Is it possible to play frost without breath?

[SkagenRora]

(Question is not aimed at raiding or M+ specificlly, Just which one is better overall across content)

Hey.

I never was good at keeping Power up to get a lot of time on Breath, So i always stuck to unholy as that seemed easier.

I'm just wondering if it even is possible to play Frost without breath.. or if Breath is the entire build.

[Sinzaram]

Icecap was seeing some possibilities for extended Single Target boss fights this tier, e.g. Maut, Ra-Den and Shad'har.

But it is very dependant on attacking constantly for the Pillar of Frost reduction, and overlapping that Pillar of Frost with the previous Pillar's Icy Citadel, so you'd have crazy STR from Pillar and Icy Citadel at the same time.

But it was also dependant on the strong Corruption effects scaling up from that crazy STR Pillar and Icy Citadel overlap and oops, they just removed all attack power scaling from Corruption effects:
Patch 8.3 Hotfixes - January 23, 2020, Scaling Changes for Corruption Effects

Damage dealt by Infinite Stars, Twisted Appendages, and Gushing Wound (Corrupted Effects) is now based on the item level of a Corrupted item, rather than scaling dynamically with Attack Power and Spell Power.
Developers’ note: Previously the damage dealt by these powers was modified by Attack Power and Spell Power, which meant that certain specialization abilities or random bonuses could cause drastic swings in their effectiveness. Infinite Stars in particular was too strong against single targets as a result of this and other factors. This change also adjusts Infinite Stars base damage accordingly, as the scaling method was one of the primary factors behind some of the extreme outliers we saw in our logs and from player feedback. Our goal with this change and other adjustments to Corruption powers is to improve parity in the effectiveness per point of Corruption of the different bonuses available on Visions of N’Zoth items.

So TL;DR:
No Icecap isn't better than Breath.

Closer than its ever been, but you give up a crazy amount of aoe burst, and have to be tied to a boss for a long time to make the Pillar and Citadel overlap work.

[SkagenRora]

Icecap was seeing some possibilities for extended Single Target boss fights this tier, e.g. Maut, Ra-Den and Shad'har.

But it is very dependant on attacking constantly for the Pillar of Frost reduction, and overlapping that Pillar of Frost with the previous Pillar's Icy Citadel, so you'd have crazy STR from Pillar and Icy Citadel at the same time.

But it was also dependant on the strong Corruption effects scaling up from that crazy STR Pillar and Icy Citadel overlap and oops, they just removed all attack power scaling from Corruption effects:
Patch 8.3 Hotfixes - January 23, 2020, Scaling Changes for Corruption Effects

Damage dealt by Infinite Stars, Twisted Appendages, and Gushing Wound (Corrupted Effects) is now based on the item level of a Corrupted item, rather than scaling dynamically with Attack Power and Spell Power.
Developers’ note: Previously the damage dealt by these powers was modified by Attack Power and Spell Power, which meant that certain specialization abilities or random bonuses could cause drastic swings in their effectiveness. Infinite Stars in particular was too strong against single targets as a result of this and other factors. This change also adjusts Infinite Stars base damage accordingly, as the scaling method was one of the primary factors behind some of the extreme outliers we saw in our logs and from player feedback. Our goal with this change and other adjustments to Corruption powers is to improve parity in the effectiveness per point of Corruption of the different bonuses available on Visions of N’Zoth items.

So TL;DR:
No Icecap isn't better than Breath.

Closer than its ever been, but you give up a crazy amount of aoe burst, and have to be tied to a boss for a long time to make the Pillar and Citadel overlap work.

If i'm not good enough to use Breath properly then it won't be a crazy amount.

[Lolites]

(Question is not aimed at raiding or M+ specificlly, Just which one is better overall across content)

Hey.

I never was good at keeping Power up to get a lot of time on Breath, So i always stuck to unholy as that seemed easier.

I'm just wondering if it even is possible to play Frost without breath.. or if Breath is the entire build.

for m+ i play icecap build, but for raid breath is still better

[shade3891]

I'm running Ice Cap for M+ and raiding (normal & Heroic). BoS is not for me and doing fine on the damage charts.

[Winoralu]

I never went breath, always played ice cap. I hate the breath playstyle and would rather switch to unholy instead.. But i've been doing good enough in raids and m+, so don't worry to much about it. Play what you like, don't force yourself tbh

[Daedius]

Think I'd pass out trying...

[lessmask]

Breath is a good deal better if played properly (and adimittedly, once you get used to it it's no big deal) - if you don't care about min/maxing, you don't have to play it though

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Thanks for the post and nice to see this here.