Frozen

Frozen is a Boss Modifier in Diablo III, which creates small ice shards that explode after a second, dealing a freezing effect to anything in their blast radius.

This is one of the more dangerous modifiers; not for the damage it deals, but for the incapacitating debuff it puts on characters, leaving them helpless to avoid monster attacks or other damaging boss modifiers.

Frozen is not available to regular random bosses and champions until most of the way through Act One, but it's previewed by Captain Daltyn below Adria's Hut. Izual is another Elite with Frozen as an inherent property, and he creates a larger number of orbs spread over a larger area during his battle.

Patch v1.0.4 in August 2012 reduced the damage Frozen deals to pets and followers to 10%.[1]

• Monster Level Minimum: 11
• Available to: Bosses and Champions. Also found as a preset property on numerous Elites.
• Damage Type: Cold
• Additional Resistances: Cold.

Strategy

Frozen radius

Frozen champions and bosses announce their presence with tiny dots of blueish-white ice that appear scattered around the screen. They're easy to miss at first, in the midst of the action, but they expand quickly in size, seeming to change form and grow as they rotate in place, and experienced players know that it's a very good idea to not be too close to one of the crystals when they blow up, which happens a little over a second after the dot first appears.

Each of the shards explodes in a short range Frost Nova, which will freeze any character or pet in range, locking them into motionless helplessness for nearly a second. Worse, multiple shard explosions seem to stack, adding to the duration of the effect. Players are unable to move, cast any spells, or even drink potions while frozen, which makes this an even more dangerous property than something like Jailer or Waller, which can lock you into place, but do not prevent you from continuing to fight, cast spells (some of which will escape the rooted debuff), drink potions, etc.

Being unable to move is the leading cause of death in Diablo III, since not only will monsters hit you with their attacks, but other Boss Modifiers such as Arcane Enchanted, Plagued, Desecrator, Molten, Fire Chains, and more will hit you for full damage while you are unable to get out of the way.

Move Move Move

One of the key habits of successful Diablo III players, especially on higher difficulty levels, is not letting their attention get too locked in on the monster they're fighting. The vision must always be kept roaming across the screen to watch for other incoming monsters, and especially to the dangers presented by the fast-growing projectiles associated with Plagued, Desecrator, Arcane Enchanted, and Frozen bosses. Other enemies are dangerous, sometimes more dangerous, but those four can appear beneath your feet or right beside you, even when the monsters are not nearby, and deal huge damage if you do not move away from them almost immediately.

Frozen actually forces the most movement, since the explosion radius of each shard is about 10 yards, and they are cast in quantities and spread widely around the area. The boss fight with Izual in Act Four requires the most movement, since he spawns a larger number of Frozen shards than any other monster, and they are spread around a wider area. It's not uncommon for players to need to run across the entire screen, to move clear of 8 or 10 growing ice shards during the Izual battle on Hell or Inferno.

Moving clear when the crystals start to grow is a good idea.

Frozen pulse vs. Frozen

Frozen Pulse and Frozen at once.

The graphics for Frozen Pulse and Frozen look similar when both attacks are in their formative stages, though their behavior is very different.

• Frozen spawns multiple "balls" at the same time from each Elite or Champion or Unique casting them. Each Frozen starts off as a smooth snowball, and they all float in place, rotating as they grow larger and more spiky and jagged, until they reach maximum size and explode in a freezing blast.

• Frozen Pulse appears one at a time and it's fully-formed and spiky right from the start. After being summoned, the Frozen Pulse moves quickly, like a heat-seaking Roomba, and will set up shop directly on top of a player. Once it has found a target and stopped moving the spiky orb will commence pulsing for a few seconds, dealing cold damage and slowing/chilling anything in the vicinity.

Development

During development Frozen left behind a core of ice at the monster's death, which exploded a moment later, much as Molten does. This property was removed during development and replaced by the much more dangerous spread of ice cores that we see in the released game.

Media

Video

Numerous Frozen shard explosions can be seen during any Izual fight. This one shows a Witch Doctor taking him out on Inferno.

Gallery

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  Frozen radius

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  Demon Hunter Frozen

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  Damage inflicted