[FROST] Legion Beta Megathread

[Dizzeeyooo]

Wow, massive nerf in this new build to frost pvp. Deep Shatter from 300% to 200% and iceform from 50% to 30%. Guess only melee classes allowed in legion pvp...

massive nerf to broken pvp talents which badly needed a nerf - shame the 4 talents they compete with are still complete trash, so no choice in what to pick even after these nerfs

[heinz0r]

I rather have a mage with strong turret casting, than one that is just jumping around spamming instant casts (firemage is absolutely hilarious currently for example).

It is already so weak again that you cannot actually dent a resto shaman who is simply spamming healing waves and riptide...

[Tirilka]

Whenever they get around to updating mage spells they will presumably get around to updating the elemental.
I do not want them to simply replace it with a warlords of draenor model of a different creature when we could have an updated version of the existing one.

You know what? You opened my eyes. For years I have been wishing "if only we could get this as our pet, that as our spell effect, this shit as a talent". But fuck this! I want my own water elemental pet that captures precisely its nature and is perfectly tailored to be mage's own blob of water. Like warlocks got with voidwalker for example. I want my own damn spell visuals, and for all spells, not just the newly introduced. Getting scraps years later isn't cutting it.

[Adsoldeux]

I was using this spec in the PTR and it looks op, idk critics with glacial spike of 450K, its sound like a good option for legion, what u think?

[Huanak]

Blizzard: 33% x 8 = 260% damage per cast, 5% x8 = 40% chance for finger of frost
Frostbolt: 170% damage + ~60% icicle = 230% damage per cast, 12% chance for finger

Is it correct that frost mage should cast Blizzard on cooldown for single target? if it is true, it sound crazy to "aim and cast" blizzard every 8 seconds.

[Kovan]

i frost good in pve?
i will move to another country this fall and i need a mage spec that doesn't rely on proc like fire.

[Tyze]

i frost good in pve?
i will move to another country this fall and i need a mage spec that doesn't rely on proc like fire.

Frost has more procs than fire :P Fire has a proc which we can force to happen, we get two charges of Fire Blast (Inferno Blast) we get 100% crit chance during combustion.
Also get the Artifact trait which crits always. (And Flame on that grants you 2 charges of Fire Blast).
Same goes for Frosts artifact trait, Ebonbolt grants you two FoF when casted.

Frost has Ice Lance and Flurry to proc. Fingers of Frost procs 12% chance on Frostbolt and Frozen Orb, however the first time Frozen Orb hits a target you'd get 1 FoF.
Flurry has a 10% chance to proc when using Frostbolt.

Arcane only has one proc, so that might be for you?

[Kovan]

Frost has more procs than fire :P Fire has a proc which we can force to happen, we get two charges of Fire Blast (Inferno Blast) we get 100% crit chance during combustion.
Also get the Artifact trait which crits always. (And Flame on that grants you 2 charges of Fire Blast).
Same goes for Frosts artifact trait, Ebonbolt grants you two FoF when casted.

Frost has Ice Lance and Flurry to proc. Fingers of Frost procs 12% chance on Frostbolt and Frozen Orb, however the first time Frozen Orb hits a target you'd get 1 FoF.
Flurry has a 10% chance to proc when using Frostbolt.

Arcane only has one proc, so that might be for you?

yea, i tried arcane and i dont like it.
proc like frost are fine, i think i still can play it with 200-300 ping (or a little higher) but can't image myself playing fire with 300 ping

[Deleted]

Guys one question... I'm trying to decide what class and spec to go for legion... those of you who tried beta and raided there for a while with mage, what do you think will be the spec to go? I did all wod as frost and in hfc arcane and cleared all mythic and I'd still love to play frost but is it good or rather weak? And Arcane? What I really dislike about mage is fire, never liked that spec, so if i have to play that ill probably look elsewhere (i guess SP or lock) but i'd really like to main mage this expansion... I usually always end up playing other casters classes first. Thanks!

[gallamann]

Your question is the 64000 dollar question. Right now from my reading on various sites, Fire is the spec to play for raiding and group content.

Everyone keeps saying there are X weeks till launch, tuning isn't done. However I am just not seeing it for Frost, last two builds were nerfs for Frost, while at the same time they did fix a bug with FoF IL that put back 50% it was missing from not benefiting from shatter.

On the other hand Blizzard does have incentive to get the 3 specs very close to each other due to the Artifact.

Personally I have adopted a wait and see approach on decision. It will be either Fire or Frost and in the meantime I am trying both out in pre-patch environment. Can't really give you any info on that yet, played both last nite however still need to get rotations down and optimize gear (had a lot of gear with multistrike), enchants and gems and updated addons were spewing LUA errors so turned them off. Fire was in Timewalk so crit was shit, frost was normal HFC and trying multiple specs.

[Champagne Supernova]

Well, Frost and most other casters are nigh useless in Group PvP. Can literally not get a cast off in BG's before i have some sonic wannabe melee on my ass interrupting me every 12-15 seconds or so. That cooldown would be fine, if they didn't have twice as much mobility as me and stuns. Also adding to the fact that nothing i cast is doing any significant damage compared to melee who still hit quite hard. Will have to wait to see how tuning turns out for damage but group PvP will not be fun for Casters at this current rate we're going.

[thsevecha]

I don't know if people are still adjusting because of all the class changes, but I'm having a blast on BGs as Frost! Thanks to 2 charges of Frostnova + pet freeze melee can barely touch me and a well timed Ray of Frost (I know right lol) can destroy a healer on it's on. Glacial Spike is also very fun to play.

One thing I noticed is that roots don't get instantly broken now. Did they change it or am I crazy? A melee can sit in a freeze for a very long time. I can even throw in 2 ice lances before it breaks.

[Lulbalance]

Well, Frost and most other casters are nigh useless in Group PvP. Can literally not get a cast off in BG's before i have some sonic wannabe melee on my ass interrupting me every 12-15 seconds or so. That cooldown would be fine, if they didn't have twice as much mobility as me and stuns. Also adding to the fact that nothing i cast is doing any significant damage compared to melee who still hit quite hard. Will have to wait to see how tuning turns out for damage but group PvP will not be fun for Casters at this current rate we're going.

It's not that bad, burst is one of the better ones around casters and pretty versatile.

I feel like we need blazing back or GS needs to be an instant cast with a delayed delivery. Any team paying attention will just save kicks for poly and kick GS if any other cc lands. Makes GS a lot less worth taking.

[heinz0r]

Ray of Frost alone destroys noone btw... It does not even benefit from haste. Good luck "destroying" a healer on your own with it when it does not deal the damage quick enough.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

ray of frost [...] does not even benefit from haste.

does not compute

[Deleted]

I don't know if people are still adjusting because of all the class changes, but I'm having a blast on BGs as Frost! Thanks to 2 charges of Frostnova + pet freeze melee can barely touch me and a well timed Ray of Frost (I know right lol) can destroy a healer on it's on. Glacial Spike is also very fun to play.

One thing I noticed is that roots don't get instantly broken now. Did they change it or am I crazy? A melee can sit in a freeze for a very long time. I can even throw in 2 ice lances before it breaks.

Are we talking beta or live here? I'm glad someone is positive about the changes though!
And YES, they did actually change the whole shatter mechanic! Whether a target counted as frozen used to be determined right at the second you finished your cast. Now it is determined the moment your spells actually hit the target. HUGE improvement, in my eyes. Also, freeze effects break from less damage now but once you reach that damage treshold they will always persist for an additional 0.5/1 seconds. I don't quite remember the exact number.

Personally, I feel that the prune of Deep Freeze has left a big hole. They said it themselves in recent interviews/blue (shortly before Flurry was implemented) posts that they want Frost to be the "control" spec.
Now, looking at what frost offers over the other two specs:

Freeze (Pet)
Cone of Cold (& Flurry)
Frostbite (PvP-talent)
Glacial Spike

Freeze is awesome, no question. I thought they wanted to cut down on 70% slows, but a quick research revealed that they didn't really (except for rogues, HA!). CoC and the short Flurry slow are still nice to have, especially since Frostbolt now only slows for 30%. Considering almost our entire toolkit has an, albeit measly, slow attached to it, I expect Frostbite to proc often. It is still RNG though and it interfers with the root DR, which makes it considerably less attractive as a choice. Last is Glacial Spike, which we will use for burst rather than for the root attached to it.

All in all, Frost does not stand out as a spec with much better control compared to the other two. It does have the thing with the roots going for itself, as it always had, but that is not enough. For one, they mostly share a DR, which in terms of control makes them rather useless after the second application. Add to that that the slows aren't all what they used to be.
I always imagined frost mages summoning walls of frost, to defend themselves from the enemy onslaught. How about that? An impenetrateable wall of frost, that perhaps even breaks LoS? I know, just silly ideas.
Whereas I would say Frost is not half bad, it is also far from being as good as it could be.

[gallamann]

does not compute

LMAO, immediately thought of the robot from Lost in Space

You should have also linked him to the RAY of GOD thread over on Altered-time!

[Tyze]

Ray of Frost alone destroys noone btw... It does not even benefit from haste. Good luck "destroying" a healer on your own with it when it does not deal the damage quick enough.

Ray of Frost benefits ALOT from haste. The cast time isn't reduced, but the ticking damage is increased.

[thsevecha]

@Lumrocks

What I meant when I was talking about roots was that it takes longer to break. Not sure if it's just because most melee lost their abilities to break roots or if roots got changed. Druid's entangling roots are the same. Usually when I rooted someone it would almost break instantly. Now it seems to be taking longer, I'm able to root and gain some distance and even throw a few ice lances. Also Glacial's Spike roots doesn't break by damage so you can follow it up with a few Ice Lances (other Frost Mages also benefit from this so you can dumb a few ice lances if another Mage uses Glacial Spike on a target).

To the guy saying Ray of Frost doesn't benefit from haste try using alongside time warp and icy veins. It will melt people. Also, Ray of Frost, like any channeled spell, doesn't break by LoS so you can start channeling if people try to run behind a pillar and it wil keep ticking on them. Planets need to align but when it happens it can be quite amusing.

[heinz0r]

Youre right I stand corrected. I forgot that they changed the mechanics of how haste works on channels and when I saw it still lasted 10s at 40% haste I got rid of it immediately