Frost 7.3

[boz0]

I dont think there will be multiple 'viable' builds for a ST fight, one Setup will always be best in theory, so most ppl will Play it.

Of course, considering Blizzard's track record in game balance, it's somewhat unlikely, but having different builds close enough (eg, MG and BoS within 3% of each other) remains a desirable outcome.

[Nangz]

Well don't think BoS will go away. More like the active windows will be down to ~15-20 seconds. Almost reminds me of retri playstyle... And i understand removing HRW from specc. This "elegantly" solves the problem of convergence of fates... Ow well let's wait on the PTR

Its not really about the talent being useful or not. Its about changing the playstyle of a build that some people, myself included, enjoyed. I wonder if Obliteration and other builds would have been equal to BoS all this time we would see these changes or if this is the usual knee jerk overreaction.

[Icedcoffeee]

I'm increasingly worried about these changes.

1. As a baseline, it seems like the logical solution to BoS-dominance should have been to buff non-BoS traits. All of these changes seem far more disruptive than just tuning up a machine-gun build.

2. I feel like several of these changes mean certain talents will never be taken. HRW without BoS seems potentially dead, and Glacial Advance having to compete with Icecap and Avalanche feels similarly dead. (Personally I'd rather sacrifice Obliteration to lvl 58 than GA.)

3. Taking away Runic Attenuation from Machinegun seems bad as well, and the nerfed Frozen Pulse means that interaction will be lackluster at best.

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One potential upside: the massive haste buff to HRW means that it could potentially serve as a nice cd (mini-bloodlust). I could imagine HRW, Frost Scythe, and Avalanche being a fun combo for AoE.

[Baddok21]

The underlying issue's with Obliteration has always been

1) It provides you with a free KM (however your stacking crit to get KMs anyways)
2) It increases resource generation by reducing OB to 1 rune (which leads to being resource capped)
3) your GCD capped outside of your ability to spend Rime procs (leading to wasted procs or wasted Obliteration effect)

The Underlying issue with Hungering Rune weapon becomming a main cooldown instead of a complimentary one is

1) you will indefinetly be Rune and RP capped for its duration (without BoS)

Unlike Obliteration, HRW has no other drawbacks because it actually has no other possible strengths the 20% haste is good for rune regen which is completely neglible since runes and RP will not be an issue during its cooldown with or without the additional haste.

the over arching issue with these talents is that they dont scale with ilvl upgrades.

28,679 that is the secondary stat allocation of a 952 ilvl character without enchants/gems or stat trinkets and 2 legendaries that are not rings to keep the secondary stats even lower. Do you know what kind of secondaries you could achieve at that ilvl?

35% crit
25% haste
29% mastery
1.9% Vers

now you might say "its not realistic to get to 952 ilvl" and i would agree, except theres one issue 7.3 will see the ilvl cap raise to... 985 with 1000 ilvl legendaries so an average mythic raider should hit ilvl 960-965 while a heroic raider would be about 950-955. at those ilvls HRW and Obliteration become obsolete simly because you wont need the crit given from Obliteration (you didnt even need the crit at ilvl 885) and the resource generation from HRW (without BoS) is again completely unneeded.

if you have variable gear in the bank swap to a more haste friendly set (22-25%) only take ME no RA/HRW go see how long you can fight on a dummy before you hit a resource drought with just OB-FS-Rime usage with Empowered rune weapon as your only resource regenerator.

Edit: 7.3.5 should be the ilvl cap raise aong with new raid tier

[Icedcoffeee]

Completely agree about Obliteration. I've always disliked that talent, and I can't imagine it being valuable in 7.3 unless they add something like "Obliterate does 10% more damage too!"

Two quick points on HRW:

1. Apparently it is currently bugged (gives runes every 1 sec instead of intended 1.5), so the new version will be slightly less resource floody.

2. The 20% haste will reduce GCD cap, which should help with resource flood too

I'm tentatively excited for the possibility of a low GCD, spammy Frost again. (E.g. late Mists.) Could also bring back us being an AoE powerhouse, as opposed to our current, passive cleave focus.

[Neeklus]

Really happy that something is changing here. Not a fan of BoS, especially in ToS where there are certainly fights with lots of downtime/movement involved. Moving the talents around I disagree with, however. I think it would have been much better to increase the RP cost as the Breath went on (like Void Torrent) and decrease it's cool down. Currently we're doing nothing for large periods of times, then going super burst and pray nothing goes wrong. MG (which I was even into NH) was a lot more consistent and dare I say traditional.

Frost needs more options, not fewer, and currently it's a one horsed race. I'd much prefer a viable BoS and a viable MG set up.

It's a shame this isn't happening in this patch, because I'd have loved to see Icecap interact with the T20 set bonus (which I really like). I'll be replacing Obliteration ( I guess I was the only person who ever took it) with HRW. The question now is legendaries; I don't have the belt. Think I'll stick with Toravons for one. Can't deide on second though (helm, boots, any of the rings?)

[Cosmic Janitor]

They could always make oblit auto-use Rime procs.. but I guess they fear that would be too bursty..

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It's a shame this isn't happening in this patch, because I'd have loved to see Icecap interact with the T20 set bonus (which I really like). I'll be replacing Obliteration ( I guess I was the only person who ever took it) with HRW. The question now is legendaries; I don't have the belt. Think I'll stick with Toravons for one. Can't deide on second though (helm, boots, any of the rings?)

You will still have plenty of time to see it in action, seeing how it's in patch 7.3 and the raid will probably be a ..5 patch again

[Nemesquish]

They could always make oblit auto-use Rime procs.. but I guess they fear that would be too bursty..

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You will still have plenty of time to see it in action, seeing how it's in patch 7.3 and the raid will probably be a ..5 patch again

That would probably put Obliteration at BoS level burst, but it would be nice.

They need to do something about it, maybe make it also add 20% of the damage dealt applied as a dot over 8 seconds, stacking. Easy simple fix to make it not poop.

[Schizoide]

The poor spec diversity was the result of Obliteration and Machine Gun talents being undertuned. Plain and simple. This is a gross over-correction, and even if it succedes in giving frost some spec variety the removal of a fun playstyle makes this bittersweet.

At first glance I completely agreed with your statement, but after thinking about it a bit it's difficult to picture how they could buff Obliteration or Glacial Advance to such an extent that they compete with BoS given that it benefits from so many complementary talents, all without fundamentally changing how BoS works, and all without rendering those other resource-generating talents largely useless. They certainly could have buffed Oblit/GA so they weren't complete garbage, but really competing... that's tough.

My solution would have been to remove the BoS cooldown entirely, add a 60RP starting cost, and steeply increase its sustained cost after 8s such that it would never last over 14s even if the stars align and you've got Bloodlust, with its damage tuned expecting most people achieve a ~10-11s duration. I'd reward the attention required with total performance 2-3% over Oblit/GA builds, assuming skilled execution. This gameplay loop would involve short periods building resources and frequent controlled burst.

But as you say, that is changing a playstyle you enjoy to one that I enjoy and you probably hate the idea.

[Hellborne87]

Let's set aside the debates over MG vs BoS for a second, set aside ideas on how to fix KM, etc. Let's just take a moment and acknowledge what a colossal train wreck Frost is this xpac. Frost has had issues for several xpacs now and this was supposed to be it's long overdue revamp. The fact that they are having to REWORK THE TALENT TREE is very alarming and is a clear indication that no one has a clue lol. HRW's sole purpose is to feed BoS. Period. Talents like GA and Scythe haven't even been in the game, so to speak. Whether or not this will work is a whole separate matter to me. Just blows me away that Frost is such a mess it's being changed to this extent mid xpacs. That's alarming, to say the least.

With that said, I'd like to ask the people claiming that BoS is brain dead or boring; What game are you playing??? MG is a thousand times less engaging than BoS. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of BoS but it at least felt like a complete spec in NH. This MG (aka hit the shiny button / 3 button spam) playstyle that some of you are so fond of is why DKs have a bad rep. I'm 100% certain that people who refuse to play BoS last tier are simply not capable, no matter what you say.

Like most, I went Unholy for ToS so none of this really means anything to me, but hopefully they can figure Frost out one day. Total design fail.

[Nangz]

At first glance I completely agreed with your statement, but after thinking about it a bit it's difficult to picture how they could buff Obliteration or Glacial Advance to such an extent that they compete with BoS given that it benefits from so many complementary talents, all without fundamentally changing how BoS works, and all without rendering those other resource-generating talents largely useless. They certainly could have buffed Oblit/GA so they weren't complete garbage, but really competing... that's tough.

My solution would have been to remove the BoS cooldown entirely, add a 60RP starting cost, and steeply increase its sustained cost after 8s such that it would never last over 14s even if the stars align and you've got Bloodlust, with its damage tuned expecting most people achieve a ~10-11s duration. I'd reward the attention required with total performance 2-3% over Oblit/GA builds, assuming skilled execution. This gameplay loop would involve short periods building resources and frequent controlled burst.

But as you say, that is changing a playstyle you enjoy to one that I enjoy and you probably hate the idea.

Apologies for a bit of a rant.

Dps tuning is a math problem. In theory, there is a perfectly balanced dps spec that uses an instant cast spell that deals 10m damage with a 10 second cooldown. While it might not be pretty, if Blizzard likes the play and the mechanics of these builds, then tuning should be used. Its clear they do not like how BoS plays but i'll get to that. In the past flat damage modifiers have been added onto talents to make them more attractive. While its not pretty and far from "elegant", if it gets the job done without disappointing people by breaking a spec they enjoy then isn't that preferable?

You also have to ask yourself how much playstyle change is acceptable in a patch vs an expansion. I would argue this is probably a little too much but it could go either
way. Its completely fine that others like the playstyle and that others hate it but large changes like the one you described would probably be best for an expansion.

Imagine for a moment the reverse situation was true and your version of BoS was live and overrepresented. I came to you with a suggestion of having less burst windows but they are stronger. This lets skill shine through by putting a high risk high reward element to it; you screw up you lose your breath, and would look similar to how BoS is now. Would you not be in my position of wanting to keep what you have and just fix the underperforming talents?

Everyone has an opinion on how a class should work and its not really fair to say anyone's opinion is wrong. I can say for certain that massive changes to playstyle in the middle of a raid tier, if history continues, are unhealthy and not something I'm looking forward to.

Speaking broader, what happens when Blizzard overshoots the mark and Frost is so strong that Unholy specs have to take a back seat? With the prevalence of the DA build right now, one might argue that Unholy needs talents fully revamped as well? I didn't intend for this to become such a slippery slope argument but the reasons for incremental adjustments are so strong.

Blizzard's reasons for changing the spec are that its 1) too strong compared to other builds and that 2) Breath lasts too long. The first problem is strictly tuning as mentioned.(The opposite excuse was given when BoS was buffed in 7.1.5.) The second excuse is unacceptable to me. I'm outraged that it took them this long to "decide" BoS is too maintainable and only now they go to fix it and if they don't like how long BoS can be kept up for, why did they let it exist like this for so long. Its not like they have been making other changes that increase the duration. Hell, BoS is lasting shorter durations now than it did in Nighthold because of the loss of tier and the fact that top builds are not using Belt/Ring. Tuning has almost fixed that problem on its own as well!

[Nemesquish]

At first glance I completely agreed with your statement, but after thinking about it a bit it's difficult to picture how they could buff Obliteration or Glacial Advance to such an extent that they compete with BoS given that it benefits from so many complementary talents, all without fundamentally changing how BoS works, and all without rendering those other resource-generating talents largely useless. They certainly could have buffed Oblit/GA so they weren't complete garbage, but really competing... that's tough.

My solution would have been to remove the BoS cooldown entirely, add a 60RP starting cost, and steeply increase its sustained cost after 8s such that it would never last over 14s even if the stars align and you've got Bloodlust, with its damage tuned expecting most people achieve a ~10-11s duration. I'd reward the attention required with total performance 2-3% over Oblit/GA builds, assuming skilled execution. This gameplay loop would involve short periods building resources and frequent controlled burst.

But as you say, that is changing a playstyle you enjoy to one that I enjoy and you probably hate the idea.

Yea, I think that's how BoS should work. Really the only peeve i have with the talent is it completely makes you WANT to ignore mechanics because it's nearly required for dps.

Obliteration having some form of mastery scaling would close the gap for sure, and GA needs to just apply some from of damage amplification for it to be none shit. (or do literally 3x the damage)

[Schizoide]

Dps tuning is a math problem.

A surprisingly complex one, but certainly.

The problem here isn't figuring out the right numbers for Obliteration/GA buffs. The problem is that the BoS build has several complementary talents that would be rendered useless if OB/GA were buffed in isolation. GA has no synergy with anything, and Obliteration has only minor synergy with Icecap.

I agree that killing playstyles should never be done inside an expansion, and a better solution would have been to buff OB/GA until they were at least in the ballpark (clearly they had the headroom, given the 27% overall buff!) and otherwise just deal with it. My version fits better in 8.0.

[RuneDK]

Let's set aside the debates over MG vs BoS for a second, set aside ideas on how to fix KM, etc. Let's just take a moment and acknowledge what a colossal train wreck Frost is this xpac. Frost has had issues for several xpacs now and this was supposed to be it's long overdue revamp. The fact that they are having to REWORK THE TALENT TREE is very alarming and is a clear indication that no one has a clue lol. HRW's sole purpose is to feed BoS. Period. Talents like GA and Scythe haven't even been in the game, so to speak. Whether or not this will work is a whole separate matter to me. Just blows me away that Frost is such a mess it's being changed to this extent mid xpacs. That's alarming, to say the least.

With that said, I'd like to ask the people claiming that BoS is brain dead or boring; What game are you playing??? MG is a thousand times less engaging than BoS. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of BoS but it at least felt like a complete spec in NH. This MG (aka hit the shiny button / 3 button spam) playstyle that some of you are so fond of is why DKs have a bad rep. I'm 100% certain that people who refuse to play BoS last tier are simply not capable, no matter what you say.

Like most, I went Unholy for ToS so none of this really means anything to me, but hopefully they can figure Frost out one day. Total design fail.

The hilarious part is, frost in NH was arguably the most fun iteration of the spec ever. I personally liked 3.3.3 frost more because runes regenerated as you used them and it was a much more fun, frantic and what felt like rewarding spec then. However the NH iteration was the most fun since that point to me. However, I do agree that frost should have had the revamp this expansion and not unholy. While Legion unholy is fun(at least for tomb, I thought it was clunky until recently), unholy did not need a revamp again. If they let frost go the way it is again for the next expansion without a revamp I will consider the game dead to me and move on with my life. The whole fool me once thing has happened every expansion since cataclysm and the frost spec. With that said, I HOPE these changes make us a viable choice so we don't have to be forced to play a different spec.

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Blizzard's reasons for changing the spec are that its 1) too strong compared to other builds and that 2) Breath lasts too long. The first problem is strictly tuning as mentioned.(The opposite excuse was given when BoS was buffed in 7.1.5.) The second excuse is unacceptable to me. I'm outraged that it took them this long to "decide" BoS is too maintainable and only now they go to fix it and if they don't like how long BoS can be kept up for, why did they let it exist like this for so long. Its not like they have been making other changes that increase the duration. Hell, BoS is lasting shorter durations now than it did in Nighthold because of the loss of tier and the fact that top builds are not using Belt/Ring. Tuning has almost fixed that problem on its own as well!

Extremely well said Nangz(as usual). I do not understand Blizzard most ofd the time....we're not happy it's like this....after months and months of something being that way...well what made you not be happy with the design you implemented it with, and then why did you let it last THIS long if you're not happy with that design.

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Yea, I think that's how BoS should work. Really the only peeve i have with the talent is it completely makes you WANT to ignore mechanics because it's nearly required for dps.

Obliteration having some form of mastery scaling would close the gap for sure, and GA needs to just apply some from of damage amplification for it to be none shit. (or do literally 3x the damage)

I was saying on discord that GA should be similar to Earthen Spike for enhancement shaman. Does x damage and gives a debuff to increase frost/physical damage against anything hit by it by y% for z seconds. Would instantly make the ability better.

Yes that's a carbon copy of earthen spike, but it would actually work and make it a pretty good talent with proper tuning. I know homogenization is something they don't want way too much of, but it would actually work more for DKs than enhance imho since a lot of our damage big hitter damage is frost.

Another fix for BoS that I saw mentioned here tat I think would be better than this is to make it cost more the longer it goes on(like voidform). Could even make it do more damage per tick, but costs more in the process.

[Schizoide]

Both GA and earthen spike are pretty uninspiring abilities, just extra buttons you hit every so often. I would redesign them to offer real gameplay. But sure as a pre-8.0 bandaid, tacking on a buff/debuff is a more nuanced way to make GA more attractive than just buffing its raw damage.

[Hctaz]

Having shorter, more powerful Breaths good compromise though. One can plan around a needed ~20-30 seconds on target on most encounters and most burst phases last about that long. But the 45+ second BoS uptimes needed to go as that really encourages a shitbagging playstyle and needlessly penalizes the spec when things happen that you can't control or really even play around, and it seems like more and more fights have such mechanics.

They should have just capped Breath length and balanced around that new length honestly. I don't understand why they're doing things the way they're doing. It's the equivalent of seeing an ant in your house so you burn down your house. Like... or you could just... move the ant out?

"Breath lasts too long... we could cap Breath and leave everything else untouched. That way people would take less resource talents and would be rewarded for playing better by not needing to take stuff like Hungering Rune Weapon if they can reach the cap without it"

"Nah let's just fucking rearrange all the talents mid expansion and like.. you know forget adding anything new like some of the classes who already had problematic talents this expansion. Like... HRW and Obliteration are kinda similar but like... you know who cares, man?"

[RuneDK]

Both GA and earthen spike are pretty uninspiring abilities, just extra buttons you hit every so often. I would redesign them to offer real gameplay. But sure as a pre-8.0 bandaid, tacking on a buff/debuff is a more nuanced way to make GA more attractive than just buffing its raw damage.

Yea, I'm not talking it as a long term solution. But to make it work for the rest of the expansion it's not a bad idea.

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They should have just capped Breath length and balanced around that new length honestly. I don't understand why they're doing things the way they're doing. It's the equivalent of seeing an ant in your house so you burn down your house. Like... or you could just... move the ant out?

"Breath lasts too long... we could cap Breath and leave everything else untouched. That way people would take less resource talents and would be rewarded for playing better by not needing to take stuff like Hungering Rune Weapon if they can reach the cap without it"

"Nah let's just fucking rearrange all the talents mid expansion and like.. you know forget adding anything new like some of the classes who already had problematic talents this expansion. Like... HRW and Obliteration are kinda similar but like... you know who cares, man?"

The hilarious part is that seems to be an issue every expansion....but it seems much more prevalent this expansion since we're essentially locked to specs.

[Darktbs]

"We don't like how people play with BoS so we gonna make some changes so that you can't BoS for long and give no alternative playstyle"

I think i just lost my breath with this one.

[Nemesquish]

"We don't like how people play with BoS so we gonna make some changes so that you can't BoS for long and give no alternative playstyle"

I think i just lost my breath with this one.

This pretty much sums up the Frost spec as a whole over the last year or so...and its been just as bad for the last few years(Though BoS wasnt the issue)

I dont think I've ever has so little respect for Blizzard as I do now.

[Schizoide]

Could be worse, they nerfed demo warlocks last expansion saying "we don't like how this spec plays so we don't want you to play it". That was truly outrageous.