Ash of War: Ice Spear | Elden Ring Wiki

Only 15 less stance damage than prepatch flame of the redmanes with better range? Oh, you SPOIL me

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Lil' ice pew pew hits so damn hard

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Do you hear that, giant birds and dogs of caelid?
I NO LONGER FEAR YOU

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Was pulling my hair out fighting Mohg until I tried this. It was unfair how much I was staggering him and throw in the frostbite damage and it's ez gg

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This should go on staves

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Cant understand the hype on this one? Im lvl 80 DEX build Giant Hunt user. Looking for something else for a change. Lots of people suggesting this one and I cant see why. Half the dmg as Giant Hunt, if not less. Longer build up. If the target moves the Ice spear will always miss.

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A good middle finger against any and all Bell Bearing Hunters. Couple this with a good shield and the shard of alexander = you win.

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Probably a dumb question, but do you need to cold infuse your weapon for this to proc frostbite, or do other affinities work?

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AOW: ice spear damage test

Notes (TLDR):
At 80 Dexterity (D) and 80 Intellect (I) the Clayman's Harpoon does the most damage on keen affinity: 1370.
All tested weapons do the same damage on Cold (C) and magic (M) affinites. Except on keen where the Clayman's Harpoon bonus magic scaling gives an upperhand.
Best affinites are keen (with high dex), cold (with high int).
At 80I 20D the cold does 1161 dmg while on 20I 80D the keen gives 1196. The damage difference is minimal (except the CH).
Scaling for int and dex are around the same.
Damage is not influenced by weapons stat scaling (keen?).

Weapons used:
Banished Knight's Halberd (BKH)
Vulgar Militia Shotel (VMS)
Guardian's Swordspear (GSP)
Clayhman's Harpoon (CH)
Cross-Naginata (CN)

Test environment:
all weapons are +25
hitting NG7+ suspecting militiamen
no armors
no amulets
no buffs
affinities used: Cold (C), Magic (M), keen (K)
stat variations: 80I 20D, 20I 80D, 80I 80D

Data:
80I 20D
BKH C 1161 M 1169 K 1133
VMS C 1161 M 1169 K 1119
GSP C 1161 M 1169 K 1133
CH C 1161 M 1169 K 1191!
CN C 1161 M 1169 k 1119
20I 80D
BKH C 1140 M 1080 K 1196
VMS C 1140 M 1080 K 1160
GSP C 1140 M 1080 K 1196
CH C 1140 M 1080 K 1244!!
CN C 1140 M 1080 K 1160
80I 80D
BKH C 1286 M 1256 K 1342
VMS C 1286 M 1256 K 1308
GSP C 1286 M 1256 K 1342
CH C 1286 M 1256 K 1370!!!
CN C 1286 M 1256 K 1308

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Great Ash of War for head targeting dragons. Would love to see notes on poise, because I notice I can stagger after about 3 hits, 4 if it clips the body. Combo this with meteorites and you have a tree spirit/dragon melting setup with little risk.

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Use this to transform Elden Ring into first-person shooter

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So is this basically a beefed up spectral lance?

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Use this on Banished Knight Halberd + 8, and one-shot Fallingstar Beast at low level with 4-5 hits. Easy mode on any enemie that slow on dodging.

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I think the projectile is too easy to miss both in PVE and PVP term. The only chance to land a hit is when the target is stationary. Please increase its velocity or make it track the target whichever.

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Fromsoft, stop giving absurd Poise Damage to freaking ranged spells :D

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So did this Night’s Cavalry serve Ranni? That’s a cool idea then, if after the Shattering ended, and Margit kind of disappeared, the Night’s Cavalry separated and found new leaders to serve.

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Pretty much the closest thing to Flame of the Redmanes before the nerf in terms of how much it can carry you in PvE just by spamming it and how early you can get it. Playing on a build with no more than 20 dex and absolutely no INT investment and it still beats every other Ash of War that can be applied on weapons.

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What I find so interesting about this AOW is that it (at least as far as concerning players such as myself) is almost like kryptonite against the enemy type that drops it.

In most of the DKS games, I'd usually pick up and upgrade a plain ol' halberd at some point during my playthroughs. Though it'd never quite be my main weapon, I always liked the moveset and practicality of it, and in ER that has been much the same.

Anyways, on my most recent ER character's journey, this time I thought to myself "why not? I'll have a Cold Halberd, even if (similar to my previous ER characters) I'm not really an INT-user." BOY am I glad that I gave this a shot. I don't know what it is about the way I play, but the Night's Cavalry enemy-type always gave me trouble... something about the hyper-aggression, I dunno... But no more!

After the third-or-so subsequent Night's Cavalry encounter, I realized I finally have my answer to how these guys fight. The frost builds up SUPER fast (on their horse AND the rider), and the range/speed/moveset variation is just bonkers against them. Hopes this helps someone out there. : )

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Have tested it, it scales with ONLY weapon level, Int, and Dex. Put it on a heavy halberd, and strength, and thusly AR did nothing to buff it. Put on twinsage crown, which changed nothing of the AR, and it got stronger. Same with dex charm, it hit harder

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This Ash of war absolute trivializes RL 1 run

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Spectral lance is a solid choice if this has been nerfed to the point of being worthless, it takes on the DoT characteristics of black flame if blackflame blade is cast on the spear. One or two hits from it do nice poise damage as well.

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I wonder if this AOW’s projectile procs Bloodflame Blade

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I don't see what people are complaining about, I've using Ice Spear on my Nightrider Glaive and the poise damages absolutely slaps. After 2-4 hits with the skill and you can poise break a lot of enemies and including bosses

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Definitely recommend putting this AoW on the Vulgar Militia Shotel, it makes the projectile ignore 40% dmg negation from shields.

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Why they nerfed the poise damage on wind up, we’ll never know. This was once an Ash of War with a niche, now it’s nothing as of 1.07.

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So the projectile made from this attack is considered spell base correct? Meaning it only scales with upgrade level of weapon, affinity type, and the intelligence stat? I buffed a spear with Scholar's Armament and that did not increase the damage. My last question is what type of damage does the projectile do; is it a mixture of magic and physical or all magical?

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People sad it's been nerfed but I still used it to easily kill spirit Godfrey using just a +3 short spear with a level 15 char to get the 4th talisman pouch. Still OP in my view.

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People sad this isn’t a shield buster anymore. Ironically I’m sad I can’t use this on pike/finger print to shut down people in pvp anymore. Flame strike is close but not as good :/ shield bois sad too. Just hope they don’t “fix” flame strike too since it shuts down aggression or flanking almost as good as ice spear

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R.I.P That ice spear that one shot me 1.02 - 1.041

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FYI: does carry over enchantment effects. Just tested on naginata and does proc bleed at range.

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Was shield poking too strong? Yesssss. but id much rather they nerf shield poking than keep an instant guardbreak aoe as its only counter. Very good change. Hopefully next patch poking gets tuned down too

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nerfed ice spear making fingerprints stronger

from really outdid themselves with this one

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Does it do pure magic damage or magic and thrusting damage? It seems to do above average damage to thrust vulnerable enemies, but I'm not sure how to check if it does indeed have thrust damage and don't have a way to see game files.

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RIP ice spear. You will be missed.

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RIP post patch 1.05.

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All low level invaders should have this on a short spear to make the 'Ice Shotgun'. A couple of hits with this followed by a Spark Aromatic is pretty devastating. I really hope it never gets nerfed.

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This is the coolest AOW for int builds. definitely pick it up and slap it on a clayman's harpoon.

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using this in PvE is literally playing the game on easy mode, even with 20 points in INT it's destroying bosses in only a few casts, and unlike other ranged skills they struggle to dodge this

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Anyone know if the Snow Witch Hat increases it's damage?

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So I put this on my shield poke turtle. It’s cool in pve but boy it destroys in pvp. People can’t get close to me without getting turtle poked in the face but if they flank, this ash instantly breaks poise and shields no matter what and gives frost. The turbine is instant with no warning and I keep catching the meta boys in it since they can’t reaction roll it. The best part is that if they get a ghost frost procc, it will true combo into the projectile portion. So even if they dodge they get damaged. What’s great is people will roll in to hit me with their own ice spear but my ice spear cheese will hit first >:) I have literally not lost a single duel last night or today. No way this isn’t getting nerfed so I’m gonna have fun while I can.

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Why are Thrusting Swords and Heavy Thrusting Swords not compatible with this ash? Come on From Software, don't leave things half done.

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does the ranni armor buff this art?

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does the ranni armor buff this art?

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The stagger damage on this art seems crazy. Normally, fighting dragons on foot is painful as a melee character, but three hits to the head with this art is enough to stagger them. (The two-winged kind, anyway.) Then you can get them in the head with the really good stuff, like Golden Land or Lion's Claw.

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decided to do some testing on this :
Base damage increases with weapon upgrade level
Damage also scales with INT, 1 dmg per 2 points of INT on base weapon, 2 dmg per 1 INT on +25 weapon
Scholars Armamen DOES NOT increase damage
Arrow Reach Talisman DOES NOT increase range
Golden Vow DOES increase damage
Shared Order DOES add holy damage and will prevent skeletons respawning
Magic Scorpion Charm DOES increase damage

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Does this get increased by scholars armaments?

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Does Arrow Reach Talisman work on Ice Spear?

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I rather they speed up the slowass startup animation than giving it a melee-range attack.

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I have to imagine the new completely-ignores-shields properties of the new startup hitbox is a bug, it really doesn't make any thematic sense at all

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The initial casting animation should've not gotten the buff where it has a hitbox because now it's just to strong.

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Uses FP each cast unlike Dark Moon Greatsword projectile but the Frostbite buildup is significantly higher.

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I love how the recent buffs are finally making people realise there are weapons other than RoB and Moonveil.

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will this inflict bleed if I used it on Uchi

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Hyper armored, unblockable and nigh instant startup, true combos into the projectile for 1200+ dmg on the regular, PLUS big frostbite build up. All for 15 fp. Its almost PvP nullifying how nuts this thing is

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What's the poise damage of this?

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Test with follow weapons
- Cold Guardian's Swordspear +25
- Cold Godskin Peeler +25
- Cold Cross-Naginata +25
All deal same damage with projectile part

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I kind of hoped this could be used on Nagakiba, since you can also use Repeating Thrust on it as well :(

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Edit to my last comment: I'm stupid. Tested the damage of this on magic resistent enemies... .. Yea.... Anyways... I'd like to have this on a staff. It would Match perfectly with staffs. Let's hope we see more ashes for casting tools in general with maybe DLC's or something..

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Can break Fingerprint shield at point blank range.

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Jeenine.

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Previous poster said it's unlockable point blank. He is absolutely correct. It also knocks you out of shield bash animation!!! This is the only thing that I have experienced that is able to do that. Seems like a hard counter to shields :(

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What damage does this AoW deal? (i.e. does higher magic defense decrease damage?)

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I honestly didn't find this one overwhelming. Using it on clayman's harpoon +7 with frost affinity. I still don't understand how the damage of the weapon skills is calculated, but the magic scaling seems to hurt the ice spear tremendously. It does like 200 damage and that's it. This is much worse than most of the spells I carry with me. Great glintstone shard for example does more damage with lower fp cost. I know, the posture damage on ice spear is very high. Maybe it becomes much better with further weapon upgrades. But with my lvl 58 character (35 int) it's not that great atm. Maybe someone knows more than me. Let me know.

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The patch notes say only the addition of a hitbox, but the damage to the icy projectile seems to have been reduced. Am I wrong?

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This is now an unblockable when used point-blank range on the opponent. Probably the FP Shield Meta's gonna phase out soon

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The 1.04 patch notes say only the addition of a hitbox, but the damage to the icy projectile seems to have been reduced.

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I just saw the ice spear clayman's harpoon build, tried it and man this thing slaps! Can this work great paired with bleed weapon in an int-arcane build?

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Can someone do some test about the kind of damage of this skill? How is it affected? Does it scale with the same stats of the weapon it is used on, or does it have it's own scaling? I read different opinion about the physical/magic/mixed damage of Ice Spear. For example, it would be interesting to know if a cold cross naginata (that is more physical) can inflict more damage than a cold clayman's harpon (more magical), properly balancing the respective best scaling stats. It would be also important to test it on different enemies or on enemies with similar physical/magical defense. I still don't have the game to test it, but I'm very curious about it! Thanks to anyone will do these kind of tests

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lol - IT DIDN'T DROP!?

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Not only do weapon buffs increase the damage, effects from them are applied to this ash of war. You can get the damage over time of Black Flame Blade, and the Bleed from Bloodflame Blade. Takes like 10+ casts to bleed a troll in Limgrave with Bloodflame. I don't think either of these beat out the Clayman Harpoon with Scholar's Armament in damage for obvious reasons that they are FTH

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Seriously slept on this skill - put it on my maxed banished knight's halberd and I've been tearing through new game plus (currently in the capital); doing about 1,5k per use and for that damage like per use it's very fast and cheap in terms of fp cost. At least it's a bit balanced by it's rather limited range.

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It's toooooo slow for a game that has extreme-speed meta in PVP and PVE. Bout to re-roll to another build.

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I’d say the best part is the huge poise damage it does.

Seems to do about as much as a guard counter, maybe a little less.

It’s really a poise breaking monster AND it applies frost. And if you infuse it with anything other than magic and ice you can still buff the weapon and retain the frost on the throw

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Has decent medium range, so it can be risky on anything closing the gap quickly, but very good damage early on. When my firebombs stop killing weak enemies in one hit (soldiers, footmen, bats, ants, etc), this does it super well. Using it early so it's scaling my spear with int, but I wanted the cold build up anyways and the split damage of physical/magical is better than what I can get out of scaling right now at level 48.

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The spin part of the animation doesn't seem to have a hitbox.

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This is also usable on Halberds.

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Good kind of poise dmg, 4 hits on head stagger the dragon beside the academy, also tested on trolls, magma wyvern, tree avatar n dead birb on the mountain top of giant, all yielded 2 staggers

Projectiles do not home in, so lock on at the last moment right before the spinning part end when fighting active targets

Can be chain cast just by hitting L2s, 55 int 22 dex hit about 1k to 800 depends on enemy type

Low fp cost for a hard hitting range attack that feels slightly longer(? than the moonveil r2 wa

Slap it on pike / cross naginata, a spell that dont cost a memory slot, the wind up will take some practices to get used to

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So I did some informal testing hitting the same enemy on this ability as I found it interesting. The ability does magic damage. With a +25 Clayman Harpoon Magic and Cold infusions seemed to yield the best results with Magic always slightly beating out Cold (30-50 damage). The ability itself seems to scale with intelligence and to a lesser extent dexterity and of course weapon level. Initial tests were done at 12/12/80 and I did a rebirth to swap to 12/62/80 out of curiosity and it netted me about 200ish more damage. From about 1900 to about 2100. Talismans used were Alexander's Shard, Magic Scorpion, Ritual Sword, and I swapped the fourth slot around during testing. This skill does scale with the Spellblade set, similar to other ashes of war. Anecdotally its very fun with powerstanced Clayman Harpoons with Cold affinity. Hope this helps.

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This is a remarkably good ash even on something as simple as a short spear. Reasonable cast time, decent stagger, builds up frost pretty well, and does solid damage on a mage setup for me. Absolutely worth checking out if you like the weapons it goes on, and it's not even that hard to get.

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I'll have to do some more testing and track my numbers more precisely, but this appears to be more FP efficient than even Glintstone Pebble. Not even without taking into account the Frostbite buildup, at least when using Shard of Alexander. For Spellblade builds this seems very strong. Very much enjoying on my Cold Twinned Knight Blades. Additionally, worth noting it seems that the frost buildup with Cold scaling is significantly faster than if you use Frozen Armament and doesn't have to be applied.

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I'll have to do some more testing and track my numbers more precisely, but this appears to be more FP efficient than even Glintstone Pebble. Not even without taking into account the Frostbite buildup, at least when using Shard of Alexander. For Spellblade builds this seems very strong. Very much enjoying on my Cold Twinned Knight Blades. Additionally, worth noting it seems that the frost buildup with Cold scaling is significantly faster than if you use Frozen Armament and doesn't have to be applied.

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This skill on the other side. Gate Town Bridge grace

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very very nice skill for bosses, decent range - very good dmg and builds frost - high poise stagger - low fp cost - decently fast cast

beat Draconic Tree Sentinel on 1st try with this ash of war, had a mimic tear act as decoy while i bursted his hp down with ice spear. Also very useful for smaller elite enemies, though its not as useful against a group of enemies.

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The one at gate town bridge respawned for me and dropped this I basically got both from the same one

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Drops from the Night cavalry at Gate Town Bridge

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The map link is wrong, its this one: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map?id=3183&lat=-151.154687&lng=78.237202&zoom=8&code=mapA

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Killed the boss,got nothing

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I absolutely love this, low fp cost and reallyyy good damage and ranged attack, only problem is that you have to use a spear

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boss didn't drop anything for me

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Do ice infusions let you scale the physical damage with intelligence or is it only the frostbite buildup that scales?

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The Night's Calvary drops Giant's Hunt not Ice Spear

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So, I'm not sure if I was just seeing things, but it appears that this weapon art counts as a thrust attack and benefits from counterattacking (hitting an enemy while they're in the middle of an attack) and the Spear talisman. Has anyone else noticed this or am I crazy?

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didn't drop for me which kind of sucks - is this not 100% drop rate?

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Better than hoarfrost on singular, small enemies. Does more damage (hoarfrost hits for ~400 while this hits for ~800 using the same weapon on the same target) per single hit and will also break through shields and stagger enemies. Definitely trivializes a lot of boss fights and humanoid enemies.

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Not as broken as hoarfrost stomp, but still too strong imo. Its main advantage over the hoarfrost stomp is that it deals high stance damage.

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didn't get the ash, but i got the nightrider glaive...

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Can you enchant a weapon with Cold affinity using Scholar's Armament?

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