Dear fellow Crows,
This Article is OUTDATED.
Please check out the NEW FROSTWEAVER GUIDE.
I want to start with an infographic about the Frostweaver talents for all three specialization classes: Frostguard, Archmage and Icecaller.
The graphic also shows the skills that are granted by each talent.
As you can see the three colored dots indicate what talents I recommend, don’t recommend and deem as optional depending on your personal preference.
Here are the screenshots of the the core abilities for the Frostweaver:
A description and explanation of the abilities will follow shortly.
Freezing Blast
Freezing Blast is a Cone AoE spell that hit everyone in front of you and converts every Ice formation in the area to Frigid Ice.
For the Frostguard specialization class this talent also reduces the damage of enemies hit by 25%.
Crystal Lance
Crystal Lance is an execution spell with 2 steps that does incresed damage to targets below 35% health for a significant amount of mana. I do not recomment to even skill this talent for Frostguards and Icecallers, since Icecallers should not focus on damage and even for the Frostguard’s basic attacks (auto attacks) deal almost the same DPS as Crystal and Piercing Lance without the execute bonus at costing almost no mana.
For the Archmage this is a different story on the other hand. The Archmage has a talent that improves this spell to trigger the execute damage for targets below 50% and removes the cooldown if one of those two abilities hit as an execute. IMO the extra mana is spent well on this ability if your target is below 50% health to secure a kill.
Ice Weave
Ice Weaving is one of your core abilities that uses one of your ice stores in order to create a stable ice formation unless you have cast any other ice formation with Free Weaving. If you have no ice stored in the ice stores your Ice Weave will cost 250 mana. Picking up any stable ice will create one ice in the ice store and restores 50 mana. Casting Free Weaving and finishing the combo with any other ice formation puts you in the corresponding weaving state for 3 seconds, where any Ice weave you will cast is generating that particular ice formation for 3 seconds instead of a stable ice formation. There is also an interesting mechanic that works the other way around: If you have already have some ice formation cast, and wait to get out of the weaving state – which is around 3 seconds – you can cast a stable ice on top of any ice formation, which will cast a stable ice and convert that ice ice formation into another stable ice. This allows you to faster create stable ice you can pick up in order to fill your “ice in the bank” AKA ice stores. You always want to fill up your ice stores before you start moving around since this maxes out your mana pool indirectly and prepares you optimally for your next fight in PvP situations. In PvE situation you don’t have to be so cautious since a fully leveled Forstweaver packs enough of a punch to deal with bigger groups of regular and elite NPCs easily -> they drop like flies.
Frost Armor
Frost armor creates a buff at the position your recticle is pointing at that can be picked up by any friendly player. This buff increases the armor of that player until he or she is hit 3 times (each hit created “Frost Armor Crack”) over a period longer than 3 seconds or 15 seconds have passed after the first hit on the player with frost armor.
The Frostguard has a talent that increases the Frost Armor Cracks your armor can take to 5 and increases the duration a new frost armor crack can occur to 2 seconds instead of 1 second. In addition this talent enhances Frost armor to renew itself if it has not been consumed by the Frost Armor Cracks within 15 seconds after the first hit.
Free Weaving
Free Weaving is your 2nd core skill on any specialization class for the Frostweaver. If you just want to deal straight out damage it might be a better idea to just do auto attacks, since they cost almost no mana. But if you want to be usefull in another way Free Weaving is what you can and should ALWAYS fall back to if your are OOM (out of mana). Let’s look at the quite complex combo first.
I’ll assume that you have the Free Weaving on the Keybind 1 and the Combo on the Keybind E.
I’ll describe the sequence you are casting in this way: [1 -> 1 -> 1], which means you press 3 times the button 1. That will end up in castin the sequence: Free Weaving -> Sew Discord -> Frigid Ice Weave. Now let’s get into the abilities:
Free Weaveing [1]
Free Weave is the first ability of the 3 step Combo. This is always the ability that your combo starts with and it will always restore 50 mana.
Sew Discord [1 -> 1]
Sew Discord is one of the two 2nd steps of your Free Weaving Combo and will always restore 50 mana as well as allow you to follow up with the following 2 offensive spells:
Frigid Ice Weave [1 -> 1 -> 1]
Frigid Ice Weave will place a Frigid Ice Formation on the ground for 30s, which is visible to all friendly and enemy players. Enemy players who are within 5 meters of the Frigid Ice formation will get Dazed, get minor damage and get an Ice Buildup debuff. If a player comes in contact with any Frigid Ice Formation he will be rooted and get significant damage. If a player with the debuff Ice Buildup is walking on a Frigid Ice Formation he or she will be knocked down.
Casting Frigid Ice Weave will put you in the Frigid Ice Casting State causing your Ice Weave to cast Frigid Ice Formations instead of Stable Ice for 3 seconds. Using Stable Ice will refresh this Frigid Ice Casting State to last for another 3 seconds.
Any of your Ice Formations that are located in the area of a Freezing Blast will be converted into Frigid Ice Formations.
Volatile Ice Weave [1 -> 1 -> E]
Volatile Ice Formations quickly explode after they are formed and deal significant damage to all enemies within 5m. Any of your Ice Formations that are in the Area of a Shatter Storm cast will be transformed into Volatile Ice and explode shortly afterwards. Keep in mind that Volatile Ice Formations do great AoE damage but on the downside can not be utilized afterwards and transformed to other beneficial Ice Formations.
The Frostguard has a talent that enhance Volatile Ice Formations to also cause knockdown.
Shape Alliance [1-> E]
Sew Discord is the other of the two 2nd steps of your Free Weaving Combo and will always restore 50 mana as well as allow you to follow up with the following 2 support spells:
Refreshing Ice Weave [1 -> E -> 1]
Refreshing Ice Weave Formations instantly heal all allies within 10m and disappear. Keep in mind that Refreshing Ice Weave Formations do great burst healing but on the downside can not be utilized afterwards and transformed to other beneficial Ice Formations.
Cool Ice Weave [1 -> E -> E]
Cool Ice Weave Formations stay on the ground for 30s and regenerate the natural resource of every class within 10m. This effect can stack. The Icecaller has a talent that enhances Cool Ice Weave Formations to also heal all friendly players within range.
Shatter Storm
Shatter Storm is an AoE cast that deals significant damage to everyone on the area. All Ice Formations in the area are transformed into Volatile Ice Formations, that explode and deal additional damage.
Chill out
Chillout is an instant-cast ability, that transforms every Ice Formation within 5m of the caster into a Cool Ice Formation, that restores mana to everyone around it. The Icecaller has a talent that improves this ability to also heal friendly players within 5m.
Refreshing Breeze
Refreshing Breeze is an instant-cast ability, that transforms every Ice Formation in front of you into a Refreshing Ice Formation and quickly heals friendlies within 10m in front of you.
Frosty Armory
Frosty Armory functions like a multi-cast of Frost Armor. This Skill uses all your Ice in the Ice Store and puts as many Ice as you have in the Ice Store +1 on the ground which can be picked up by friendly players even outside your group. This buff increases the armor of that player until he or she is hit 3 times (each hit created “Frost Armor Crack”) over a period longer than 3 seconds or 15 seconds have passed after the first hit on the player with frost armor.
The Frostguard has a talent that increases the Frost Armor Cracks your armor can take to 5 and increases the duration a new frost armor crack can occur to 2 seconds instead of 1 second. In addition this talent enhances Frost armor to renew itself if it has not been consumed by the Frost Armor Cracks within 15 seconds after the first hit.
