Goals:
- To increase the DPS of the frost tree in a raiding environment
- Avoid rendering frost overpowered in PvP
- Give frost a proper mana dump, and preferably any mechanic that forces the mage to think and plan, no matter how simple it is
- Incorporate both Deep Freeze and Ice Lance into the raiding environment
And do it all within the frost tree itself. Making changes in the early arcane or fire tree can be part of the solution, but shouldn’t be the solution.
The point is to buff frost mages, and that should be done in the frost tree.
But hey, gotta start somewhere, let’s look at the other trees.
First, the arcane tree is the obvious off-spec tree of choice. It always has been, I suspect it always will be, and I see zero reason why that should change.
Hunters, regardless of spec, spend points in the Marksman tree. Every priest spends points in the Discipline tree. So it really isn’t a stretch at all to simply shun the early fire tree and use arcane instead.
Add Frostbolt to Spell Impact.
This seems horrendously obvious. It already applies to Ice Lance and Cone of Cold, in addition to boosting the main nukes for a non-fire FFB build and any arcane build, is adding frostbolt into that really such a stretch?
Most frost mages will probably be spending points at this level anyway to get Torment the Weak. At this point, it’s practically a guarantee that a frost mage has 18 points in the frost tree.
Let’s go with that, then. A raiding frost mage will be sporting 18/0/53 as their raiding build.
This means there isn’t going to be a lot of wiggle room in the frost tree, as the changes I’m suggesting incorporate both Ice Barrier and Deep Freeze. Though that might be insane. Oh well.
Ice Lance needs to scale.
It doesn’t matter how this is done. Now, when a frost mage gets a FoF proc, he merely keeps casting frostbolt, as it would be a DPS loss to use Ice Lance as part of a proper Shatter combo.
This isn’t an issue early on, however. At lower values of spellpower (around the 1200 area), using Ice Lance during a FoF proc produces more damage, it’s just when you get to higher spellpower values where it stops being a good source of damage.
Hence, Ice Lance needs to scale better. Preferably much better.
“Increases the damage of your Ice Lance spell by an amount equal to X% of your spellpower”, or just basically increasing the spell’s coefficient while some sort of effect is active.
Having it active permanently, of course, would be overpowered.
Instead, the spellpower boost to Ice Lance is only active while Ice Barrier is active on the mage. This provides a damage boost to raiding frost mages, and even gives them a slight mana dump (as they would need to keep Ice Barrier up, and that isn’t exactly the cheapest spell in the book.
It also isn’t overpowered for PvP purposes, as Ice Barrier can be dispelled or simply smacked off with an axe.
The actual number of the X needs to be high enough that it is worthwhile to spend a FoF charge on an Ice Lance, but low enough that it’s still worth casting frostbolt for the first charge(s).
The idea here is that there needs to be a legitimate shatter combo (frostbolt + Ice Lance), but Ice Lance can’t be strong enough to be the only thing worth casting when FoF procs.
Speaking of frostbolt…
Deep Freeze is for Raiding! For Serious!
There are enough ideas thrown around about this spell to fill up several posts all by itself, probably more.
For the purposes of this blog post, Deep Freeze is going to be morphed into something that can provide a mana dump, thus giving the possibility of improved frosty DPS.
First, something relatively simple. Casting Deep Freeze afflicts the target with a debuff similar to Winter’s Chill, except not Winter’s Chill exactly. Instead, this little debuff has ten charges, and messes around with mana costs in exchange for some sort of buff.
Let’s say something simple. While this debuff is up (let’s call it Freezerburn), the mana cost of any frost spell cast at the target is increased by, say, 200%, but the effect of Ice Shards is doubled. A charge is consumed when the target is struck by a critical strike from the frost mage.
This results in a somewhat controlled mana dump, boosts frost mage DPS with bigger crits, and indirectly makes critical strike rating a better stat for frost mages.
I’m sure y’all could think of many, many ideas revolving around Deep Freeze.
Casting Deep Freeze adds a 30 second debuff that increases frost damage taken by 15%, but increases the mana cost of any frost spell by 200%.
Deep Freeze is now applies a DoT effect in addition to what it normally does, and while this DoT is active, [insert buff to frost spells here] but mana cost is increased.
Or maybe leave Deep Freeze out of it entirely and have Winter’s Chill do the same thing. Add a stack to WC when a spell hits, consume one when a spell crits.
Now we go off the deep end…
Ice Forging
Let’s invent a spell, Pyroblast for frost mages. Call it Ice Bolt, Ice Burn, Tundra Bolt, whatever.
It has a decent mana cost, nothing too big but more than frostbolt does. Let’s say, 500 mana at level 80. It has a four or five second cast time, whichever really, so long as it’s a decent length of time.
But then, there’s this interesting mechanic in the frost tree now. Every time a frost mage casts frostbolt, they get a stacking buff. This buff reduces the cast time of Ice Burn by 20%, increases it’s damage by 20%, and increases it’s mana cost by 75%.
Net result: once the mage has cast frostbolt five times, they now have a buff which makes Ice Burn instant cast, deals double damage, and will cost the mage 1875 mana to cast it.
DPS boost? Check. Mana dump that the mage controls? Check.
The actual mana cost can be adjusted, of course. The whole idea here is to give frost mages more buttons to push and forcing them to manage mana.
You know what sounds cool? Those two words, “Ice Forge”.
Ice Forge is an ability that can be switched on and off at will. Something that can be toggled.
When it’s turned on, the mana cost of frost spells is increased by, say, 300%, while the damage of all frost spells is increased correspondingly. 30%, maybe, though that’s probably too much. 15% increase, 200% mana cost? Whatever works.
Turn it on, mana consumption increases dramatically and so does DPS. Turn it off, mana consumption drops, and so does DPS.
A few comments:
- I don’t necessarily agree that Frost should be obligated to take 18 Arcane instead of, say 18 Fire, but it appears that the devs are with you on this. I’m having a fair amount of fun, albeit while doing markedly less damage than I should, running around with a frost build that includes Impact and Master of Elements. (Then again, they’re talking about removing RNG stuns for PVP reasons, so Impact may be in for a redesign in the near-medium future.) Once you start tying 20% of your DPS straight up to Arcane (if they take your frostbolt suggestion, on top of the improved TotW), there is no more choice in the matter.
(Frost/Fire builds also have the advantage of allowing you to take talents that buff FFB for solo content after you’re done gutting your frostbolt for all non-raid purposes by removing its snare.)
- The ice lance + ice barrier synergy is interesting, but you’re also spending a global cooldown recasting ice barrier, which is a small but non-zero drop in DPS. It’s not a big deal if you’re taking no damage and the ice barrier sits there for the full 60 seconds, but fights with environmental damage are going to chew through that barrier, which will mean either spending more GCD’s on ice barrier (if it is available) or losing the buff.
- Adding PVE debuffs to Deep Freeze is problematic because any debuff worth having would be worth stacking the group for – something that Blizzard has fallen over backwards to try and avoid of late. Whatever effect it’s going to be should be via a buff/debuff on the caster, not another debuff on the target.
- I like the Freezerburn spell idea. It adds a combo point style mechanic to the class (heck, maybe it could even literally add combo points, though I suppose a stacking buff would be less paradigm-shifty – and better for the mage when switching targets). My vote? Second 51 point talent. Deep Freeze can stay as it is for PVP, and we can have this other spell for PVE. There were some trees that had more than one final talent in the past, so it’s not entirely without precedent. Tying it to repeated frostbolt casts greatly limits its usage in PVP.
Of course, now you’ve basically turned frostbolt into a frosty version of Arcane Blast. Perhaps another tactic might be to have the new spell have a medium-long cast time (e.g. 3-4s), HIGH mana cost, HIGH damage, and a long cooldown that refreshes partially on frostbolt casts (unholy DK’s have such a talent for their ghoul summon spell).
Frostbolt to Spell Impact: Yup. /agree
Boost Ice Lance: I like that idea.
Deep Freeze apply a debuff: I agree with the premise there. Although I think it should be something simpler in nature, like the target is treated as frozen (like fingers of frost) for the next 15 seconds (DR on players), still requires the player to be frozen to use (or FoF proc). Acts as a debuff that players can trinket/dispel.
Frost Pyroblast/Ice Forge: I’m not sure I agree with those. They sound a little out there for my tastes.
I thoroughly believe that frostbolt is meant to be spammed. No if’s and’s or but’s about it. Changing any facet of frost that turns it into “stack three times then cast this spell” or “keep up this buff while stacking frostbolt charges” changes the gameplay of frost too much. If people wanted either of the two gameplay styles, they would have specced arcane.
Frost already has a mana dump in blizzard; it just so happens that blizzard sucks when used against a single target. Give it a proc to channel faster, then people will want to use it.
Frost is all about frostbolt, water elemental, and perfect timing of cooldowns. Oh, and ridiculous amounts of AoE.
I’m going to have to agree with Krizzlybear on all his points. My suggestion is add frostbolt to Spell Impact and change Brain Freeze to let you choose an instant fireball or a 50% (or even 75%) reduced channeling blizzard.
Deep Freeze is pure PVP. Buffing it for damage in any way shape or form will just make it overpowered in PVP. The only thing i can think of is to make Deep Freeze do a set amount of direct damage if the target is unfrozen – say 4K? and to leave its normal mechanic when the target is frozen. Like an arcane barrage or a Warlock Shadowburn. Sorta. You’ll be able to pull off big combos on frozen targets which need more setup but you can also go for the quick and dirty direct damage if you’re raiding. Let it crit on fingers of frost and you have the all new and improved shatter combo.
Now a frost mage gets to *think* when raiding.
Sounds kinda cool but at the same time you are basically asking them to homoginize all the specs, and that just isn’t cool, each spec serves its purpose.
Frost = PVP/Survival
Arcane= PVP/PVE now
FFB = Pure PVE
Fire = PVE
these are all IMO and i know you might be cool and rocking your own little POM FFB or some crazy thing like that but for the most part each spec serves its own purpose, thats a bit like Prot Pally’s asking for their healing to be the same as a Holy Pally’s isn’t it…
You choose a spec based on your needs the cool thing is that each spec serves its own purpose, and you can select one based on your needs if they all do the same thing and all have the same damage why do we even spec why not just take specs out of the game? Why bother at that point when everyone is the same, but the animations are different….
Generally the way these posts are structured is to have the simplistic ideas that don’t change much at the start, and then get more and more insane as the post continues.
@ Dalamar/Armadillo
The only reason Deep Freeze was put forward as a debuff was to have it easily dispelled. If it was a buff it would benefit from the 30% dispel protection.
@ Krizzly
The intention isn’t to remove frostbolt from the raiding environment, merely to try and get something else into the raiding environment.
There are plenty of mages who would like to spec frost, but can’t really stand the thought of spamming nothing but frostbolt over and over again, not when there are far more exciting specs out there.
Lhivera, for instance, creator of the Theory Craft-o-matic, out right quit WoW because raiding frost didn’t change or add anything.
@ Chesticles
Ideally, every tree would be good for both PvE and PvP. That’s what Blizzard is aiming for.
I see where you’re coming from, though the argument you present is a tired one.
In a perfect world, the DPS difference between an arcane spec, fire spec, FFB spec, and a frost spec would either be nonexistent or so small it might as well be nonexistent.
Which one a mage specs, then, would be entirely up to personal taste.
“Ideally, every tree would be good for both PvE and PvP. That’s what Blizzard is aiming for.”
I’m loving it.
I wanted to test the waters in arena at 70, but I hate frost. Frost was really the only viable spec for arena, so no arena for me. Now that arcane is viable in arena, I’m giving it a go and doing much better than I expected, and I’m getting to play the “flavor” of mage that I most enjoy.
There are some amazing mechanics that drive this game and a balance of PvP and PvE has to be maintained, but it is still an RPG. It is very limiting to a player to say that all frost mages are into PvP/solo grind and all raiding mages are into FFB/fire.
In the perfect world, you could pick the tree that you enjoy from an RPG perspective and then choose the talents that define how you want to use the tree. Kind of like a death knight…
Sorry for the double post, but my frost advisor just got back to me on my ideas. =)
I don’t play frost, but decided that shouldn’t stop me from having fun thinking of ways to fix it! I just kind of ran with the frost theme…
Give frost a DoT effect. Talent of Chilled to the Bone where the DoT is applied for X seconds and refreshed any time the target is considered frozen. Diminishing returns would apply in PvP as well as the target could Ice Block, Cloak, Dispell, whatever.
Crit stacking? On a successful crit you gain a “crit counter” that last for X seconds. Subsequent crits within the counter buff would refresh the timer and start stacking the number. When you get X number of crits stacked, your next frostbolt cast before the counter runs out casts as a Frostbolt Volley, where three frostbolts are cast simultaneously (I’m thinking an animation like a single tick of an Arcane Missile, just frosty-like). Since the counter would be on the mage, not the mob, raids wouldn’t stack for it. This would give the mage something spiffy to cast on a single target after a crit-happy Blizzard. In PvP it gets harder to crit with resilience so it shouldn’t come into play very much. And as a buff, it could be dispelled/stolen.
Speaking of Blizzard… it’s a bad mana dump. A mana dump should be something that boosts damage significantly, but is inefficient and unsustainable to the mana pool. Against a single target, Blizzard is just a mana waste. Not to mention, the blue posts are hinting at a need for more CC in the future. I can easily see encounters for bosses where adds need to be kept alive/controlled in the vicinity of the main target (especially for achievements, 3 drakes up anyone?), making Blizzard very dangerous.
How about an Avalanche as a mana dump? Longer cast time than a frostbolt, maybe 6 seconds. Affects the main target and maybe a 10 foot radius (small enough to not be effective as all-out AoE, don’t want to compete with Blizzard), more damage on the main, the rest would be splash-type damage. Subsequent casts within a time frame would cost more mana but do more damage and take less time to cast and refresh the timer – the way Arcane Blast used to work before they borked it completely and then fixed it to its current state. In PvP, this could probably be pulled off once if you have very good control of the opposition or up far enough in arcane to get Presence of Mind. Put this talent deep enough in frost and you could negate the PoM situation.
Maybe even add some more CC options to frost.
Snow Blind could reduce attack effectiveness, maybe a 50% melee miss chance (not on bosses, I’m sure). In PvP DR, dispels and all that.
Creeping Ice – channeled spell that works backwards compared to the DKs chains of ice. The target starts by taking, say 10% speed reduction and it goes up each tick until the target is encased in a block of ice with zero movement at which point it shatters (maybe for extra damage). The channel could be broken, the effect dispelled, blinked out of, etc.
Glyph of Giant Penguin – your summoned Water Elemental is now a giant penguin that throws snowballs at targets.
OK, the last one is just silly, but not much more than Glyph of the Penguin for Polymorph.
[...] can see some of my suggestions from a post I wrote on basically this exact same issue over a month [...]