New Frost Mastery: Icicles!

[pyrostorm9001]

Visuals

The Icicles hover around the head, kind of like Soul Shards.
They float in launch position, and when launched, they shoot out of their slots, looking much like little Ice Lances, with a similar travel speed.

So this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEVMAy8bda8

AWESOME!

[Polarthief]

Does anyone have a ss with icicles working? I'm curious to check how it is visually

It's not on PTR yet. I will be posting information aplenty (as well as testing pretty much everything but raw numbers as others do that significantly better than me) once I am able to

NOTE: I may not be posting said information here as I have a strong feeling this thread will be locked by tomorrow because we already have the "Free for all" thread (which is essentially 5.4 Discussion + Other shit)

Yep, I'm well aware. I quite like the mechanic personally. I think it'll have interesting play with the amplification trinket.

I like the mechanic as well; should be interesting

But it allows us to be balanced without worry of our mastery ganking people in PVP. We're finally rid of the largest cause of QQ.

Also they look awesome.

True, but I'm still worried about our PvP viability at all now...

Doing some napkin math, Mastery scales slightly better maybe by 10%. Relative to Frostburn, it is <1% DPS increase at 20 Mastery (4200 gear rating) and ~2% increase at 40 Mastery (16200 gear rating).


Math stuff for the relative change in damage as it relates to Mastery (m):

FFB: (1 + .015m) / (1 + .02m)
IL: 1.29 / (1+0.2m)
FB: (1 + .015m) / 1.15
WB: 1.09 * (1 + .015m) / (1 + .02m) [Lhivera claims WB also got a 9% buff]

At 22 Mastery (5400 gear rating), this is a 7.5% loss to FFB, 10% loss to IL, 16% gain to FB, <1% gain to WB.

People like you, Tick, is why I don't do number testing on PTR, because I am not only too lazy, but don't do it as efficiently as people like you XD

Keep on keeping on

[Kuni Zyrekai]

So this?

Not quite as cool, but, basically the idea.

- - - Updated - - -

[Lhivera claims WB also got a 9% buff]

It did. http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/31707-waterbolt vs the live, 40% SP vs 43.6%.

[panterarules]

This shreds pvp haha. We'll have to turn off water elemental waterbolt if we ever want any decent burst with it. It is ironic that in order to get frostbolts off we will need to stack haste in order to get the most out of mastery

Now we have the exact same play style as spriests. Yay homogenisation.

[Raugnaut]

Im sure most have you have ran across it already, but if you havent...the new PTR build brought in a new new Mastery for Frost in the form of Icicles.

http://ptr.wowdb.com/spells/76613-ma...es#17191-17205

Who knows how it will play out...but it seems like it will help with the consistency of Frost Mage damage in both PvE and PvP, and rely less heavily on blowing all of your procs at once..not to mention it seems like it will be pretty fun. Who knows how much damage the Icicles will do.

Thoughts? Im personally excited

A) It seems you have to cast Icelance roughly once every 2-3 Frostbolts in order to not "sit" on charges- i would like 15-25 charges, Ice Lance uses 5 at a time. At 5x12% baselines, thats 60% (or less) of Frostbolts damage plus Ice Lance when you cast Ice Lance- at higher levels of haste, not worth using at 5 stacks at low mastery levels unless you have FoF up.

So, essentially, this change lowers frost burst during freezes, lowers frost damage from Frostfire Bolt, and raises Icelances damage, but not enough for it to be worth casting at lower mastery levels unless you have procs, in which case it does quite a bit more damage. In addition, at higher mastery levels, the rotation becomes much more clunky as not only are you casting Ice Lance with FoF procs, but you are also casting Ice Lance every couple of Frostbolt cast. Less Frostbolts being cast also leads to less FoF procs, which might even out in terms of numbers of Ice LAnce casts.

Adds ANOTHER proc to watch for mages, and is "wasted" if you cast frostbolt/waterbolt with 5 stacks. So damage needs to be upped, and there needs to be 15 stacks with Ice LAnce consuming 5 stacks at a time.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Adds ANOTHER proc to watch for mages, and is "wasted" if you cast frostbolt/waterbolt with 5 stacks. So damage needs to be upped, and there needs to be 15 stacks with Ice LAnce consuming 5 stacks at a time.

Auto fires the oldest one when you hit 6 stacks. If you never cast ice lance, you're still getting the full benefit of mastery until the last seconds of the fight, when you're sitting on 5 extra.

[Polarthief]

This shreds pvp haha. We'll have to turn off water elemental waterbolt if we ever want any decent burst with it. It is ironic that in order to get frostbolts off we will need to stack haste in order to get the most out of mastery

In terms of old masteries or in terms of "The WElly version sucks"?

This won't give you the burst you're looking for (because it can't even crit), but it's actually a healthy PvP ability. If your WElly is constantly casting, you get Icicles. You're also getting Brain Freezes from every frost bomb (or occasionally on NT/LB ticks), which also give you a stack. This means, you can effectively do nothing and get free damage from icicles. It's not going to be anything substantial mind you, but this is the first PTR build with it, plus it doesn't do anything but fix our Mastery (as intended). Is Frost now perfect? Far from it. On the contrary, Frost is now unviable in PvP and not competitive in PvE, but they're not done (and if they are done, then I'm just going to laugh until they finally realize how broken and outdated our class really is)

A) It seems you have to cast Icelance roughly once every 2-3 Frostbolts in order to not "sit" on charges- i would like 15-25 charges, Ice Lance uses 5 at a time. At 5x12% baselines, thats 60% (or less) of Frostbolts damage plus Ice Lance when you cast Ice Lance- at higher levels of haste, not worth using at 5 stacks at low mastery levels unless you have FoF up.

So, essentially, this change lowers frost burst during freezes, lowers frost damage from Frostfire Bolt, and raises Icelances damage, but not enough for it to be worth casting at lower mastery levels unless you have procs, in which case it does quite a bit more damage. In addition, at higher mastery levels, the rotation becomes much more clunky as not only are you casting Ice Lance with FoF procs, but you are also casting Ice Lance every couple of Frostbolt cast. Less Frostbolts being cast also leads to less FoF procs, which might even out in terms of numbers of Ice LAnce casts.

Adds ANOTHER proc to watch for mages, and is "wasted" if you cast frostbolt/waterbolt with 5 stacks. So damage needs to be upped, and there needs to be 15 stacks with Ice LAnce consuming 5 stacks at a time.

Nope. According to Lhiv's insider information, upon getting your 6th stack, you will auto-fire an Icicle. You're only intended to Ice Lance with FoF or against Frozen targets (as live)

Think of Icicles more like an Ignite for Frost, except if you use one of your procs (FoF), it will apply slightly more rapidly.

[Raugnaut]

Yep, I'm well aware. I quite like the mechanic personally. I think it'll have interesting play with the amplification trinket.



But it allows us to be balanced without worry of our mastery ganking people in PVP. We're finally rid of the largest cause of QQ.

Also they look awesome.

It can actually cause a bit more burst- a 5 stack FoF Ice Lance into a Deep Freeze will hit about 70% harder then current icelance into deepfreeze, providing that the Icicles can crit.

[panterarules]

In terms of old masteries or in terms of "The WElly version sucks"?

This won't give you the burst you're looking for (because it can't even crit), but it's actually a healthy PvP ability. If your WElly is constantly casting, you get Icicles. You're also getting Brain Freezes from every frost bomb (or occasionally on NT/LB ticks), which also give you a stack. This means, you can effectively do nothing and get free damage from icicles. It's not going to be anything substantial mind you, but this is the first PTR build with it, plus it doesn't do anything but fix our Mastery (as intended). Is Frost now perfect? Far from it. On the contrary, Frost is now unviable in PvP and not competitive in PvE, but they're not done (and if they are done, then I'm just going to laugh until they finally realize how broken and outdated our class really is)

Well i really hope they aren't done. This is absolutely NOT healthy for pvp. All this will end up with is people spamming NT/LB for FF procs and then having more procs into procs and procs. Yes you can leave water elemental on for constant damage, but since old icicles are just discarded and not replaced by higher damage ones you will absolutely see most people turn it off for more burst (edit: and then alter time it?).

[Kuni Zyrekai]

providing that the Icicles can crit.

They can't.

[Polarthief]

They can't.

But it makes me wonder if the Icicles store 12% of the TOTAL damage.

For example: Frostbolt Crits for 100k. Does it:

A. Store 12k (12% of 100k = 12k)
or
B. Store 6k (12% of BASE 50k = 6k)

If the case is A, then technically, it has a 100% crit chance on spells that crit, and a 0% crit chance on spells that don't crit; regardless, it won't matter too much. If the case is B, then this is a SIGNIFICANT nerf to Crit/Shatter/Mastery in general.

- - - Updated - - -

Well i really hope they aren't done. This is absolutely NOT healthy for pvp. All this will end up with is people spamming NT/LB for FF procs and then having more procs into procs and procs. Yes you can leave water elemental on for constant damage, but since old icicles are just discarded and not replaced by higher damage ones you will absolutely see most people turn it off for more burst (edit: and then alter time it?).

Oh don't get me wrong, this damage is easily healable and you will die before you can kill someone with some measly DoTs, WellyBolts, and Icicles, but I'm just saying it's a nice design, assuming they implement it correctly. Also needs to be tweaked a bit higher as well as a few other things (FUCKING FROSTBOLT STACKS. WHY ARE YOU NOT GONE YET?!?!?!?!?)

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Case A. It just doesn't allow case A, then 24k icicle crit cause that leads to absurdity.

[Polarthief]

Case A. It just doesn't allow case A, then 24k icicle crit cause that leads to absurdity.

I wasn't exactly saying that the Icicle has a 100% crit chance, I was saying that the DAMAGE itself has a 100% crit chance (it just won't show as a crit because you crit the Frostbolt; that was the "crit Icicle").

Again, once this shit actually hits the PTR, I'll be testing it and posting some *light* numbers (e.g., can it crit, is it Case A/Case B, basic numbers, yadda yadda). I'm mostly going to be posting general information, mechanics, and other shit that people will hopefully find interesting (again, may not be on this thread, but will definitely be in the Free For All thread)

[Zatetic]

It is case a.

It takes the damage of the spell that hits the boss and 12% of that is one stack.

So crits or casts with trinkets up or increased spell power etc, will be more valuable.

I havent worked it out but it looks to me like haste is no longer prioritized over int (once legendary meta/ppm trinks etc). I'm assuming you'll want a nice level of haste (and mastery), but also more spell power so that 12% per stack is worth more.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

What I'm saying is, you can't have a 100k frostbolt crit, which gives a 12k icicle, create 24k damage out of it by the icicle itself critting on a crit damage.

Also, case A is still true.

[Zatetic]

What I'm saying is, you can't have a 100k frostbolt crit, which gives a 12k icicle, create 24k damage out of it by the icicle itself critting on a crit damage.

Also, case A is still true.

No, the icicles cant crit (which I disagree with). If they are going to double dip on resil and hit chance, they should also double dip on crit chance.

[Saegno]

So between this change and the 4set for frost, I am having a hard time convincing myself to not go frost for the next tier.

[Vynestra]

So it does 1.5% increased per point of mastery, if it scales like arcane mastery I have 82.51 mastery in raid. With 12% + (81.52 * 1.5) = 135.765% of my frostbolts, FFBs and water elemental bolts each time an icicle fires off? And thats with my i530 gear mastery..Granted I don't have a lot of haste and with buffs im at 20% crit...so I'd need some more crit first. Then mastery > haste > crit?

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Arc's mastery is 2%/point, so you're off a bit. Haste will still be king, but mastery will likely be worth going for past a certain point.

[Vynestra]

Arc's mastery is 2%/point, so you're off a bit. Haste will still be king, but mastery will likely be worth going for past a certain point.

it's 2% a point? Oh I'm dumb. lol... so how much is a point of mastery? if 82.51 is 2 points, then 41.225 is 1 point....so 1.5 is 61.8825 + 12%, is that how it works?

basically 74% of frostbolts ffbs and water elemental bolts, once again in this gear. Now imagine SoO gear you may be looking at 80% ish with enough crit and haste. Thats very strong isn't it? I'm not sure how much a fb or FFB will hit for in that kind of gear...But if you take 80% of it and throw it at the target I imagine it's pretty damn strong. And scales pretty well.


Also isn't there a haste cap atm for frost with the legendary meta? I forget what it is, but with that in mind I am sure that and crit will be EASY to reach in 5.4, then just stack mastery.