Well, a few reasons:
1) A Ranged AoE can become basically a PBAoE in a jiffy, whereas a cone cannot. If you shoot a ranged AoE at the mob that is standing around you, you're likely to hit everyone. A cone, however, you'd need to back off in order to do this.
2) Target caps. A true ranged AoE can hit up to 16 targets. A cone can only hit 10.
3) Animation time. As you mention, Arctic Breath takes 2.67 seconds to animate. Fireball animates in 1 second.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I was just the one with the most unsolicited sombrero." - Traegus
IMO, Narrow('ish) Cones on a Tanker are generally not that great of an idea, as it can interrupt the herding aspect. I can see it as a viable initiating attack, but it doesn't have the same mid-battle AoE appeal as the TAoE's do.
As for using it on AV's, it's got a really bad DPA, and needs to be reapplied every 10 seconds, basically adding it to your attack chain. Kind of like having a 2nd Bruise that animates twice/three times as long.
Is Bruise's -Res resistable? Not sure, but I'm pretty confident Arctic Breath's is resistable.
Mains (Freedom) @Auroxis
Auroxis - Emp/Rad/Power Defender Pylon Video Soloing an AV
Pelvic Thunder - SS/Elec/Mu Brute
Sorajin - Elec/Nin Stalker
Neuropain - Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster
Yeah, I can't see myself jumping out of melee range to use a ~2.7 second cone attack on my Tanker. The RES debuff is nice, but it's not that nice.
Over time, the ability to use Fireball or Ball Lightning (or better yet, Ball Lightning and Electric Fences) every few seconds and without having to move gives you much, much better AoE DPS than the RES debuff from Arctic Breath.
I can see Arctic Breath being situationally useful against a single target when you're playing in a team. Solo against a single target, I'm pretty sure the RES debuff is too low to justify the activation time.
On a ranged character, I'd take Arctic Breath in a second. On a Tanker, there are much better options, IMO. Your mileage may vary.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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It follows the same recharge/endurance patterns of the other AOE attacks from the APP sets (ie: Fireball/Ball Lightning).
It has somewhat of a weakness in use in that it is a cone. 30 degree arc but a very nice 60' range.
It does essentially the same damage as the other AOE attacks.
It applies a staggering -15% resistance debuff and -10.5% defence debuff, as well as a -recharge, -speed and (incredibly small chance) knockdown.
Do people not care about it because they have to swap redside and run a patron arc? Or do they dislike cones? Or that it takes 2.67 seconds to animate? I'm trying to run through all the negatives and understand why.
This + Bruising = 35% resistance debuff!