Mages... (and Ice Block)

[kilj]

Does iceblock exist for pve? I swear its like 1/50 mages iceblock in PVE to not die.

[Frost1129]

No, we have healers for a reason.

[MrExcelion]

It's a 5 minute cooldown untalented so you'll see maybe one a fight. On farm I just immediately IB after Cauterize most of the time, and even then it's an instaneous thing to cancel it so you won't notice the animation most likely. Don't have to sit in it. In WoD, Ice Block won't exist if you take Evanesce, an ability with a short enough cd that will be used more proactively than you would see IB.

[Wilderness]

Of course it does. But you're not expecting the mage to Iceblock at 4% health when he can wait for Cauterize to proc and then hit it are you?

[Snes]

It's good for clearing off stacking DoT debuffs and that kind of thing, or if you're being chased by a one-shot mechanic like a shadow loa. It has plenty of uses.

[Imnick]

I love ice block

[Deleted]

Great to use to survive long enough to invis on a wipe~

[LocNess]

Great to use to survive long enough to invis on a wipe~

That is my main use. Or as a 100% "Oh Sh*t" button that will guarantee life better than G invis. Was helpful on Protectors heroic as well.

[Hasted]

The only scenario Mages should need to Ice Block is to prevent themselves from dieing to a mistake (something like getting hit by a Garrosh smash). If we have to waste Ice Block to save ourselves from natural damage that's a failure on the healers' part.

Ice Block both prevents us from casting and uses up a GCD, so generally speaking it's a DPS loss. You can make the argument that dead DPS does no DPS but using Ice Block to save yourself only compensates for someone else's mistake.

[Shangalar]

I used Ice Block during Siegecrafter progress last Thursday because I saw a mosquito and had to kill it while it was on the wall near me.

[Deleted]

Shangalar on vent : BRB guys.
Raid leader : we're on fucking seige crafter heri.......oh he ice blocked...
Shangalar : back guys
Raid leader : welcome back...

[Shangalar]

I decided it was better not to communicate it until after the attempt was over

But to be completely fair, Ice Block has a lot of uses. On Protectors heroic, I use it if I get that yellow circle around me so I don't have to stack with the group and continue multidotting and dps as usual (I have no idea what the yellow circle does rofl, during Rook's 'more insane' phase). On Norushen to stay in the beam without moving on the stack position if Greater Invisibility is on cooldown. On Sha to defend against one of the more dangerous Swelling Prides. On Juggernaut to prevent damage from the second Shock Blast in the second Siege phase. On Nazgrim to defend from an Assassin if we have higher priority adds up. On Malkorok tu survive one of the purple crap things so I can continue dps without moving a lot and stay in my spot. On Spoils if Urns and statue adds and boss aoe suddenly become slightly high and there's crap all around me, just to give the healers time to get a cooldown up.

And as I said above, on Siegecrafter to kill mosquitos in real life

[Tahnaa]

I use Ice Block a lot. I tend to have very low trust for healers (I had to bandage myself on H Jin'Rokh due to bad healing...and at times healers that could not live through lightning storm). I used to not use Ice Block when I first started raiding on my mage, but then I didn't have a clue back then. (Ok, so some days, I still don't!).

I use it for H Imm if it's a bad swirl depending on if GI is on CD and I don't feel like moving. I can get back to AE spam on the adds quickly.

It's great on H Protectors if GI is on CD and you aren't getting a dispel. Although I try to save it for emergency "Tahnaa take the MARK" situations. (IF we have dead warlocks...ARGH)

I agree with Shang - it's really good for H Iron Juggypants, H Nazgrim and H Malkrok (he can die in a fire). My guild seems to have healing issues on H Malkrok so I find myself having to GI in puddles or Ice Block due to not having a full shield...

I guess I've been scarred badly from bad healers in the past, though my guild is not the greatest and some of our healers are probably somewhat sucky =D I'm also a klutz at times, so I just try to correct a mistake before it kills me and/or wipes raid. But, I have this theory that most healers just hate mages...I had one in guild tell me to use slow fall on H Malk...after being one shot by Seismic Slam...she did not understand that I didn't die to fall damage and you can't avoid Seismic Slam...can't really slow fall if you are dead either. =D

[ablib]

It's definitely nice to skirt mechanics of a fight. Between Ice Block and Cauterize/Invis, we can pretty much ignore two mechanics that would otherwise kill another class.

Mages that don't use these in PvE are bad.

[kilj]

The only scenario Mages should need to Ice Block is to prevent themselves from dieing to a mistake (something like getting hit by a Garrosh smash). If we have to waste Ice Block to save ourselves from natural damage that's a failure on the healers' part.

Ice Block both prevents us from casting and uses up a GCD, so generally speaking it's a DPS loss. You can make the argument that dead DPS does no DPS but using Ice Block to save yourself only compensates for someone else's mistake.

So what your implying that as a rogue... I should not use feint on H thok, because its a GCD where I could be doing more dps, than taking less damage and helping out healers.

[Kenbud]

So what your implying that as a rogue... I should not use feint on H thok, because its a GCD where I could be doing more dps, than taking less damage and helping out healers.

Totally ignoring the fact you made this as a troll post essentially tell us we are bad as a class based solely on your experiences with a very tiny percentage, no that is not what he is saying. Block is a 5min CD, Fient has none so they are hardly comparable.Block is for "oh shit" moments and for cheesing mechanics. Some people think the will be on and don't need to block, some just have poor reaction time and some just don't realize they are standing in bad shit but I strongly suspect your well reaserched and not exaggerated at all number of "1/50" is 100% bullshit.

[Deleted]

I've used Ice Block on multiple occasions in Siege. As others mention, it's a wonderful "OH SHIT" button, f.ex. on Malkorok I can at least once ignore triple-smash. Block, cancel, nuke. Or on Paragons if I get Mesmerized, IB actually stops the pull on me and keeps me from being pulled over Amber. Even if I get pulled over Amber, I can blink out of it as soon as the Mesmerize is over, without taking tons of damage. I've also used in early progression on Protectors, to "tank" He Softfoots add that fixates. I'd take the add last and use Temporal Shield for the first bit of it, or get a Sacrifice from our paladin, then IB the rest of it. On HC Immersius, I use it to reset my stacks from attacking the boss. We outrange Iron Juggernaut, so I sometimes use IB to negate the push-backs, or if a tank has trouble reacing a bomb during the fight, I pop IB and take it, no problemo. For Shamans I use Greater Invis and Ice Block for the Iron Prisons, and Temporal Shield for the Fallen Ash. If everything is on CD, I call for Sacrifice from the pala. On Spoils, I use it to ignore the bombs put on me on the Klaxxi side, and just IB or GI when they blow up, cancel and go back to nuking. On Siegecrafter it's just handy for crappy moments, like getting hit by another person's sawblade passing by, or being pulled off the belt and into a sea of fire...

It's also good to have in case there is incoming raid wide dmg and my health is low, to enable the healers to not worry so much about me and heal me up at their own pace. I don't really care if it's a bit of wasted dps, as long as I don't die and the raid wipes due to losing a CR on me, or not having dps enough in the end. An example could be Thok, where IB allows me to completely ignore a whole bunch of disrupting shouts and the damage they do. Or on Paragons, with Lucid doing the fire chains, if the healers don't have a raid CD up.

[foxHeart]

Super rare to see mages Iceblock in the lfd/lfr crowd. Depressingly so. I can't count the number of mages I've watched backpedal away from things that are crushing them and just never activate it. It's either people not having it bound or just not thinking about using it. It's a really nice thing to have, though, especially if you've got a /cancelaura line in your macro and don't need the full duration or if your healers are staring at pretty floor designs.

[Hasted]

So what your implying that as a rogue... I should not use feint on H thok, because its a GCD where I could be doing more dps, than taking less damage and helping out healers.

The point I was making is that it should never be NECESSARY to use a 5min CD to prevent yourself from dieing to standard raid damage. The issue with Ice Block is that it both has a long cooldown as well as prevents us from doing our jobs. Taking your Thok example it would be better for the mage if the phase were to end earlier rather than Ice Block; because while we are in the block we aren't contributing to the raid.

With the cooldown being 5 minutes long that presents a number of issues for us in many scenarios. Generally speaking the mechanics in most fights repeat a number of times during the fight; more often than not they repeat more frequently than 5mins. We could easily use Ice Block to survive the first one, but what happens on the second or third?

As a number of other players have stated it can be used to entirely avoid some mechanics to increase our uptimes on the boss. While this is true, its also true that at least a few of the mechanics can be avoided with the use of Blink, which has a considerably shorter cooldown.

This is less of an issue with abilities like Feint that are essentially active mitigation with little repercussions. As a Rogue specifically you are losing half the DPS a mage would be for the fact that not only can you DPS while Feint is up but also swing on the GCD your Feint takes to cast.

To clarify further at no point did I say that we should do nothing at all to try to help out the healers. We have other more appropriate tools for this such as Greater Invisibility and Temporal Shield. Greater Invis has a much shorter cooldown and generally accomplished the same thing as Ice Block (and in a number of cases it's actually more effective). Temporal Shield is also a very effective tool for damage mitigation. Not only does it recude the damage taken, but it also returns the health over 6 seconds. Additionally we have Ice Barrier for more mitigation, however this is typically a weaker choice than Temporal Shield so it's not used as widely.

[Kenbud]

Temp shield is not weaker then IB. IB takes a global therefore a dps loss and dps classes hate dps losses even if it mean sacrificing better mitigation. TS and IB are only superior to each other in certain scenarios.