Ice Shield Tower - Upcoming Changes

[WindHunter]

As part of our second round of building changes, Ice Shield Tower will be receiving the following proposed changes. Please note that all changes proposed here are provisional and as such as subject to change:

Iteration 1
1. Orb cost: 1 Frost (T1) ➜ 1 Frost, 1 Neutral (T2)
2. Power cost: 50p ➜ 90p
3. Life points: 1100 ➜ 1440 
4. Ice Bolt:
   A. Damage: 66 damage, up to 100 in total (581 dp20) ➜ 96 damage, up to 144 in total (840 dp20)
   B. Radius: 5m ➜ 8m 
5. Ice Shield:
   A. Change from active to auto-cast (30m range, add radius on hover).
   B. No longer affects flying units.
   C. *New Description:* "Every 6 seconds, tower applies an Ice Shield to a friendly ground unit that absorbs up to 690 / 730 / 800 / 880 damage for 30 seconds. Has a range of 30m. Affects ground targets only."

Iteration 1 Goals
Ice Shield Tower has long struggled to find a place alongside its T1 counterparts. Defense Tower is much more stat efficient and Northern Keep is a better support tower. In terms of Ice Shields, it competes with the more mobile Frost Sorceress which is favored over Ice Shield Tower in PvP. In light of this situation, we have decided to move the tower to T2 and make its Ice Shield ability auto-cast. This allows us to increase its strength and opens up the possibility of creating Ice Shield synergies in T2 and beyond, such as has already been done with Icefang Raptor, by creating a more readily available source of Ice Shields. One issue we ran into with this change was how strong it would be alongside War Eagles and Skyfire Drakes in PvP, leading us to removing its ability to work alongside air units. 

[JarodDempsey]

on one hand i will miss it a lot in t1 especially because i like its long range shield a lot more that frost sorc, on the other hand i think it might facilitate a lot more sustainable strat that can also work against flying units at t2 compared to cannon tower. like defenders plus new ice shield tower will basically be the frost version of commandos and retreat which is really exciting, plus you can always use frost mage as well to approximate the cc of cannon tower. plus all the combos too like healing well for super strong t2 defense without crutching something like northern keep or even the t3 combo with banestone for infinite ice shields or passive regen for them, im actually looking forward to this change.

Edited October 21, 2022 by JarodDempsey