So, flipping through ultimate magic, I saw Cold Ice Strike and thought "Hey, neat. That spell might actually be worth using!" So, browsing through the messageboards, I see a handful of people actually claiming that the spell is ridiculous, or even broken. Did I miss something? This seems like one of the best-designed (read: Well designed, not uber-powerful) evocation spells I've seen in years.
I'm going to reiterate stuff we all know, but here goes:
Evocation spells don't see much use anymore. At least, not at any tables I've played at. Low level evocation actually isn't that bad. The much-maligned fireball and lightning bolt actually do their job pretty well. The problem appears at around spell level 4-5, where monsters begin to experience significant HP inflation and damage formulas stay static. For whatever reason, evocation didn't get a boost in Pathfinder, which is a shame, as a variety of fixes might've done the job (I would've prefered rider effects like stun or knocked prone). the thing is, evocation is a lose-lose situation. Not only are you wasting a spell slot that could be spent on a perfectly productive spell, but you're wasting an action on it.
Here's where cold ice strike comes in and actually gives us a decent evocation option. It partially mitigates the economy of actions issue of evocation spells, but still takes up a valuable 6th level spell slot. It's not a spell that's so good that I couldn't do without it (unless I was an evoker) but it is good enough that I would seriously consider memorizing it.
So....what's with all the complaining? Frankly, I'd like to see a few more swift evocation spells that are actually worth using. The only gripe that I can see is that the spell appears to be a quickened version of cone of cold at only one level higher but....so? Cone of cold is terrible. It's just terrible. It's not quite as bad as polar ray, but it's close. At the level you get it, you basically get the damage of a fireball (this gets better, but not much), except that it can only be used on monsters that are practically up your butt. Hopefully, by the time they're that close, your melees will have intervened or you're probably going to want to spend your round summoning some help. Actually, given the range, if I was going to waste the time nuking, I'd rather just fireball. Is this really the metric we want to use for 6th level spells? Better yet, would quickening this really be worth a 9th level slot? Is this really too strong to be at the same level of acid fog, or circle of death, or better yet, summon spells?
Rant over. I think Cold Ice Strike represents a good solution to some of the problems the school of evocation has.
I mean, an Intensified Fireball (4th level slot) is so much more effective than a Cone of Cold (5th). So I would think CIS is the proper CoC. My only complaint about CIS is that while Clerics get this awesome blasty-blast spell at the same level as a Wizard would but Magi and Druids don't.
I mean, why on earth would a cleric need this blasty evocation for?
Anyhow, since the Components section of the spell is unknown at the moment, I would imagine the errata would have some expensive material component that makes it prohibitive to use almost every round.
I would imagine the errata would have some expensive material component that makes it prohibitive to use almost every round.
Unlikely. They'll just nerf the spell to eighth level or so and call it a day.