New Frost Mastery: Icicles!

[Polarthief]

The IV glyph won't reduce our dps.

If it doesn't create 3 icicles the only other option I can think of is the game combining the 3 spells into 1 icicle to prevent visual clutter.

Well yeah, that too if it's possible.

If not though, well... Mastery > Haste and not use IV Glyph?

I imagine that we'll be in a similar situation to Shamans, where we value Haste > Mastery > Crit until we reach a certain level of Haste (lower than live), and upon passing it, Haste = Mastery > Crit. Whatever happens, the value of Mastery will very likely go up by 5.4.

[IsrafaelMage]

Now we need a myBigIceIcle addon for frost as well i guess..

Considering that with more gear you usually get more procs which dont generate the things, it seems more of a buff to low ilvl than to high end.. But at least its something

[Polarthief]

Now we need a myBigIceIcle addon for frost as well i guess..

Seeing as how there's no spell that interacts with Icicles and that Icicles will go off automatically, that would be a VERY worthless addon.

[IsrafaelMage]

Hmm, just to think of it, I hope there wont be any icicle munching, especially when theres dozens of spells flying every second with TW/sinister/veins

[Polarthief]

Hmm, just to think of it, I hope there wont be any icicle munching, especially when theres dozens of spells flying every second with TW/sinister/veins

There's a big difference between munching and losing. Munching cannot happen; losing can if the game doesn't trigger it happening (and if that happens, this is a retardedly HUGE nerf to Frost PvE)


There's also a huge difference between Ignite (Single debuff on an enemy; is a DoT) and Icicle (Buff on you; stacks up to 5 and auto-flings at 6)

[IsrafaelMage]

Seeing as how there's no spell that interacts with Icicles and that Icicles will go off automatically, that would be a VERY worthless addon.

Surely not for PVP.. As i see it, poor bg heros would have to disable welly bolt and stack big hits

[Polarthief]

Surely not for PVP.. As i see it, poor bg heros would have to disable welly bolt and stack big hits

I think people are overvaluing the Mastery. It's going to be equivalent to the damage that the old Mastery brought us, just smoothed out. Ice Lancing will NOT fling all Icicles simultaneously; it will fling them over time. Hitting a 6th stack will instantly fling one though (this is all coming from Lhivera's website as well as speculation/logic on how it would work).

There's no point to disabling WEllyBolts because that's just a loss of damage. Everyone will need to face facts: Frost being a burst-only spec is DEAD AND GONE.

[jtmzac]

I think we'll be tracking the icicle damage in pve too in some specific cases. The design of the mastery stops us saving icicles for something like heroic wind lord but if we have any "burn x down asap" when there's no damage modifiers we'll be saving big icicles.

[Vynestra]

I think people are overvaluing the Mastery. It's going to be equivalent to the damage that the old Mastery brought us, just smoothed out. Ice Lancing will NOT fling all Icicles simultaneously; it will fling them over time. Hitting a 6th stack will instantly fling one though (this is all coming from Lhivera's website as well as speculation/logic on how it would work).

There's no point to disabling WEllyBolts because that's just a loss of damage. Everyone will need to face facts: Frost being a burst-only spec is DEAD AND GONE.

And that is a good first step in being able to balance frost in pve! With that change, you can now buff frost in pve, and not face trouble in pvp! This, this I like. This could be heading torwards a frost spec similar to fire that scales well, and they'll fix fire scaling, so maybe just maybe we'll have frost and fire always at each others neck which I would love..cause icicles seem fun.

[Polarthief]

I think we'll be tracking the icicle damage in pve too in some specific cases. The design of the mastery stops us saving icicles for something like heroic wind lord but if we have any "burn x down asap" when there's no damage modifiers we'll be saving big icicles.

"Saving" doesn't make any sense because they auto fire once you hit 6 or all 5 get expended over a few seconds when you cast Ice Lance (I think one per second at no Haste, and they ARE affected by Haste) so no matter what, you can't sit on a few.

[Shullski]

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.

There are no wasted stacks..from what Ive heard. After you reach 5, any stacks gained afterward are automatically used in order to make room for the new 5th.

[Tiga]

The Frostbolt debuff no longer increases Frostbolt damage because the mastery now does that.

If I did the math correctly, my current mastery translates to about 35.5% of my Frostbolt, FFB and Water Elemental damage converted into Icicle damage. Assuming none is wasted, Frostbolt spam with nothing else will do about 18% more damage than currently on live. Since Ice Lance was buffed by 29% and my live mastery is 31.7%, the difference (loss) in damage is negligible. Water elemental and FFB damage go up slightly. Overall then for a tank and spank Patchwerk, this looks like a 4%-5% DPS buff for single target using my gear.

I think there should be some benefit from mastery to AOE as well. What I would like to propose is for frost AOE spells to have a chance to trigger an Icicle. Let's say, a 10% chance on any Blizzard critical tick and 50% chance on any Cone of Cold critical hit to trigger one Icicle, which gets split up to hit every target the Blizzard or Cone of Cold hit, but reduced to 50% power. Effectively it would look like the AOE Shadowbolt trinket from Dragon Soul, but with tiny Ice Lances. The AOE rotation is then to apply a bomb on at least one target, channel Blizzard until BF procs (releasing Waterbolt-generated Weaksauce Icicles along the way), then do a BF FFB and unload that. Still not sure if anyone would want to use Cone of Cold if Blizzard would do the trick too, but maybe the higher proc chance would be enough motivation. Cone of Cold still needs a damage buff because Blizzard forgot to buff it in 5.3.

[Zatetic]

Seeing as how there's no spell that interacts with Icicles and that Icicles will go off automatically, that would be a VERY worthless addon.

I can see it as being useful.

tracking the combined damage in your stacks could be situationally good.

The Frostbolt debuff no longer increases Frostbolt damage because the mastery now does that.

If I did the math correctly, my current mastery translates to about 35.5% of my Frostbolt, FFB and Water Elemental damage converted into Icicle damage. Assuming none is wasted, Frostbolt spam with nothing else will do about 18% more damage than currently on live. Since Ice Lance was buffed by 29% and my live mastery is 31.7%, the difference (loss) in damage is negligible. Water elemental and FFB damage go up slightly. Overall then for a tank and spank Patchwerk, this looks like a 4%-5% DPS buff for single target using my gear.

I think there should be some benefit from mastery to AOE as well. What I would like to propose is for frost AOE spells to have a chance to trigger an Icicle. Let's say, a 10% chance on any Blizzard critical tick and 50% chance on any Cone of Cold critical hit to trigger one Icicle, which gets split up to hit every target the Blizzard or Cone of Cold hit, but reduced to 50% power. Effectively it would look like the AOE Shadowbolt trinket from Dragon Soul, but with tiny Ice Lances. The AOE rotation is then to apply a bomb on at least one target, channel Blizzard until BF procs (releasing Waterbolt-generated Weaksauce Icicles along the way), then do a BF FFB and unload that. Still not sure if anyone would want to use Cone of Cold if Blizzard would do the trick too, but maybe the higher proc chance would be enough motivation. Cone of Cold still needs a damage buff because Blizzard forgot to buff it in 5.3.

sounds similar to ember generation for destro locks.

although, I would enjoy having blizzard in the rotation. It has been so underpowered for so long.

[jtmzac]

"Saving" doesn't make any sense because they auto fire once you hit 6 or all 5 get expended over a few seconds when you cast Ice Lance (I think one per second at no Haste, and they ARE affected by Haste) so no matter what, you can't sit on a few.

Except if burning x down is important enough to stop dps on the boss and you're saving your FoF procs. Its certainly not something that's very likely to happen but its possible.

If they are tracked by a buff with a very short duration it might complicate the above scenario.

[Deleted]

If a mini-bolt generate a Icicle, it will lead to madness with IV/AT : 2 spell = 5 mini-Icc + 1 overflow.
But IL spam will be less interesting. During an heavy proc Frozen orb (yes, I'm lucky), only MrBubble will generate Icc. I'm not fan. I would have been better if IL was stacking and FFB realising.

With 2T16's 20% buff after FFB, it will be more interesting to use it with a Frostbolt to increase it damage by 20%, making a big Icc than buffing IL. To be check.

Critique's value will be more important because we will want to crit with FFB, and we will want FB/WB to crit too.

- - - Updated - - -

Except if burning x down is important enough to stop dps on the boss and you're saving your FoF procs. Its certainly not something that's very likely to happen but its possible.

If they are tracked by a buff with a very short duration it might complicate the above scenario.

It feel more like a resource than buff.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Critique's value will be more important because we will want to crit with FFB, and we will want FB/WB to crit too.

I've been thinking on that as well. The amplification trinket feeds into that a bit, too. I'm curious to see where crit ends up for us. Potentially not almost worthless after cap?

[Zatetic]

I've been thinking on that as well. The amplification trinket feeds into that a bit, too. I'm curious to see where crit ends up for us. Potentially not almost worthless after cap?

i'm thinking we'll be back to almost ignoring out mastery and just going int>haste>crit

[Polarthief]

All the following information copy/pasted from Lhivera's Library (http://lhiveras-library.com/content/...g-live-icicles). Although nothing is confirmed, Lhivera is one of the Mage MVPs and DOES get insider information, but I hope this will clear some things up.

[Note: Anything in italics is directly copy/pasted from Lhivera's website. Anything not italicized is just my notes/comments]


*Waterbolt damage is being increased by 9%. Again, if you previously had +40% Mastery, this is a reduction of about 22%. But as with Frostbolt, see below for the way the new Mastery affects it.

This was hidden on the datamine apparently.


How Icicles get thrown:

- When you cast Ice Lance, you will immediately begin to discharge your Icicles. They will launch at the target the Ice Lance hit, at the rate of one per second (adjusted by haste), until they are gone.

- If you generate a new Icicle when you already have five, the oldest will immediately launch at the target hit by the spell that generated the new Icicle, and the new one will be stored.

So there will NOT be any "saving" Icicles. You will just do more damage when you fling a FoF'd IL.


While not a vital part of the mechanics or damage, here's some visual info:

- 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.
- There is some concern that the whole thing is too visually "busy," and the devs are interested in feedback on this point.

Reminds me of Irelia with her Transcendent Blades... (More information below the picture!)
[Note: Picture is too large to see the entire thing without scrolling. For those who care about a LoL reference, scroll to the right )




Some stuff that gets "accomplished" (according to Lhiv):

- It makes the value of Mastery much more similar in PvE and PvP.
- It preserves some of the kit of Frostburn by beefing up Ice Lance damage.
*- It preserves and enhances the "hasty" kit of Frost without actually adding any haste.
- It does what it does in a less bursty manner than Frostburn.

While I disagree with the third one (because I don't know what the hell he means by that), he is correct about the rest of it.


However, here's what really pisses me off, from his Q&A section:

Q: Are Icicles modified by damage-increasing effects or debuffs?
A: Only insofar as the spell that creates them is affected. If a debuff increases your Frostbolt's damage by 5%, it will create an Icicle that is 5% stronger. But the Icicle will not get an additional 5% increase directly from the debuff.

Q: Are Icicles modified by damage-decreasing effects?
A: Yes. If your target is taking 50% less damage, it will also take 50% less damage from Icicles.

It doesn't make sense that Icicles will be reduced, but not increased... (Ignite works both ways, IIRC)


One last point from his website:

Q: Will Alter Time restore Icicles state?
A: Yes. You could have a full stack, Alter Time, cast Ice Lance so that your stack is expended, and the stack will be restored when Alter Time expires.

That's actually really awesome (if true) as it doesn't indirectly nerf Alter Time (Your procs hit harder with live Mastery, so Alter Time would be "nerfed" if Icicles didn't carry over).

[jtmzac]

i'm thinking we'll be back to almost ignoring out mastery and just going int>haste>crit

We're currently haste>mastery>crit at 530+ and we'll have trouble not going over the crit cap next tier.

Where int fits into all this is going to be interesting as we're not really sure where it fits in now.

[Vynestra]

Looking at the math in the thread posted earlier, it's showing a dps...decrease with this mastery over the one in live...I am thinking the 1.5% is a placeholder and may be increased in the future, and I am thinking almost will be increased to 2% if not even higher.