Frost Shards



Frost Shards is the second weapon of the Hexen Mage, and is something of the game's equivalent to the shotgun. It is a spell which uses 3 blue mana to launch a wide, cross-shaped spread of magical ice darts which can freeze enemies. If used at very close range, the Mage can touch the enemy with his hand inflicting significantly more damage. If used at close range, not all of the darts will spawn before hitting the enemy. Thus, it is ideal to hit enemies either at melee range or medium range. The frost shards also have a very long delay between attacks, although this is shortened slightly if the fire button is held down. All these reasons make the weapon somewhat difficult to use effectively.

Frozen monsters and players will shatter if left alone for a few seconds or attacked; a creative player will use them as cover until then. The frozen bodies can also be pushed around, potentially allowing the Mage to temporarily blockade passages against encroaching monsters so that he can focus on defending a single entrance to a room at a time.

Curiously, if the Mage is moving fast enough (i.e. using the Boots of Speed), the ice projectiles may damage the Mage instead of firing outward; essentially he runs into his own projectiles.

Appearance statistics
In the IWADs the Frost shards are first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of Frost shards per skill level: