• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

What's your favorite ice-based spell, ability, or technique in a game?

SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

I love pineapple on pizza!
Member
Oct 28, 2017
13,507
Earth, 21st Century
It's the heart of Winter now, and we're getting deep into the snowy part of the season. And where I live, there's ice everywhere, too.

11604-7-3-updated-spell-animations-arcane-fire-and-frost-mage.png


I love Blizzard in World of Warcraft. It's so simple, yet so satisfying. You just rain icicles down upon your foes. Area of Effect spells feel so good in that game, and Blizzard is - perhaps fittingly so, considering the developer's name - the staple AoE spell of WoW.

My favorite ice-based moveset as a whole, though, goes to Veigue Lungberg from Tales of Rebirth. Most ice users are mages, but Veigue is a warrior, using his two handed broadsword alongside his "Force of Ice" to make himself into a sort of mage-knight. He stands out even more because most Tales heroes use a variation of the same similar swordsmanship style, while Veigue's is entirely unique.

14589802580_e97d2b4d0c_o.jpg


What's your favorite ice-based move?
 
Kindekuma

Kindekuma

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
4,730
Ice Spreader in Metroid Prime. Honest to god one of if not the most powerful beam weapon you got and had this cool AoE with freezing over the area.
 
Undeniablybiased

Undeniablybiased

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,533
Cryonis from Breath of the Wild is real real good. It does one thing and one thing only, but that one thing is applicable in many different scenarios and fits perfectly into the 3 core pillars of Zelda: Exploration, Puzzle Solving, and Combat. It seems kinda dumb at first, just summoning a pillar of ice, but its application throughout the whole game is so natural and varied. It's a great ability.
 
werezompire

werezompire

Zeboyd Games
Verified
Oct 26, 2017
11,358
Old-school Arctic Armour in Path of Exile. Turned mana regen into defenses and completely shut down rapid-fire fire attacks (which were a big deal at the time).
 
Tagyhag

Tagyhag

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,494
MK 3/UMK3 Sub-Zero ice is always good stuff.

I also forgot the name but the ice cone spell from Dragon Age Origins was insanely OP.
 
Mcfrank

Mcfrank

Member
Oct 28, 2017
15,216
Death Knight Howling Blast back in Wotlk when you could tank as frost. Just instant aggro in everything in the area. Loved it.
 
WarAdept

WarAdept

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,298
Australia
It's a mighty hot ~40 degrees in Aus....

But to answer your question, Frost Nova from WoW.

Simple, elegant, useful.

Plus it doesn't take 50 billion years to cast, nor does it take another 50 billion for the animation to play out.
 

Deleted member 32561

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 11, 2017
3,831
ALL OF THEM
I just love ice/snow aesthetics in general. Aesthetics wise it's very hard to choose just one.

If I have to choose one, it would thus have to be gameplay wise. In which case, gotta go with Uesugi Kenshin's "God Region" gimmick from Sengoku Basara 3 Utage and Sengoku Basara 4 Sumeragi.

Essentially, if you use one of their specials (all but one are ice based) and follow it up with a different special, and assuming both hit, the ENTIRE LEVEL will temporarily slow to a near standstill except for Kenshin for a few seconds and be stained a frosty blue, implying that they're freezing time itself. At higher levels, the effect grows, and you can get a special equip item that doubles the length. Given the effect is refreshed whenever you link another new special, as long as you have enemies to attack, you can basically make the whole game run on slo-mo.



LOCALIZE BASARA CAPCOM, GRRRR
 
dadjumper

dadjumper

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,932
New Zealand
SolVanderlyn said:
I love Blizzard in World of Warcraft. It's so simple, yet so satisfying. You just rain icicles down upon your foes. Area of Effect spells feel so good in that game, and Blizzard is - perhaps fittingly so, considering the developer's name - the staple AoE spell of WoW.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Lol, well you stole mine. I think I preferred it a bit in War3, but I got a lot of use out of it in WoW too.
Other than that, I like a good ice spell that slows. Diablo is good at this.
 
Instro

Instro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,008
I was always partial to Ice 2 in Chrono Trigger personally. So often ice attacks tend to be dainty things, like enemies freezing and then the ice breaking, an icy wind, shards of ice, etc. CT had the right idea by dropping massive chunks of ice on the screen with some really strong sound effects to go with it(which really is the case for all the techs in CT). Timestamped below.

 

Deleted member 34949

Account closed at user request
Banned
Nov 30, 2017
19,101
Boring answer, but Ice Beam from Pokemon's always been one of my favorites.

I+just+pretended+being+articuno+from+pokemon+stadium+using+ice+_3f3250cee18fd67940ce8eff15ca163b.jpg


Tales of the Abyss had some great Ice Based artes that you could get via Field of Fonons. Guy's Frigid Moon and Final Glacier are two of my favorites:

latest

latest
 
Psyrgery

Psyrgery

Member
Nov 7, 2017
1,744
How about Lord of Vermillion from Ragnarok Online?

Also known as Lag of Vermillion, WHY CAN'T I FUCKING MOVE or WTF THE SERVER CRASHED AGAIN!
 
Dnomla

Dnomla

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,143
United States
My nostalgic choice is Final Fantasy VIII Shiva's Diamond Dust.




A more recent one is Dahlia's (Xenoblade Chronicles 2) Level 3 and 4 Specials.

 
OwOtacon

OwOtacon

Alt Account
Banned
Dec 18, 2018
2,394
Cryonis is the most underrated rune in Breath of the Wild. It allowed for a lot of early sequence breaking when my stamina wasn't good. Also - flipping over enemies with it in shrines is so satisfying.
 
Dark_Castle

Dark_Castle

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,147
Tales of Vesperia - Yuri's Frigid Blast. The animation is sweet

Path of Exile has many cool cold spells. Currently one of the most meta/strongest dps skill in the game is cold-based, Winter Orb.
 
Spaceroast

Spaceroast

Member
Oct 30, 2017
522
Undeniablybiased said:
Cryonis from Breath of the Wild is real real good. It does one thing and one thing only, but that one thing is applicable in many different scenarios and fits perfectly into the 3 core pillars of Zelda: Exploration, Puzzle Solving, and Combat. It seems kinda dumb at first, just summoning a pillar of ice, but its application throughout the whole game is so natural and varied. It's a great ability.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Easily this. This so much.

It was like Christmas when I got this at the beginning of the game. You give me this huge open world and I can make ice blocks anywhere? There are so many fun ways to play with it. I've wished for a cane of somaria in a 3d Zelda for so many years, and this is the next best thing.

Best tool in Zelda history. Best ice power in gaming history.
 
Zealuu

Zealuu

Member
Feb 13, 2018
1,184
Mcfrank said:
Death Knight Howling Blast back in Wotlk when you could tank as frost. Just instant aggro in everything in the area. Loved it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh yes. This. Man, I miss 2h frost tanking.

My favourite current ice ability is technically a fire spell - Diablo 3 Meteor (Wizard), but with the Comet rune that turns it into cold damage. It's a fun testament to the game's creativity that you can turn Blizzard into a firestorm and meteor into a huge ball of ice.
 
Aexact

Aexact

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,260
OwOtacon said:
Cryonis is the most underrated rune in Breath of the Wild. It allowed for a lot of early sequence breaking when my stamina wasn't good. Also - flipping over enemies with it in shrines is so satisfying.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I have definitely laboriously crossed lengthy rivers by painstakingly laying a leapfrog of Cryonis bridge blocks down. Nothing is going to get in my way!

Anyway not my favorite ice spell but favorite memory related to an ice spell was Final Fantasy XV. I was 60 hours into the game and never really messed with magic. I was having a problem killing an enemy and I think Ignis analyze said it was weak to ice.

So I cast Blizzaga and hoooo boy magic does not work the same way in FFXV than other FFs I played. The whole screen got covered in a huge visibility destroying storm and it nearly killed everyone in the party, because spells do friendly fire in FFXV.

But that wasn't the best part.

When I crawled back to town to recover, they showed me the pictures Prompto took. At the bottom was a picture of Prompto giving his super hype happy selfie face as the rest of the party was stumbling in critical HP in the ill-conceived Blizzaga I cast.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.