by ninjase — last updated 15 days 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 FEB 2025
Arcane Truculence procs 10 viral in 30m when gaining overguard which boosts all damage to health by 4.25x. This can replace one of the arcane slots if you prefer.
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).
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 since Snow Globe breaks instantly anyway and is only needed for the 3s invulnerability. Breach Surge's multiplier helps low damage weapons [Reach] 5 million damage sparks but once you hit the 5 million cap the multiplier doesn't do anything, particularly on stronger single hit weapons (see below in Arsenal section).
You can [Reach] 167 strength in several ways:
1. [Overextended] + [Precision Intensify] + Arcane [Ice Storm]: 40% + 90% + 40% = 170% (saves mod slots and shards)
2. [Overextended] + [Precision Intensify] + [Augur Secrets] + [Power Drift]: 40% + 90 % + 24% + 15% = 169% (saves arcane slot and shards)
3. [Overextended] + [Precision Intensify] + THREE Tauforged Crimson Strength shards: 40% + 90% + 45% = 175% (saves mod slots and arcane slot)
Aura
Completely flexible:
Brief respite is used for restoring shields for backup shield gate i-frames.
[Growing Power] helps with strength thresholds for strip.
Corrosive Projection lowers the strength threshold for strip to 137%.
Flexible slots
Rolling Guard - optional for extra iframes in case you are nullified or out of energy, and cleanses existing statuses (when overguard is not on as gaining overguard does not cleanse existing status). Flexible for other mods such as Augur Reach, Augur Secrets
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
Truculence for free viral status on AOE
Molt Augmented for strength
[Ice Storm] for duration and strength
Arachne boosts Breach Surge sparks by 2.5x (bypassing the cap) and also double dips on Glaives/Contagion
BREACH SURGE: Generates sparks from damage (10% chance) or kills (100% chance) and [Biting Frost] can boost the damage of sparks significantly. Breach Surge has a 100% base crit chance and a 1.5x base crit multi. [Biting Frost] boosts this to 300% crit chance and 4.5x crit multi. The final multiplier provided by Biting Frost is therefore 1 + 3 x (4.5-1) = 11.5x meaning if a Surge Spark capped at 5 million damage is created, the final damage is actually about 57 million damage. Breach Surge sparks can also headshot and benefit from 'headcrit' where crit damage is multiplied by 2, giving 3 x (1 + 3x(2x4.5-1))= 75x multiplier, dealing a final damage of 375 million damage on headshot.
NOURISH: Provides viral damage bonus to weapons without modding viral and therefore apply viral status too, boosts all energy gained by a multiplier. See Nourish Variant: https://overframe.gg/build/456819/
ENSNARE: Allows you to pull frozen enemies together
OTHER ENERGY OPTIONS: If you have energy issues, a helminth that can supply energy is very useful:
Breach Surge works best with weapons that deal a SINGLE huge hit reaching about 5 million damage, since it scales off one of the instances of damage that killed it but is capped at 5 million damage (before Biting Frost).
Strong single hit weapons:
[Biting Frost] works best with weapons with decent crit stats and armor strips makes even the worst weapons somewhat viable against armor.
Good general crit weapons:
Primaries:
Secondaries:
Melee:
Companions
If you need more energy, run [Dethcube] with [Energy Generator]+[Synth Deconstruct] + [Tazicor] OR [Diriga] with [Synth Deconstruct]
If you want passive grouping, use [Nautilus] with [Cordon].
