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Why Snow Queen is better than Frozen Shooter


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So, before I get started on my tangent behind my insurmountable love for the weapon known as Snow Queen, we'll dive into what these two items actually are.

First of all, the Frozen Shooter is a rifle class gun for the rangers. It requires (162) ATA to use and has a max grind of 9, adding 18 more power to the weapon. Snow Queen is the next level to this weapon. If you apply a a Photon Booster to a max grinded Frozen Shooter you get the weapon Snow Queen. It changes the appearance of the weapon from a turquoise green and navy blue to a tan-ish and white color. Snow Queen may not combo, but it pierces targets and still has the freeze special.

Now that that's out of the way, lets talk about the uses behind Frozen Shooter. At first glance, the Frozen Shooter may seem like a powerful weapon. It's special is that of the Blizzard special that you might find on some other common weapons. Weapon's with the "Blizzard" elemental special on it (an example such as this is something like a "Blizzard Raygun") may use the special attack to freeze a target in place. The difference about this from other Blizzard specials is that the Frozen Shooter's Blizzard special has a significantly higher chance to hit based on your ATA. In most scenarios, the Blizzard special attack will hit the target. There are few scenarios where it doesn't. However the rest of Frozen Shooter makes it a sub par gun. The main, and I'm willing to wager only usage for this weapon, is the high Blizzard chance on the weapon. So if the weapon's primary function is to use the Blizzard special attack on it, you can combo the three attacks into a permanent freeze on any one target. Here is why Snow Queen is better!

Although the Snow Queen cannot combo, it has a wide variety of things to make up for it. For one the Snow Queen has increased attack power (ATP), increased attack accuracy (ATA), and has the ability to pierce through targets. Whereas the Frozen Shooter can only hit one target per bullet at a time, the Snow Queen is changed to where one bullet can hit a maximum of 3 targets anywhere from 1-2 times. Additionally, the increased ATA the weapon gives increases the chances of your Blizzard special attacks to hit and freeze enemies. If the primary function of the Frozen Shooter is to provide small doses of crowd control through freeze locking specific, high priority targets in place, then why shouldn't you evolve it into Snow Queen? It performs the same functionality as the Frozen Shooter except better. Instead of freezing one target you now can freeze 3 targets at once; providing a larger range of temporary crowd control. Additionally, hit on this weapon increases the chances even further, not to mention the passive effects of certain classes being able to get spell/effect bonuses on weapons and spells. The Snow Queen is the best option for you. It's worth the 50 PDs you spend on the Photon Booster.

So lets have a recap here on what the capabilities are on each weapon:

Frozen Shooter:

  • Can combo 3 times
  • Can freeze one target per special usage (pending the ATA and EVP math goes in your favor)
  • Provides that much needed single target crowd control
  • Hit and passive character effects can increase the chance of each stun

Snow Queen:

  • Cannot combo 3 times, only shoots one bullet
  • Can pierce through targets, hitting a total of 3 enemies a total of 1-2 times
  • Performs the same freeze functionality as the Frozen Shooter except to a greater effect due to the higher ATA value on the weapon
  • Hit and passive character effects can increase the chance of each stun
  • Provides an invaluable amount of crowd control among a number of both high priority and non high priority targets

In my eyes, the Snow Queen is the better choice for rangers. If you have 50 PDs, please, I implore you, buy a Photon Booster and upgrade your Frozen Shooter to a Snow Queen, you will not be disappointed.

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Don't know about others but Frozen Shooter some times does splash effect. I've had multiple occasions where I freeze more than one target while multishooting the same target for a period of time, the monster behind or beside the target gets frozen as well. I've made sure no one else was using a Frozen Shooter and no hucast had their freeze trap in the area so I wonder if Frozen Shooter really is a one target item.

And no, I don't shoot the other monster to freeze it when this happens, they can be clearly behind my target being blocked and they suddenly become frozen as well. I make sure the marker is still in the same target and it somehow happens.

Edited by Shinkaru
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Don't know about others but Frozen Shooter some times does splash effect. I've had multiple occasions where I freeze more than one target while multishooting the same target for a period of time, the monster behind or beside the target gets frozen as well. I've made sure no one else was using a Frozen Shooter and no hucast had their freeze trap in the area so I wonder if Frozen Shooter really is a one target item.

And no, I don't shoot the other monster to freeze it when this happens, they can be clearly behind my target being blocked and they suddenly become frozen as well. I make sure the marker is still in the same target and it somehow happens.

this is a desync glitch in the game.

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Sometimes, when an enemy comes near you, when you shoot the FS, it will freeze them, even if your back is turned... In my opinion, SNOW QUEEN isn't worth it, unless you have 60 Hit on it; or else, it will miss Gibbles and other higher EVP enemies. Follow-up shots, boost ATA of the consecutive shot fired.

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Frozen Shooter and Snow Queen do not have a blizzard special, (blizzard is much much worse and almost never works properly due to an unknown factor not shared with the other %proc specials). They have a unique special that has a 100% chance to freeze if hit.

It is neither affected by the Cast bonus to blizzard/arrest/confuse/kings, nor is it affected by v501/v502s bonus to blizzard. This special has the properties of a Hard Attack (accuracy, builds pb, etc), and has some Launcher bullet properties i.e. does not need to hit the center of the targets hitbox, it merely needs to graze any part of their hitbox to connect, meaning it can sometimes hit multiple enemies even as FS if aimed properly as Shinkaru pointed out, and the range also extends slightly beyond the actual targeting range as well because of this.

Snow Queen does not have increased ata over Frozen Shooter, they both have 60 ata, and it is significantly less accurate due to the combo-lock(since the 2nd and 3rd attack in a combo get a large ata boost). The increased atp (which still isn't much 250 vs 350) is a moot point as neither weapon is used for damage, but for utility instead. The Snow Queen bullets do not hit enemies multiple times, nor do they hit only 3 targets, they simply have pierce. The target limit is likely much higher, my guess is on par with dark meteor special / rianov / iron faust.

While Snow Queen does have some niche use, it requires an extraordinary amount of hit (more than 50) to really be reliably useful for the enemy spawns that it is good for. Those spawns that could use a long range aoe freeze that Snow Queen is useful on generally have extremely high EVP (such as several ill gill and delbiter spawns in tower, and some sinow zoa spawns in seabed). Several other dangerous enemies which need a long range freeze also require the ata boost from combo attacks for Frozen Shooter to reliably hit as well (such as Mericarol variants, especially Merikle). Most standard mobs generally do not require a Snow Queen freeze; just hitting the first enemy is often enough to keep any of them from advancing due to the subpar pathfinding of enemies. Even if they did need to be crowd controlled en masse, a far better way to do so is to have a racast/racaseal use a freeze trap and an arrest needle in tandem, since when you arrest a frozen enemy, the arrest timer will take priority and the freeze timer will be paused while that counts down, allowing one to freeze mobs for 12 seconds very quickly and easily.

Snow Queen can be good situationally, but those situations it excels in require an exceptionally good SQ with extraordinary hit, and as such a Frozen Shooter provides a more reliable and more accurate freeze for high priority targets in the majority of situations.

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My two cents... unless you're willing to donate for max hit, snow queen is not worth it in episode 2. 30-50 hit is fine in episode 1 and 4, but seabeds and central control area will still miss even with 80 hit. Even 100 hit on ramar cannot freeze deldepth. EVP of enemies are stupid high in episode 2 seabeds. If using in the control tower, 80 hit will still frequently miss on mericarols causing you to insta die. If you know what you're getting into, however, snow queen is a very good weapon.

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Frozen Shooter and Snow Queen do not have a blizzard special, (blizzard is much much worse and almost never works properly due to an unknown factor not shared with the other %proc specials). They have a unique special that has a 100% chance to freeze if hit.

It is neither affected by the Cast bonus to blizzard/arrest/confuse/kings, nor is it affected by v501/v502s bonus to blizzard. This special has the properties of a Hard Attack (accuracy, builds pb, etc), and has some Launcher bullet properties i.e. does not need to hit the center of the targets hitbox, it merely needs to graze any part of their hitbox to connect, meaning it can sometimes hit multiple enemies even as FS if aimed properly as Shinkaru pointed out, and the range also extends slightly beyond the actual targeting range as well because of this.

Snow Queen does not have increased ata over Frozen Shooter, they both have 60 ata, and it is significantly less accurate due to the combo-lock(since the 2nd and 3rd attack in a combo get a large ata boost). The increased atp (which still isn't much 250 vs 350) is a moot point as neither weapon is used for damage, but for utility instead. The Snow Queen bullets do not hit enemies multiple times, nor do they hit only 3 targets, they simply have pierce. The target limit is likely much higher, my guess is on par with dark meteor special / rianov / iron faust.

While Snow Queen does have some niche use, it requires an extraordinary amount of hit (more than 50) to really be reliably useful for the enemy spawns that it is good for. Those spawns that could use a long range aoe freeze that Snow Queen is useful on generally have extremely high EVP (such as several ill gill and delbiter spawns in tower, and some sinow zoa spawns in seabed). Several other dangerous enemies which need a long range freeze also require the ata boost from combo attacks for Frozen Shooter to reliably hit as well (such as Mericarol variants, especially Merikle). Most standard mobs generally do not require a Snow Queen freeze; just hitting the first enemy is often enough to keep any of them from advancing due to the subpar pathfinding of enemies. Even if they did need to be crowd controlled en masse, a far better way to do so is to have a racast/racaseal use a freeze trap and an arrest needle in tandem, since when you arrest a frozen enemy, the arrest timer will take priority and the freeze timer will be paused while that counts down, allowing one to freeze mobs for 12 seconds very quickly and easily.

Snow Queen can be good situationally, but those situations it excels in require an exceptionally good SQ with extraordinary hit, and as such a Frozen Shooter provides a more reliable and more accurate freeze for high priority targets in the majority of situations.

On the Gamecube version I was freezing everything in episode 2 no problem with a 25 hit Snow Queen. You have to take into account the fact that the Snow Queen can hit one target up to 2 times with each shot.

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On the Gamecube version I was freezing everything in episode 2 no problem with a 25 hit Snow Queen. You have to take into account the fact that the Snow Queen can hit one target up to 2 times with each shot.

This isn't gamecube, ultima server has buffed monsters in ultimate, especially in regards to evp. And no, snow queen does not hit targets more than one time.

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On the Gamecube version I was freezing everything in episode 2 no problem with a 25 hit Snow Queen. You have to take into account the fact that the Snow Queen can hit one target up to 2 times with each shot.

If you don't believe us, make one. You will be very disappointed in episode 2. ;) Until I quit playing, I had a 90 hit and a 100 hit snow queen. They rock. I would not use one with less than 70 hit. They're too frustrating and you still need to carry a frozen shooter to be able to reliably freeze things. But even at 100 hit, there are a large number of enemies that you can't freeze 100% of the time. Merikle/mericarol, sinow spiegel, sinow berrill, ill gill to name a few. I don't know of any other users who actually have played with every possible hit percentage from 30 to 100% to compare stats, but even 100 hit (currently unobtainable) can't freeze everything.

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In my eyes, the Snow Queen is the better choice for rangers. If you have 50 PDs, please, I implore you, buy a Photon Booster and upgrade your Frozen Shooter to a Snow Queen, you will not be disappointed.

Well that's just like, your opinion maaaannnn.... You know what they say about opinions and buttholes and all dat sorta jazz.

If you love it, more power to you. I'm quite happy with my fr00zer though, thanks.

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Well that's just like, your opinion maaaannnn.... You know what they say about opinions and buttholes and all dat sorta jazz.

If you love it, more power to you. I'm quite happy with my fr00zer though, thanks.

Just like that... kajex has told me countless times about his SQ's ....but i still love my FS just because IT DOES COMBO... i don't care if it takes more hits to freeze a mob in EP2 or EP4 (mine is not even 80 hit ;c) but i just love it... :D

Edited by Soly
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We can't combo unlock it, but perhaps after this discussion I can talk to larva about raising its ata a bit. No promises, but worth looking into, especially with the 80 hit weapon cap.

It is possible to combo unlock, Eden server did it.

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It is possible to combo unlock, Eden server did it.

Kajex didn't say that was not possible. He said we won't do it.

Probably we can take another approach to make the weapon little better.

But not promise anything.

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