Frost: Chill, Freeze, Brittle

From World 8 the forest fights back with cold. Frost is not one effect but a chain: each stage sets up the next, and the payoff is at the end. You do not need frost sources to clear World 8, but the chain is the cheapest damage in the world if you build for it.

The chain, stage by stage

• CHILL — stacking slow, capped at 40% (an enemy never drops below 60% of its speed from chill alone). Decays 10% per second once you stop refreshing it
• FREEZE — a hard stop for 1.5 seconds. Bosses are not stopped, they take a 70% slow instead
• BRITTLE — when a Freeze runs out on its own, the enemy stays brittle for 6 seconds
• SHATTER — a brittle enemy that dies explodes instead of simply dying
• THAW — heat applied to a frozen enemy melts the Freeze early and leaves it exposed

Shatter — the payoff

• Deals 30% of the SHATTERED enemy's max HP to everything within 120 units
• That scales off the victim, not off you, so a fat enemy shattering is worth far more than a weak one
• Shatters can chain: a shatter kill can set off another, up to 2 links deep
• One shatter chain damages at most 8 enemies in total, however far it spreads

Thaw — the exposure window

• While a Thaw window is open the target takes +25% damage from every source
• Burning off a Freeze with heat opens a 4-second window
• The Heartwood Matriarch opens a longer 6-second window when one of her pods is shattered