[Snake]

Expanding Ice needs a nerf on damage and the way it can be spammed. Right now, it works like:

Faker takes 149 Ice damage.
Faker takes 28 Ice damage.
Faker takes 28 Ice damage.
Faker takes 28 Ice damage.
Faker takes 28 Ice damage.

Hits once for a nitrogen-cold nuke, then multiple times for a smaller 4-hit DPS that ends up doing around the same the original damage, doubling the total done to the target. (1+1 = 2)

Soooo, why does it need a nerf? Simple:
>Ice tiles are really accessible nowadays due to the traps, badges, Verglas itself and even friendly Ice tiles can be used since the last update.
>Expand Ice can't be resisted/absorbed/immune'd or reflected. (Winter's nomnom)
>Expand Ice can hit and nuke multiple targets, putting it's FP efficiency and Momentum efficiency at the top 5 best (read:broken) skills around.
>Expand Ice can't be counter-played for anything but sanctuary. (No silence, fear, hesitation, charm or Dev knows what else can stop it.)
>Expand Ice doesn't use toned body or muscles. (you get the reference c

What I'm suggesting here:
Expanding Ice:
4 Momentum, so it can't be spammed unless your enemy is Weak against it.
at Max Rank: 100% Scaled Ice ATK || 80% Scaled WPN ATK
Each extra tile will do 50% less damage, so the result might be like:

Faker takes 149 Ice damage.
Faker takes 28 Ice damage.
Faker takes 14 Ice damage.
Faker takes 7 Ice damage.
Faker takes 3 Ice damage.

And that's pretty much it.

[Shujin]

Expand ice itself can easily be countered with an armor that has Magic Defense. The boosts it can get from other things outside from Wintersbite are just making it far to strong.(Cobra seems to counter it tho)

but yeah, I agree on nerfing it, far to easy to build for it.

[Fern]

yes please, literally the most popular build i've been seeing in the beta server is expanding ice

[FiresTFS]

I agree, it would make a much more balance if Expanded Ice was nerfed for even a little, either that or have other classes gain moves of equal power.

[Akame]

Totally should be nerfed. It deals magic damage Evokers dream of having.

[LatentSparrow]

Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 166 Ice damage.
Graceful Elf recovered 6 FP.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Graceful Elf recovered 6 FP.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Graceful Elf recovered 6 FP.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Graceful Elf recovered 6 FP.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Graceful Elf recovered 6 FP.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 166 Ice damage.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
Evasion! Graceful Elf takes 36 Ice damage.
The battle has ended.
Total damage = 620 (In one turn)

[Autumn]

since RES is no longer flat it does become one of the most overbearing skills in the game really fast, I'd suggest nerfing it's damage output while simultaneously lowering it's FP cost so it's still worth it to use yah?

[Shujin]

Kinda agree on damage/FP lowering, instead of M increasing cause of the the combobility it has then, I wouldn´t even mind when it gets the "Once a turn" treatment.

[Rendar]

I think it would already be good when it doesn´t stack with stuff like carentcall and the likes. That way you can produce amazing amount of damage, Expand ice itself can easily be countered with an armor that has Magic Defense. The boosts it can get from other things outside from Wintersbite are just making it far to strong.

But yeah, some sort of nerf is probably needed.

Claret Call doesn't benefit this in any way. It's best if you know the skill before commenting to nerf it.

Expanding Ice is (relatively) easy to deal with if you even remotely bother to have any sort of resistance... or evasion... or resistance + evasion + VA/ST (because those are offshoots with evasion!)

If you're not using that, then you're likely to not be running dodge. Which means you probably have some resistance! Or, should at least unless you're just going full idiot mode. But here, I did some tests with *very* basic stuff.


Attacker
50 STR (65 scaling)
50 WIL (60 scaling)
50 SKI (Ice atk)
27 Power Fist
Bloody Palms (12% Hunted)

Defender stats
Res 3
No magic defense
No Ice Resist

--- ROUND 0 ---
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf skips their turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 150 Blunt damage.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 188 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
--- ROUND 1 ---
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 0 HP.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 2 FP.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 211 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 52 Ice damage.
The battle has ended.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 61.92 FP.

As you can see. This does a shitton of damage, and for good reason. They're in no way attempting to mitigate the damage, and they suffer for exactly that reason. Taking 396 damage on the first hit, and 419 on the second time around. It's painful, but nothing was done to mitigate it.

Next up we have the same thing, except with the defender having a fourteen magic defense armor and the same stats as above.

--- ROUND 0 ---
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf skips their turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 129 Blunt damage.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 174 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
--- ROUND 1 ---
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 0 HP.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 2 FP.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 195 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 36 Ice damage.
The battle has ended.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 61.92 FP.

As you can see this time, the 14 magic defense armor reduced the damage to 318 on the first hit... and 339 on the 2nd hit. A reduction of about 70 points, and this can only be further made 'better' by having say... Zeran Horns of a ton of magic armor and armor if you even attempt to build for it. It'd reduce this damage by even more, but moving on..

We come to the final test. This time, the character has twenty resistance, which isn't that bad, and a dodger, even if they have a lot of cel, will probably have somewhere in this neighbourhood in RES so long as they bought aptitude (otherwise rip in pip their stats).

--- ROUND 0 ---
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf skips their turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 129 Blunt damage.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 141 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 28 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 28 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 28 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 28 Ice damage.
--- ROUND 1 ---(Winters Bite before Expanding Iced)
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 0 HP.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 2 FP.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 163 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer's turn.
--- ROUND 2 ---
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 0 HP.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 2 FP.
Crimson Clad Elf's turn.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 163 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
Sickly Ginger Archer takes 32 Ice damage.
The battle has ended.
Crimson Clad Elf recovered 61.92 FP.

The first hit does 253 in total, which from the original? That's an astounding 141 damage reduction. Just by wearing something with ACTUAL magic defense in it and very mediocre RES. Afterwards, I wintersbit the poor guy, which raised by damage to 291 (but remember, if my first hit had hunted on it, the damage would have raised a bit beyond 253 to 269 damage instead,) So winter-biting someone made me deal about 22 more damage due to RES being factored in.

Now, I'm not saying that Faker is bad at defense, but he had an 11 magic def armor on at the time. He could have taken a bit more RES, or some other form of damage mitigation that is available to him from his other classes, and used that to his advantage.

I feel most of the suggested 'nerfs' are quite a bit heavy handed.

Let's try lowering it down to 100% Ice attack and 100% Scaled Weapon attack, and having it only be usable once per turn (for 3 momentum).

Let's see where that goes and if numbers need to be adjusted from here.

[Shujin]

I think it would already be good when it doesn´t stack with stuff like carentcall and the likes. That way you can produce amazing amount of damage, Expand ice itself can easily be countered with an armor that has Magic Defense. The boosts it can get from other things outside from Wintersbite are just making it far to strong.

But yeah, some sort of nerf is probably needed.

Claret Call doesn't benefit this in any way. It's best if you know the skill before commenting to nerf it.

Well yeah, I only saw you using the bloody palm thing at first, and forgot about the magic part of it, the point however still stands, that boosts like that or DK/fear are making the damage far to high, even when I picked the wrong half of the equipment boost it gives.