Frost Staff and Tales

Daily Ramble #2: Frost Staff and Tales

I’m still learning what works and what doesn’t in Albion’s sandbox but I’m enjoying the journey along the way. Slows and damage seem like they might work better in solo expeditions than DOTs and healing so I give the Frost Staff a try. I also take another step in reading though Marvel’s 1963 comics by slogging through Tales to Astonish #39.

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Albion: Trying out the Journeyman Frost Staff

After trying out the Tier 4 expedition with my Journeyman’s Nature Staff and not doing so well, I figured it was time to try out some of the many other Journeyman weapons and settled on giving the Frost Staff a shot.

It’s still Tier 3, but instead of having a healing/DOT focus, this one looks to freeze and slow the bad guys as it does direct damage.

The main spell is Frostbolt.

This Q ability does good damage and slows the enemy down so I can get in more shots or kite them. I figured this would be better to use than the AOE Hoarfrost mostly because I wanted the slow. I’m sure Hoarfrost will be better in some situations but it takes longer to cast and slow the bad guys down.

For my W ability I take Frost Bomb.

I didn’t have much of a choice here since it’s the only unlocked spell. This is my opener since it doesn’t aggro baddies until it goes off so I can place it and start casting Frostbolt before it goes off. This also provides a slow in a 5m radius which again helps to keep the bad guys away from me.

My final active ability from the staff is Freezing Wind.

This goes further than a slow and actually roots enemies and does some decent damage.

The main difference with the Frost Staff is each of the abilities cause damage and a slow/root. Sure, I don’t get the healing that I got from the Nature Staff, but I think if I cause enough damage quickly enough I should be able to take mobs down faster. The 63 DPS from Poison Thorns was just not killing the bad guys fast enough and using the Frost Staff, I can kill quickly enough that I could heal up between battles.

Taking this loadout into a Tier 3 expedition worked easily and I think it should be good for Tier 4, but I’m gonna check out the Fire Staff tomorrow to see if I can do even faster damage.

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Marvel 1963: Tales to Astonish #39 – The Vengeance of the Scarlet Beetle!

During an atomic test, the Scarlet Beetle was struck by radiation that resulte in him attaining super intelligence – for a bug. With his new brains, he makes plans to take control of the planet from mankind but before he enacts them, Ant-Man shows up to stop him – too bad he gets overwhelmed by bodyguards. With Ant-Man subdued, the Scarlet Beetle takes Pym’s enlarging gas, grows to human size, and starts the process of defeating the humans. Fortunately, Ant-Man’s buddies show up and the ants save him and with them, he’s able to take out the beetle, grasshopper, and bee armies leaving only the Scarlet Beetle to take down. In a fierce fight, Ant-Man wields a lance from a toy knight and hurls it at his foe puncturing the reducing gas tanks on the beetle’s belt and releasing the gas. The insect quickly miniaturizes to a more manageable size and Ant-Man is able to safely capture him and end the threat.

On the whole this wasn’t the best story Stan and Jack put together in 1963, but it wasn’t too bad. The whole thing gave me the feel of the giant ant movie – Them – from 1954. That was always one of my favorite Saturday afternoon monster movies while growing up and it showed the dangers of atomic testing. It’s surprising that we live with nuclear power today with all the movies and science fiction that told us how bad it was. Now we don’t have to worry about giant ants, beetles, or Godzilla, but we’ve got a crazy dictator over in North Korea who can do real harm if we don’t get some heroes to take him out.

I’ll rate this one a C and hope to see some better work from Ant-Man in the future.