◊ manly

I'm sorry to say, but pushback prevention in frost wouldn't make much sense from a balance perspective. The entire tree is there for kiting mobs when levelling up (ie: not getting hit) and theres ice barrier to do your pushback prevention.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

thesmoosh

Maybe it's just me, but I utterly fail at comprehending posts like these. If I'm reading it right, you are complaining that other specs besides frost are getting a survivability buff and that this is somehow a nerf to frost. As in, you want fire to have survivability problems, just so you can spec an inferior way and use Ice Block as an excuse.

In other words, you'd rather all our specs be useless, than have one spec that has damage and a decent amount of survivability at the same time.

Why is it that mages are always asking for nerfs to specs within their own class. Do you honestly think that if tomorrow they nerfed fire and arcane specs that raids will take more frost mages? No, they'll just take less mages period.

Now I may have misunderstood your post, but I've seen this kind of thing all over the blizzard forums and was somewhat surprised to see it here too.

 

Pintofbrew

I agree totally with Manly. There is no sense in making frost pushback-resistant. Particularly so high in the tree, and particularly with only 1 talent point. We have the chance to get something new and unique, why are we asking for boring mundane done-before abilities?

Theshmoosh: It's true man, this only happens in mage forums. I remember "make IB class-skill" posts on both WOW EU and US ever since Stratholm was the highest instance anyone dared to venture... We're gaining a poweful weapon in our arsenal that we've been asking for as a core ability since forever, and the only thing anyone can offer is (a) this makes no difference whatsoever or (b) this makes frost less viable.

Please can we withhold our tongues with the Frost Eulogy 'till we've seen what's replacing it? Who knows, perhaps it won't be a slobbering pile of drivel some people are expecting. Perhaps (perish the thought) frost will even gain something useful enough to put it back on the map PvE wise better than ever before.

 

Maligne

I'm not really sure that's why the tree is there, but that's an aspect, yeah. Considering all of the other classes that have this sort of protection (and the fact that we are mages) I think it makes sense. I'd prefer something to help against other casters (hi warlocks) but I'd be happy with the pushback protection.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

Cloudgatherer

Not to conjure up a history lesson, but the last time this type of change happened, we got Arcane Fortitude in exchange for Evocation for all mages. You've probably all used Evo sometime recently, when's the last time you said "gee, I wish I had a tiny amount more armor".

The replacement really has to be big. 11 point arcane was a pretty minor sacrifice, 21 points in frost is not. Giving all mages IB makes answering the "why be frost?" question quite a bit harder to answer outside of leveling/PvP/5mans. It also makes it harder for mages to ask for DPS increases if all of us can go invulnerable _and_ wipe agro (only class capable of doing this). So while fire mages may rejoice (yay, IB for all!), overall I'm a tad concerned for our raid DPS/desirability.

 

Maligne

Grats you just listed half the game. Having a spec be good at half the game isn't really that bad, is it? Having frost be the best at everything is not what they are going for, and simply making iceblock trainable won't make any other spec the best at everything.

Inform your dealers and whores of my credit, and pour me a goddamned drink!

 

ReignConfused

It seems to me that you are ignoring Shatter, Ice barrier, a now scaling protection spell that avoids pushback, and massive sustained burst damage with a pet. Not to mention fairly decent raid damage when played right, comparable to fire if you bother to read this entire thread.

I'm tired of you making assumptions that frost is now going to suck when you DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE NEW TALENT WILL BE! Don't cite something stupid that happened in the past to a tree that every mage loves right now, or I'll be forced to think your dumber than you already are.


And like 2 mages above me already said. You're crying for a nerf? Are you twisted in the head?

 

Sackobones

Iceblock doesn't wipe aggro. If you block and your tank doesn't regain aggro you still get killed once Iceblock wears off.

Most fights really will suck your dps away if you iceblock and then go invis. Its better to put it back in your pants if your that close to pulling aggro.

 

ReignConfused

There was a nifty trick with invisible and Iceblock awhile ago where you could drop aggro. Stupid blizz fixed it

 

Rouncer

I'm thinking (hoping) that that is what they will be bringing back for PvE if they allow you to cast spells while Ice Blocked. Same thing will also work for Evocation, which would be a nice boost to Frost since they wouldn't have to worry about mana as much since they would know that they would be able to get a full evocation without having to worry about a chance interruption.


Since kalgan specifically mentioned PvE and making sure that all mages have it available, how about this for an encounter in Sunwell.

Mob that needs to be tanked that places an undispellable debuff on his target that stacks over time to become completely unhealable. Only way to remove the debuff would be Ice Block or Divine Shield and since you would have to get him off the previous tank (since the cooldowns would be such that they would die before they could reapply Ice Block/Divine Shield) and that would require the tank(s) to do dps to the guy along the way.

Basically you would need Ret Pallys and Mages to tank the encounter.

 

Nadiar

I disagree, Guin's was in line with theorycrafting for 2.3.

I like the second idea, but I don't really think 2% would differentiate Frost Mages in any way, but I think you're on the right track. Unless it stacks of course, but I think 5% would be the "right" spot. Also I'd like to see such a spell go for 8 seconds, so that its basically guaranteed up with 1 Frost mage nuking away.


Another in the vein of Frost spells would be "Chance on Spell Critical to increase Mana Regeneration to 100% for 5 seconds." (Effectively leaving mages in the FSR on a critical, and giving Frost mages a pretty effective AE method). I can see them adding something like that, even though it would effectively be useless in 25 man raids, where a Mage has a good likelihood to be grouped with a Shaman or a Shadow Priest or both.


Frost is kind of locked in an identity crisis. On the one hand, its supposed to be more efficient spell damage, but at the same time its "the Survival" tree. Neither one is superior enough to be noticeable. I wish they would pick one or the other, but honestly, if they pick Survival, it means Frost will still be 'the' PvP spec, which seems to be counter to their intention.

As a hypothetical, could you imagine if Frost Mages had a x400% armor buff, or a talent that increased their Stamina by 20%? Suddenly it would be like fighting a Boomkin or a Warlock with awesome CC (well, not an SL/SL lock).

 

Cloudgatherer

I could list half the game for the other 2 specs as well, but since this forum generally leans towards raiding, it's really a PvP vs Raiding comparison. The exact spec breakdown really doesn't matter in leveling and even in 5 mans, but the pivotal point is PvP vs. Raiding. Fire is perfectly fine for leveling and 5 mans as well (leveled as fire once, leveled as frost once).

The "replacing" talent has, historically, been worse than the one made a trainable ability. That's just how it has been. I'm simply expecting the same thing to happen here, given the past pattern. The xx/xx/21+ mages gain something unknown (the new talent), all other specs gain Ice Block. Historically that "unknown" has been weaker, that won't necessarily happen here, but I'm just setting my own expectations according to similar past events. I look forward to being pleasantly surprised if the new talent turns out to be great, but it's not what I'm expecting.

Invisibility is an agro wipe, all mages get it. Ice Block is an invulnerability effect, soon all mages will have it. As a result, we're the only class that has both an agro wipe and an invulnerability. I'm sorry, I didn't expect the connection to be unclear to anyone who played a mage.

 

Nadiar

I hate gimmick fights that require a specific talent build or a single specific class. Either require a token representative of the class, or require a role.

 

Keyne

There are many things wrong with this post. The most obvious are infringements on the rules for posting in this forum, such as terrible grammar, typing in incomplete sentenses, and general whining. Beyond that, you make the assumption that "every mage loves" the frost tree (they don't) and that people are somehow unjustified in forming their opinions about the tree in general as they don't know what the talent that replaces Ice Block looks like. I would just like to point out here that your argument here in support of the frost tree is just as flimsy for the same reason (you don't know what the talent looks like either.) In the spirit of helping you avoid earning an infraction in the banhammer forum, I suggest you reread your post, and in the future try to avoid repeating just about every aspect of it.

With that out of the way, I'd like to clarify something about Ice Block. I've read several posts, including one from the person that I regard as likely the most credible source of intelligent information on this thread, that Ice Block has little to no value in a raid setting. Ice Block, as it is about to be implemented (as a "free", trainable spell), is a strict increase in DPS. This assertation is easily provable and the conclusion is not arguable:

Because we will no longer have to spend a talent point on it, there are no economic costs associated with it (no opportunity costs). Further, there is nothing that forces you to use it when it would negatively impact your DPS. However, provided you have a forwarning that you are about to die, this spell will prevent the death, and give healers a window of time to heal you back up. I won't try to elaborate this point much further, as it should now already be clear, but the "free" nature of the new ice block, combined with the fact that it turns situations of 0 dps (death) into situations of positive dps (prevention of death) means that it is absolutely a boost to every mage's dps.

 

Kir

Uhh.. I think your anger is pretty misplaced, you've misunderstood half of what he said, and your effectively agreeing with the other half.

He was replying to someone who stated Evocation was replaced by Arcane Fortitude, that person used this as an example of why the new 21pt Frost talent will suck. The 'tree that most mages love right now' is referring to arcane, not frost.

Anyone saying this is a bad change for frost, is using very faulty reasoning. No tools, utilities or abilities have been taken from frost. You can still spec the exact same way and do all of the exact same things you did before. You get a potential new mystery talent to boot. Even assuming that it's the worst talent ever, you are still in the same position you were beforehand.

Fire and arcane get a utility/survivability skill. It's a moot point for Arcane, as that tree is worthless again. For fire, it will help. However, a fire buff is NOT a frost nerf. Even in PvE, Frost still has superior survivability and similar dps.

The only thing this drastically changes, and is exactly Blizzard's intention, is PVP. This opens up the viability of some other specs that were not possible before due to Ice Block's requirement. With the ability to drop all dots on themselves, fire mages have a better chance in pvp now. You burst them down, iceblock off any dots/debuffs and wait for some of your cooldown abilities to be ready, then repeat. I mean, that's over simplifying it for sure, but it gives us some more tricks to play around with.

 

ReignConfused

I apologize, I edited my post to fix the grammar (I suggest you reread yours as well )

I didn't mean to support the frost tree, It's never been viable in a raiding environment, it doesn't seem to me that it ever will be. Rather, I was merely pointing out it's positives. Removing Iceblock from the tree doesn't make it a "worthless spec that no one will ever use." Not only that but a lot of this thread has been dedicated to the discussion of whether Frost or Fire will actually do more DPS in a raiding environment post 2.3. Arcane has been completely written off as anything useful and Frost seems to be showing very minimal drops from fire in all Theorycrafting. Generally the consensus on this one has been to wait, I believe that given the new Iceblock trainable, Fire is the clear winner especially given the added utility from Iceblock.

You cited me for general whining, I saw it more as telling someone who was whining to shut it. It seriously bothers me that I come into EJ forums to theorycraft and ponder different possibilities with mages who have generally, been extremely intelligent and introspective, and someone pounces into the forum saying OMG WTF IB TRAINABLE?! FROST NO GUD NEMORE! And cites bogus talent changes like Evocation -> Arcane Fortitude as being irrefutable proof that Blizzard is about to destroy the frost tree. Instead of doing something intelligent and give a great spell, which you outlined the reasons for this, to every class, and give the class it originated from something new and different. Such as when Druids all received innervate (an amazing spell) and gave restoration Swiftmend (which Resto Druids love and found to be a suitable replacement given that they never really -lost- innervate)

Seems silly to me. So in any case, I will apologize for my post and try to watch my grammar in the future and grief/troll less.


*Seriously though I laughed when you were citing me for grammar and immediately said "type in incomplete sentenses" It was amusing.

 

◊ Vontre

In the case of balance, adding weight to one end of the scale and not adding equal weight to the other end will tip the scale. Adding ice block to fire and arcane builds, without adding something equal to frost builds, will alter balance in favor of fire and arcane. Perhaps this is good (streamlined specs for pvp and raiding), perhaps this is bad, but I certainly don't think frost will be a viable raid choice without ice block as a 'unique' advantage. It will still, however, be a bitching pvp tree, as the balance was already heavily slanted toward frost for pvp builds.

www.magegraf.com

Raiding is full of challenge. Sometimes there is fire. You have to not be in the fire.

"We agree with Communism." - Greg Street 2009

 

kycan

I can't really complain about Blizz giving us Ice Block, but I do have to question what their reasoning behind it is.

The simple nature of min/maxing that we as EJ members are all so used to remains. Fire is still superior dps in PvE and Frost is still superior survivability/control in PvP. While having IB available as an Arcane or Fire mage in PvP is a cute trick, I don't see it being the nail in the coffin for frost mages, especially in arenas. Then again, perhaps this is why Blizz decided now is the time. If adding IB to Fire/Arcane doesn't change anything, then why not? Just conjecture really.

 

Shocktar

I think in this situation, it's important to point out some logic in the development of trees. At Blizzcon, Kalgan specifically cited warrior trees as being good for three different things, that is PVE, PVP, and Tanking, and stated that they liked that kind of idea. All three trees are supposed to bring something different, and in almost all cases, its clear what each tree is used for.
Good examples include:
Holy/Shadow Priests (DPS VS healing, and Disc is *suposed to be* sustainability)
Subtelty/Combat Rogues (PVE vs PVP)
and Elemental/Enhance/Resto Shamans (Caster/Caster buffer, melee/melee buffer, healer/healer buffer).

While we're all scratching our heads as to exactly what the arcane tree is for (see Discipline, Retribution, and Balance), it seems as though the frost tree is clearly defined as PVP, while the fire tree is PVE DPS. Granted, you *could* PVP with fire, but you won't be as successful, just as you *could* high end raid with frost, but you wouldn't (shouldn't?) be as successful.
Yes, frost is about 3% behind fire (got this from Vontre, who as far as I'm concerned knows what he's talking about, suffice it to say it's behind, by how much is irrelavent for my post), and it always has been, so it's logical to assume it still will be in 2.3, but you do get great survivability tradeoffs and PVP skills becauseofit. I, for one, would be unhappy as a minmaxer if I didn't have a clearly designed way to go for whatever I was doing. I'm frost in PVP, and Fire in PVE, and that's what the developers wanted.
It's all speculation now, but in line with the design of the trees, shouldn't the new 21 point talent buff survivability, not DPS? If frost was higher DPS, why would anyone go fire? If that happened, we'd have ONE tree, rather than two at least.

Gear is how hard you hit. Skill is how often you hit.
http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...tealth5325.png

 

◊ manly

It might be, to you. To me, it simply isn't. If I am not wrong, we've killed illidan for the 15th time this week. I die on average about 1-2 times per full hyjal/bt clear (not counting sacrifices). Usually its because of a wipe. It mostly applies to trash, allowing you to go more all out, but I specifically ignore trash when talking PVE. The amount of times I can say IB could have made a difference are so few and far between that they aren't even worth recalling in my mind. I would say about 5 times in the past 3 months. If I count only the time we were still learning bosses, the only places where IB would have been good to have is, namely: leotheras pre-nerf, shahraz pre-nerf and archimonde pre-nerf. IB would have been good maybe for 1 or 2 weeks while we were learning the encounters, then you just learn your way around the bosses in such a way that you dont need it anymore. That's about as far as I could possibly give IB a value in PVE encounters, which, to me, is pretty damn close to nil.

I am not unaware that it can remove silences and thus allow for more dps. Or that it can stop a stun or sleep or whatever really. I know that. But again, given that were speaking here of 1 ice block per attempt its impact on dps is very very very small.

Its a net gain for everyone, but it doesn't do anything to fix mages in PVE. Mages were in really dire need of help pre 2.2. Sometimes you could miraculously push 1700 dps with some AB spam, and you would still come far behind rogues (1800-1900) and hunters (1800). Typically behind locks too, given that 1700 was really not the norm by any means, but rather the extreme top end of being lucky. Usually AB rotations gave something around 1400-1500 dps from my own observations if I try and make a dire attempt at a overly simplified estimation from an average of many boss fights (ie: not teron or supremus). Since 2.2 I see myself being about the same DPS as rogues with no warglaive, give or take a few dps depending on the boss fight. If I wasn't aware of the context, I could probably claim that in 2.2 blizzard fixed mage PVE viability based on what I see (ie: have an actual reason to bring a mage to a raid besides avoiding having to shard loot). But now that I know that MSD and TLC was just an acknowledged screwup from blizzard and that in fact we were not meant to have that dps, it gets me thinking back a lot to where we were pre 2.2. Sure, 2.3 fire/frost should give me about the same numbers 2.2 AM spam gave (ie: my definition of balanced), but in practice I doubt I will get COE, which means I'm pretty much back to where I was.

IB does absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things to fix that little detail that without COE mages dont compete on DPS. If mages don't compete on DPS, then really there isn't much incentive to bring mages to raids if you could instead use other classes. I don't know about you guys, but I never considered mages bringing much more than rogues to raids, in the sense that AI is mostly negligible, and that we have absolutely no synergy - at all - under realistic scenarios with other classes. Sure, we 'have synergy' in the sense that we can use shadow priests, coe/cos and misery, but we don't provide back anything much to the raid. Sheeps are always nice, but seldom never apply to bosses. Decursing is nice, but very very rare. Ditto for counterspell. We bring AOE, but other classes can AOE too to a competitive level. You could say that rogues bring 'nothing' to the raid, but in practice i see their poisons and kicks on things like ROS or illidari council to be almost on par with what mages bring to the raid. Given all that said above, if you agree with my views that for the most part mages have no synergy with the raid as far as PVE encounter goes, then you could implicitely agree with me as well that if a class gives more DPS or more raid synergy that that other class will be typically worth more to the raid. Warlocks can very much compete with mage DPS at the top end. If you think 2k dps from destro locks is something that only exists in theorycraft, you haven't seen top end raids. Not only can they very much compete on DPS, but curses are also synergistic to the raid, unlike us. Everyone in the raid will be happy to have their COS / COR or COE. I am pretty sure many people would get angry if enhancement shamans were consistently, somehow, topping DMs. A class giving such a group synergy shouldn't have more dps than the competing classes - it just wouldn't make sense. Now explain me why, given the above logic, why are mages below (or equal to) warlocks in terms of DPS given that unlike warlocks we give nothing back to the raid or group? To me it just flat out doesn't makes sense. I can see that all the gimmicks we 'bring' to the raid, things like AI/AOE/poly/CS can somehow make us 'interesting' in a raid group, but if I could custom build my own raid group I would deliberately avoid mages specifically because we lack synergy and that we have somewhat lower DPS than competing classes. (again, in a context where mages don't get COE and thus have poor dps).

If you can point out where Ice Block comes in the grand scheme of things to help close that gap, then I will agree with you that Ice Block fixes our raid viability post 2.3. To me its clear its impact is borderline insignificant given that we will still have no synergy and still lack dps to the competing classes. Your views might be different on the matter.

As far as I am concerned, I see it mostly as a diversion. A diversion in the sense that it gets us to somehow cheer at the pve buff that really isn't while avoiding alltogether the more important discussion about mage lack of synergy with raid groups. Maybe I just got the whole thing wrong and IB really was just meant as a PVP buff to allow more talent-spec spread in PVP. The blue post does seem to suggest the change is not related with PVE.

Anyway, with all this said I would be a lot more happy if blizzard would wake up one day and realize COE is simply too narrow in essence. For all intent and purpose, its a mage-only buff. If they were to merge COS and COE into one curse, and possibly adding increase nature damage as well, I would be happy because that would make us back to a more balanced position. The way I view things, right now you always want 2 warlocks per raid, for COS and COR. If you want COE, you need a 3rd warlock. To make COE worthwhile, you need at least 2 fire or frost mages. Why does it takes 3 warlocks in a raid to allow mage DPS to even be on par with hunters/warlocks ? To me it doesn't makes sense. COE is too narrow. I need to make a post about this, it really does piss me off, and that is, to me, an actual real issue with PVE and mages that will ring very true in 2.3.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Zalbo

Just to throw in an example of why free ice block can be good, the Vashj fight.

In phase 1, getting static charged, even if no-one is within range of you, gives you spell pushback.. Iceblock means you'll only loose ~1 global cooldown, at least for the first one.

In phase 2, tainted elementals. For my guild at least, getting the tainted core means going out of LoS of the healers, and often I will get into fireblast range of them, which is also out of LoS. Now picking up the core with a poison debuff means death if you can't get rid of it, hello ice block. Further, on several occasions I got forked lightning'd while poisoned down there, so if I didnt ice block I would have been very dead.

Phase 3, static charge again.

So it can be useful, especially in reducing death from bad luck, even in current raids. This will depend on your strategy of course, perhaps you have healers staying in LoS during p2.

Furthermore, look at paladins, since they have invunerability already assumed. I know for Gruul, if he gets too many grows (dps is all alts in leveling gear, for instance), the tank can have trouble living through a silence, especially if there isnt any resto druids stacking hots. We have a paladin shield out of the silence to make sure the tank lives. Now you can extend this to a new fight, perhaps in sunwell, where you need a spellsteal/decurse etc at the same time the boss does an aoe silence.

Vashj showing it already has potential in current fights, relating it to paladins as to how it can be a design tool.

Got to say I agree that the new 21 point talent won't be pvp centric, since they want frost to not be the only viable pvp tree, although this massively improves the other trees. A synergy spell would be pretty cool (and more interesting than something passive, frost is already so boring for dps outside of pet), maybe all party members have their spell crit increased by 50% for their next spell capable of critting, with a shortish cooldown (1 minute?)? Nothing too huge in PvE or Arena PvP (unless you stack spell DD classes), but not bad either.

Edit: Manly you have a point, it doesn't solve mage problems, but I will argue at the SSC level there are a lot of situations you can eek out a bit more dps from it (Hydross tomb, Morogrim Watery, FLK leeching throw, Leotheras whirlwind, Vashj static charge).

 

Cloudgatherer

The scary part about this, in my opinion, is that the current situation will simply continue and the class designers can "justify" the mage position by being the only "pure" dps class that can wipe agro and go invulnerable. Imagine mage DPS buffed up to about hunter level, add in we can wipe threat, add in we can go completely invulnerable. Class balancing concerns appear, and mages would be pretty easy "nerf" targets.

At least with IB being a talent, the DPS trade-off was a choice. Slightly less DPS for more survivability (in PvP, significantly more). However, if Blizzard now takes that trade-off away from mages, they have picked the path of lower DPS and higher survivability for us. It certainly is contradictory to "glass cannon", others have bigger cannons and we're starting to get harder to break than glass.

I'm fairly confident we won't get a good talent as a replacement (I'd love to be wrong, I hope so, but even Swiftmend is not as good as Innervate), and it is very true that all specs "gain" from the change, however all specs are going to "lose" on this one. It will be far too easy to argue against higher mage dps if everyone can wave invis/IB against us as reasons for where we measure up in comparative DPS with other classes ("well you can IB and I can't, so I should do more dps than you" type argument).

 

◊ manly

Back when I was fire spec, the only time I ever needed invis, besides wipes, was sometimes on void reaver due to his pushbacks. And even then, shadow priests will have aggro issues before I do, which means we get tranquil air down. In short, I also give invisibility a near nil PVE value. Having a threat dump is one thing, having too low dps to even need it is another.

Log on with different model:
1- Create a character of the desired model. Log on/off.
2- At character selection screen, select your actual character; mouseover the new, desired model character, and hold down left click; hit enter and release left click at the same time.
bug Arcane Potency only applies to the first Arcane Missile bolt.

 

Prod

I completely 100% agree with Manly. We rely on 3 warlocks, a shaman, and spriest. In the case of a fight that requires a general role, like aoe or direct damage, you can do equally well if not a tad better while bringing more utility from other classes.

Blizzard gave the community a superfluous buff. End of story. IB has little to no effect on pve mages. And as far as pve is concerned, I still see the elemental and ice barrier being very strong talent builds. A 5 minute IB cooldown isn't going to change much.

Our core problems are our synergy to raids, and itemization. We take synergy, but we do not provide it. My smartbuff mod is set exclusively to AB, and the buff is insignificant due to its scaling. My imp scorch benefits myself alone. In 2.3 mages suffer from wasted stats in spirit. We all know arcane is a dead tree, and yet to utilize the 300-500 spirit we will have raid buffed, we have to put on mage armor or spec into arcane. All the while, many gems are more than enough for your fire and frost mages.

My issue is that my guild only needs me for a few gimmicks. We have plenty of druids for arch. So besides tanking on council, my spot would be better filled by a hunter/lock/rogue.

It seems like our biggest enemy is our own community though. The official forum is celebrating over a really insignificant change.

 

Addis

I hadn't really thought about the point being made here: "Increased survivability of a trainable iceblock justifies the lessened DPS of the mage class." Increase survivability comes from healing, not a once every 5 minute immunity (even with IB, locks have better survivability).

But, I really don't think that's the intent. Honestly I think it's an attempt to make fire mages more useful in pvp, and give us a PVE talent whose value diminishes with learned content. None of us have a deep understand into Blizzard's decision making process, however, so we're all just guessing.

Rest assured, no 21 point frost talent is going to fix the PVE things illustrated in manly's last post. My guess is blizzard is going to star adding some gimmick fights into WotLK raiding content that's going require Mages to IB, especially given the frost theme of the expansion.