Frost Spec needs to be more Arena friendly.

[skaarrj]

(Changed the title due to the thread progressing to talk about the entire spec rather than one ability, original post is still here however)

And it could use a buff in BG's also (especially when going up against premades who know what you can do).

Hungering Cold is a nice ability, but the fact that it's only in a radius around you is awful, for a number of reasons.
1). You cannot use it if you are Stunned,Feared, or incapacitated in any way.
2). You cannot use it at range
3). Because you cannot use it at range, it means you can be kited, and never see the use of the ability.

I don't think it's correct to need to use your core abilities to make this ability work. Let me explain before you fuss at me. Hungering Cold is a CC. Death Grip or Chains of ice pretty much has to be used in tandem if you want to capture someone in hungering cold. I have to waste 1 or 2 abilities to catch someone in my 10 second breakable on damage incapacitating affect (that granted, can capture an infinite amount of people in it). Hungering Cold needs to add to the list of CC's i have, not take away from it (Since i have to use CC, to get them into my hungering cold CC).

I think hungering cold could be way more useful when up against skilled people, because they know to stay the hell away from you more so than any other DK spec. Here's some suggestions to what I would find acceptable (and obviously, not limited to, just ones that come to mind).

1). Changing the Glyph of Hungering Cold to allow you to use it at a 30 yard range
2). Changing Hungering Cold to allow you to use it while afflicted in any kind of Crowd Control except Sheep/hex.
3). Changing Icy Reach to extend the radius of hungering cold by 2-5 yards.

With any of these changes ,the number of targets this ability can affect should be limited to 5 persons, instead of infinite.

[Lucky_]

I believe you're missing the point of the skill: Freezing one/several arena teammates, and then burning one of them down while rest either sit out full 10 secods or burn defensive CDs to get out.


In 2s, you never NEED range for it at all. Make a focus grip macro, focus on the non-dispeller of the party, healer if possible.

/cast [target=focus] Death Grip
/cast Hungering Cold


You have your focus in 10 second freeze. Enjoy.


In 3s and 5s, if it had any more range, it would be in danger of becoming the defining skill of the spec, which is just bad. DKs are about damage output, burst for frost and pressure for UH. Making us a reasonably powerful AoE CC class in addition to that would force a nerf in other areas. As it is now, it requires careful positioning, and can be avoided via similar means. It's an ability that is very powerful in good hands, and very bad in not-so-good ones. As it probably should be.


As it stands, all your changes are about allowing less skilled players to use the skill easier. Problem remains, in hands of those who are at higher level and know how to use it properly now, it would become vastly overpowered.



One last point to reiterate. Hungering cold is NOT a defensive cooldown. It can be used as one in case of an emergency, but having to use it for defense usually means you've already been badly outplayed, and only allows the other party to up the pressure even more because they don't have to watch out for deadly HC > kill attempt combo for next minute, which typically serves as a far better deterrent then general defensive play (in high level games where people know how to count cooldowns and adjust gameplay style accordingly).

[Sactap]

It's pretty easy for a dk to get at least 2 people in a HC at just about any point in an arena game.

[bush]

It's dispellable, but it's more or less like a AOE blind, Don't see how it'd need a buff really.

[Crimsonak]

There it utterly no way this skill should have range.
I realise frost is getting a nerf in PvP next patch. Rightfully.
I realise that frost is also inferior to Unholy for PvP.

That is not a reason to buff already powerful abilities.

Chains of Ice is so powerful that if you need to gain range on someone by doing that, then so be it. It's basically a snare so it doesnt take long for melee range.
CoI shouldn't be the way you're doing it though it's basically option B.
If you death grip someone and then immediatly hungering cold.
You can easily get everyone in who you NEED to be in the hungering cold. Giving you 10 seconds to nuke a target.

As far as PvP goes Dk's are still far from being balanced.
Even next patch considered.
Whether or not you can PvP as frost is irrelevant.
You don't exactly see many warriors complaining they can't viably pvp as fury or prot?
You don't see many Hunters complaining they can't viably PvP as MM.

Fact of the matter is you have one very VERY viable tree as far as PvP is concerned.
You have several abilities which frankly are utterly rediculous and to this day it's still beyond me why they havent been changed. Chains of ice is a perfect example of this. It's beyond me why you're even considering anything needs buffed from your class.

[Milkychick]

yeah DK need a Ranged AOE sap usable in combat....


yeah yeah right

[Cerberuz]

Hungering Cold is good the way it is. It's like my, 'if I survive long enough to use my 2nd HC, we win' button. Most of the time, the game is over on the first HC.. I love it

[Horn]

You gotta look at abilitys like this from a different point of veiw than your own. Its an AoE freezing trap that infects them with a disease.

I do however see how major glyph allowing *some* damage to be done to the frozen target before breaking(5-10% total hp perhaps?) would be benefical and possibly justified with an increased cooldown.

[Cerberuz]

NO! I LIKE IT THE WAY IT IS!

[Iambadpaladin]

You just want to be completely unstoppable...and hate being kited. QQ

[xGLxAnubis]

Hungering Cold needs to be more Arena friendly.

I 100% Agree with you!!!

So, when can we expect nerfs to HC so that it's more arena friendly?

[Rahe]

1). Changing the Glyph of Hungering Cold to allow you to use it at a 30 yard range
2). Changing Hungering Cold to allow you to use it while afflicted in any kind of Crowd Control except Sheep/hex.

Hate getting sapped/rooted?
freeze everything in 30 yards, endgame.

[Aswed]

Maybe they can make it kinda like Living Bomb, a DoT on teh target and after a few sec it freezes everyone within a few yard radius (or instantly freezes them).

[talrob]

How the hell do you dk's get kited? You have at least 2 slows in each spec, death grip, ranged silence, interrupt and antimagic shield on a stupidly short cooldown. You should try playing a disco priest and watching a unholy dk just wail on you because you can't get away while they interrupt everything and lol at your rogue in frost presence.

General l2p issues all around I think.

[Lucky_]

Attack of clueless people begins...
:


Could you maybe try NOT to post when you don't have a DK at a decent rating in arenas? This really isn't a skill that works well on sub2k level due to certain ways it interacts with the build. If you problem is "I want this to be different in low level arenas or BGs where I think it's OP", at least label the post that way.

As for poster above this, please go to the priest forums, so they can laugh you out of the door about "interrupt everything" comment. I'm sure they need a good laugh better then DKs.

The only reason disc priest ever dies to DK is mana. If any other reason is involved, you're doing it badly wrong. If interrupts are really an issue, you're playing discipline in a completely wrong way.

[Cerberuz]

How the hell do you dk's get kited? You have at least 2 slows in each spec, death grip, ranged silence, interrupt and antimagic shield on a stupidly short cooldown. You should try playing a disco priest and watching a unholy dk just wail on you because you can't get away while they interrupt everything and lol at your rogue in frost presence.

General l2p issues all around I think.

HAHA!nubHAHA!

[talrob]

HAHA!nubHAHA!

O I'm sorry I forgot your class when combined with a resto druid needs skill to win matches...o wait...

17% of the top 100 is this setup, where the druid can drink all day and the dk can survive for hours. You can claim this needs skill but there is little skill in coordinated slowing/gripping with cooldowns while the druid runs off.

[Iniquity]

Attack of clueless people begins...
:


Could you maybe try NOT to post when you don't have a DK at a decent rating in arenas? This really isn't a skill that works well on sub2k level due to certain ways it interacts with the build. If you problem is "I want this to be different in low level arenas or BGs where I think it's OP", at least label the post that way.

As for poster above this, please go to the priest forums, so they can laugh you out of the door about "interrupt everything" comment. I'm sure they need a good laugh better then DKs.

The only reason disc priest ever dies to DK is mana. If any other reason is involved, you're doing it badly wrong. If interrupts are really an issue, you're playing discipline in a completely wrong way.

Hehe, I play holy pala along with a dk and a warrior. All the discpriests we meet at ~2300-2400 rating are required to use penance whenever the cd is up, wether it's with the warrior helping on dpsing the priest or i'ts the death knight alone. You are a dk that are one of those ignorant little kids that believe DKs should stay the way they are / get buffed.

Our dk used to play rogue, tired of all the dks he rerolled. We boosted him to 80, took 1850 rating with him being in full green (ayeah, this is my bragging part, oh wait, faceroll setup).
When he got all furious offset parts with ironsoul from FL 10man, he used to do twice the damage our warrior with FULL furious does. Our warrior friend have played warrior since vanilla and knows the class inside out.
Now tell me, how can you not believe that the priest needs to cast penance thus being interrupted?

It's either you trying to make the DK class out to be worse than it is, or you are one of those that can't play the game and sucks. DKs need a ners wether it's the dmg output or remove some of the CDs. Remove some of the dmg and the cds won't be that incredible powerful.

Hungering cold are too good right now considering the CD and all the dk abilities. Put it on a 5min cd and it really wouldn't be that OP, but still incredible powerful and still make the dk class too good. Funny isn't it.

DK needs to be balanced, they are too good right now and the arena rankings are proof of it. Get real and keep it real.

[talrob]

The only reason disc priest ever dies to DK is mana. If any other reason is involved, you're doing it badly wrong. If interrupts are really an issue, you're playing discipline in a completely wrong way.

See post above but even if that were true I'd also like to add that going oom isn't hard against a dk with any healer...The whole point of disco is 1.5 dps, you need to help burst something down, If you just interrupt we only have mind blast and swd to help damage, out of fear of getting our holy school locked (which quickly is followed by silence and you dying if PS is on cooldown). If my rogue is on the dk he is snared and the other healer can cc (skillclone), efficient heal or just drink, or if the rogue is on the healer its a mana war and if I can't burn or help damage disco always loses...

[Lucky_]

Hehe, I play holy pala along with a dk and a warrior. All the discpriests we meet at ~2300-2400 rating are required to use penance whenever the cd is up, wether it's with the warrior helping on dpsing the priest or i'ts the death knight alone.

[Snip the silly insults, pointless "lol I know how to boost to 1850 in 3s" and "let's nerf bladestorm to 7.5 minutes, it's too powerful right now" - style crying]

Warrior + DK = why is it 2v1 on a healer? Granted we just farm that team ourselves, since warrior is squishy as hell and paladin relies too much on cast heals. Most of the time you can just go postal on the warrior with proper switches and he'll drop dead, never really getting real pressure into the healer. And that's as a cleave without MS, RMP would just rotate CC between warrior and DK, and nuke the other one, forcing bubble and ending in a proper spell lock > poly > blind combo on paladin with successful kill on dismantled warrior or out of CDs DK.

Penance on the other hand works perfectly fine while pressured. If it gets interrupted, and no other interrupter is nearby (as there shouldn't be, if your 3s comp is functional and players aren't clueless, one of the two DPS should be locked down and getting raped or CCd with massive pressure on paladin, with paladin desperately scrambling to keep up with the heals while staying the hell away from the priest), you have free flashbombing/manaburning/holy firing window of 6 seconds. Flashbombing should get your team to full if really pressured, that is if you need to heal in the first place, since your team should be carving warrior or DK to pieces while hovering kill/interrupt threat over paladin's head.

Priests in 2s don't even need to care, and it was 2s he was talking about. You just go full offensive, and it's a mana vs pressure war. If they don't die by the time you're out of mana CDs, you lose, if they do, you win. It's always been that way with discipline in 2s. Defensive play with a priest is a road into leading into mediocrity, and DK still isn't going to kill you solo unless you just forget healing completely until your mana bar goes empty.

Basics really. Why are we talking 2k level play when you're at "2300-2400"?

See post above but even if that were true I'd also like to add that going oom isn't hard against a dk with any healer...The whole point of disco is 1.5 dps, you need to help burst something down

Which was my point exactly. Thank you for phrasing it better.