Talk:Ice Mage/@comment-37.190.37.70-20161207202110

The article doesn't do justice to the most useful spell of the ice magic sphere - Ice Floe. Ice Floe is an amazing ability without peer. When built around the spell a Barbarian Monk or a Minotaur Ice Mage can become fearsome marksmen heroes that deal massive amounts of damage through their attacks all the way from the backline.

Ice Floe gives the hero several distinct effects that need to be built around and exploited for it to become a very powerful spell.

1) The hero's attack becomes ranged with a range of 12 - enough to out-range ungarrisoned towers

2) The hero's attack type (unless he has items) becomes cold type

3) The hero's damage is set to 20/35/50/65/80 based on spell level

4) The hero losses all his on-hit effects such as daemonslater, weaponmaster, and vampirism

The exception to the on-hit effect is damage gained from the migthy blows skill and bonus damage from items. This damage counts as 'bonus' damage and is not effected by the spell's setting of damage. E.g. with 40 base damage and a level 1 Ice Floe the hero's damage will be 40 - 20 (20 in total) but with 20 base damage 10 points in mighty blows the hero's damage will be 20 + 20 (40 in total). Thus, an Ice Flow marksman doesn't need much strength as any strength damage is negated by Ice Flow and 12 range allows him to stay safe from enemy attacks.

Ice Floe attacks are still auto-attacks and benefit from attack speed and are dependant on the combat stat. Thus, for a best marksman a combat of 25 and a high attack speed are needed. The ferocity and mighty blows of a Barbarian Monk or a Minotaur IceMage turn those classes into the best marskmen available.

A high dexterity (attack speed 0.6), good combat score (23-26), and 70 damage at level 50 turn the Minotaur Ice Mage into a long ranged machine-gunner.

A Barbarian Monk depends more on his mighty blows for damage since he simply can't cast level 3 Ice Floe without ritual consistently. This approach ends up with more damage and can also be done on a minotaur ice mage (and even an elementalist) but will have Ice Floe not last as long - 95 damage at level 50.

With items you can get a maximum attack speed over 100 damage attacks at 12 range (with any type of damage you like - fire for ultimate base wrecker) you effectively create a mini-titan.

Alternatively Ice Floe can be used as a support spell to allow your hero to still deal 35 damage (+item damage) from a safe distance while providing support through command, leadership, merchant, and resource generation. Taking Ice Mage on a gem-hungry elf hero can be used to create a gem generator with a turret that allows the hero to support while fighting the enemy (and not dying).