Glacial Spike

[Reachie10]

Hi Guys!

I just started playing again, and picked up glacial spike, and man I really like this ability, having 5M+ damage crits with shatter are awesome!

I see though that most people don't take GS for raiding, it's all Icy Veins, so I asked two questions.

1: Do you like GS in general? And if you do, do you just take IV because the DPS is better?
2: What would you change to make GS viable? I feel like the cast time is a bit long.

If not, what do you think they should replace it with?

[D3athsting]

Glacial spike found a niche in tos when thermal void was nerfed and double ice lance fixed, a week later blizz nerfed glacial spike to the ground and now nobody uses this talent (along with bone chilling, glacial insulation, frost nova, frost bomb comet storm, ray of frost, mirror image and rune of power)

tldr: all frost talents not included in the standard raiding build (2133131) are there just to fill the empty slots in the talent window

[music49]

I really enjoy the concept of GS, but I main fire so if I do go frost it's usually to just mess around so I stick with it. If I was forced to go frost, I'd probably go IV because of the DPS.

GS is a long cast, I'd add in a passive that when you generate additional Icicles instead of just shooting them off, it would contribute a smaller amount of damage into GS up to a certain amount cause balance and all, and lower the cast time for each one. Maybe the first 5 icicles generated work as normal, allowing you to use GS as normal, but if you generate another icicle up to 5 or so it will only contribute half that damage it would, but lower the cast time to make up for the loss damage. Or maybe for each FoF charge you use it lowers the cast time. Or just simply lower the damage it does but make it an instant cast.

Glacial spike found a niche in tos when thermal void was nerfed and double ice lance fixed, a week later blizz nerfed glacial spike to the ground and now nobody uses this talent (along with bone chilling, glacial insulation, frost nova, frost bomb comet storm, ray of frost, mirror image and rune of power)

I'd also like Ray of Frost to have a buff of some sort, was a really fun ability during Chronomatic Anomaly fast phase with time warp and icy veins active for some HUGE numbers. but that was the only place i found it useful

[sosleapy]

Just started a mage and boosted to 100 for leveling should I use GS? What's the best leveling spec?

[D3athsting]

Just started a mage and boosted to 100 for leveling should I use GS? What's the best leveling spec?

Frost has better defensives/roots/slow etc, however i suggest comet storm as glacial spike will be overkill for regular mobs

[Deleted]

Hi Guys!

I just started playing again, and picked up glacial spike, and man I really like this ability, having 5M+ damage crits with shatter are awesome!

I see though that most people don't take GS for raiding, it's all Icy Veins, so I asked two questions.

1: Do you like GS in general? And if you do, do you just take IV because the DPS is better?
2: What would you change to make GS viable? I feel like the cast time is a bit long.

If not, what do you think they should replace it with?

1. No, I dislike the long ass caste time of gs. I prefer the fast speed of IV way more.
2. Moevement is a strength of a mage, GS kinda cuts into this strength.

[nerfproof]

The Glacial Spike build was very competitive in Tomb of Sargeras even after the nerf. However with the current tier coming out of Antorus it doesnt benefit the build at all after they removed frostbolt from the 4 piece which is why 99% of frost mages run the Thermal Void build. You could still run the GS build and put up decent numbers but I would suggest at least getting 2 piece from ToS to a decent titanforged ilvl then just getting pieces with high crit-haste-vers to gear up the build.

[Deleted]

I'm not a mage expert or anything but I think Glacial Spike could potentially be useful for Varimathras Mythic to kill the adds. Not that the standard build has any issue killing them though.

[kheath812]

I'm not a mage expert or anything but I think Glacial Spike could potentially be useful for Varimathras Mythic to kill the adds. Not that the standard build has any issue killing them though.

the adds die pretty much instantly in mythic, you wouldnt even have time to get a cast off.

[Raugnaut]

Glacial Spike isn't too far behind the other builds, so if you want to play it, go ahead.

Its really good in PvP though, especially BGs. Even with the instanced damage nerf to it, it still allows you to burst down most targets quickly if you save up your brain freeze/FoF procs. Also note that in PvP, you can generally get off 1-2 ice lances after a Glacial Spike.

[Gavran]

Im confused...
My sim say:
TV build with bracers+shard - 1.491.383 DPS (LW, shimmer, IF, SI, UM, TV) - when i replace SI with FT its 1.487.692 DPS
GS build with helm+shard - 1.512.233 DPS (LW, shimmer, IF, SI, UM, GS)
4set T21, no T20

[Deleted]

Im confused...
My sim say:
TV build with bracers+shard - 1.491.383 DPS (LW, shimmer, IF, SI, UM, TV) - when i replace SI with FT its 1.487.692 DPS
GS build with helm+shard - 1.512.233 DPS (LW, shimmer, IF, SI, UM, GS)
4set T21, no T20

Hard to say without knowing your gear. Mastery heavy favors GS, haste crit vers is for TV. But 20k DPS difference, play the spec you like more, this difference is meaningless.

[Gavran]

Hard to say without knowing your gear. Mastery heavy favors GS, haste crit vers is for TV. But 20k DPS difference, play the spec you like more, this difference is meaningless.

In my case, both builds are similar stat weights:

TV with bracers+shard:
Crit 30.93
Haste 26.57
Vers 26.31
Int 21.61
Mastery 20.17

GS with helm+shard:
Crit 35.71
Haste 26.75
Vers 26.69
Mastery 23.46
Int 21.29

Im at 30% crit atm, when im on 33% crit is on last place

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/ch...anas/brk%C3%B4

[Swizzle]

Do you have the sim set to one add or a cleave style fight? On cleave, GS should come out ahead, even at your low Mastery levels.

[Akraen]

Without tier at 941, my GS or TV build sims within 1% of each other-- it'll be timing/luck/positioning that determines which is best more often than not. I like GS because it procs Sephuz for me whenever there are adds around. I don't know things like I used to, though. Note that TV is easier play, which for some can be a DPS gain-- so know yourself.

[Erolian]

Not only is GS more complicated (though really its not that bad and isn't the issue) its also slower and bogged down with a bunch of really long cast times that get delayed if you need to move or interrupted if something happens to you mid cast. That's pretty much the reason it wasn't ever actually a good idea to play GS outside of pure low movement single target or a maiden type damage increase during ToS before the nerf when a lot of people were super hyped for it. Now its just more effort for no results. Don't do it.