I'm glad they're nerfing Frost Mage's primary damage output

[Ehrenpanzer]

Taking an underperforming ranged spec and further reducing its damage = balance?

This is Blizzard we are talking about.....

[Sageless]

I guess you could see a nerf to (frost) mages as a buff to death knights as they won't be bottom of the warcraftlogs anymore.

Still even if this would be a correction to an undocumented change that would increase the damage of Glacial Spike, why would you pre-emptively correct it when the spec is already underperforming. Depending on your class distribution it can already be an overall damage increase to have a shadowpriest+scroll instead of a mage. I really would like to see how mage representation throughout this tier looks like.
Anecdotal from the two guilds I know is that from the 6 raiding mages, only 2 remain (one in each raid group). But since my sample size is so small I don't know if this represents the current status in more raid groups.

[Kaver]

I guess you could see a nerf to (frost) mages as a buff to death knights as they won't be bottom of the warcraftlogs anymore.

Still even if this would be a correction to an undocumented change that would increase the damage of Glacial Spike, why would you pre-emptively correct it when the spec is already underperforming. Depending on your class distribution it can already be an overall damage increase to have a shadowpriest+scroll instead of a mage. I really would like to see how mage representation throughout this tier looks like.
Anecdotal from the two guilds I know is that from the 6 raiding mages, only 2 remain (one in each raid group). But since my sample size is so small I don't know if this represents the current status in more raid groups.

I would not say Frost Mage is underperforming. It's the ranged dot specs + elemental which are completely overpowered right now. If you remove the 5 top specs from the equation then the picture will be very different and all the specs are actually very close.

So in relation to the dots spec, yes frost is underperforming. But in relation to the rest of the specs (excluding top 5), frost is completely fine. In my opinion, the ranged dot specs should get a nerf.

[Sariengrey]

any spec is "fine" if you remove the "x spec's"(pick a #) outperforming them, lmao
If you take the top 12 specs out of equation death knights are fine too, wtf?

[Kaver]

any spec is "fine" if you remove the "x spec's"(pick a #) outperforming them, lmao
If you take the top 12 specs out of equation death knights are fine too, wtf?

The point is that most specs are pretty close (including frost). If you nerf the top 5 specs (dot specs and ele) and give a small buff to the bottom-most specs then things will be fine. Frost is not the problem. The problem is the few overpowered specs. They need to be nerfed. It would not be crazy at all if frost got a small buff but in the end it is not where the general issue lies.

The fight types will probably also change in the next raid. BOD really favored dot specs.

[Schmilblick]

You play frost in PvE ? how ? most of frost damage comes from freeze effects that doesn't work on bosses, did I miss something ?

[erifwodahs]

I'd love that. TV build has always been my preferred build. I don't play GS unless forced to do so. It's boring, it's yet again another long ass cast nuke in an expansion that is super unfriendly to casters, and did I mention it's boring? Even knowing that it's a dps loss to take TV, I give zero fucks.

As a long time frost mage.. how is using pet/GS is more boring than having no pet/no GS/no EB (some cases) FB>BF>IL or FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB BF IL. Yea.... GS is shit for movement fights, but we have shimmer. At least in nighthold we had a double IL + race with IV timer, which was fun

[Dakara]

As a long time frost mage.. how is using pet/GS is more boring than having no pet/no GS/no EB (some cases) FB>BF>IL or FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB FB BF IL. Yea.... GS is shit for movement fights, but we have shimmer. At least in nighthold we had a double IL + race with IV timer, which was fun

FYI I'm not the poster you quoted, however...
TV sims 0.2% behind GS for me (Patchwork). Given the amount of movement in most encounters, if there's no cleave then TV actually pulls ahead.

The reason I find TV more enjoyable is I actually get less proc munching and find myself reacting to BF procs more often which breaks up the FB spam. With GS/EB, it's always the case of "Oh I have 3 icicles, better hold this BF" or "Ok, I have 5 icicles, no BF and EB is on CD".

With TV, I actually use my BF procs when I get them rather than holding onto them. This results in no wasted BF procs and casting more Flurries throughout an encounter. No pet makes no difference to me as I can't Freeze+GS spike bosses.

Where I do enjoy GS however, is constant cleave encounters like Jadefire Masters. When there's consistently a target to cleave onto, EB + SI + GS is actually a lot of fun because you don't need to shatter your GS casts and thus aren't holding onto 5 icicles waiting for a BF proc.

It's all personal opinions of course, but I find GS in non cleave encounters to be incredibly clunky.

[MrExcelion]

I also don't like that GS doesn't shatter off Winter's Chill if you're in melee range of the target, and they have no desire to fix that. Not to mention Frostbolts do that too which will make your Icicles smaller. If you're playing TV it's mostly irrelevant where you stand. Many boss strats lately have entailed this, and I'd rather that just go away. I have no desire for Ray of Frost to be good because that'd just push things towards Rune of Power, but they don't seem interested in buffing Ray of Frost anyway. (or Mirror Image for that matter)

Like I've posted in the past, I'd like for at least one of the three mage specs to get multidot potential, doesn't need to be Frost. Make that Arcane with Nether Tempest if you have to. Or rework Living Bomb. Just update our toolkit would help us keep up with current encounter design. We used to have this potential in the past to some degree. I'd lean more towards giving it to Arcane.

[Baracleez]

TV sims 0.2% behind GS for me (Patchwork). Given the amount of movement in most encounters, if there's no cleave then TV actually pulls ahead.

That's been my experience - I know GS sims ahead, but I play TV with no pet and it's very rare that I get out-dps'd by mages running GS. Most of the time I'm way ahead, and that's before you consider how much lower i am in ilvl than a lot of them. Typically in the first 30 sec of the fight i'm getting beat, and pull away after that. It's also competitive with other specs, whereas when i was playing GS I just couldn't make it work well enough to even be respectable. My personal theory is that even though it sims higher it's just nearly impossible for a human to play it perfectly enough with all the cast interruptions (especially considering how many longer casts you have) to get the dps difference out of the spec. Maybe I just suck at GS, dunno, but I gave up on it a long time ago after trying forever to make it work, and I'm much happier with my DPS now.

[erifwodahs]

FYI I'm not the poster you quoted, however...
TV sims 0.2% behind GS for me (Patchwork). Given the amount of movement in most encounters, if there's no cleave then TV actually pulls ahead.

The reason I find TV more enjoyable is I actually get less proc munching and find myself reacting to BF procs more often which breaks up the FB spam. With GS/EB, it's always the case of "Oh I have 3 icicles, better hold this BF" or "Ok, I have 5 icicles, no BF and EB is on CD".

With TV, I actually use my BF procs when I get them rather than holding onto them. This results in no wasted BF procs and casting more Flurries throughout an encounter. No pet makes no difference to me as I can't Freeze+GS spike bosses.

Where I do enjoy GS however, is constant cleave encounters like Jadefire Masters. When there's consistently a target to cleave onto, EB + SI + GS is actually a lot of fun because you don't need to shatter your GS casts and thus aren't holding onto 5 icicles waiting for a BF proc.

It's all personal opinions of course, but I find GS in non cleave encounters to be incredibly clunky.

I guess that is a good way to look at that. Tho I never got my TV to sim higher than GS, maybe because I have perfect gear sets for both. I like GS because it's a fucking beast, getting 280k hits every now and then is woah. I do agree that having to munch BF procs feels really bad, especially when spec is RNG and blizz should address it, but however I feel way better when there are no procs with GS build, you do 5 casts for get 5 shards, and if there are no procs, releasing one does a bit of damage

[Kelathos]

You play frost in PvE ? how ? most of frost damage comes from freeze effects that doesn't work on bosses, did I miss something ?

That is not how Frost Mage works at all.

To put it simply, we spam Frost Bolt while fishing for procs. When they pop up we hit the BIG HURT buttons, flurry and ice lance. If we can freeze targets, that's just a little extra gravy.

[klaps_05]

Glacial Spike damage buffed via icicles. Orb build will be great with IV essence. Given the one of the best survivability talents in the game (Temporal shield).

Yea, things sure look grim for Frost.

[gallamann]

Glacial Spike damage buffed via icicles. Orb build will be great with IV essence. Given the one of the best survivability talents in the game (Temporal shield).

Yea, things sure look grim for Frost.

What is this IV essence? The PvP one that was changed to just a shield?

[MrExcelion]

Glacial Spike damage buffed via icicles. Orb build will be great with IV essence. Given the one of the best survivability talents in the game (Temporal shield)

You only get one Major Essence. The Temporal Shield one won't be taken because it's too significant of a DPS loss.

What is this IV essence? The PvP one that was changed to just a shield?

Vision of Perfection

[nickseng]

What is this IV essence? The PvP one that was changed to just a shield?

It's basically the one with a chance to proc IV with 25% of it's duration. It is affected by TV, i.e it's duration is increased due to the 10s increase from the talent, and IL will extend the duration.

[Sageless]

Glacial Spike damage buffed via icicles. Orb build will be great with IV essence. Given the one of the best survivability talents in the game (Temporal shield).

Yea, things sure look grim for Frost.

So to recap:

- Glacial Spike damaged nerfed to compensate for an undocumented damage buff to icicles.
- Vision of Perfection essence: Icy Veins is one of the worst cooldowns in the game and frost is a not a burst, but sustained spec. So assuming the proc rates are the same as well as the effects, we should hope this isn't our best essence as that would mean we will lag behind everyone else even more.
- Temporal shield: Using a survivability talent, you did read this topic right? The discussion is about PVE (raiding) mages, and not PVP.

Of course, we won't know anything until after 8.2 goes live, but I have no confidence in the performance of Frost.
Luckily my warlock will be raid ready by 8.2, although likely raid spots for mages will be easier to get.

[nickseng]

So to recap:

- Glacial Spike damaged nerfed to compensate for an undocumented damage buff to icicles.

Just wanted to reiterate that this is actually a buff to GS.
The noIL build (frost highest ST build) is actually competitive with Arcane now (it is currently behind it)

[Samuraijake]

The noIL build (frost highest ST build) is actually competitive with Arcane now (it is currently behind it)

now you have 2 different specs to be shit in.

[Skylarking]

Imagine having a spec where you completely ignore some spells to do max dps good job blizz