New Frost Mastery: Icicles!

[Shullski]

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

[Chickat]

It will probably be just another proc but im excited.

[WarpKnight]

I imagine with the wording its gonna be like a frosty version of Shadow Crash.. wonder if that means it will splash..

Time will tell. In the meantime my frost mage buddy is mourning the old mastery because it means he won't be able to nuke the sweet everloving shit out of challenge mode trash.

[Viradiance]

Who knows how much damage the Icicles will do.

Mastery: Icicles Mage - Frost Spec
When you damage enemies with Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, and your Water Elemental's Waterbolt, 12% of the damage done is stored as an Icicle with you, for 15 sec.

Up to 5 Icicles can be stored at once. Casting Ice Lance causes any Icicles to begin launching at the target.

I'm no mathematician, but sounds like 12% of the damage done by Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Waterbolt.

[shamantime]

Casting Ice Lance causes any Icicles to begin launching at the target.
It says they will begin to launch, sounds like they will be shot over time? It'd be cool, maybe like a non-channeled frost version of Arcane Missles.

[Lucetia]

I'm no mathematician, but sounds like 12% of the damage done by Frostbolt, Frostfire Bolt, Waterbolt.

That's what it sounds like, where the 12% is modified by mastery so you could go higher.

[Buxton McGraff]

Seems to me like a nerf in PVP to outright burst because they'll only get the maximum efficiency out of their new mastery by holding off on ice lance.
They'll get their most damage by having to stand still and actually cast more frostbolts, instead of staying completely mobile and spamming ice lance.

[Zatetic]

Lhiv has done quite a lot of explaining on the mastery

http://lhiveras-library.com/content/...g-live-icicles

to summarize
-if you have a 5 stack and cast a frostbolt, the first stack will automatically fire into target and the frostbolt will replace it. (so no need to use non FoF ice lances to clear stacks every 5).
-it has the travel time of an ice lance (so it'll probably break novas)
-it takes into consideration resil
-stacks are not dispellable
-alter time will restore stack #
-the icicle speed etc is effected by haste levels
-each icicle will store 1% of an average frostbolt hit per point of mastery (eg 20 points of mastery, 20%)
-they double-dip on hit and resil (ie the frostbolt is effected by hit chance, and then the icicle is when it fires; same with resil)


all credit to lhiv

[HiroStatik]

Storing 5 and releasing them with Ice Lance? Sweet deal, just turned Ice lance into something like and arcane barrage!

[Lulbalance]

interesting that it double dips on resil.

something about the way this reads makes me feel like it's going to be a pretty hard nerf for pvp..

can't wait to test it

[Polarthief]

We didn't really need another thread but... *shrug*

Talked to Lhiv. He's got insider info so what's on his site is legitimate (according to him), and while it sounds cool, it's basically just +1.5% damage per point of Mastery (12% base) on Wellybolt, Frostbolt, and Brain Freeze; nothing more, except looking awesome and firing damage slightly faster when you use a FoF'd Ice Lance. You are NOT intended to use non-FoF'd IL unless you really NEED to fire off your Icicles.

[SilvaAger]

Maybe this means not every deep freeze will be a guaranteed kill zone!

[Polarthief]

Maybe this means not every deep freeze will be a guaranteed kill zone!

It already hasn't been if you've been paying attention to Mage changes.

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Oh good, Lhiv posted it all. Spares me trying to explain it. It's essentially a DD ignite that you can bank and launch at a target, such as orbs on Ra-den.

As it stands, it's roughly equal with frostburn in PVE. Mastery's worth might go up slightly, but nothing should shake up too badly.

[Polarthief]

Oh good, Lhiv posted it all. Spares me trying to explain it. It's essentially a DD ignite that you can bank and launch at a target, such as orbs on Ra-den.

As it stands, it's roughly equal with frostburn in PVE. Mastery's worth might go up slightly, but nothing should shake up too badly.

Supposedly, they auto-launch if you overstock (e.g., 6th charge = 1st one auto-fires). It's a PURE 12% Ignite that scales with Mastery.

Replace "PvE" with "unfreezable targets/Raiding", and yeah, it's roughly the same. Significant nerf to PvP, Dungeons, Soloing/Farming (again, freezable targets), and CMs (possibly making us one of THOSE classes in CMs now that our biggest utility for them has been... shattered)

[Magemaer]

This is actually HUGE buff...against Viscidus :P

[Polarthief]

This is actually HUGE buff...against Viscidus :P

ICWUTUDIDTHAR.

Depends how much they tweak it. They could easily buff the base to make us want to go for it over Haste.

[Magemaer]

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

[Kuni Zyrekai]

Supposedly, they auto-launch if you overstock (e.g., 6th charge = 1st one auto-fires). It's a PURE 12% Ignite that scales with Mastery.

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

Replace "PvE" with "unfreezable targets/Raiding", and yeah, it's roughly the same. Significant nerf to PvP, Dungeons, Soloing/Farming (again, freezable targets), and CMs (possibly making us one of THOSE classes in CMs now that our biggest utility for them has been... shattered)

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.

[Tickspoon]

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.