What does pom do for a frost mage in a raid gurg? Remove -1s from your frostbolt cast time once every 3 minutes? Look at the survivability of Ice Barrier.
I guess I'm mainly thinking of PoM Flamestrikes and PoM poly, the latter being the real unique benefit.
But looking more closely at the new numbers on Ice Barrier, I definitely see the other side.
Ice Barrier maybe is very powerful, depending on how +damage affects it. Hopefully it is more than 10% like PW: Shield got.
:huh:
Now stacks with PW: Shield and gains 10% of +Frost dmg gear. Absorb effects now prioritized over Mana Shield. edit added functionality
I guess I just don't see how an extra 60-70 points of absorption makes what was once considered a mediocre talent suddenly good.
The extra 5% crit you can stack on with the talent immediately before it makes that talent much more viable, and suddenly you are looking at Ice Barrier for just 1 more point.
Sort of how Mana Tide would be better if that pre-req got removed :P
Originally Posted by CheshireCat
Eh, my nostalgia goggles aren't as good as they used to be.
Damn those are nice changes. 10% crit from winter's chill is pretty amazing. The mage with arcane instability would be getting +13% crit from all that.
Plus of course, FROST SHOCK
Ice barrier vs presence of mind is now a more difficult decision. It's never easy to give up an instant cast spell, but I could see ice barrier saving a lot of lives.
How much does the highest rank of ice barrier give? I figure gear would give 40-60 extra since it now scales, and 28 more if you pop your hero charm first!
Fire is even more brutal now that improved scorch gives 15% maxed.
What does pom do for a frost mage in a raid gurg? Remove -1s from your frostbolt cast time once every 3 minutes? Look at the survivability of Ice Barrier.
I guess I'm mainly thinking of PoM Flamestrikes and PoM poly, the latter being the real unique benefit.
It's a 1.5 second cast time, even going back to the one encounter we use Poly in a raid It still wouldn't be an issue not having PoM.
Am I reading Elemental Focus properly? A tier 1 3/3 talent that effectively grants +6% spellhit for frost and fire spells? If so, that's fucking incredible.
Ice Barrier's 10% scaling with +dmg gear is pretty token... overall, it adds about 60 absorption if you're top o' the line geared now. For us mere mortals, it's more like 30-50 absorption.
The big buffs in Ice Barrier are the greatly reduced cooldown (great for periodic damage auras) and that it now stacks with PW:S, so if a well-meaning priest shields your Ice-barriered ass, you haven't blown 430+ mana for nothing, but instead have about 2000 HP of universal absorption.
[Magic Absorption] Does it work with partial resists or just full resists?
The 5-piece Enigma bonus only procs on a full resist, not a partial. I'm going to say full.
In a fight like Firemaw where I'm wearing max FR that amounts to infinite mana >8)
I'd hope so. If it worked on partials then it would be one of the most powerful talents in the game. Eat one Improved Blizzard and, whoops, back to full mana in 8 seconds.
Man, mages got seriously decked out with this review. I bet it was worth the wait eh? 6% spellhit basically puts a top geared mage almost at the spell hit cap. Figuring they get about 10ish extra damage for each % hit in the long run means mages will be making short work of other ranged dps in PvE, especially with 30% less threat. That 8/8 netherwind + no Pyro cooldown is sick by the way. I'm very very jealous. Especially since my 8/8 nemesis bonus is worth less than your low tier talent.
I can't wait till the second round of reviews comes out for warlocks. Maybe Soulfire will have at least it's shard cost removed
I'm very impressed. They even fixed wand specialisation! I can see it being useful to some builds now now! *weeps* Good job, Blizzard, this almost makes me want to resubscribe.
Because tseric is crappy at editing his posts, frost warding is on tier 1. Are you seriously complaining about the irrelevant horizontal placement of the little talent check boxes? Come on.
According to Tseric, he just got an email from the developers over at E3 this morning detailing the changes that were to be made and published - there's no-one in the officer who can do web design to update the calculator, and he's just outlined it as best as he can.
Assuming that the actual meat and bones of the talents are correct, I'm definitely going 31 fire 20 frost after this, as my guild farms BWL and moves into AQ / Naxxramus. Iceblock is ace, but with -30% aggro on my spells I can hopefully live without it. +6% to hit is also amazing - it's the caster equivalent of the +5% to crit talents all the melee classes get, and a superb 1st rank talent.
Still too many good talents and not enough points, but it will be fun trying out new builds - it's gone from being a bland dissapointing review, to one thats now really interesting and appealing.
(BTW, anyone think they are doing with mages & warlocks what they have done with warriors & rogues? i.e. each class can deal the same amount of damage, but one has hugely beter aggro control than the other to balance it? )
I bet it was worth the wait eh? 6% spellhit basically puts a top geared mage almost at the spell hit cap.
At cap for up to level 62. They'll have a way to go to hit level 63 cap. It's still a nice buff, and I'd like to see Suppression in the warlock tree altered to be similar. Right now it only affects Affliction spells. Nice, but not stellar.
Figuring they get about 10ish extra damage for each % hit in the long run
I think the top geared mages will probably see each %hit equal to about 15 +damage, possibly more. It's definitely nice.
means mages will be making short work of other ranged dps in PvE, especially with 30% less threat.
Hunters still have 100% less threat with Feign Death. I do think we'll see more distance between mages and warlocks on the DMs, though.
That 8/8 netherwind + no Pyro cooldown is sick by the way. I'm very very jealous. Especially since my 8/8 nemesis bonus is worth less than your low tier talent.
You were raving about the 30% less threat for mages a sentence ago, and now you're down on 8-piece nemesis? Given it's the only bit of threat reduction I can get without spending 30 talent points, I'm pretty damn happy with it. How useful it is in subsequent dungeons depends mainly on how the fights are designed, but it's a very good tool and one of the better set bonuses out there.
I can't wait till the second round of reviews comes out for warlocks. Maybe Soulfire will have at least it's shard cost removed
Soul Fire won't be good unless they either:
1) reduce the casting time to 3.5 seconds
OR
2) Allow the (casting time/3.5) formula for +damage ratio to equal more than 1.
It's too slow to cast, especially considering it burns a shard. Aside from gimmick uses against fire vuln wyrmguards I never cast it.
I don't think warlocks need a huge amount of reworking. Our DPS is very solid and our support abilities are great. Maybe find something better for the 31-point slot in Affliction (I love Pact, but it's a Demonology-type talent, what's it doing up there?), give us a slight threat reduction talent (10% or so maybe?) that works on Destruction spells, and I'll be happy. If I thought there was a way to talent Curses to make them better without basically forcing Affliction specs, I'd suggest it. Amp Curse affecting CoS/CotE would probably be too powerful, but it would definitely make it more desirable.
I guess I just don't see how an extra 60-70 points of absorption makes what was once considered a mediocre talent suddenly good.
It got good with the first round of changes. The CD used to be 2 minutes. The change to 30s is what made it powerful. Altering it so that PW:S doesn't eat it is new and very nice as well. The minor scaling with damage gear is just icing.
You'd probably have to have 3k-3.5k base hps and 800 AC to fully appreciate it though :).
Stacking with PW:shield is the biggest change for me, as it means I can cast this on AE fights *and* have PW:shield on me, whereas before it just got overwritten. 31 point frost mages are going to be amazing AE'ers after this patch, with a Blizzard of ultimate slowing doom and a lot more survivability.
I guess I'm mainly thinking of PoM Flamestrikes and PoM poly, the latter being the real unique benefit.
But looking more closely at the new numbers on Ice Barrier, I definitely see the other side.
PoM Poly is damn useful, but as personal preference, I've found Ice Barrier to be somewhat more useful, ranging from duels to BG pvp to raiding. PvE wise Ice Barrier (especially now it stacks with PW:S) is particularly useful for AE runs (I suspect the release of the Ironweave set last patch was partly to do with regular mage deaths during this). Since a lot of our PvP is also partly based upon short cooldowns, as well as our small amount of hp (outside of raiding gear), it's quite viable.
I'm not actually sure if this is a glitch or not, but I've also noticed I rarely get the effects of damaging attacks that give some form of debuff if they're fully absorbed by barrier (e.g. hamstring, though that matters less as a gnome; slightly more importantly, earthshock not causing the school interruption). It's also a good speed reaction to Affliction and SW:P.
That said, PoM macro-play still obviously rules the roost as regards mage burst damage in PvP goes.
Also...
Ice Barrier - Ranks 1 - Requires 30 points in Frost Talents and 1 point in Ice Block 305 mana/instant/30 sec cooldown - Instantly shields you, absorbing 454 damage. Lasts 1 min. While the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted. Now stacks with PW: Shield and gains 10% of +Frost dmg gear. Absorb effects now prioritized over Mana Shield. edit added functionality
Don't know about you, but most of my damage (NW/Arc mixed at the moment) is from +dmg/heal, not +frostdmg.
Now, given that whataboutpp asserts that there are new AD craftables which give +frost res, I wouldn't be too suprised if there was a decent bit of gear in Naxx that gave +frostdmg as well, but I'm not holding my hopes too high, regardless.
I think they need to nerf the new shatter though. +50% chance for Frost spells to crit on a frozen target? Pretty imba, I've always felt. +50% chance for ALL spells to crit on a frozen target? Although it'd be rare, I'd not like to be on the receiving end of a NW8 set Pyro after getting nova'd.
05/10/06, 3:47 PM
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