source.

Threshold Jewel
The following threshold jewels augment the skill gem:

Version history

 * Now deals base damage equal to, and has an added damage effectiveness of, 102% at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 140% at gem level 20 (from 142%).
 * Now adds 2 to 3 cold damage to attacks at gem level 1, up to 75 to 113 at gem level 20.
 * Now gains 1% increased damage and 1% increased projectile speed per 1% gem quality (previously gained 1% increased projectile damage per 1% gem quality).


 * Physical to Cold conversion increase to 60% (up from 40%).


 * 15% more damage at gem level 20.


 * Attack skills that have their damage based on the wielded weapon have their mana costs fixed in place from level 1 onwards.
 * Frost Blades has been improved from 2 additional projectiles at all levels to 4 additional projectiles at level 1 and 7 additional projectiles at level 20. It has also been increased from +14 weapon range at all levels to +18 weapon range at level 1 and +21 weapon range at level 20. It now gains 1% projectile speed per level after the first (19% at Level 20) and its base projectile speed has been increased by 25%.


 * Introduced to the game.
 * }