Does the freeze even haveto hit something to trigger fof? I mean if there is a theoretical fight where the entire raid and a bunch of adds huddle together with the boss in the manner that a freeze would kill people the tooltip of imp freeze seems to suggest you can get your charges by just freezing an empty patch of floor. Unless you haveto actually hit something with freeze the only dps loss you suffer in such an extreme example would be a GCD for the WE not spent on waterbolting stuff.

The beta forum idea of adding a single target Freeze effect on the WE that shares a cooldown would be the best possible fix. No more targeting reticule, no more AoE issues. Raids get their full dps rotation and the WE remains a great control tool.

Surely it wouldn't take long to add that ability. We can hope.

New Frost changes as of beta build 13033:

* Curtain of Frost is now named Ring of Frost and has been revamped - Summons a Ring of Frost, taking 3 sec to coalesce. Enemies entering the fully-formed ring will become frozen for 10 sec. Lasts 12 sec. 10 yd radius. 7% of base mana, 30 yd range, Channeled, 3 min cooldown
* Ice Lance base damage increased by 20%.
* Frostbolt base damage increased by 20%.
* Deep Freeze base damage increased by 20%.
* Early Frost now reduces the cast time of Frostbolt by 0.35/0.7 secs, up from 0.25/0.5 secs.

The new Early Frost further emphasizes that the loss of Rank 1 Frostbolt should be covered by this talent. It would be excellent if it was controllable and not on the GCD but it is better than nothing at all.

How does Ring of Frost work? The channel lasts 12 seconds and enemies stepping inside will be frozen for 10 seconds, but will the freeze break if you cancel the channel? It seems deceptively easy to avoid and the fact it takes 3 seconds to start freezing makes it a bit of a hindrance opposed to your WE's nova if you needed a quick freeze on something.

A bit of a naive question, but I cannot test it myself on the PTR: Will the damage increases on Frostbolt, Ice Lance, and Deep Freeze put Frost in damage potential range of Arcane and Fire?

Couple of quick points. One, Ring of Frost is not channeled. For some reasons mmo-champ patch notes always data mine it as channeled even though it isn't. Here's a link to the spell in their DB:

Ring of Frost - Spells - Sigrie

Here's the tooltip:

As to just how exactly the spell behaves no one outside of Blizzard is quite sure yet. The debuff on the target is:

The question is..what does 'frozen' mean? The debuff on frost nova is "immobilized" for example...so is it different than frost nova?

Two, I don't think anyway can say if specs are balanced yet. The latest build is only on the PTR (and it seems to have failed in part) and not on the beta servers. Plus those changes were for base damage and coefficients haven't been tested yet. Since coefficients are seemingly arbitrary now and not based on a (casttime / 3.5) formula, it is really hard to say what geared, level 85 damage will be.

RoF basically functions like a 10 sec Deep Freeze on anyone who crosses the ring. Of course it can be dispelled.


People have to remember that with the cata design you won't be zerging down people in under 10 seconds, so CC isn't quite as potent as it is now in achieving quick kills.

Does anyone know if it´s affected by dimishing returns? If you manage to freeze some poor bugger the 10 sec can be extended to 20 if he/she doesn´t get help from outside. And even more than that since you can slap on regular deep freezes into one big ice prison trap.

It's worth noting that the Freezing Trap effect also applies "stunned" and "frozen" debuffs, but of course break on damage, unlike Deep Freeze. No telling yet which effect Ring of Frost behaves like.

If glyphed FFB doesn't proc Fof i don't see the problem. That's a big if though, since the current Frostbolt glyph does let you proc it.

edit: now that i think about it, even with fof procs it wouldn't be too messy because, assuming the dot ticks every 3 seconds, you only see it benefitting you if you are not spamming ffb. In other words you would stack the dot to 3, refresh it if bf doesn't proc, else go about your normal rotation. At least that's what i think they are trying to achieve.

That glyph surprises me, because unglyphed FFB now does virtually identical damage to unglyphed Fireball -- same coefficient, and base damage is off by single digits. That seems dramatically overpowered, and way beyond what is necessary to allow the glyph to be a toggle for a Fire Mage who prefers to cast FFB.

The new Ring of Frost certainly looks closer to its namesake now: YouTube - World of Warcraft Cataclysm Beta - New Ring of Frost Animation September 26, 2010 (HD 1080p) .

Is there any indication whether the spell will be given a more compelling PvE role? I understand their focus might be to simply get mechanics into place first, and worry about PvE role later. Given that mechanics are closer to being finalised, now would be a good time to discuss the latter.

Deep Freeze is the prime example of how spells like this can still get a compelling PvE use. Ring of Frost might occasionally find its PvP freeze utility useful in fights with adds, though the cooldown is too prohibitive - and those add style fights generally have more than one wave anyway: Deathwhisper, Deathinger, Freya etc.

What are some innovative ways Blizzard could tie Ring of Frost back into compelling PvE role? For example, perhaps via a Glyph which said, "Your Ring of Frost no longer Freezes targets. Instead, when standing inside your own Ring of Frost, all spells you cast which cross through the Ring are empowered by Frost, causing an additional X% damage as Frost damage". Something that plays off having things inside or outside the ring in PvE. In this example, you were giving up the PvP stun utility in exchange for PvE usage (damage) - but keeping the theme of the spell being a ring and the real estate inside it being important (instead of being a deterrant for enemies to walk into, it's an incitement for the caster to stand in the ring).

My other concern with this spell is the cooldown. A 2 minute cooldown, balanced by reducing the duration of the Ring itself seems much more appropriate. After enjoying 1 minute Flame Orb cooldowns, having another 3 minute spell added seems a little too gimmicky by comparison. One minute spell cooldowns feel like a much a more enjoyable model, especially when RoF doesn't have a compelling PvE usage.

I think it provides a great opportunity to choke together small adds for a tank to grab before an AoE starts assuming they come from a single general direction in a quick burst. Imagine the zombie train in Strat right after Ramstein dies, drop RoF in front of them, let them all train into it and get stuck, and then go to town.

Is this "compelling"? Not hugely, but I think it could be quite utilitarian depending on how opponents spawn in a given situation.