[FROST] Legion Beta Megathread

[Deleted]

because back in the good old days when I could choose to play the mage class instead of picking a spec and having 66% of my class buttons disappear, shatter was stupidly useful for arcane and fire spells

I'm not sure it's for legacy reasons.

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it should give the target a debuff that just affects the next frost spell cast [..] rather than [..] an effect with a very short duration.

They might think it's more strong than necessary to keep a (de)buff up conveniently.

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The list is datamined.

It still puzzles me how sometimes wowdb apparently datamines more stuff than wowhead and in other cases the reverse happens (like in this case). It's as if the datamining isn't accurate on one or the other or both. Or that some of it is made according to decisions of the dataminer coder.

[Imnick]

They might think it's more strong than necessary to keep a (de)buff up conveniently.

Giving it a duration rather than a set limit of spells is just asking for people to find ways to exploit it (IE: glacial spike, blink, apply debuff).
Making it a "next spell cast from this list" buff means they can balance exactly what it's going to effect, and also takes latency pressure off to a degree.

[Deleted]

Giving it a duration rather than a set limit of spells is just asking for people to find ways to exploit it (IE: glacial spike, blink, apply debuff).
Making it a "next spell cast from this list" buff means they can balance exactly what it's going to effect, and also takes latency pressure off to a degree.

Didn't they hint that they want it to work with Glacial Spike? Perhaps they didn't intend for blinking to be required.

[Imnick]

As the debuff lasts for one second and the cast time for Glacial Spike is 3 seconds I think that's kind of unlikely.

[Dizzeeyooo]

Of course, if Deep Shatter was changed to remove FoF I'm sure this PvP talent would be a lot less useful

confirmed now that only ebonbolt will generate fof if this talent is selected

[Kuni Zyrekai]

As the debuff lasts for one second and the cast time for Glacial Spike is 3 seconds I think that's kind of unlikely.

1.4s really, given that it's 1s/impact. They're changing Shatter too, it checks on impact rather than cast, getting GS with it is entirely doable.

[Imnick]

1.4s really, given that it's 1s/impact. They're changing Shatter too, it checks on impact rather than cast, getting GS with it is entirely doable.

I'm sure that it's doable, I'm questioning whether it's intended or aberrant behaviour though.
I'd have assumed that if you wanted to include a spell, you wouldn't make the time available for it to hit the target less than the cast time of that spell.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...16?page=30#587 More or less intended.

[gallamann]

Ice Age (Rank 1) Name changed from "Orbital Strike (Rank 1)" to "Ice Age (Rank 1)". Increases damage done by Frozen Orb by 5%. Flurry by 5%.

Orbital Strike (Rank 1) Name changed from "Ice Age (Rank 1)" to "Orbital Strike (Rank 1)".

So they have flipped names and changed Frozen Orb to Flurry on new Ice Age. Orbital Strike now is "increases critical strike damage of Frozen orb by 15%"

Better than nothing I guess.

[Imnick]

They just said that the shatter changes apply to glacial spike, because you can freeze people in ways other than using Flurry.
Is casting and then using the proc and hoping the debuff hits before the spell hits really supposed to be an intended mechanic?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Dem bugfixes, damn. They cut my list down really far. Glacial Spike is almost bug-free, and is bug-free in just about every general use case. The cleave roots!

Imnick: I really hope it's not. It's janky and dependant on distance to target. I would shed no tears if it were changed to not work that way.

[Recom]

They just said that the shatter changes apply to glacial spike, because you can freeze people in ways other than using Flurry.
Is casting and then using the proc and hoping the debuff hits before the spell hits really supposed to be an intended mechanic?

I really hope not, it would be the most cancer inducing spec otherwise..

So I've done a bit of testing with the pre-made 110 with capped artifact and I must say the rotation isn't as fun as I thought it would be. I was really looking forward to playing games GS but I've encountered 2 big problem :
1) Icicles generation is reeeaaally low, between Ebonbolt, Ice Lance, Flurry and FL you will often spend quite some without casting FB and therefore won't generate Icicles - I think Flurry should generate 1 (or 3) Icicles like Frost fire Bolt used to.
2) i feel like it pigeonholes you into 1 specific talent combination with the intent of maximizing your free time to cart FB which isn't that engaging...
2bis) as a follow up, I found that some talents just don't work with GS, Brittle Bones for example is a nightmare to keep up with all the shit that procs while not chilling things (ice Lance mainly).

Right now, a Fbomb spec looks and plays a lot better.. Of course this is just my impressions and we still need Simc to find the best talent combinations which could be different from mine.

[Deleted]

Ice Age (Rank 1) Name changed from "Orbital Strike (Rank 1)" to "Ice Age (Rank 1)". Increases damage done by Frozen Orb by 5%. Flurry by 5%.

Orbital Strike (Rank 1) Name changed from "Ice Age (Rank 1)" to "Orbital Strike (Rank 1)".

So they have flipped names and changed Frozen Orb to Flurry on new Ice Age. Orbital Strike now is "increases critical strike damage of Frozen orb by 15%"

Is anyone else getting a sense the balance of artifact trees is completely out of whack when they do switches like that? Some trees seem to get the strongest traits earlier on than others. Sure, no tree gets everything easily or everything too hardly, but some of them appear to be stronger earlier than others.

[AdrianCC100]

So I have been looking on Warcraft logs for any Frost Mage logs for Legion.. I just can't seem to find any.. Obviously tuning isn't done yet, but even if tuning isn't done you still get an idea of where the specs will fall in line. In the logs, I only really ever see Fire and Arcane.. Is Frost just not good?

[gallamann]

Is anyone else getting a sense the balance of artifact trees is completely out of whack when they do switches like that? Some trees seem to get the strongest traits earlier on than others. Sure, no tree gets everything easily or everything too hardly, but some of them appear to be stronger earlier than others.

I have been focused on Frost ever since they added trait to give us 3 FoF proc storage, so for over 6-8 weeks. I have done the exercise to compare mage artifacts and seemed very similar in pacing. My friend played fire and was super happy cauterize blink was early, said it made a large difference in solo play. He is also a Mythic MT, so most of his focus has been tank specs. Feels protection Paladin is very good after filling an early trait. However that is only ones where I have heard him actually say one spec was night and day with an early trait.

Personally really like "Let It Go" and it can be first 3/3 you fill. I see going Let it Go, Ice Nine, Shield of Alodi, Black Ice, Frozen Viens, Icy Caress and Icy Hand as initial route and then going back via Jouster, It's Cold Outside and Chain Reaction before heading back to get Chilled to the Core. This is how I am currently seeing it and may change if a rotation emerges that favors certain traits or math shows another route to be better. For Example might be better to get Chilled to Core before It's Cold Outside.

[Cerumo]

So I have been looking on Warcraft logs for any Frost Mage logs for Legion.. I just can't seem to find any.. Obviously tuning isn't done yet, but even if tuning isn't done you still get an idea of where the specs will fall in line. In the logs, I only really ever see Fire and Arcane.. Is Frost just not good?

For the content we are seeing now yes frost is weak, fire and arcane's burst is just much better than ours for dungeon content, that and our aoe is crap. I would expect things to level off as fights get longer in upper mythic+ levels and raids

In dungeons I don't think I've ever seen another frost mage, more often than not groups are surprised to see someone that isint fire.

[Cracked]

So I have been looking on Warcraft logs for any Frost Mage logs for Legion.. I just can't seem to find any.. Obviously tuning isn't done yet, but even if tuning isn't done you still get an idea of where the specs will fall in line. In the logs, I only really ever see Fire and Arcane.. Is Frost just not good?

I've done a couple of raid testing pulls as frost, not going to release any logs, as they are a part of private guild logs. What I had found however, that so far, there has been no situation whatsoever, where I could say that frost outperforms any of the other two specs, more often than not, it was the other way around.

[Champagne Supernova]

I've done a couple of raid testing pulls as frost, not going to release any logs, as they are a part of private guild logs. What I had found however, that so far, there has been no situation whatsoever, where I could say that frost outperforms any of the other two specs, more often than not, it was the other way around.

Is that with Flurry or is it prior testing before Frozen Orb was vetoed out of being Brain Freeze's proc?

[stevenho]

I was watching these guys http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/eu/ysondre/Millenium stream mythic testing on monday, and they had a frost mage doing pretty mych the same as fire on the helter skelter boss and, what was really surprising, wrecking both fire and arcane mages on the single target boss. No idea about gear the 3 mages had.

[Deleted]

I have been focused on Frost ever since they added trait to give us 3 FoF proc storage, so for over 6-8 weeks. I have done the exercise to compare mage artifacts and seemed very similar in pacing. My friend played fire and was super happy cauterize blink was early, said it made a large difference in solo play. He is also a Mythic MT, so most of his focus has been tank specs. Feels protection Paladin is very good after filling an early trait. However that is only ones where I have heard him actually say one spec was night and day with an early trait.

Personally really like "Let It Go" and it can be first 3/3 you fill. I see going Let it Go, Ice Nine, Shield of Alodi, Black Ice, Frozen Viens, Icy Caress and Icy Hand as initial route and then going back via Jouster, It's Cold Outside and Chain Reaction before heading back to get Chilled to the Core. This is how I am currently seeing it and may change if a rotation emerges that favors certain traits or math shows another route to be better. For Example might be better to get Chilled to Core before It's Cold Outside.

Regarding frost I was surprised to see what an extremely potent major trait exists at the end of it with Chilled to the Core. No other spec in mage has that. I do not know if it will play a major role though, because the spec might be strong without it (for what it has to do at least), but it does need way too much artifact power to get it compared to others.

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I was watching these guys http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/eu/ysondre/Millenium stream mythic testing on monday, and they had a frost mage doing pretty mych the same as fire on the helter skelter boss and, what was really surprising, wrecking both fire and arcane mages on the single target boss. No idea about gear the 3 mages had.

I would not be surprised if the framework returns to what we already knew about the roles of the three specs. Frost being a general purpose middle of the road spec that does everything "well" and it ends there, Fire doing AOE well and single slightly worse, and Arcane the reverse of Fire. Only thing that should change (should in the literal sense) is that they may be less different now.

I found Arcane harder to play properly at the start of a character's progression for another reason. It appears to prefer very defined strategies and limited movement, something unheard of in random groups and very early progression, or 5mans. Fire is generally easier to play and Frost was even easier.

I'd like to see more to conclude.