[2018] Skill Rework

As part of a number of improvements to Cold skills, we've significantly reworked Arctic Breath for the release of Path of Exile: Betrayal.

The projectile now flies (rather than travelling on the ground) to the target location before bursting. When it bursts, it creates a chilling area that deals cold damage over time to enemies inside. This chilling area then moves towards nearby enemies, and if you have multiple projectiles they'll spread out to affect a larger number of monsters.

You can have up to 10 chilling areas at once, and they're not modified by projectile damage, so using Multiple Projectiles supports will let you quickly deploy the chilling ground without a damage penalty. The area burst can also overlap, letting you deal more hit damage to an enemy when projectiles burst around them. The chilling area's damage doesn't stack with other Arctic Breath chilling areas, but does stack with Vortex and Cold Snap, letting you focus damage further on tough enemies if you're able to support multiple skills.

We've also reworked and simplified the skill's visuals to improve performance.

To let you further invest in Cold Damage Over Time, we've added a new kind of stat, Cold Damage over Time Multiplier. This can be found on new weapon, jewel and shaper mods on items, and on Cold clusters on the passive tree, as well as new notables on the Occultist. This multiplies all of your Cold Damage over Time, giving you another axis of investment. This will help the damage of this build compete with the damage growth of other hit or ailment based skills. All sources of Cold Damage over Time Multiplier add together, then multiply the cold damage over time you deal.

We're also giving Chaos Damage over Time the same treatment, adding non-ailment Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier to items, passives and the Occultist.

We're adding a new Bonechill Support Gem that causes your chills and chilling areas to increase all cold damage taken proportional to the slow of the chill they cause, with a further bonus for cold damage over time. This means that if a skill with a level 1 Bonechill Support chills an enemy enough to slow them by 21%, they'll have 21% increased cold damage taken and an additional 10% increased cold damage over time taken. This makes Chill Effect even more useful for Cold damage characters.

Check out the video demo below!

Alongside the new league, a huge number of spells are being rebalanced. A few are also receiving mechanical changes, the most extreme changes being to Storm Burst. Today we're going to go over all of the changes it's receiving.

While you channel Storm Burst, orbs of lightning are created around your target. While you channel, they jump towards your target and release bursts of damage. By moving where you target while you channel, you can direct them to enemies to create a swarm of electric death.



They'll last for a few seconds, but if you stop channelling then the orbs will detonate immediately in a large area, dealing a portion of their remaining damage. This lets short casts deal damage quickly in a sizeable area, while long casts have higher overall damage as more orbs are created and deal their damage over their full duration.

The skill is no longer projectile based, removing the requirement of additional projectiles supports. Instead the skill will focus on being an area and duration skill. It now deals Physical damage with half converted to Lightning, to fit with its new divine aesthetic. Because of these changes the skill now benefits from some changes to the Elemental passives near the Templar that now benefit spells that convert Physical to Fire or Lightning damage.