I was testing my Spellbreaker, full set of the Mageslayer with Spectral Bludgeons. Nothing special.
But I suddenly realized, I may be able to stuck multiple effect of the set - freeze resist reduction on Olexra’s Flash Freeze.
Let me explain.
For example, Kaisan has 138% freeze res.
That’s mean, even by Lvl22 OFF(6s freeze) with the Mageslayer(-55% res) and 2 Bludgeons(+2s) , Kaisan is only frozen for 1.36s.
Quite simple - but here comes Aeon’s Hourglass.
In this 1.36s, while Kaisan is frozen, you can cast another OFF on him, thanks to Time Dilation.
So what’s happen now? Another 1.36s freeze?
No. It lasts far more longer. Longer enough for you to wait CD and cast 3rd OFF.
After ~6sec, Kaisan is still frozen. You cast 4th. Again and adain. He’s dead. Over.
I’m not sure what’s going on behind game, but this really happen.
As long as you can freeze enemies by 1st OFF, you already dominated them.
Grava’Thul, Korvaak, Zantarin, they all are nothing but frozen statues.
Of course you can’t do anything against 500% freeze res group (you Mr.Moosilauke),
or “unstoppable” mutation (+25% freeze res) on enemy will completely block you.
But still, IMO, this is broken.
Is this a well-known setplay? Just OP? Maybe a bug? Or balanced?
How do you think guys?
(btw sorry about my poor English, I’m not native )
people know this for quite a while. i think this is the original thread about it
basically, when you apply OFF withing the duration enemies’ already got debuff -55% freeze res/ the effect stack additive, making their freeze res become even lower and got longer duration of freeze. the only thing can make that happen is bind Time Dilation to OFF (so you can “double OFF” and got them “freeze lock”). This is not bug/ broken as you think, since a lot of normal bosses/ heroes get 500% freeze res. Even though i’ve seen someone use Mageslayer OFF to freeze lock bosses in SR 120 room or even higher, and you can see some builds in compendium use that strategies also
It is a known gimmick and it was even used to clear SR160 solo. It wasn’t nerfed and doesn’t really warrant a nerf because as you noted it requires some specific conditions, like no Moosilauke or Kuba and no CC res mutator. I’ve played a more realistic version of the build once and it was kinda just ok in SR75.
my only advice is when playing Mageslayer, you need to find another sources of damage to deal with enemies’ you cant freeze or to finish off others got freeze lock. You can use Spectral Bludgeons + blue set for Trozan + MI offhand for more -CDR to Trozan and freeze them even more with nuke from TSS skill. Or use dual-wield build like this build.
or you can try something else on your own. My Spellbreaker use Northern Wyrm crossbow (the weapon got buff to VoS this 1.1.9.0 patch), and using 3 x BS + spam Chillspikes (mostly 85% pierce converted to cold) and aura passive damage from Veil of Shadow to deal damage (GT: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2dQGn5V). Freeze-lock bosses is a very fun gameplay style
I think it’s relatively balanced. It requires a lot of build dedication to make work (full Mageslayer + going Aeon’s Hourglass are big commitments with little wiggle room) and it has hard counters in Freeze immune enemies like Dragon noted above. Unstoppable heroes also provide Freeze immunity to all nearby enemies but are easier to kill.
After people begging for OFF to be useful at endgame in some way for years, I also think this is the reason Zantai doesn’t mind either
)