by ninjase — last updated a month ago
Frost Prime has the same chilling abilities as Frost but provides unique mod polarities, allowing for greater customization.
ITEM RANK
3060 / 60
APPLY CONDITIONALS
This build focuses on Avalanche to achieve 100% armor strip and [Biting Frost] augment to boost weapon damage further, as well as allowing Breach Surge sparks to red crit. Survivability mostly relies on shield gating and amazing crowd control from avalanche, which also gives Overguard via Icy Avalanche. Globe offers an additional layer of defense/survivability, or even a way to one-shot enemies with viral status.
UPDATE JUNE 2024
Arcane [Ice Storm] gives +40% strength and +40% duration for 15s when enemies are frozen, which occurs constantly on [Frost]. This means you can rely on just [Precision Intensify] and Arcane [Ice Storm] to hit full strip from 40% strength (40+90+40 = 170% strength). This frees up more slots, allowing you to even run [Freeze Force], which gives cold damage. This allows you to save mod slots on weapons to run things like raw Cold or make Viral, Blast or Magnetic with only one other mod, all of which are even more viable than before due to status changes. Just note this can mess up teammates elemental combinations so don't use this without asking people you play with.
Another interesting interaction is armor. If you want to, you can put [Health Conversion] over [Primed Flow] to boost armor to 1665. This increases Snow Globes base health but now with Arcane Battery we can increase Energy Max to 650 (compared to just 427 via Primed/[Archon Flow]), in addition to the bonus armor from his new passive (50 armor every enemy affected by cold status in 15m). Furthermore, [Icy Avalanche] was recently changed to give more overguard scaling with Armor (20% of 1665 = 333 overguard, on top of the 60 per enemy).
UPDATE APRIL 2024
Breach Surge and Ice Wave Impedance now both no longer work on Eximus/Thrax through Overguard, but [Biting Frost] still allows Breach Surge to achieve red crits. Note Avalanche can apply 4 cold procs onto eximus which still slow them by 65%.
[Precision Intensify] with [Augur Secrets] and [Power Drift] now gives Avalanche exactly 169% strength after [Overextended], without needing to get kills to build up Molt Augmented, allowing you to full strip from the beginning of a mission.
Video demonstrating the general playstyle of [Frost] at circuit levelcap and red crit breach surge. Note that Circuit Decrees make these breach surge sparks deal billions of damage which will NOT occur in regular Steel Path. :
Duration
Duration affects the freeze duration of avalanche. Keep the duration as close to neutral or higher if possible.
Efficiency/Energy Economy
Avalanche is a very costly ability so you will need some forms of energy regeneration. [Equilibrium] is used here as the main source, since it converts health orbs to energy. Every Eximus kill drops a guaranteed 2 health orbs which equated to 110 energy. Adding a companion with [Synth Deconstruct] means you will generate even more health orbs reasonably consistently. You can also add any of the following things: [Xata Invocation] on [Grimoire], Emergence Dissipate arcane on operator,
Range
Higher range is ideal so avalanche cover a wider area. You can either hit 175 range with [Stretch] + [Augur Reach] or 235+ range using [Overextended] + [Stretch]
Strength
Avalanche only needs 167% ability strength for permanent full strip and [Precision Intensify] applies to the fourth ability. The remainder of Frosts abilities general don't need strength in an endurance setting. This means you only need about 77% strength at base which can be hit with just [Augur Secrets] + [Power Drift]. Running Molt Augmented just gives bonus strength to boost Breach Surge spark multiplier.
Aura
Brief respite is used for restoring shields for shield gate i-frames.
[Growing Power] helps with strength thresholds for strip.
Corrosive Projection lowers the strength threshold for strip to 137%.
Flexible slots
Exilus - [Power Drift] to hit any strength thresholds, otherwise run [Cunning Drift] for more range. [Primed Sure Footed] is no longer needed since Avalanche gives frequent Overguard which blocks knockdown and statuses.
[Archon Flow] is flexible for [Primed Flow]. Both give the same amount of energy but [Archon Flow] has the slight bonus that random kills via cold abilities like avalanche or freeze generates a special large energy orb.
Augments - each of the augments are flexible depending on personal preference.
Natural Talent - important to slot if you don't have 2+ Cast speed shards or Madurai Power Transfer active.
Archon Shards
At least TWO normal or ideally Tauforged Amber Cast Speed Shards
TWO to THREE strength shards lets you replace [Augur Secrets] or [Power Drift] for a flexble option.
Rest of shards could be Azure Energy Max shards
Arcanes
Energize for enegy [Regen]
Molt Augmented for strength
Avenger for more flat crit chance
Arachne boosts Breach Surge sparks by 2.5x
Grouping is an optional subsume:
If you have energy issues, a helminth that can supply energy is very useful:
With grouped and armor stripped enemies, we can employ the power of electric and gas status to nuke enemies. This is because electric and gas both create AOE damage (in 3m radius) effects that magnify expontentially when enemies are grouped.
Good options for this include:
Primaries:
Secondaries:
Melee:
Crit Bug
[Biting Frost] gives a crit chance buff that is MULTIPLICATIVE to crit chance mods, on certain fire mods on certain guns (normally additive to cc mods), allowing many to red crit easiliy:
Companions
If you need more energy, run [Dethcube] with [Energy Generator] or [Equilibrium] + [Diriga] with [Synth Deconstruct].
If you want passive grouping, use [Nautilus] with [Cordon].
