Winter Orb

Winter Orb is a channelling skill (a spell). Channeling the skill charges up an orb, which fires icy projectiles to deal cold damage enemies, which target the ground to deal area of effect damage.

Skill functions and interactions
While Winter Orb has the Projectile keyword, testing shows it appears to gain no benefit from the, , or gems, even though the Active Skills window shows them as compatible. Firing projectiles in a nova with causes multiple projects to launch spread out as expected but land not exactly the same distance away from the caster.

Math
Projectile hit rate

Base projectile rate at stage 1 with no cast speed is .625 per second.

The first stage does not gain projectile frequency. Therefore 10 stages gives (9 X 15) = 135% increased projectile frequency. The plus 2 maximum stages helmet enchantment adds 30% projectile frequency.

All cast speed modifiers are additive with the increased projectile frequency. Therefore a 10 stage winter orb with 100% cast speed has (135 + 100) = 235% total increase projectile frequency.

100% more projectile frequency will double your projectile fire rate while channeling.

Example: 10 stages, 100% cast speed. Currently being channeled.
 * (.625 x 3.35) = 2.1 (2.1 x 2) = 4.2 per second.

Version history

 * Now has a base duration of 1.6 seconds (from 1.2).
 * Got Orb tag.


 * Now has alternative gem quality.


 * Deals 30 to 37 cold damage at gem level 1 (from 25 to 31), up to 232 to 291 at gem level 20 (from 232 to 289).
 * Base duration is now 1.2 seconds (from 0 base duration, building solely on stages).
 * Now states that increases and reductions to cast speed now also apply to projectile frequency (actual behaviour is unchanged).
 * Now has a 20% reduced target acquisition range.
 * Now fires projectiles every 1.6 seconds (from every 0.8 seconds)
 * Now gains 25% increased duration per stage (from +0.4 seconds to base duration per stage).
 * Now has 100% more projectile frequency while channelling.


 * Now deals 25 to 31 Cold damage at gem level 1 (from 23 to 28) and 232 to 289 Cold damage at gem level 20 (from 258 to 322).
 * Now has an added damage effectiveness of 50% (from 60%).


 * Winter Orb has been added to the game.
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