Frost mags nerf on PTR

[Marrilaife]

But as I understand it, they are nerfing both Comet Storm and Frozen Orb by 35% of spell power (Whatever that equals to). ..As well as a flat 2% damage nerf to those along with everything else? Am I missing something here?

It's a 2% damage buff not nerf. From minus 24 aura to minus 22.

Same was done with WW monks, nerf to fists of fury and 2% buff overall, but apparently they're planning to revert that.

[Ophenia]

But as I understand it, they are nerfing both Comet Storm and Frozen Orb by 35% of spell power (Whatever that equals to). ..As well as a flat 2% damage nerf to those along with everything else? Am I missing something here?

The 2% change is a buff, in fact.

Frost Mages currently have a "Damage modifier aura" (for balances purposes) which currently decrease all damage by 24%. This Aura will decrease all damage by 22% in 8.1. That's a 2.6ish% overall buff on all Frost Mage damaging spells.

[Difuid]

The thing I don't get is the nerf to the damage. Slows? Yeah, sure. Fine, whatever. Not super happy about it but I can see some reasoning behind it.

But as I understand it, they are nerfing both Comet Storm and Frozen Orb by 35% of spell power (Whatever that equals to). ..As well as a flat 2% damage nerf to those along with everything else? Am I missing something here?

That 2% is a buff since they decreased the penalty. But yeah, reducing the slows would have been enough.

[Deleted]

Oh, derp. I read it as "Increases" rather than "Decreases" that makes a lot more sense now that I went back and looked at it.
And if I am to be completely biased, I feel like they could have "buffed" that a bit more. Not a massive amount. Maybe just another percentage or two. Just to bring the spec up just a little bit in raid fights.

[Deleted]

I'd say it is high time for mage healing spells! If we are going to fuck over a class then we might as well do it properly.

[Deleted]

I'd say it is high time for mage healing spells! If we are going to fuck over a class then we might as well do it properly.

I mean, it was a thing at one point. Might not have been intended but it was a thing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cniuwSuwKGk

[TheViper]

The 2% change is a buff, in fact.

Frost Mages currently have a "Damage modifier aura" (for balances purposes) which currently decrease all damage by 24%. This Aura will decrease all damage by 22% in 8.1. That's a 2.6ish% overall buff on all Frost Mage damaging spells.

It is a buff, but that 2% is not going to cover the 10% orb and 12% CS nerfs on most fights. The ST frostbolt damage will marginally improve but 2% more of a wet noodle is still a wet noodle. GS and IL 2% is ok, but really its not going to be enough. Its defiantly a overall nerf.

Needed to be 4% really. That's just to make it even overall on average. All this for a spec where the damage is midpack at best and on the bottom at worst.

[Deleted]

the thing is, most of the bosses are not single target anymore, otherwise the 2% buff would be enough to offset the nerfs.
i just checked some taloc logs and orb+comet do around 13%-17% damage. if they nerf it by 10%, that means we lose 1,3%-1,7%.
so the 2% aura buff should be enough for single target.

even other bosses with some aoe dont look to bad tbh.
i went to check zekvoz. they do around 35%-40% damage with orb+comet. that means with 10% damage nerf you will do 4% less damage. but you still get the 2% aura buff, so overall on aoe bosses like zekvoz you shouldnt lose to much dps. maybe like 2-3%.

obv it becomes worse on stuff like zul, but tbh, frost is insane in aoe and i dont mind losing like 5%.

so i even checked rank 1 zul log and he does 53% orb damage (and has no comet). that means he loses 5.3% but gets the 2% aura. so even with zul its not that big of a nerf, just a bit of a burst nerf.

[HCLM]

Conversely, the bottom DPS in raids - Frost Mage

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...gregate=amount

Again, I really have to wonder if Blizz designers play this game outside of their own narrow groups. While they are busy addressing the burst of a Frost Mage in M+ and the supposed advantage in PvP (is that why you see tons of warriors, pallies, DH, and rogues in PvP and not all that many mages?), they are going to completely bust the spec in raids.

Did you just link heroic as something that should prove if a spec is good or not? Give me a break...

/Edit
Here you go:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...gregate=amount

Frost is currently one of top specs in Uldir, and it is 4th most popular spec at the moment. Learn to read warcraft logs before you talk.

[TheViper]

Did you just link heroic as something that should prove if a spec is good or not? Give me a break...

/Edit
Here you go:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...gregate=amount

Frost is currently one of top specs in Uldir, and it is 4th most popular spec at the moment. Learn to read warcraft logs before you talk.

lol what? You might need to learn to read them. Using 90th Percentile is stupid, for the best and fairest representation you use 50th percentile.....

Which makes FM not even in the top 10.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...gregate=amount

As for heroic, of course it matters because its the highest % of the raiding population. It's not about proving spec, its about what damage x class is doing from y playerbase with a large sample size.

Fm is not in the top 5 in mythic, except for ONE fight.

Its on the bottom in heroic

For mythic even in your silly 90th percentile, its still 8th - not "one of the top" - and that 8th overall is being propped up by ONE good boss in ZUL where its 3rd. If you are going to call someone out for log reading, at least know what you are talking about.

90th Percentile FM(which for some reason you think is the way to measure)
Taloc - 21st
Mother - 18th
Fetid - 25th (last)
Zek - 11th (Should be a IDEAL fight)
Vectis - 14th (With 2 target cleave, again IDEAL)
ZUL - 3rd
Mythrax - 16th
Ghuun - 7th

Nerfing the damage component is just stupid.

Frost is only "popular" because it was the only viable spec to play on launch, that's really it.

[Deleted]

what you say is mostly right TheViper, but i disagree that 50th is the best choice.

i prefer to look for 90-95 myself, since that is what i expect of myself, but when looking for general representation i look at 75.

if you take 50 you give to much weight to failed runs, undergeared people, people who have no clue how they are playing (and therefore should not be considered in balance and similiar stuff).

but in the end, it doesnt really matter as long as the person interpreting the logs understands the context.

[TheViper]

what you say is mostly right TheViper, but i disagree that 50th is the best choice.

I mean that's fine not everyone will see it that way, which is why I used 90 for the numbers breakdown.

Saw you edited your post. I think 75 is fair as well. It doesn't change my analysis though, the numbers all play out similar.

[HCLM]

lol what? You might need to learn to read them. Using 90th Percentile is stupid, for the best and fairest representation you use 50th percentile.....

Which makes FM not even in the top 10.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...gregate=amount

As for heroic, of course it matters because its the highest % of the raiding population. It's not about proving spec, its about what damage x class is doing from y playerbase with a large sample size.

Fm is not in the top 5 in mythic, except for ONE fight.

Its on the bottom in heroic

For mythic even in your silly 90th percentile, its still 8th - not "one of the top" - and that 8th overall is being propped up by ONE good boss in ZUL where its 3rd. If you are going to call someone out for log reading, at least know what you are talking about.

90th Percentile FM(which for some reason you think is the way to measure)
Taloc - 21st
Mother - 18th
Fetid - 25th (last)
Zek - 11th (Should be a IDEAL fight)
Vectis - 14th (With 2 target cleave, again IDEAL)
ZUL - 3rd
Mythrax - 16th
Ghuun - 7th

Nerfing the damage component is just stupid.

Frost is only "popular" because it was the only viable spec to play on launch, that's really it.

Ignorance if overflowing from you. "for the best and fairest representation you use 50th percentile....." sorry but, what? To score 50parse, you have to be afk, or can't play your class. How it is supposed to represent anything? Most of the time you're choosing 75 parses to see the overal performance, or 90 parses to see how your spec is doing on farm.

Secondly, you are taking underrepresented specs like Destro or Unholy DK into account. If you have to ask why you shouldn't do that then go read more about statistics, and how they are made.

Thirdly, you sound like a guy who didn't touch Uldir Mythic this expansion. Frost is great for any boss where you can use its cleave or aoe. So it is BiS (along with fire), on Mother, Vectis, Zek'voz, Mythrax, and Ghuun. It is just not so good for Taloc (Who cares about this boss though), Fetid (due to not so great burst), and Zul (same as fetid, but people still takes it for aoe slow).

To sum up, aoe nerfs for frost were necessary, the same goes for its sick perm aoe slow. But even after these nerfs Frost will be viable on any mythic raids, just because of double Ice Block.

[TheViper]

Ignorance if overflowing from you. "for the best and fairest representation you use 50th percentile....." sorry but, what? To score 50parse, you have to be afk, or can't play your class. How it is supposed to represent anything? Most of the time you're choosing 75 parses to see the overal performance, or 90 parses to see how your spec is doing on farm.

Secondly, you are taking underrepresented specs like Destro or Unholy DK into account. If you have to ask why you shouldn't do that then go read more about statistics, and how they are made.

Thirdly, you sound like a guy who didn't touch Uldir Mythic this expansion. Frost is great for any boss where you can use its cleave or aoe. So it is BiS (along with fire), on Mother, Vectis, Zek'voz, Mythrax, and Ghuun. It is just not so good for Taloc (Who cares about this boss though), Fetid (due to not so great burst), and Zul (same as fetid, but people still takes it for aoe slow).

To sum up, aoe nerfs for frost were necessary, the same goes for its sick perm aoe slow. But even after these nerfs Frost will be viable on any mythic raids, just because of double Ice Block.

Here is the wiki link to how percentiles work : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentile . You would do well to read it.

Actually I'm 4/8m, which granted is not the high end, but more than enough to know what I'm talking about - My main is Crisalla - DathRemar. Ill bet you don't post your main.

If its Naustis - Then its YOU that hasn't seen mythic - not with a mage anyway.

So I would know what is and isn't good, I can also read logs, which says you are wrong.

As I have ALREADY shown, there is only a single fight where FM is in the top 5, and only 2 in the top 10. As for your under repped theory, its a nice idea but in this case the numbers don't play out not overall anyway. There is really only a handful of specs where it can be skewed, which doesn't change the overall outcome. Ghuun is really the only boss where the data is not enough to be conclusive.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...gregate=amount

Because Math. As the number of trials (parses) increases as does our confidence level in the results. now if the number was say less than 100 parses, well that's a 60% confidence level, not quite enough.

How about 1000 trials? That's 95% confidence that if everything was repeated the results would stay the same, more than enough for these calculations. For 99% You only need 5000 trials.

The lowest parse count for full mythic runs is Marks hunter is 3596, which if we do some that Math you don't like, means a confidence level of 98.2%.

So to sum up, you have no idea what you are talking about, don't know how percentiles work, don't know what a mage is and isn't good at (zul literally being the best boss and mid pack at absolute best on the others) and the best part is, that's all been proven with maths.

Double ice block is handy though, going to miss that switching to fire

[HCLM]

So following your logic Survival hunter was the best spec in Legion because there were 5 guys who were doing a decent dps all the time, thus their average dps was rank 1 The lower spec population the easier it is to score high % parses. If you have 10 guys who does 99 parse each week (because they beat eachother everytime), and meanwhile doing decent amount of dps, even the worst spec in tier can be at the top top of logs. That is why you never look at underrepresented specs.

Also it seems that Arcane is currently the worst spec in the game because it is last on logs? Where in practice it is one of the strongest specs for porgress in the game throughout all Uldir.

Each mage spec is really strong right now, and each has its niches. Frost was nerfed so all mage specs can be used in m+ without hindering yourself.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/charact...g-legion/hclm# my account btw.


PS. As an example what underrepresentation does to logs:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...=16&dataset=90

Following further your logic, according to this, Ele shaman is 3nd THE BEST spec in the game if you have high iLvL and class knowledge.

[TheViper]

So following your logic Survival hunter was the best spec in Legion because there were 5 guys who were doing a decent dps all the time, thus their average dps was rank 1 The lower spec population the easier it is to score high % parses. If you have 10 guys who does 99 parse each week (because they beat eachother everytime), and meanwhile doing decent amount of dps, even the worst spec in tier can be at the top top of logs. That is why you never look at underrepresented specs.

Also it seems that Arcane is currently the worst spec in the game because it is last on logs? Where in practice it is one of the strongest specs for porgress in the game throughout all Uldir.

Each mage spec is really strong right now, and each has its niches. Frost was nerfed so all mage specs can be used in m+ without hindering yourself.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/charact...g-legion/hclm# my account btw.


PS. As an example what underrepresentation does to logs:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...=16&dataset=90

Following further your logic, according to this, Ele shaman is 3nd THE BEST spec in the game if you have high iLvL and class knowledge.

Arcane is a special case though, much like the plates on deathwing, damage outside of the burst phases are irrelevant so overall dmg is low, but critical for things like fetid's adds.

You can't beat the math, that's how it works, if x parses means x% of confidence, that is what it is, no matter what your personal thoughts on the matter.

Mplus is not the point here, we finally got rid of pvp messing with raiding, now it seems it back for "Mplus" balance. Fact is, FM didn't need a nerf in anyway for rading, in fact it needed a buff in ST damage if anything. But because of Mplus - that is why they are messing with it and that is why I am annoyed. The performance in raids has 0% to do with these changes.

In your extremely specific example, that's 79 parses or a 45% confidence level, which isn't enough to draw a reliable conclusion. My logic is completely sound and backed by reality. It is what it is.

[HCLM]

What the hell is that confidence level you're talking about. You just took some random numbers to justify your point. If you have 1000 parses it DOES NOT mean you have enough data to see how the character works in AVERAGE on each boss, and it DOES NOT mean the numbers are true 95% of the time (lol).

Take Unholy DK for example. If you have 6k parses total for Unholy DK, and you take 90th percentile bracked. You only take in the account dps of 600 players (or 10% players playing a class per boss, so for Ghuun it would be 1 player who did 21k dps). Where for Frost mage who has around 58k parses, it is 5800 parses for 90th percentile. Warcraft logs take into account the AVERAGE dps. That is why Frost mage max and average numbers are closer, thus the Average dps is lower because the higher dps parses does not influence the number as much as for Unholy DKs. THAT is how logs are working. There is no such thing as 'condifence level', you just pulled from nowhere.

Look at this:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...unt&dataset=90

Unholy DK MAX dps is 23k. Wheres Frost mage max dps is 27k. But the Unholy average DPS is higher becasue of lower amount of parses. Are you still trying to prove that the according to longs, and your bla bla confidence level, Unholy DK is better spec than Frost mage? Same goes for Destro locks etc.

On top of that, some classes are so underrepresnted on some bosses, that it has INSANE impact on the general ranking. Take a Ghuun as an example.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...ount&boss=2122

You have only 5 parses from Unholy DKs, with max dps of 21k and average of 20k. Even this causes the Unholy to be much higher on logs that it should be.

So if you take away underrepresented specs, and take into account the role of Frost mage, you can savely say it is one of top 5-6 specs in current Tier.

To sum it up, you don't know how to read parses on Logs, and you shouldn't use 'percentile' math (lol), to measure if the power of a class on the logs. Logs uses the AVERAGE data, not PERCENTILE. Percentile are only used to see how average of top X players playing a certain class are doing. But it is still only working for a classes which high representation numbers in the tier.

[TheViper]

What the hell is that confidence level you're talking about. You just took some random numbers to justify your point. If you have 1000 parses it DOES NOT mean you have enough data to see how the character works in AVERAGE on each boss, and it DOES NOT mean the numbers are true 95% of the time (lol).

Take Unholy DK for example. If you have 6k parses total for Unholy DK, and you take 90th percentile bracked. You only take in the account dps of 600 players (or 10% players playing a class per boss, so for Ghuun it would be 1 player who did 21k dps). Where for Frost mage who has around 58k parses, it is 5800 parses for 90th percentile. Warcraft logs take into account the AVERAGE dps. That is why Frost mage max and average numbers are closer, thus the Average dps is lower because the higher dps parses does not influence the number as much as for Unholy DKs. THAT is how logs are working. There is no such thing as 'condifence level', you just pulled from nowhere.

Look at this:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...unt&dataset=90

Unholy DK MAX dps is 23k. Wheres Frost mage max dps is 27k. But the Unholy average DPS is higher becasue of lower amount of parses. Are you still trying to prove that the according to longs, and your bla bla confidence level, Unholy DK is better spec than Frost mage? Same goes for Destro locks etc.

On top of that, some classes are so underrepresnted on some bosses, that it has INSANE impact on the general ranking. Take a Ghuun as an example.
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/st...ount&boss=2122

You have only 5 parses from Unholy DKs, with max dps of 21k and average of 20k. Even this causes the Unholy to be much higher on logs that it should be.

So if you take away underrepresented specs, and take into account the role of Frost mage, you can savely say it is one of top 5-6 specs in current Tier.

To sum it up, you don't know how to read parses on Logs, and you shouldn't use 'percentile' math (lol), to measure if the power of a class on the logs. Logs uses the AVERAGE data, not PERCENTILE. Percentile are only used to see how average of top X players playing a certain class are doing. But it is still only working for a classes which high representation numbers in the tier.

The fact you don't know what I am talking about means explaining it again it fruitless. I rarely like to use the argument from authority as its a logical fallacy, but it seems to fit the bill here.

Guess we will have to agree to disagree. FM doesn't need a nerf for raiding and if anything needs a ST buff, Simple. If they wanted to change it for mplus, add a 50% snare effectiveness reduction as a global mod for dungeons, or change the Frost aura to -20%, which is the number needed to offset the other damage lost.

[Morgaith]

Pvp should be less of a litteral cesspool after these changes but it's still not enough to play the game again.

[nicbizz]

The odd thing about the nerf to snares is it further cements BDK as the undisputed kings of M+. No other tanks can now come close to what DnD kiting does for the DK.