Are you 100% sure? That's a pretty big boost to the enchant.... I wonder where it would put it in terms of equivalent damage for a class that mostly uses non-instants. (And it'd be a nice cheap leveling enchant for my new mage, heh.)

I'm a troll, so I have troll berserking as well. I used to use Troll berserking and MQG in combination during the burn phase for HuHu. I remember having roughly .9 second scorches at the time and not getting GCDs between them. .9 is fast enough that even with lag I should be getting the GCD error. I never did (and presumably still don't but I haven't tried on my MQG in a good long while.)

I've not paid careful attention to the newer haste effects. But I'm absolutely certain the old ones used to reduce the GCD.

I've seen this as well, but I've not had much of a chance to play with any of the newer haste effects and haven't paid attention to what bloodlust does. If they don't reduce the GCD, then they actually make haste pointless for certain specs and conditions. (A mage who spends a lot of his time spamming scorch gets far less value from haste if the GCD doesn't get reduced than a fireball spammer, for example.)

I always get delays trying to cast scorch if I have a haste effect up.

Fixed version of spreadsheet uploaded; blame me changing the way cellrefs were handled in some of the formulas for the problems with Upgrade Tester.

Ouch.

Realistically seen, I can understand that the Frost Nova + Ice Lance spam was getting a little overhand when it was not breaking the nova for 2+ subsequent casts. However, I think that this change is a little overdone, as it severely impacts any burst damage that was available to frost mages. I'll probably end up speccing either Deep Fire or Arcane/Fire 41/20 after the patch.

*edit* To elaborate further: It seems that the Frostbolt + Ice Lance combo Shatter crits are no longer possible, either.

Just tested on live and latest PTR. You can still do the FB+Lance, or FB+FireBlast, or FB+CoC and get double crits nearly every time. Icelance crits are full 2k crits as usual.

From what I can tell, this nerf was pretty much expected. I've killed way too many people with a FN that refused to break even after 6k damage. Even the official WoW board denizens called it the "Spell we do not talk about."

The question I have is regarding the new FN behavior and Molten Armor crits. I didn't have enough time to test it.

Hey PvPing Fire Mages, like to PvP with Molten Armor on? Well if it crits when you get hit by melee in a frost nova guess what? No more frost nova! Have Fun, hope you liked the taiolored set with no stamina btw.

Sincerly Blizzard.

This change is fucking moronic, a hunters pet crits my target? No more frost nova, A rogue's offhand crits my target? No more frost nova? Who're these retards at blizzard trying to fool that this change isn't because of Ice Lance. You can still (if you have the time!) frostbolt + coc/icelance/fireblast, what other reason than ice lance is there to nerf this?

Bye bye shatter, 3-4 ice lance hits > 1 ice lance crit.

I'm wondering if they realize that nearly every nerf that has come down the pipeline has been the direct result of new abilities or talents. I don't mind keeping the game fresh, but icelance isn't as important as frost nova, clearly they are picking the wrong spell to nerf.

With that having been said, I find the random nature of CC in this game to be quite unfulfilling. Luck determines whether I crit. Luck determines whether sheep or fear breaks. I've always felt a little silly about frost nova continuing to hold someone that I just hit with a frostbolt. It's simply more luck, and it reduces pvp to reacting to purely random events. I don't mind this change going through if it brings compensating buffs with it, but that may be a fantasy.

The molten armor issue is the only one that truly breaks the new frost nova mechanics. Inasmuch as it creates a problem with sheeping as well, the effect could stand a change. Perhaps chance to add a 1% magic vulnerability or somesuch.

My big question about this: does it break on any crit, or any crit coming from the caster? If it breaks on any crit, Frost Nova and Frostbite become virtually useless in group situations. They already break pretty fast in group situations, but often one can get something off. If it breaks on any crit, you won't even be able to get a spell off by the time the GCD is over.

Well, perhaps I have a different perspective on this. I was an elemental mage right after the mage patch (1.10?) and had the 5/5 Firepower+Shatter+Iceblock build. I did quite a few Fireball+Fireblast on frozen targets - and I NEVER recall the freeze effect holding through those big fire crits. Even now on live, I almost never see FN last through a FB+IL combo. It happens, sure. But it's very rare.

What DOES happen a lot is a freeze lasting through several IceLances. Surely nobody thought this was intended behavior.

Now I agree that making Nova break on any crit whatsoever is a bit much. Offhand crit from a fury warrior shouldn't break it. But then again, I have very very rarely been able to get a Frostbolt on a frozen target in an instance, with the exception being if I'm kiting a guy around as a pseudo-offtank. And the Molten Armor issue is one of many problems with thorn effects including Thorns, Fire Shield, and Retribution Aura. They always have to be used with care since a great many effects have a chance (or guaranteed) to break on damage, and the lag situation is never perfect enough.

While I was testing out the new mechanics on the PTR, the FN behavior seemed pretty rational to me, though as usual, time will tell the effect on mages.

I stand corrected.

I have to agree that as it is in the current state of the game, Frost Nova doesn't break fast enough with Ice Lance spam.

Previously, the amount of damage you could do with Shatter to a frozen target was limited by casting time and cooldowns, now it's limited to how long freezing effects hold. I think that they should have given Ice Lance a higher chance to break frozen targets, instead of nerfing every other spell used in conjunction with Frost Nova. There was a decent suggestion on the official boards somewhere, something like: Give Ice Lance a debuff, which increases the chance to break frozen targets by 25% for 5 seconds. Stacks up to 4 times.

I think the nerf will be one of the biggest problems for more mages specced more heavily into Frost, as Frost Nova + Shatter thus far was the only reliable way for a Frost Mage to pump out some burst damage. Now, it'll break instantly on a crit (and if this means any crit by any class, that would completely suck), and I think that the cooldown reduction with Improved Frost Nova should be raised to compensate for this burst DPS loss for PvP Frost Mages.

Either way, time will tell how much this change will affect the class as a whole, and what can be done about it, if need be.

Word from the PTR is that it is not ANY crit - but a crit over a particular threshold. I think, from the testing so far, that it is around 1k damage. So a rogue offhand attack or a tank's white-damage swing should not necessarily break it.

EDIT: I'm testing this as we speak. I should have some hard results tomorrow. Sorry for the stub post, but I thought it was important to point out that FN+Molten Armor is not a losing combination.

Well as it is right now, if you have a rooted target getting beat on, the nova will break early anyway. It's not like other classes gain an increased crit % vs the rooted target, nova->2crit combos(i.e. FB+FireBlast) should still be viable.

The change primarily targets the 3+ icelance spam crits for easy damage which most anyone would agree was broken.

true, but 3+ crits are a rather rare occurence, and there are "lucky" bursts from other classes (or even from arc/fire mages) able to deal similar dmg. also note, that icelances not necessarily crit on frozen targets. its more like a 65-70% chance in practice. and i guess u would consider a string of '2k crit, 1k hit, 1k hit' less OP. these however wouldnt occur anymore with the latest changes ...

also just view the new icelance as a whole: using icelance the way it is supposed to (i.e. on frozen targets) u have to start with frostnova first. this not only "wastes" one of our key defensive spells, but the nova+icelance combo also costs 3sec in total. all that for a ~70% chance to deal ~2k dmg ...

and what then? ofc u follow up with a fireblast and maybe a CoC if hes in range, but after that ur pretty much left with frostbolts. and i dont consider those 2.5s frostbolts for lets say 1.3-1.4k dmg viable in pvp. esp. when u rather spend 5s for it due to its casting being interrupted by any fart. and 2.5s is also enough for a lot of ppl to move behind pillars in the arena.

finally, the current icelance might be strong in 1v1 combat or in those BG zergs, but everytime pvp balancing is an issue, the blizz devs were saying how class balancing isnt done for 1v1, but grp pvp instead. and after doing quite some 5v5 arena, i cant say that im absurdely strong there. i feel ok how it is atm (im 17/0/44 specced btw), but id always consider a warrior or rogue to be much more valuable in a 5man-teams dps slot. and i really dunno how i could be of any huge value anymore with the upcomming changes and w/out consecutive icelance crits. good geared opponents are running around with 10-12k (rogues, locks for example) or 12-14k (warriors, druids). my poor frostbolts will be very marginally tbh ...

If Ice Lance wasn't breaking Frost Nova correct vis the damage it dealt (was it being calculated pre-multiplier, perhaps?) then Blizz should have just fixed that...instead of making a blanket nerf that changes the way Frost Nova has worked for 2+ years. Kinda silly, honestly.

Ok, did some informal testing on the PTR using different ranks of FB.

It seems that there _IS_ a threshold under which a crit will not guarantee a break. Still a chance to break (as was previous), but not 100%. I could reliably get several crits on a single freeze effect in the 1200-1250 range, but a crit of 1400 or more ALWAYS broke the freeze. I am not sure where the exact line is, but it is somewhere in the 1300-1400 range.

At the end, I was testing max-rank Arcane Missiles and found that I would very often get a whole string of 5 crits on the same freeze effect. Mine only crit for around 800ish, so I'm guessing that's pretty low. From my preliminary calculations for a 1300 break limit, the Frost Nova change will negatively effect your ability to AM a frozen target when each missile will tick at 742 non-crit (assuming Spellpower). I'm not sure this is attainable with current gear, but it does not look far-fetched. Blizzard might need to retune the threshold once we get to that point.

1300 is definitely high enough not to worry about offhand attack crits and molten armor though.

In other news - Arcane Missiles is still broken.

Learn to type. Whine elsewhere.

AM is hard to fix since lag in people's connections can cause the AM to fire 4 instead of 5 missiles.

The damage nerf for shatter should be expected, since in Arenas the survival of double ice block is quite powerful, so the devs wanted to balance damage and survival.

These types of comments get old. Aside from the "Blizzard hates my class/spec" emo issues, it's not even accurate. Once you break 800 or so spell damage, talents like Winter's Chill and Empowered frostbolt result in higher dps from a heavy frost build over a 40/0/21 build. The crits may be bigger with arcane, but without Winter's Chill or Shatter, the crits are far less frequent.

So on a semi-related note, as a 10/0/51 mage with just +1043 buffed frost dmg last night I out damaged the closest highest DPS person by over 20% in karazhan. I don't know if I should be glad frost continues to be a great spec or sad that others had such poor dps.

Both =D. Though you probably had a huge lead from aoe packs, if you were doing a flamestrike->coc shatter correctly. I tend to pull way ahead on trash mob dps because most mages don't seem to know how to burst aoe properly.

Actually it was pretty much the same before and after AEing, and the only AE there was really was Moroes room. Still the raid had 2 locks 2 mages 2 rogues. Closest one was a lock followed by both rogues. Shoulda taken a ss.