You forgot Focus Magic.

Focus Magic isn't a raid buff and I liken it to abilities like Tricks of the Trade, Hand of Salvation, Soulstone, or even Shaman Reincarnation. It benefits 1 or 2 people but isn't applied as a raid wide buff or boss debuff.

Focus magic doesn't belong in the same category as scorch/wc or razorice. FM goes into the power infusion, tricks of the trade, hand of salvation, innervate, and so forth category. These do not increase raid DPS by any substantial amount, but only give an individual a slight increase. Scorch/Razorice go into the Burning Crusade version of Shadow Weaving/Misery category, in that they are too powerful comparatively for one class to hold, or provide too much of a benefit to too small a group (frost damage dealers). Both should be changed.

He obviously means Amplify/(Dampen) Magic.
(Wrath of Air spell haste is also class specific and powerful.)


The buff/debuff system more or less works.
It could use some tuning here or there, but the major goal that you don't need certain specs has been achieved.
The "Our Enhance Shaman is sick, let's cancel Sunwell." issue is a thing of the post. You still want every class in the raid.

Heroism is Shaman only. But it also is their level 70 ability, their BC Ultimate. It's a Shaman Brand.
You could give it to a second class, but it would take a large chunk of Shaman identity.

The same with Judgements. That's the good thing about the JoW nerf for mages, no class really needs it any more.
It's still a good buff, but it's not existential any more. Ret Paladins need it but always have it, all other class can sustain mana.

Scorch/Chill has the problem that one spec has to bend over back over backwards to get it.
It is class restricted, more powerful than other buffs, comparable to WoA totem, but less powerful than CoE/Sunder.
It's not even apples-and-oranges, it's more kumquats-and-pineapples-and-coconuts.

They know about those things and will review things in time.
But first, they have some more balancing to do to for the grand picture before going back to review buffs.


[Edit]:
So is two classes controlling 5-10% of your raid HP each (BoK and PW:F). They are not happy with BoK at least, not sure what their stance is on PW:F. And arguing just for the sake of it doesn't help much either.

Yes it clearly goes against the homogenization of raid buffs. The fact that it is Frost damage only (and as a side effect FFB damage) is the big problem. The idea of increasing the DKs frost damage is fine, and given the debuff oriented nature of the DK class I can see where the issue likely arose, but if the intent of the spell is to increase DK DPS (and NOT other frost damage) then the affected spells should be called out individually (Howling Blast, Frost Fever, Icy Touch, etc) or the debuff simply removed and made into self buff a la ISB.

As for what would happen to FFB without it, I can only see what Rawr tells me, the question there is whether or not the spec was intended to have that 5% increase or not. Further discussion probably is best for the FFB thread.

If Blizzard is attempting to balance DPS between specs to within 5%, Razorice can't be ignored. Especially since AFAIK many DKs do indeed use it on OH in a DW build, I think. If they intend to balance the specs with that damage increase then I think Razorice is a clumsy way to do it and perhaps it could be something added into the frost playstyle. I would dearly love to see a PvE oriented frost spell (one without a slowing component likely) that could perhaps fit this purpose.

Regarding other raid buffs:
I have long ago stopped believing that the homogenization would eventually be fully redundant with regard to everything.
So living with Judgements and Heroisms is just part of doing business atm. The scorch/WC issue I agree is a pointless and confusing distinction to make, and 10% spell crit is just too much either way and I suspect (and GC has hinted) that its heading for a nerf anyhow. I don't see a problem in the world of "everyone gets 1 way to be special snowflakes" of only mages holding that debuff, but one class controlling 10% of raid magic DPS is probably a bit too much. Heroism is first on my list of offenders for this reason.

hi there,

as someone stated a few posts ago that wowstats are always welcome, i decided to post one here.

Wow Web Stats

some notes:
- spiderwing is excluded. we cleared it the day before and aborted due to heavy lags.
- i passed at any boss in plaguewing, so overall-data isn´t representativ
- we encountered some lags during fights, especially thaddius
- it seems they added some huge amounts of frost.resistance with 3.0.8 to sapphiron (resisted/missed ~14%)
- buffs: didn´t flask, just used potions/food

thus so far, if there are any questions, just let me know

You can do what you want, of course, so long as recruits keep coming to you who are willing to bow to your demands. And in Naxx at the moment, it's clear anyway that trash and boss adds are relatively unimportant, so if you are having trouble with it, you are probably correct to push raiders into higher DPS specs. Frost survivability and AOE are probably of some use at the high end of corrent content, i.e. Malygos and Sarth3D, but if you feel you need to max boss DPS on those, I won't second guess you.

However, we don't know what's going to be in Ulduar, Thematically, it seems unlikely to be a new Hyjal, but one never knows.

We simply don't know what dual specs are going to involve, so your observation is purely speculative. It's obvious that Blizzard (wisely) got a touch of cold feet after announcing the idea. For all we know, dual spec when implemented will simply involve the game saving specs and toolbars and placing a 'lexicon'-like device in every mage guild and battleground sign-up zone where you can instantly load one of two saved specs, at zero cost but with a cooldown of one hour. We don't even know for sure if dual glyphing will be supported.

(If Blizzard asked me for advice, I'd propose exactly the above, with a separate glyphed spellbook saved for each spec.)

If we weren't on the second expansion, with many major raid dungeons already under our belt, it might be reasonable to say, "Oh, but the next one may find good trash-clearing specs valuable!"

But that's not the case. Nothing we have seen indicates that Ulduar will involve such a massive change in design that players will consider trash specs useful. What's telling is that Blizzard already considers trash specs useful, in content where players don't -- so it's even less likely that Blizzard would think a major change in design would even be required to make them useful.

We actually do have a good amount of info on this. We've been explicitly told that glyphs will indeed change along with the spec (and that actually gives me a use for this terrible feature; I can use it to toggle my Frostbolt glyph on and off for my otherwise-identical specs, assuming they make changes to the Frost playstyle so that I take my Frost Mage into a raid instance someday). We've been told many times that it will be trivial in town, and more recently, "slightly less" trivial outside of town -- with the examples of out-of-town toggling restrictions being "possibly requiring a cheap reagent" and "possibly requiring two other people to click on a "respec portal" for you. We've been told explicitly that a cooldown is highly unlikely, because the whole point of the feature is to make it "unnecessary" for the top guilds to portal people back to town between encounters to respec the old-fashioned way.

Yes, naturally things may change in development, but given the stated purpose of the feature, and everything we've been told so far, our speculation is probably pretty accurate.

They actually might have following or not so much different view on frost spec:

- You enter Naxx for the first time in roughly ilvl 200 blues. At that gear level, frost is completely competitive spec. So in order to actually beat the instance for the first time, frost is a good choice.
- Once you gear up in T7 or T7+, you have the instances on farm status, i.e. the boss DPS is no longer a challenge. In that case trash clearing speed actually does have an impact on how well the raid performs (though admittedly, I am usually limited by tank's ability to hold aggro on AoEable pulls), since it's the total time needed to clear the instance, what actually matters, not just ability to down the boss. If the spec is good enough to beat the instance in sub-par gear, it will surely be good enough to beat it in better gear.
- Some achievements require more DPS (Quick Werk), but at the same time some require survivability (Undying/Immortal), some pure skill.
- They can have another look at frost DPS for 3.1.0 and adjust it (hopefully they will!)

Otherwise, I am obviously not excited that my favorite spec is now relegated as "leveling", since arcane is better in both PvE and PvP, and has the most monotonous playstyle.

I wonder if terrible frost crit scaling could not be salvaged by enabling scaling of FoF chance with mage's crit chance

See that's the thing though. We aren't a hardcore guild. Even before LK and the low level of initial raid content, we only raided 3 days a week. We have people with spouses and kids that just don't allow them to be in the game all the time. The only change we made was to go from being completely casual to "reasonably serious". If one paladin consistently doubles the healing output of another paladin (given similar assignments) we work with the second paladin to see what's up. If they improve then all is good; if they for some reason can't, we will eventually replace them. We don't /gkick them in the middle of the raid while laughing at them the first time they don't compete.

People aren't "bowing to my demands". They have a bond with their fellow guildies. They don't want to do poor DPS not because they fear the wrath of the officers. They do it because we've picked people that genuinely want to help and do their part.

And THAT is the problem with frost at the moment. If it was just 5% behind, my guild would be OK with me spec'ing frost. A few might shake their heads and wonder why I wasn't FFB for more damage, but it wouldn't be a big deal. But when the difference is 15%+, when I am 1K dps or more behind the top DPS people start to wonder just how obsessive my love of "blue bolts over red" is.

Right now Sarth3D is the only content (+ achievements) left for us. Our problem at the moment is that we don't kill the drakes fast enough and the healers can't keep the MT up with all that crazy extra damage. At the moment we are hoping that as our DPS improves, we will solve this problem.

(What Lhivera said about dual specs and what has been said is spot on, so I'll leave it at that.)

What about Blessing of Kings? Who can replicate this?
Isn't it a crucial buff for tanks and classes that benefit from base stats for their damage dealing (mostly melees).

Yes. However, Brain Freeze is not the problem.

I repeat: any solution to Frost's scaling and damage output that does not include Ice Lance and Deep Freeze is short-sighted.

I've seen it suggested at least once. The problem is, I think, that while it might be the perfect solution for PvE, it would give frost an instant snaring bolt spell in PvP, which might be rather too powerful.

Hi,

Here's another WWS log including a frost mage (myself, Helmork) : WWS Report. It's a first half of Naxx 25 log.

I was running my current spec, a 18/0/53.

First, some notes about my spec/cycle/stuff :
- I went 18 in arcane to get Torment the weak (I tried a spec without it and it is clearly a huge increase in DPS on bosses) and Focus magic. I tried before to go fire to get ignite (to improve brain freeze fireball) and, while it worked a bit, it isn't a good idea anymore for me currently
- I gave up Brain freeze (for the moment) : previously, my cycle was frostbolt spam/ shatter combo on FoF / Fireball on Brain Freeze, but after some tests, it appeared that, with my current stuff (it wasn't true before I had more than ~ 10% spell cast bonus thanks to haste) spamming frostbolt wasn't doing less damage (I tried with several combinations, without Ice Lance, without Brain freeze, with Brain freeze on "third" FoF proc). So the current cycle is frostbolt spam, with using Elem and all CD the most wisely possible (using unefficiently the CD hurts the resulting damage a lot)
- I tried to focus on haste stuff, without giving up totally crit (...and, sorry, I still haven't received proper shoulders, no haste excuse for them * shame * ). At each percent I get in spell cast bonus with haste, I've seen a very consistent increase in damages each time.
- during this run, I was almost all the time without flasks (I just had one on a failed try on Thaddius)

Concerning the results, you can note that this spec/stuff can reach 4,3K DPS on Patchwerk (WWS report).
Without brain freeze, I'm a bit less efficient on mobility bosses (like Heigan)than before, but I've been not playing completely properly for this first run, being rather coward on Heigan (I think that I'll be able with my haste to cast a Frostbolt between each move) for instance.

It might be possible to gain Brain freeze back by removing some point on Blizzard and maybe half Artic reach. I don't consider decreasing Frost channeling, as with the DPS increase, I'm starting to have some slight aggro problems (really not often, but on some specific fights/moments). I would also try to avoid removing ice barrier too, both for Gluth kitting and to ease healers quite oftens.
But, currently, I think that trying to get Brain freeze back isn't worth it. I might try it later anyway.

To sum up my current feelings on what you need to have a decent PvE frost damage: haste stuff / TTW / proper elem and CD use.

Hope it will give you additional data to study the frost case I'll try to remember to record other combat logs (especially the second half of Naxx to have full data)

I personally would like to see frost become competitive to the other raiding builds, not so much, because I have any particular interest in frost, or consider more viable PvE speccs really neccecary for mages, but rather, because it would be a consequent approach to what blizzard had already been promising pre-wotlk in official posts.
And that would be making most speccs competitived in PvE and PvP without having any build being unquestionably superior to others.

As I see it, frost just has too weak of a main nuke. That being said, seeing how FB has replaced FFB as THE deep fire main-nuke, I do not see how it could be wrong to give FFB to frost as its main nuke for now.
Its actually the only tree, that hasn't had any new spells (raid-wise) implemented since tbc, as well, as the fact that even the mechanics of the tree are staying unchanged to a large extent.

If ttw and ignite would be possible to be specced into at the same time, while the deeper frost talents offer more support to the FFB spell, that would somewhat offer potential for a raidspecc. Of course this concept would actually need a lot of tuning still (makeover of BF aso), but alltogether I feel that this would fix the dps-problems of frost.
On the other hand it would do very little, to change the monotony of playing as frost.

This is just what I could imagine to be a relevant solution to the problem of frost being a sub-par raidbuild currently.

One way to get it back is to drop Ice Floes (or Iceberg as it appears it is called in French). The reduced cooldown on Icy Veins only adds a small amount of damage, and that on Frost Nova can also be lived without.

I spend most of my time in 10-man content, and your parse looks very similar to everything I've seen. I generally run 2700-2800 DPS. As an 18/0/53 build I'm generally in either the number 1 or 2 slot for DPS and overall damage (even if you exclude all trash).

I'm always the only mage in my naxx group, and often the only caster at all (I don't think my guild even has a lock at 80 anymore). So maybe my experience isn't that universally applicable, but I always end up laughing at FFB mages when I pug Arch-10/25 with them and I out DPS them while providing them with focus magic and the crit debuff.

As the only caster I get all the +crit gear and the +haste stuff. So I have a good deal of gear versatility, although it’s all still mostly pre-T7. I can play around with rawr, but with the 10-man buffs we have, I can't even get my theoretical DPS for Fire or FrostFire ahead of where I am for Frost. I've played around with arcane, and the DPS boost is nice, but we don't have any real replenishment in the 10-man runs and I run oom way to quick (could still be a bit of a L2P issue there on my part I admit). But raid wise, going from being the only (although only 1/2 power) replenishment to being a mana sponge didn't help either.

Just to be clear, my point is that frost is perfectly viable, if not the preferable spec, for 10-man raiding. For the casual readers bumping into this thread, all of the arguments against raiding as frost are only really applicable to 25-man stuff where you can really stack on the buffs and frost just doesn't keep with the scaling.

And even in 25-man content, when your raid is still in T7 or pre-T7, and doesn’t really have anything on farm mode, you find that frost does decent DPS, although you do get bumped out of the top slots. The "Frost is 15% behind" comments are only really applicable to fully T7.5 geared players with optimal 25-man buffs. For T7 geared 25-man raids we’re probably a lot closer to 5% behind. For those raiding with iLevel 200 blues and some Heroic gear we’re about 5-10% ahead of the other mage specs.

Yes, I’m concerned that as the content expands we won’t have the scaling to keep up, and I’m glad to have some very vocal frost mages arguing the point. I do want to see us get “fixed”, but I don’t care to turn into a fire mage clone with a different colored fireball either.

Well, I found this post by GC fairly encouraging. Original poster is a Hunter, who opens up with:

...and continues with the old idea that it's good for specific types of content to pigeonhole you into specific trees. GC responds with:

Bold is mine, and helps us be certain that he's including Mages specifically in this "you should be able to spec into the tree you like for whatever content you like" philosophy.

Granted that we would all like a lot more in the way of specifics, but this is probably as clear a statement of this particular mission the devs are on as we've seen to date, and it'll hopefully put to rest the whole "you're good in X, so it's okay that you're bad in Y" and "You have Z good trees already, stop asking for them all to be good" genres of arguments that keep cropping up.

GC is at it again, but in a confusing manner. The question:

His answer:

This really surprised me. How can Cone of Cold be the problem? Ice Lance? Sure. Frostbolt? Sure. But CoC? Anyone care to guess just what sort of change he is considering that would make CoC the problem?

I think the change is simply a matter of Frost needs more options for spell to cast. Short of adding a frost spell, Cone of Cold is the most likely candidate for a drastic change that makes you want to cast it.

I think the real problem is that they are reluctant to make major redesign decisions in the frost tree, and wont be able to rebalance frost without doing so.

Deep Freeze is sort of cone-shaped, so I think it was just a slip and meant deep freeze rather than cone of cold. Cone of cold could certainly use help (both PvP and PvE), but I think all it needs to be is much more mana-efficient than it is now.

Frost pays a big price on bosses because they are snare/stun-immune, so it would seem fair that when you give up the ability to snare bosses, you get some damage in return. During TBC, the payment was the lack of partial resists and "ghost hit", as mentioned above.

You all are reading too much into what he said. Shatter Combos work for Cone of Cold just like they work for Ice Lance. So if Blizzard makes Shatter Combos stronger in general, they would make them stronger for Cone of Cold as a side effect... which has PVP implications.