Mage Ability Bloat-What's for the Chop

[Magemaer]

It's amazing how polarizing this issue is. I am 100% in favor of reducing our active abilities and 100% against ANY of those coming back.

If they do this, they're going to piss people off no matter what.

Don't want pet? Don't roll hunter.
Don't want a lot of spells? Don't roll mage.
It should come with the class.

[Imnick]

but making it an item also adds a bit of management to it, you have three charges, so if you run out during the fight you can't use it anymore. But with proper timing you can actually make more gems midfight without losing any dps, for example on lei shen, I use the transition downtime to make more mana gems so that I can use a fourth one in the last phase of the fight, which allows me to free up a glyph space rather than using the waste of space 9 mana gem glyph.

While many will say "that's not very engaging gameplay" it is something that can seperate those who can min/max their usage, and those who can't/don't

Giving it actual spec-bound mechanic is going to add far more of a management aspect than "you can use it three times per fight"

[Akraen]

I know (hope) you're not using this literally, but; the fuck? You can't even USE Arcane Blast as a Fire Mage. And if you actually think using detect/focus/amplify/focus magic were in anyway a good thing, or increased the 'depth' of WoW, then you need to go play another game.

We've moved on. There is no need for Ice Lance as Arcane/Fire. No need for Fire Blast as Arcane/Frost. No need for Blizzard as Fire/Arcane, no need for Flamestrike as Frost/Arcane. It's time for a new design. It won't come before 6.0, and even then, I doubt it, but hey. There's plenty of space in our spell book to trim, even beyond the spec dependant stuff.

/facepalm

There was a time when choosing a spec didn't remove the other spec's spells.

[Aceveda]

I know (hope) you're not using this literally, but; the fuck? You can't even USE Arcane Blast as a Fire Mage. And if you actually think using detect/focus/amplify/focus magic were in anyway a good thing, or increased the 'depth' of WoW, then you need to go play another game.

We've moved on. There is no need for Ice Lance as Arcane/Fire. No need for Fire Blast as Arcane/Frost. No need for Blizzard as Fire/Arcane, no need for Flamestrike as Frost/Arcane. It's time for a new design. It won't come before 6.0, and even then, I doubt it, but hey. There's plenty of space in our spell book to trim, even beyond the spec dependant stuff.

So glad you're not a developer. Ice lance is great for fire in pvp. Same goes for blizzard, fireblast as frost etc.

What I'd get rid of is mana gem, flamestrike, deepfreeze made frost only. Blastwave brought back to fire. Bomb tier removed, 90 talent removed.

[Fim]

Mana gem (or make them personal healthstones that also restore some mana), conjured food and tables (pointless with Invo or RoP already), teleports (as opposed to portals, because we don't really need both), armors. All the regular class buffs - Arcane/Dal Brilliance in our case - could just be made passive so that they are automatically available to any group you are in, and always active, rather than requiring a cast every hour or after a wipe. Not sure there is any great gameplay being lost there.

A lot of the button bloat could go away if they gave us meta spell like "Mage Bomb" casting the appropriate talent (which again, I wish they'd just tie to spec, and give us more interesting talents). "Mage AoE" could then be Flamestrike/Blizzard/AE based on spec. Similarly an Arcane version of CoC/Dragon's breath and you could consolidate those three under one spell.

Of course this is going to have PvP implications, but if they are removing button bloat across the board, they'll have to re-balance everything anyway.

I'd also not really complain if they got rid of raid consumables - the entire go farm 300 food mats, and get potions and flasks before each raid night isn't particularly exciting gameplay.

[voltaa]

Mana gem (or make them personal healthstones that also restore some mana), conjured food and tables (pointless with Invo or RoP already), teleports (as opposed to portals, because we don't really need both), armors. All the regular class buffs - Arcane/Dal Brilliance in our case - could just be made passive so that they are automatically available to any group you are in, and always active, rather than requiring a cast every hour or after a wipe. Not sure there is any great gameplay being lost there.

A lot of the button bloat could go away if they gave us meta spell like "Mage Bomb" casting the appropriate talent (which again, I wish they'd just tie to spec, and give us more interesting talents). "Mage AoE" could then be Flamestrike/Blizzard/AE based on spec. Similarly an Arcane version of CoC/Dragon's breath and you could consolidate those three under one spell.

Of course this is going to have PvP implications, but if they are removing button bloat across the board, they'll have to re-balance everything anyway.

I'd also not really complain if they got rid of raid consumables - the entire go farm 300 food mats, and get potions and flasks before each raid night isn't particularly exciting gameplay.

It seems to me that you would be totally fine with the specs being the exact same as each other with different spells just being different flavors of each other, stripping us of a large portion of our toolkit that seperates those who know the class and put in the effort to min/max and those that don't. If they took blizzard away from arcane, that would destroy situational AoE (large number of adds, high health) and taking explosion away from fire and frost would remove high number of adds low HP AoE from those specs. I am not trying to be rude here but it seems you just don't understand why we have the diverse array of spells that we do, everything is situational and you need to know when it is appropriate to use what. Mages have ways of dealing with every imaginable situation and consolidating certain spells to being spec specific, or completely removing them puts limitations on what we can do, and I don't know about you (but I'm feeling 22) but I don't enjoy being limited in my ability to fulfill a role in my raid.

And after reading what you said about consumables it seems like you just want to log on, put in next to no effort aside from getting a group together and learning boss mechanics, this game is about rewarding those who put in that extra effort, mmo's without at least some grind become stale, think of the last few months of DS, log on, raid, log off, come back in 6 days.

[Raugnaut]

Ability Bloat REALLY needs to be actually defined. For instance, Situationally used abilities should NOT be defined as bloat. A raiding PvE frost mage, for instance, would most likely NOT use Fire Blast ever, except in extreme movement instances. However, a high-rated PvP frost mage would use Fireblast quite often in order to get rid of spell reflect effects- they may not be able to use Ice Lance due to a FoF proc.

In my opinion, Ability Bloat is when you have abilities that are used in any situation, and are VERY clunky to use, OR do not serve a greater purpose. A good example of ability bloat is Readiness for hunters- it essentially resets the CD on all abilities once per 5 minutes, and is both an ability used constantly in PvP AND PvE scenarios. However, using it is clunky- for PvP, you might want to sit on it for a double-trinket of some sort, or use it right after poping CDs for maximum burst, ect. For PvE, you have to time it so you can use your signature shot AND your lvl 90 talent AND your focus talent AND all your cooldowns twice in a row with MINIMAL time between usage of these abilties.

Serpent Sting/Widow's Venom can also be considered as ability bloat. Serpent Sting for MM and BM serves no purpose single target besides a DoT that you perpetually keep up- in multi-target situations, its not worth using. Essentially, a bit of hunter damage is tied into something thats nearly passive. For Survival, it greatly increases thier AoE toolkit. Chances are, BM and MM would not mind missing it, whereas Survival would feel the removal of it heavily. Widow's Venom is another sign of ability bloat- for PvE, it serves no purpose, unless you absolutely need the mortal wound debuff and nobody else can bring it. For PvP, it depends on comp/personal use- there are various pets that bring the Mortal Wound debuff, and many, many classes that also bring it.

Personally, my main is a druid, and I lost a spell that I LOVED to "ability bloat cutting"- Thorns, a spell that druids had since classic. Its up-to classic version, while fairly boring, was useful while tanking trash- it gave me JUST the edge I needed for AoE threat so that I could keep up with hard-AoE classes dealing a ton of AoE damage, instead of staying just below the DPS till they got smacked to death on threat. In Cata, it was a VERY good ability- for the dps specs, it could be a dps boost to use on the tanks. As resto, it was a dps boost if you could afford the mana to use it on CD. For bears, it was very useful to use before pulls as it gave a ton of damage. However, MoP came along, and it wasn't just removed- in order to get an affect like that, Bears are now dependent on having a shaman in their group. A complete load of BS in my opinion.

Mages, too, have lost a number of VERY useful abilities to "bloat removal". Mana Ward, for instance, would be EXTREMELY useful for Frost and Fire mages today for mitigating damage- Frost/Fire/Mage Ward (2 abilties baked into 1 and then removed), would ALSO be EXTREMELY useful for Frost and Fire mages- the worst part? It was removed from mages, who have among the LOWEST self healing/absorbs out of any dps spec for both PvP and PvE, and Warlocks got an improved version of their Shadow Ward- it was changed to Twilight Ward and made to absorb Holy Damage! Demonology, who gets a TREMOUNDOUS survival boost when going into Metamorphasis, has it change into Demonic(?) Ward, which absorbs ALL spell damage- Dark Apotheosis, the warlocks major defensive form in PvP, has it turn into Fury Ward which absorbs all damage.

So, please, when you ask for ability bloat removal, THINK about how many abilities we have lost already, and how the removal of the abilities will affect playstyle in both PvP AND PvE, NOT just whatever you do. The removal of Ice Lance from Arcane/Fire, and Fire Blast from Frost, hurts ALL mages in PvP, and can NOT be compensated for. On the other hand, the removal of Mana Gems will ONLY affect mages spamming Spellsteal, and Arcane. For Arcane, this CAN be compensated for by increasing Arcanes mana return to allow for the same amount of Arcane Blast casting as they would have with a Mana Gem.
Teleports can be removed as well with minimal effect- they are essentially Portals that you don't have to click on.

Flamestrike has situational usefulness- On a fight with 3 clumped-together non-moving targets (Iron Qon last phase), I believe it is a dps increase to replace your filler spell with Flamestrike once per 12 seconds. On these fights, however, you do NOT want to spam Arcane Explosion/Blizzard, as you want to concentrate as much damage as possible into 1 dog instead of spreading it over the 4 targets. Making Blizzard Frost-only, Flamestrike Fire-only, and Arcane Explosion Arcane-only gives them no AoE damage should they get locked out of a spell. I can also say that doing nothing but spamming the same spell over and over again for AoE can be very, very boring- most specs today incorporate 2 spells into thier AoE rotation, if not more. (There are a few, such as Shadow Mages).

A possible solution to Flamestrike would be to increase its damage to be a very slight, ~1%, dps loss to use in single target, OR decrease its casting time to instant.
6

So remember, something should ONLY be considered to be Ability Bloat if A) Another similar spell has a better purpose, or B) Its better if it becomes baseline.

Also, lvl 90 mage talents really cant be considered to be bloat, just bad mechanics. 2 of the choices simply replaces an ability that mages already have, and 1 of them has a passive/active component. Lvl 60 mage talents are also a similar example of just bad mechanics.

Edit: I counted spells that have been removed in the past, and spells that have been made baseline, and spells that have been turned into shared talents across the class, and I came to the realization that mages now have LESS spells then they did during Wrath of the Lich King- by exactly 3.

[Polarthief]

- L75 Talents (Living Bomb will most likely stay for Fire)
- L90 Talents (RoP will most likely stay for Arcane, but in some weaker form)
- Conjure Mana Gem (Why is this a thing? Can't we just get a 2m cooldown that restores the same amount of mana? Also, it'll most likely become Arcane exclusive)
- Flamestrike (Unless they make it not shit)
- Fire/Inferno Blast & Hot Streak Mechanics (Fire Blast is a WORTHLESS ability; there's no point to keeping it for anything other than nostalgia. Inferno Blast won't be needed once Blizzard revamps Hot Streak, not to mention, IB feels so clunky to use)

Can't really think of anymore.

Stuff that should be brought back:

- Mana Shield (with the knockback)
- Blast Wave (in its former, knockback, glory; not tied to a shit spell like FS)
- Mage Ward (why in the fuck was this removed, yet the Warlock one wasn't?)

Is Fire Blast needed for non Fire Specs?

Is Ice Lance strictly necessary outside of Frost?

Fire Blast isn't even usable as Fire, so yeah, it's totally not needed and is quite stupid to have.
Ice Lance, however, is helpful in a few scenarios:

- Quickly killing (very) low-HP targets for lowbies/friends
- "Attack this target to knock it back" mechanics (Penguin fight in Brawler's Guild, Dire Call Direhorns on Heroic Horridon, etc.)
- "Attack this target to trigger X" mechanics (Crystals on Heroic Tortos)
- To quickly get aggro on a freshly spawned target (Imagine Dark Animus, but less organized)
- Still quadruples damage against a Frozen target, regardless if Frost-specced or not

[Fim]

It seems to me that you would be totally fine with the specs being the exact same as each other with different spells just being different flavors of each other, stripping us of a large portion of our toolkit.

No, that's the situation I think we've got now. I'd rather see the specs have more identity, even if that means that some specs simply aren't as good as somethings as other. I'd rather have Arcane be a single target spec with strong burst, fire be a strong AoE spec, and Frost be useful for PvP. They've adopted the attitude that you shouldn't have to choose specs, and every spec should be viable (but not optimal) for any situation. The end result for pure classes feels like all the specs are less strongly tied to their different elements and it's more dull, because now there is essentially never any reason to switch at all. At least in DS, you switched to Arcane for tendons, and similarly to Fire for Alys in Firelands.

As for the specific example of making AoE spec-specific reducing our situational AoE, I'm fine with that because:
a) like I said, I'd like having to choose a spec that'd be good for the encounter at hand, as opposed to having all the specs be good at everything like you mistakenly think I want.
b) all the classes are going to get the bloat reduced, so no one is suddenly going to have an edge where their AoE is good in all situations, and their single target is good. Future encounters would end up balanced around that design, and
c) how often do you see high numbers of high HP adds AND high numbers of low HP adds in the same boss fight. If you meant trash, well sure. But no one decides which class/spec to bring to a raid based on trash DPS anyway.

And after reading what you said about consumables it seems like you just want to log on, put in next to no effort aside from getting a group together and learning boss mechanics, this game is about rewarding those who put in that extra effort, mmo's without at least some grind become stale, think of the last few months of DS, log on, raid, log off, come back in 6 days.

I disagree. I find the stale part is growing a crap ton of mogu pumpkins and killing stupid crocodiles each week. I signed up to play a mage, not a bloody farm hand or Crocodile Dundee. It's a grind sure. It rewards effort sure. It's just not very fun. More to the point, it's bloat - you'll just macro your potion into your opener and Time Warp anyway.

Now if the way you got your potions/food was drops from evil alchemist/chefs mobs with a lot of HP and they updated them each patch, to keep up with the gear scaling, then that'd be better.

I'm also surprised you claim that MMOs without a grind become stale, and then use T13 as an example. DS was stale precisely because it WAS the dull grind that went on too long.

[voltaa]

I used t13 as my example of no grind because it had no personal grind,you didn't have to make food, you just used guild funds to buy fish feasts, you didn't have to buy flasks, you had cauldrons, you didn't even have to walk to the damn instance, so that's why it ended up feeling like a tedious gfrind just to log in and roflstomp deathwing's minions every week. There was a really good article a while back (I can't recall where and since I'm on a phone gg finding it) that explained why grinds were needed in mmo's even if they felt like chores. If I can find it when I get home from work I'll link it.

Now as for bloat, I agree that we've lost too much to "bloat" to give up any more, we lost two defensives (one was arc only but still a def) a slow (blastwave cata ver) a MASSIVE dps CD (deep freeze) personal/raid utility in focus magic (one of our only utility functions and my favorite talent). While we are at a fairly good place with active rotational abilities and cooldowns currently, I wouldn't mind having more pre casted, out of combat type abilities (such as focus magic) to just add more to the class. As far as bloat goes, I just don't see it.

[Deleted]

Ability bloat is easy to approach: did you have more than 24 key-bind spell and some on double (or more) because of macro/target ??
It's clearly the case. Playing mage can be done on 10 button except if you want to be prepared.

I see it as a possibility to redefine our rotation with less shared spell.
For PvP, I think they will take this as an excuse to remove some more control/dispel/CS/... I don't say it will be target at mage. It will be for all class.
Maybe mage will be less hit because it was already nerfed in this case.
In short, there is to much ability to control and to escape them.
And they will try to resolve the problem around instant/silence too.

- - - Updated - - -

Mount is a good example.
Some use Macro or addon to use them. I also have some on my bars too (Yak/...).
It can be resolve by an integrated UI ...

[Fim]

I used t13 as my example of no grind because it had no personal grind,you didn't have to make food, you just used guild funds to buy fish feasts, you didn't have to buy flasks, you had cauldrons, you didn't even have to walk to the damn instance, so that's why it ended up feeling like a tedious gfrind just to log in and roflstomp deathwing's minions every week.

I don't think having a personal grind that involved me fishing, making my own flasks, and walking to the instance would have made T13 any better. Or any tier for that matter. T13 wasn't tedious because of a lack of a personal grind. It was boring because the fights were dull, and the entire thing lasted too long, with no filler raid pre-MoP. If you truly believe having to fish your own food for T13 would have somehow made it more interesting, then more power to you, but I'd wager that you'd be the minority.

I'm all for personal effort, but why do you think that needs to involve a grind? It has so far, but that's because the dev's have more or less stuck with the current design since it's what they've always used.

I think food and flasks/pots as rewards from a chest at the end of challenge mode dungeons/scenarios is a better design for instance, particularly if the amount of those items was tied to challenge level. More fundamentally though, what does sitting down and eating some Mogu Seafood Stew before a pull, and clicking on a flask every hour really add to gameplay. Particularly if you just buy the damn stuff on the AH. Or potions, if you macro them into abilities and use them fairly predictably on most fights.

You want rewards for extra effort - that is fine, and I'd completely agree. The effort though shouldn't have to be wasted on repetitive chores.

As an example of what I mean - personally, I'd rather they have level scaling for all the content in the game, and have useful and meaningful rewards. I'm already happy to run old content for mounts, but I'd be even happier if I was scaled down to the right level, so it was actually a challenge and needed a full group, but the bosses dropped say current LFR/flex level loot to gear your alts, with a very low chance of current normal/heroic BoE gear.

That'd give your mains a shot at a tangible reward, give you several alternatives to the current raid for LFR/flex level loot, so it'd reduce burn out, particularly if they limited the total number you could do, but not which ones (to prevent it from feeling mandatory to do every one each week). They could even make gear a few item levels lower, if they are worried about people doing the easiest raid instead of the current one. On heck if they are so attached to the idea of raid consumables, then let them drop from bosses and mobs in the old scaled instances and be BoP. That'd be actual effort, compared to logging in after reset to get what you need off the AH (which is really all the current design amounts to).

Doing more of that would still be an effort (but an effectively finite one since there are only so many gear slots), but the difference here is that is actually playing the game, not standing around with your fishing pole, waiting for a stupid sound effect, which in my opinion is just a dreary chore that doesn't add anything to the gameplay.

Now as for bloat, I agree that we've lost too much to "bloat" to give up any more, we lost two defensives (one was arc only but still a def) a slow (blastwave cata ver) a MASSIVE dps CD (deep freeze) personal/raid utility in focus magic (one of our only utility functions and my favorite talent). While we are at a fairly good place with active rotational abilities and cooldowns currently, I wouldn't mind having more pre casted, out of combat type abilities (such as focus magic) to just add more to the class. As far as bloat goes, I just don't see it.

Their definition of bloat is just abilities that you feel obligated to put on an action bar, but don't use very often. Focus magic is a good example, as is armors, Arcane Brilliance, mana gems (at least with the current level 90 talents being what they are), conjured food, and things that you end up using redundantly or completely predictably via a macro (focus macros, pots). These things don't really add much to the gameplay that couldn't be accomplished with a different design (make all instant dots and interrupts have a mouseover before target by default, and just make lust a tad more powerful). I'd still advocate more limited options for AoE per spec, even at the cost of flexibility (and again bloat reduction is going to happen to every class/spec), because it's worth having specs that are choice that actually matter.

Mounts, like Nathyiel said, are another area just begging for better UI design - single fixed button that uses mounts selected with a check mark in the UI menu, appropriate for the area you are in (flying, land-only, water), and that is already a couple less buttons for everyone. You can leave the option for people to drag specific mounts to their bars if they really want to, but design the feature right and make it convenient and you'll find a lot of people use it.

[Northem]

Complementing my previous post, I do not understand why do you want to eliminate some spells ...

I'm an arcane mage and I use [Fire Blast] to DPS on the move when [Arcane Barrage] is on cooldown or merely for PVP.
I also use [Flamestrike] to do AOE damage at long range.

But [Ice Lance], [Cone of Cold], [Mana Gem] or [Alter Time] themselves are spells that I hardly use.

And also I realize that [Arcane Explosion], [Cone of Cold] and [Dragon's Breath] do the same in theory (AOE damage at short range).

[voltaa]

Complementing my previous post, I do not understand why do you want to eliminate some spells ...

I'm an arcane mage and I use [Fire Blast] to DPS on the move when [Arcane Barrage] is on cooldown or merely for PVP.
I also use [Flamestrike] to do AOE damage at long range.

But [Ice Lance], [Cone of Cold], [Mana Gem] or [Alter Time] themselves are spells that I hardly use.

And also I realize that [Arcane Explosion], [Cone of Cold] and [Dragon's Breath] do the same in theory (AOE damage at short range).

except not really the same, when AoEing at close range (lei shen ball lightning) 4Stack ABar>CoC>AE

while they serve the same purpose, you want to use both, glyphed CoC is MASSIVE damage

[Jarion]

The referenced tweet was hunter specific, so they might not even be considering mages for an ability purge. Still, the division IS interesting. I have a feeling that it comes from the fact that some players enjoy the active frantic minigame like specs that have developed and other players remember when the game was about teamwork, and boss fights, and not DDR with your fingers.

[Polarthief]

Complementing my previous post, I do not understand why do you want to eliminate some spells ...

I'm an arcane mage and I use [Fire Blast] to DPS on the move when [Arcane Barrage] is on cooldown or merely for PVP.
I also use [Flamestrike] to do AOE damage at long range.

But [Ice Lance], [Cone of Cold], [Mana Gem] or [Alter Time] themselves are spells that I hardly use.

And also I realize that [Arcane Explosion], [Cone of Cold] and [Dragon's Breath] do the same in theory (AOE damage at short range).

You only use Fire Blast because Blizzard fails to implement mobile DPS for Arcane. Guess how many times I've used Fire Blast as Frost since it lost its bomb benefits? 0. If you could use, say, Arcane Missiles on the go, you wouldn't ever think to use such a shitty spell like Fire Blast.

You could also use Blizzard.

... Wait, as Arcane, you never use Mana Gem or Alter Time? Um... Are you being serious...?

... Except AE, CoC, and DB are so much further apart than that. AE is for purely damage (and refreshing stacks as Arcane), CoC is to slow (and hit like a truck if glyphed), and DB is meant for the 5s Incap.

[Orangetai420]

You all are being FAR to conservative! Get ready to read my suggestions and rage!

Spellsteal - fun, yes, but rarely used anymore in PvE and part of the arms race problem in PvP
Frostfire bolt - rework brainfreeze (instantly fills icicles perhaps?)
Mirror Image - while it can be fun to use to escape death in PvE wipes, it could totally just be a passive proc.
Cone of cold/dragon's breath/arcane explosion - do we really need three melee range spells for a class that's supposed to stay at range?
scorch - make fireball castable on the move with some minor penalty
Arcane barrage - make missiles castable on the move with a minor penalty

you leave my spellsteal alone..... don't take any more unique abilities out of the game!
and leave my mirror images alone too!

I understand this seems like bloat from a pve perspective but let me assure you, as a pvper these a crucial abilities that have their place and are fine just the way they are!

[Jesikins]

I've really tried to read this thread with an open mind (as I already stated my opinion that I don't think we have much, if any, bloat), but I think most of the "axe this spell" arguments come down to "I don't use this regularly so let's get rid of it!" which doesn't seem very helpful. I personally never use mana gem, but I'm sure a lot of arcane mages do and it does me absolutely no harm to have it sitting in my spell book.

I guess what I'd most like to understand, from the "mages have bloat" camp, is how does this perceived bloat negatively affect your game experience? You can't simultaneously argue that a spell is useless AND you have to have it keybound. And honestly it doesn't seem like there is a single spell that is "useless" from the perspective of everyone. I love having depth in the spellbook, even if it's something I rarely use.

Also I think it's a bit naive to say we'll just get new spells to replace what is axed. If bloat is a problem, as defined by Blizzard (ie too many things you feel you need to keybind), they're not going to want to immediately "re-bloat" to the same level it was before the removals. It would make no sense.

[Jarion]

My position comes from my opinion that the specializations have gotten overly complex. If you look at my first post almost all of the deletions I list are accompanied by a passive alternative.

[ophion1990]

Is Fire Blast needed for non Fire Specs?

Is Ice Lance strictly necessary outside of Frost?

Is Armor design obsolete? For the most part, people simply run in the armor for their spec (although I believe high end Fire Mages are switching to Mage Armor for maximising combustion, but given how that cooldown recently got gutted it's debatable whether such armor switching is worth it I guess).

It's been a while but don't firemages use Ice Lance for shattercombos? Haven't played fire for ages though, or a mage in general for that matter. The armors see alot of use and switching in PvP so I wouldn't just remove them, Fire Blast is actually pretty handy for frost aswell.