How to balance frost

[Victoriaautmors]

Frost specc, while it has aswome and fun mechanics, has some numerical disbalances.

First of all Ice Barrier which used to be feared in WotLK and TBC is now utter crap and most of time is not even worth the cast besides maybe to lure healer to waste mana on dispelling it.

The second problem is ice lance vs frostbolt damage, frostbolt feels kinda weak now while ice lance seems to be overpowered. Now if they simply buffed frostbolt or nerfed ice lance it would be back to boring days of frostbolt spam in pve so i think this would be a nice fix.

1. - nerf ice lance dmaamge by 20%

2.- buff frostbolt damage by 20%

3.- change fingers of frost, now in addition to its old effect it increases the damage of ice lance by 35%

So what does this mean? Well gone are the days of spaming ice lance into frozen and deep frozen stuff since frostbolt will be doing wayy bigger damage. So you will want to cast frostbolt whenever possible for shatter. On the other hand whenever you get a fingers of frost proc you will be wanting to use ice lance since it will out damage frostbolt and is instant cast.

Not quite sure about the exact numbers but idea is if target isnt frozen or is frozen but no FoF you use Frostbolt, if you have Fingers of Frost or you have to move you use ice lance.

[Illunis]

What you're suggesting would be a major nerf to frost pvp, people may think frost mages are "LAWLSUPEROP" however they are not (*sigh* people wont read much past here due to trying to flame me)

HOWEVER.... Frost pvp is VASTLY dependent on being mobile and hard to reach, while doing good damage doing so, if you manage to catch a mage, watch them fold like paper, especially since ice barrier only absorbs about 8-10k damage, depending on your spell damage. With the nerf to fingers of frost proc rate, this would be crippling to mages, i can't tell you the last time i wanted to stop and frostbolt outside of a full deep freeze, or an opener of some sort, with the change you're suggesting mages would be far too static and easy prey for melee

[Swizzle]

If you're spamming Ice Lance on a frozen target while specced into Shatter, you should probably be off playing a different game. Frostbolt hits for more on an ACTUALLY frozen target AND it can proc FoF which will allow you to use Ice Lance once the target is unfrozen.

The way to play it is simple: wind up frostbolt on a target, use Freeze, cast Deep Freeze when frostbolt ends, pump out two more frostbolts on the Deep Freeze target and crank out an Ice Lance at the end. Your target has now taken roughly...5-10k more damage then they would've had had you spammed Ice Lance only.

[Victoriaautmors]

well imagine this situation 2 ppl on you , you cast elemental freeze shoot one ice lance into a guy , deep freeze with second stack of FoF and then continue to spam ice lance into the stunned one while pet freeze and cone of cold hold the other player in place if he is melee...

i killed 2x melee so many times this way and this is exactly the reason why people are QQing its ok that we have controll to lock down a melee or two but not while spaming instant for sick damage at the same time.

[Deleted]

I just died in a Deep Freeze...having about 100.000 HP. Took about 5 seconds tops......not cool.

[Swizzle]

I just died in a Deep Freeze...having about 100.000 HP. Took about 5 seconds tops......not cool.

I'm sure you did.

[Autumn xD]

I just died in a Deep Freeze...having about 100.000 HP. Took about 5 seconds tops......not cool.

With haste ratings dropping, that amounts to about 3 globals, 4 warped, meaning those would've had to hit between 25 and 33k, which is, contrary to popular belief, unachievable in normal circumstances.

Swizzle pretty much /thread-ed this.

[Deleted]

Frost is fine imo, and fantastic in long boss fights

[daydayhyphy]

actually my brain freeze proc hits for 40k+ with trinket popped. and 30k+ ice lances. it's definitely possible

[Nicola]

makes slows 30% or something, not 70% or whatever they are right now.
longer cooldown on iceblock, deep freeze, silence,...
gife icelance a cooldown.
make shields weaker.. having to crush their mana, mage and icebarrier over and over cuz i can only touch mages once every 10sec is booring

[SyanideLS]

All these posts are made by sub-par players complaining about other sub-par players beating them in a duel.

If you want to complain about something in pvp, complain about a warrior.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

With haste ratings dropping, that amounts to about 3 globals, 4 warped, meaning those would've had to hit between 25 and 33k, which is, contrary to popular belief, unachievable in normal circumstances.

Swizzle pretty much /thread-ed this.

I'm not so sure. With procs up you can easily pump 35k crits into a deep frozen target with frostbolt and a couple trinket procs. The problem is of course this person would have had no resil at all, so there's the problem, not the spec. You can't realistically nerf frost without neutering its ability to raid. Trinket DF and kill the mage, or you're gonna eat another DF soon. Kill or be killed.

makes slows 30% or something, not 70% or whatever they are right now.
longer cooldown on iceblock, deep freeze, silence,...
gife icelance a cooldown.
make shields weaker.. having to crush their mana, mage and icebarrier over and over cuz i can only touch mages once every 10sec is booring

On this, frostbolt's base slow is 40%, cone is 60%. Both talentable another 10%. Ice block's cooldown is already 4 minutes talented. Deep freeze is required for raid DPS so you can't make that longer. Our silence is talented and on a 24 second cooldown, shared with our school lockout spell. Ice lance hits like a wet noodle if you're not frozen, there's no reason for it to have a cooldown.

Ice barrier holds 9100 damage in my gear, glyphed. Mana shield holds 5800, mage ward holds 6200 against frost/fire/arcane. All are on cooldowns.

The first two absorb about 15% of my HP fully buffed, the last totals up to around 20% if using arcane/fire/frost spells. We have one heal, which is channeled. We have no passive healing like other classes, no actual heal spells, no "gain 15% of your total health when using this every 10 seconds" spell. We have glyphed evocation. On a 4 minute cooldown. For 40% of our HP over 8 seconds.

You're trying to tell me that having an extra 15-20% HP--hell, let's make it 30-40% if we can get it off twice--that is dispellable and on cooldowns is OP to a class that can only heal when not under fire? And what of the multitude of offensive magic dispels there are in this game? No. I agree with the above post. Sub-par players complaing of other sub-par players in a duel.

[Azcatryo]

I'm not so sure. With procs up you can easily pump 35k crits into a deep frozen target with frostbolt and a couple trinket procs. The problem is of course this person would have had no resil at all, so there's the problem, not the spec. You can't realistically nerf frost without neutering its ability to raid. Trinket DF and kill the mage, or you're gonna eat another DF soon. Kill or be killed.



On this, frostbolt's base slow is 40%, cone is 60%. Both talentable another 10%. Ice block's cooldown is already 4 minutes talented. Deep freeze is required for raid DPS so you can't make that longer. Our silence is talented and on a 24 second cooldown, shared with our school lockout spell. Ice lance hits like a wet noodle if you're not frozen, there's no reason for it to have a cooldown.

Ice barrier holds 9100 damage in my gear, glyphed. Mana shield holds 5800, mage ward holds 6200 against frost/fire/arcane. All are on cooldowns.

The first two absorb about 15% of my HP fully buffed, the last totals up to around 20% if using arcane/fire/frost spells. We have one heal, which is channeled. We have no passive healing like other classes, no actual heal spells, no "gain 15% of your total health when using this every 10 seconds" spell. We have glyphed evocation. On a 4 minute cooldown. For 40% of our HP over 8 seconds.

You're trying to tell me that having an extra 15-20% HP--hell, let's make it 30-40% if we can get it off twice--that is dispellable and on cooldowns is OP to a class that can only heal when not under fire? And what of the multitude of offensive magic dispels there are in this game? No. I agree with the above post. Sub-par players complaing of other sub-par players in a duel.

I agree.

Really tired of people complaining about mages hitting hard. They all seem to forget that the class was designed around two words. The first word, "glass", is obviously fulfilled in the current state of the game. The second, "CANNON", is also well represented by all mage specs in the current state of the game. If you take away our ability to hit hard, we're just glass. Extremely frail glass at that. (Heck, we only have one heal every 4 minutes unless we're arcane. And even that was nerfed (with many other class heals)

Don't complain to me about how you died in 5 seconds. I have no simpathy after I and every other mage in the game has spent years doing that against just about every class in the game. All it takes is one wrong move and I'm one dead mage. (Heck, I could have done everything theoretically correct and still be one dead mage.)

Its about time we could finally even the playing field in this regard.

Continue to pwn my fellow Glass Cannons!

*winks*

[drakean]

Yeah pretty much said this before, for awhile mages were the "ooo Easy kill" target, or even at most just annoying. Now people cant rip through us like wet tissue paper, and they scream "OVERPOWERED!!!!"

[Swizzle]

To note, in my gear (about 6100 spellpower), I've yet to see an Ice Lance over 17k in PvP.

[Slowz]

with a proc trinket and a use trinket its definately possible to do 100,000 dmg in 5 seconds on a frozen target, however it would take an insane amount of RNG and it would require the victim to have no resilence, no protection, and nothing to reduce damage. As for mage pvp, I would say we're in a good position except for the fact that a few class combos make us utterly useless, which is sad. (BM hunter + enh shammy, GL trying to do damage.)

[Swizzle]

with a proc trinket and a use trinket its definately possible to do 100,000 dmg in 5 seconds on a frozen target, however it would take an insane amount of RNG and it would require the victim to have no resilence, no protection, and nothing to reduce damage. As for mage pvp, I would say we're in a good position except for the fact that a few class combos make us utterly useless, which is sad. (BM hunter + enh shammy, GL trying to do damage.)

That is called "balance", aint it grand?

[Slowz]

I would also like to point out that if all 3 of those changes were to occur it would actually be a damage buff, lets say that the current icelance hits for 5,000 damage, and then crits for 10k (without mastery n such) if it was nerfed to 4000 base damage, but increased by 35% whenever fingers was up that would increase the damage to 5400 (10.8k crit) and since the real damage comes from FoF + Icelance not just icelance.

[rtjason]

I would also like to point out that if all 3 of those changes were to occur it would actually be a damage buff, lets say that the current icelance hits for 5,000 damage, and then crits for 10k (without mastery n such) if it was nerfed to 4000 base damage, but increased by 35% whenever fingers was up that would increase the damage to 5400 (10.8k crit) and since the real damage comes from FoF + Icelance not just icelance.

I was thinking the same thing actually. Then I was wondering if he was a clever troll. Then I saw two mages say they could crit 35k frostbolts. I'm really not sure what to think tbh. First day of the season my twos partner and I hit 1900 with a 2300 mmr. We are playing double frost mage. Hands down the thing everyone should be complaining about is ring of frost. Our gear sucks too, both of us are around 5k spellpower, like 500 resilience. The absolute biggest number I've seen is a frostfire bolt for 24k and that was with the reg dungeon trinket that procs 1500 sp up along with FoF and Brainfreeze for a finisher. I really don't think this is out of line with other damage I've seen come out from several other classes. Hands down tho, ring of frost has won us quite a few matches, so I'm surprised theres no qq about this. If I get to look foward to 35k frostbolts, and I just don't see how this is possible mathematically at this point, I'm going to quit playing the mage. Btw don't really care to hear flaming about our 1900 rating, we are 31-7, we only got a chance to play that day.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

If I get to look foward to 35k frostbolts, and I just don't see how this is possible mathematically at this point

My examples were of mobs and people who decided to walk into Tol Barad without some basic PVP gear. That said, it is a stars align proc thing. I'm sitting at about 5.4k SP self buffed. Add in both my trinkets for 912 mastery and 1512 SP, my glove enchant from engi for 480 int, my tailor cloak enchant for 590 int, kings on top of it... Any combination of two of those procs and popping the gloves can get me over 35k frostbolts.

Honestly, you see this in your character tab and you can't help but laugh. This is all blues, one epic and one green.

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/6071/procs.png

Mobs and players who aren't geared to PVP just melt when that happens. God help them if you have warp up at the time, you can dump 3 frostbolts into a deep freeze. But again, resil solves a lot of problems. Doesn't stop me from melting people in crap gear in Tol Barad though.