Frost Questions

[Carty]

So I was reading up on some things that changed with us in 4.0.3 and I came up with a few questions. Is haste even that big of a deal anymore if it's not reducing the cd of df? I was thinking of keeping my crit at 33% and just redoing any haste to mastery. Does frostbolt hold priority over ice lance against a frozen target with 20% increased damage and a x3 critical chance? I figured the Early Frost one would be worth it, but would another after be also? Especially if you have 2 stacks up fof already? And just something I've always wondered, does df count as the target being frozen? I've never really bothered to test it.

Edit; All of these are PVP questions.

[Deleted]

Haste is not a big deal.

Icelance against a frozen target generally over frostbolt unless your target it getting away!

I am pretty certain that a Deepfreezed target counts as it being frozen (IE start icelancing him)

[Goliethlol]

something I've always wondered, does df count as the target being frozen?

I am pretty certain that a Deepfreezed target counts as it being frozen (IE start icelancing him)

I'm slightly baffled at the question and response above...

Either way, to answer your question:

Yes haste is still useful. It is not as good as it once was obviously, but the benefits of having at least a decent amount of haste are still very great. You still do need to cast spells (contrary to common belief that icelance spam is all you need to do), and without any haste at all, it is just painfully slow.

Essentially you are going to want to have a balanced stat spread for pvp. In terms of what the exact values are you should be aiming for, its hard to tell without knowing exactly how our potential stats are going to look like at 85 in the starter pvp set.

Frostbolt vs Icelance on frozen targets is somewhat of a situational thing. If for instance you have a target in a frost nova, and you have enough time, are not being pressured enough, to allow you to get off a frostbolt and an icelance to follow right afterwards, then this is always the best case (as you get two spells off which will benefit from the shatter). Frostbolt does slightly more damage than icelance vs a frozen target, though because icelance is only restricted by the GCD, and not an actual cast time, it is sometimes much more beneficial to just icelance while moving.

Also, despite me still being in disbelief that you both don't actually realize that Deep Freeze will make the target "Frozen" and thus allow shatter and icelance to benefit from it, I will actually clarify this, and say that this is in fact the case. It is actually the sole purpose of Deep Freeze in pvp... to stun the target and allow for a short burst damage window by making the target vulnerable to frozen effects for the duration of the stun.

[nerfproof]

The trick is going to be not wasting both FoF procs. Using only 1 for either icelance or ffb while keeping the other up for the increase to frostbolt dmg

[Kuni Zyrekai]

The trick is going to be not wasting both FoF procs. Using only 1 for either icelance or ffb while keeping the other up for the increase to frostbolt dmg

The shatter change doesn't work that way. Read FoF.

[Lyren]

People really should stop saying haste is not useful. It does a lot more than just reduce the cast time of FB. Read up on the GCD and haste.

[nerfproof]

Actually if YOU read Shatter then you would know how FoF is gonna work

[Kuni Zyrekai]

/facepalm

Shatter is +20% frostbolt damage to frozen targets.
Fingers of Frost while active allows ice lance and deep freeze to consider the target frozen.
Brain Freeze allows frostfire bolt to be added to the FoF list while active.

There is no overlap of FoF and frostbolt shatter bonus. Trust me, I raid frost and this would have been one of the biggest things for us if it worked the way you said. It doesn't.

[Skarrd]

/facepalm

Shatter is +20% frostbolt damage to frozen targets.
Fingers of Frost while active allows ice lance and deep freeze to consider the target frozen.
Brain Freeze allows frostfire bolt to be added to the FoF list while active.

There is no overlap of FoF and frostbolt shatter bonus. Trust me, I raid frost and this would have been one of the biggest things for us if it worked the way you said. It doesn't.

It would be a dumb mechanic anyway. You'd basically want to spam frostbolt anytime that you don't have two fof procs up, sounds like 3.0-3.2 rotation with minor adjustments. Not sure how anyone thought that's how it worked. Shatter is not FoF, reading is hard?

[nerfproof]

I must be the only one who comprehends how this is going to work, because last time i check FoF is the only way to have the "frozen effect" on a target. And since frostbolt dmg is increased by 20% on frozen targets seems to me that frost mages will not be using both charges of FoF. Makes sense since they reduced the proc chance on FoF by 10%, so it wont seem like ur wasting the charges since FoF will not proc as often. And Kuni
I raid as frost also...Ive been raiding as frost since vanilla so trust me I know what Im talking about. I did this in ICC the other night and it makes a huge difference.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

I must be the only one who comprehends how this is going to work, because last time i check FoF is the only way to have the "frozen effect" on a target. And since frostbolt dmg is increased by 20% on frozen targets seems to me that frost mages will not be using both charges of FoF. Makes sense since they reduced the proc chance on FoF by 10%, so it wont seem like ur wasting the charges since FoF will not proc as often. And Kuni
I raid as frost also...Ive been raiding as frost since vanilla so trust me I know what Im talking about. I did this in ICC the other night and it makes a huge difference.

No, you seem to be the only one who either can't wrap their mind around the current mechanics or literally can't read. Fingers of frost only applies frozen status to two spells (brain freeze letting FFB benefit from it as well), and frostbolt isn't one of them. Hasn't been since 4.0.1. Longer if you were on beta.

Fingers of Frost Rank 3
Gives your Chill effects a 20% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which causes your next Ice Lance or Deep Freeze spell to act as if your target were frozen. Fingers of Frost can accumulate up to 2 charges and lasts 15 sec.

I've been doing this since vanilla as well, and I currently hold the only frost mage for any form of Halion kill on WoL. I'm very much aware of frost's mechanics as the game has evolved and this abomination of a mechanic, which was offered during beta and subsequently hated and removed for the same reason Skarrd said, does NOT exist ingame. Your doing this in "ICC the other night and it makes a huge difference" was just you purposely hurting your DPS because you didn't listen to me in my first post and read FoF. The ONLY overlap between FoF and frostbolt is frostbolt can activate FoF. That's it. Nothing else. It gains no bonus for having it active as it doesn't consider frostbolt's target to be frozen.

Edit: Logic question! Doing that, did frostbolt have 100% crit chance? I mean, logically if it benefits from FoF/shatter to get +20% damage on frozen targets, it would get 3x crit rate. Did it?

Hint: I'll bet you it didn't.