[Frost] A seperate ability to fire off Icicles?

[Terahertz]

Since they introduced Icicles as mastery for frost mages to replace the old mastery I've been wondering why Ice Lance has to fire off your Icicles. You basically fire off all of your damage you have in 1 button, which is IMO quite boring.

How would you feel if instead of Ice Lance, Fire Blast fired off your Icicles? This would allow you to keep your Icicles for when you want more consistent damage through Frostbolt or do more burst by firing them off.

Of course Fire Blast would have to be renamed and its damage would have to be increased a little but so it's -actually- worth using it to fire off your Icicles.

So, what are your opinions on this concept? It would basically give Fire Blast a purpose and it would give you more control over your Icicles.

[durrtygoodz]

No thanks, I prefer a passive mastery over something I have to track

[The Kao]

An active usage for a mastery would be nothing else but another button that scales only with this one stat. That's not the point of mastery at all.

[Florena]

I think it's fine as is. I don't see any value in tying it to a new spell.

[Deleted]

Basically you're looking for something that already exists in elemental shamans with fulmination (lightning shield charges up to 8 (used to be 9) that you have to use by using Earth Shock else you waste charges). Having played elem before mage I actually thought it worked like that at first and would ice lance whenever I got 5 icicles

[Dreadii]

I like having the passive mastery we have now.

[Rollatorklm]

DO NOT TOUCH MY FIREBLAST!
dont buff it, don't change it, just leave it as it is, don't ruin a good thing ;< i need that little fucker

[Deleted]

Yeah no, let's not randomly put a fire spell into the frost rotation.

There is an argument to let Fire Blast change per spec (ala Inferno Blast) to give each a 'unique' spell to cast on the move (could say, do frost/arcane damage and 100% proc Ice Lance/Missiles), but I'm not sure if that is a discussion for here.

[Sygil]

Nope nope nope nope nope. Keep icicles tied to the spell that shoots an icicle.

[Deleted]

I like the idea, but I think it would be better to introduce a glyph that makes Ice Lance not shoot away icicles and then you get a new spell (that is off the GCD of course, otherwise it removes the whole point of the burst) that shoots off the icicles for you.

It does mean a new spell though and that's not really what Blizzard would want now that they're trying to reduce the bloat, but if it's just a glyph and very optional (it won't really be required for PvE since adds have been pretty easy to handle this expansion and will likely not be much harder in WoD) it should be something they could at least consider.

[Tinary]

Fireblast would launch off Icicles? What would you use then to stop spell reflect/mass spell reflect/grounding totem?

[Terahertz]

Yeah no, let's not randomly put a fire spell into the frost rotation.

There is an argument to let Fire Blast change per spec (ala Inferno Blast) to give each a 'unique' spell to cast on the move (could say, do frost/arcane damage and 100% proc Ice Lance/Missiles), but I'm not sure if that is a discussion for here.

I already mentioned changing the spells name to something more appropriate.

I like the idea, but I think it would be better to introduce a glyph that makes Ice Lance not shoot away icicles and then you get a new spell (that is off the GCD of course, otherwise it removes the whole point of the burst) that shoots off the icicles for you.

It does mean a new spell though and that's not really what Blizzard would want now that they're trying to reduce the bloat, but if it's just a glyph and very optional (it won't really be required for PvE since adds have been pretty easy to handle this expansion and will likely not be much harder in WoD) it should be something they could at least consider.

I had a glyph in mind as well. What I dislike about a glyph though, unless it's a minor glyph, is that it will most likely be a horrible choice for a glyph spot.

Fireblast would launch off Icicles? What would you use then to stop spell reflect/mass spell reflect/grounding totem?

Living Bomb. I already use Living Bomb to eat grounding totems because it's a 1 sec GCD

[Alroxas]

Since they introduced Icicles as mastery for frost mages to replace the old mastery I've been wondering why Ice Lance has to fire off your Icicles. You basically fire off all of your damage you have in 1 button, which is IMO quite boring.

Wait, Blizzard has stated they wanted to "remove button bloat" and slim down the number of abilities and you want more abilities?

Moreover, I do recall that icicles fire off on their own when you exceed 5 stacks but you can dump them earlier by using Ice lance.

Seem like a really odd request to add button bloat when Blizzard is trying to move away from it.

[Terahertz]

Wait, Blizzard has stated they wanted to "remove button bloat" and slim down the number of abilities and you want more abilities?

Moreover, I do recall that icicles fire off on their own when you exceed 5 stacks but you can dump them earlier by using Ice lance.

Seem like a really odd request to add button bloat when Blizzard is trying to move away from it.

I really can't say mages are suffering from a button bloat. Every ability mages have I pretty much use frequently enough in PvP for them to stay. I'm suggesting to give Fire Blast a use, instead of some instant damage.

[Rollatorklm]

Living Bomb. I already use Living Bomb to eat grounding totems because it's a 1 sec GCD

Living bomb is okay to remove grounding (if it actually does that?, i know corruption doesn't as a warlock)
But mages need fire blast in pvp to stop spell reflect/mass reflect, because reflecting a living bomb can easily kill you with the amount of mage killer teams that are out there today (KFC anyone?)
Its a bad idea to living bomb a spell reflect (and no it doesn't give u more FFB procs)

[Raugnaut]

It's not needed. Do not look at Icicles as "controlable burst", but rather as "passive damage with cool graphics". It causes your frostbolts/frostfirebolts to deal x% more damage over time, and raises the DPET of Icelance in a way that does not actually increase dps.