Frost Breath or Ice Storm

[Nafsmar]

Hi all, I have always taken Storm over Breath due to the cone being only 30 degrees. However does adding range enhancements increase the cone degree wise or just distance you can use it from. I always believed it was the latter. Which do you all prefer and why?

[Ethereal Star]

I would take both.  The question is which ability are you taking that prevents you from taking both?  You don't really have to pick between them.

 

I love that ice storm can be stacked with blizzard especially, but I have always used frost breath constantly when I took ice blast.  These are not even remotely mutually exclusive and are core parts of AOE blasting for ice blast, so I am a bit confused why you are not taking both..?

 

If you absolutely had to drop one, ice storm is probably the one to drop since a lot of enemies are defeated too quickly for ice storm to truly shine in later content.  But I still consider it extremely powerful and useful in a wide variety of scenarios, and it's effective as a debuff as well.

Edited September 25, 2021 by Ethereal Star

[Nemu]

The area you can cover with a 30 degree cone gets bigger if the cone has more range.

 

I took frost breath for early leveling. It recharges faster than ice storm and is much more useful early on. I ended up keeping both on my blaster. It felt better having both, knowing there is always one AoE that I can spam is comforting, even though said AoE needs a little bit of positioning.

[Outrider_01]

You can't widen cones, only lengthen them.  Basically by increasing the base and multiplying the heigth (length), you increase the area it can cover.  Like adding an extra room onto a house, than dropping it on a Wicked Witch to make sure you don't miss.

[Max Firepower]

I also take Frost breath for leveling (respec out in a late 20’s to mid 30’s usually), and sometimes add FB near the end if I have powers open and want more AoE.  I usually use PosiBlast (5 slots) and always add the /range option for a larger (wider at the end, but not wider by degree of coverage) in almost every cone.

 

I always take Ice Storm, but don’t go more than 3 slots (Acc/Rech/and either Rech or EndRedux) until mid to late 30’s.

[WindDemon21]

Generally you'll want to take both unless you are possibly ice/fire or another melee heavy aoe secondary. I REALLY wish they would change it out to an "ice ball" version like fireball instead of a cone though for these reasons so it's more useful in melee, which most ice blasters need to supplement the aoe anyway.

[Nafsmar]

I don't take it because I don't like cone powers. Thank you for the info. oh and yes I really wish it was "ice ball" as well.