Improved Blizzard @ Faction Champions

[Milamber]

We're struggling with Faction Champions (25hc), and I was wondering if I should try Improved Blizzard.

Skilled it's 70% slow vs. the hunter traps 50%, and I wager Frostbite doesn't work on them?

[Ryoflash]

Thats a good question..they should be cc able. Our mage when he was frost would deep freeze poly lock out healers in 10ToGC

[Puri]

And whats the advantage? The rogue will shadowstep, cloak, the warrior will charge, the dk will grip, the retri/holy will HoF. And since those are the champions you should worry about, I don't see a point in slowing them, as you still need someone to care for them once they're out of the blizzard.

[Squiggly]

Might be a good way to get yourself killed get them to waste their pvp trinket ability, but keep in mind that this'll break sheepy and incapacitate effects like sap, gouge, or repentance.

[illbanu]

It would slow them, and frostbite does proc but... its a pretty poor choice.

Its not much more of a slow than a frost trap/earthbind, has a fairly small radius, and would break any cc you hit with it.

Assuming its ppl getting gibbed that you want to avoid, sicking individual cc'ers on their melee(for example having a dk CoI spam the rogue, and pulling him back on shadowsteps, or a druid cyclone/rooting the warrior), would be a much better option.

[Milamber]

Frost Trap
50% slow
10 yards radius

Earthbind Totem
50% slow
10 yards radius

Blizzard
70% slow
8 yards radius
15% chance to freeze the target for 5 sec
breaks cc

Yeah I guess the cc breaking part is not so nice, but I kinda want to test it anyway :-)

[Tiga]

The problem is that it breaks all kinds of CC (polymorph, blind and possibly even fear) and doesn't really do much damage at all (thanks to the AOE reduction aura they have). I sometimes pop a cone of cold in that fight, but I practically never use blizzard.

Go with your regular DPS spec. If you are getting ganked by melee, use ice armor (it will reduce your threat on physical damage dealers). If you are getting ganked by casters, use mage armor. If you are being ignored, you might be able to use molten armor. I generally do that fight in ice armor. Make sure you are quick to ice block or blink when focused.

The important spells here are polymorph and counterspell. Even though FC isn't really PvP (the NPCs still obey somewhat predictable rules even though the rules are different from normal PvE), the mage role in this fight is quite similar to a 5v5 arena fight. You are there to prevent the opposing team from healing and doing damage while staying alive yourself.

The threat rules are:

- Health% (lower = higher threat)
- Armor (lower = higher threat on melee)
- Resistance (lower = higher threat on casters)
- Distance (closer = higher threat)

As a squishy, you want to keep your threat as low as possible.

[B@nj0 P3do]

Might be a good way to get yourself killed get them to waste their pvp trinket ability, but keep in mind that this'll break sheepy and incapacitate effects like sap, gouge, or repentance.

At the start of the fight, we always have a Frost DK to run in and pull.
At the start he casts that freeze ability that freeze them all in cones.
They will then use their pvp trinket and we have it easy for the next 2 mins.

[Skarrd]

At the start of the fight, we always have a Frost DK to run in and pull.
At the start he casts that freeze ability that freeze them all in cones.
They will then use their pvp trinket and we have it easy for the next 2 mins.

We did that the first week, it's a pretty unnecessary crutch. You just need good CC on melee.

Anyway, on topic, imp blizzard requires you to cast and essentially be useless while hunter's can use 1 GCD for a loooong trap in the middle of the field for people to kite through. Hunter trap is more useful, spec arcane and help the initial burn. Our 3 arcane mages generally do ~15k dps by the time the resto druid goes down and over 30% of the raids damage for it.

[edit] Another note, we chain (3) bubble sacs at the start so we don't have to CC until our initial target is down.