Less damage taken, on its own, is not a useful stat. It's not. Unless it crosses a breaking point where it results in a prevented death or a raid composition change due to less healing, it's irrelevant.
If an aoe hits everyone in the group for 3k, and the one frost mage in the group absorbs 2k of that with ice barrier, thats all well and good. But if that damage is healed up with a prayer of healing on the group, all that absorbtion did was contribute overheal.
There are times when less damage taken can be critical, no doubt about that. But lumping that data in with the times when that absorption provides no benefit obscures it and makes the data useless.
Also, linking the parse for one run is so skewed as to tell you absolutely nothing of value. Yes, the frost mage took half the damage of one arcane mage on an XT kill. Of course, the arcane mage didn't die (so did it really matter?) and was afflicted by light bomb and gavity bomb 3 times each, whereas the frost mage was not affected by either, so the determining factors in damage taken had nothing to do with spec.
Really, comparing damage taken on a run is akin to athletes comparing who's uniform got dirtier during the contest. It's not particularly useful.
<Edit> To prevent double posting myself-
“Beyond that, you really do have to isolate that it was the spec and not playstyle that results in significantly less damage taken.”
WWS are only so helpful. I don’t know of a way to show the damage absorbed by Ice Barrier only beyond manually extracting this from the combat log text. The difference in damage/healing when compared to the other characters/mages in the raid is significant. And as flattering as it is to imagine that I play my character so much better than everyone else’s, I can assure you this is not the case.
On Ignis, the other mages were tossed in the slag pot, you weren't. It is logical that they took more damage then you.
On XT, both other mages were randomly targetted for light bomb and gravity bomb. You were targetted for neither. It is logical that they took more damage than you.
On Kologarn, one of the mages was Stone gripped Multiple times, you werent. It is logical that he took more damage then you.
On Hodir, you were alive long enough to take 41 hits from frozen blows, the other mage lived long enough to take 70. It is logical that he took more damage then you.
Look, when damage is distributed in an equal manner, than you can analyze damage taken as a function of damage avoided. But when so much of the raid damage is randomly distributed, saying "I took less damage" tells very little of value.
WowMeterOnline shows "mitigation", which includes resists, shields and wards and you can find details on how much of each there was. My mitigation on Hodir (25) last night was 51.5%, not wearing any frost-resistance gear. 27.3% of the damage was absorbed and the rest was resisted (thanks to magic absorption, mage armor and a frost resistance aura). Typical damage taken in that encounter was about 250k - I took 178k. BTW, I did the highest damage out of all the casters (the ability to pick up DPS buffs and keep doing damage are more important on Hodir than how you spec).
Numbers like that are not unique to Hodir.
It does matter if the other mages do not survive the fights. In particular, we had 4 mages when doing Freya and I instructed all the mages to use fire ward when in the lasher phase. In the second lasher phase, we lost 3 players. 3 mages, to be exact... I checked the combat log and none of them had used fire ward even once. Mages have tools for survival, but it's not always in their mindset to look after their own health. Glass cannon pewpew and so on... That's why I think frost deserves to be a raid spec among others: it gives a choice to players who care about survival tools.
I was a raid leader in the previous guild and I can say that how well people stayed alive in encounters was a factor in how much I valued their contribution. A suicidal mage means you might as well be doing the encounter with one less player, because that mage will stress the healers and quite possibly stop doing DPS midway through the fight.
It does matter if the other mages do not survive the fights. In particular, we had 4 mages when doing Freya and I instructed all the mages to use fire ward when in the lasher phase. In the second lasher phase, we lost 3 players. 3 mages, to be exact... I checked the combat log and none of them had used fire ward even once. Mages have tools for survival, but it's not always in their mindset to look after their own health. Glass cannon pewpew and so on... That's why I think frost deserves to be a raid spec among others: it gives a choice to players who care about survival tools.
All mages have Fire Ward. Yours didn't use it. Speccing frost wouldn't have saved them, because they weren't using core abilities. This is a function of bad players, not specs.
Everyone understands that Frost has survivability tools. No one is saying it doesn't. We understand that you can, in a fight, as frost, take less damage than others, through using your cooldowns (Ice Barrier, etc.) correctly. The question is not "do I take less damage?" but is the damage I avoid/mitigate enough to matter?
As you said, perhaps it allows more time healing others. Perhaps. But you have to mitigate enough damage that it adds up to an entire heal. Not over the entire fight, but at once.
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I think the points about survivability as a poor raid stat are exactly right. If, played properly, your non-frost mages can survive the fight as well and do more damage in the process, then slightly reducing the raid healing is a minor benefit. There are of course gimmick exceptions where superior frost mage survivability may be a benefit (kiting roles, for example), but those are the exception. If the superior damage absorption led to a damage increase, then it would be different... but at the moment the only way Ice Barrier boosts DPS that I'm aware of would be pushback protection, which other specs get as a passive benefit that doesn't cost them any mana/GCDs to maintain.
You could compare it to the minor differences in survivability between, say, fury warriors and rogues and DPS DKs. Ultimately you don't choose to bring one of the above classes to fill a DPS role because one will require less healing than the others. You bring them because of the damage (and buffs, and player skill) that they bring.
I'm sure everyone here who has played frost can relate a time that they would have died if they hadn't been frost and used barrier or ice-blocked a second time or what-have-you. But just because it saved your butt once or twice doesn't mean it's particularly valuable for week-in, week-out raiding. What's much more likely to be valuable are those times when extra DPS allowed you to make a phase transition before another wave of adds spawned or another drake landed or an enrage timer went off. Those don't make as exciting a story, but they're far more likely to be at play.
Off that topic, I wanted to relate that I'm one of those people who was actually excited by the replenish change... because the 10 man I raid with had zero replenish classes before 3.1 came along. Now they have one, my mage. In my case, I believe the loss of DPS potential is worth the significant additional mana I provide. However, I understand that my experience is likely the exception rather than the rule.
I think the points about survivability as a poor raid stat are exactly right.
This is exactly right, all mages have the tools to survive any fight in the game at the moment, the advantage frost has in some fights is NOT due to survivability (I'm not saying it doesn't have more survivability, it does, it's just not necessary). The two big things frost has going for it are:
1. Extremely low mana usage.
2. Very strong snare/root in imp blizzard and pet-nova.
If you cannot use one or both of these to a large advantage on a fight there is really no point in being frost for that particular encounter. A good mage uses specs like tools in your belt, using the right one for the right situation and not just sticking to one.
A good mage uses specs like tools in your belt, using the right one for the right situation and not just sticking to one.
Replace "good" with "min/maxing" and the urge to disagree with you isn't quite as strong. Some of us still view WoW as an RPG and the talents as a way to differentiate your character slightly from other characters of the same class.
I think a good player can be of any spec or class. Top 1% mages in high end guilds are probably a bit more than just "good".
A good mage uses specs like tools in your belt, using the right one for the right situation and not just sticking to one.
Yeah, what Tigafin said. To me, the whole point of having specs is so that characters have both strengths and weaknesses. The point of group play is so that, when circumstances allow, you can use your character's strengths to compensate for the weaknesses of other characters in those circumstances; when the tables turn and your character is the one with a weakness, your teammates help compensate for those. I consider it highly unfortunate that Blizzard made respeccing so trivial that it is considered an acceptable min/max tool.
I recognize that I hold a minority position on this matter. But it has nothing to do with good players and bad players -- it has to do with essentially playing a different game. Blizzard is trying to walk a line that makes WoW into both types of game: you can cheaply and easily retcon your character if you want to play a more FPS-ish game, where your character is just a tool to accomplish a goal, but each tree is supposed to be good enough at each aspect of the game that you don't have to if you prefer a more RPG-oriented game:
Back then we used to balance around classes -- is there any way this class can make it into a raid? Now we balance around specs -- you shouldn't have to change your spec to make it into a raid.
Naturally, by "change your spec," in this context, we mean "spec into a different tree." Nobody's asking for an optimal PvP spec to be ideal for PvE or vice-versa. We're only asking that, if we have developed our character to be a Frost Mage, s/he needn't be shelved or retconned if the player is to participate competitively in PvE.
This is of course a tricky way to look at things here on EJ, where the vastly majority opinion is to use characters as tools, not as characters. But since the RPG playstyle depends upon the spec being raidworthy enough to participate competitively in all PvE content, and raidworthiness is our primary topic here, this is where we look for answers from the RPG perspective.
ETA: Note that the RPG perspective isn't entirely at odds with min/maxing, it's just a bit different: we min/max within the constraints of the original character concept.
Last edited by Lhivera : 05/13/09 at 11:11 AM.
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I've been quiet on the issue for a while, not the least because when I start talking a lot I veer towards talking too much, and getting hung up on something. Lhiv has, once more, summed up my position in an eloquent way I never considered, but touches on the core of my feelings and I imagine the feelings on both sides of the fence [I'm more part of the fence]. Certainly, here on EJ, the majority opinion boils down to using the greatest min-max spec and the highest level of nitpicking on gear wherever possible...that is, 'good enough' doesn't cut it. The problem frost has is that it is a very different playstyle than Fire or Arcane, and has traditionally proven to be a PvP spec. Yet, especially before dual spec, the thought of spending up to 100g just to BE CONSIDERED for a raid slot, to then spend ANOTHER set just to go back to the spec you like...I prefer spending my money on actual raid materials [pots, flasks, and at the time weapon oils] and gear buffs [enchants and upgrades] and using the rest to expand my obsessive 'collect 'em all' nature on aspects of the game like pets. That attitude is certainly not constrained to RP servers in any meaningful way.
So, what, now I have the option of using an Arcane or FFB or Fire build for raids and swinging my Frost spec exactly how I like it for other situations thanks to a one time investment. Huzzah, right? Only because my sense of the character allows for that inclusion. I could just as well have two Frost specs, one PvP and one PvE. Then, the EJ in me would glare daggers as I did considerably less DPS than I could be in the raid. Not 'oh, hey, just 1%, didn't at all affect the fight', but 'you realize you could be doing nearly 25% more damage, speed up the fight, and get things MOVING?' It would also mean that in a pan-guild or coalition style raid, other mages, quite possibly with inferior gear but the superior spec get that slot. So, whether you're an EJ or not, if you're interested in raiding and get bumped off because of that level of disparity, it's going to annoy you.
So I, personally, have ended up with an acceptable compromise because I'm a flexible RPer and my character is too much of a researcher NOT to have some kind of Arcane heavy theme when not being Frosty. I have a Frost PvP spec that substitues in on the rare fights where uber-blizzard and mage kiting are needed as well as my PvP, and an Arcane spec for the majority and sometimes entirety of raids. I even have gear differentials based on the amount of hit needed and whether spirit is helpful to the build or not. So, yay me and the others like me. What about those that can't realistically look at that level of dual speccing because they're just not enough of an EJ at heart? Or are, but want to take their RP character for a whirl because they're schizo or something.
You end up with the position that Frost is far enough down the raid DPS ladder that raid leaders, except under very specific conditions or one-fight recruitments [Gluth, for instance], would much rather have ANY other mage that is Arcane, Fire/TTW, or Frostfire. To the extent where they're probably willing to pass you over for another class and go class-void/heavy just to get more DPS. This is the core of the Frost raiding argument, especially since it requires substantial Arcane dipping to get EJ PvP preformance. So a true 'frost spec' doesn't even have the PvP argument going for it, anymore than the survivability one. I think the Ice Lance glyph is a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough. Hell, if they're gonna do it that way, go ahead and make it 5x multiplier. Or do something crazy like have it scale based on opposing mob's level. 3x if your level or below with +0.5 per level above you (and maybe an additional +0.5 for boss-level mobs [to make it 5x instead of 4.5x] to recognize that bosses are significantly more powerful than level 83 elites).
To be more than anecdotal about survivability: I like indulging in all parts of the WoW game to some degree...even Fishing *shudder*. So I have plenty of experience honing my rabbit instincts and using ANY survival tool available, even if it takes a few seconds of thinking to put together. How many Mages do you know that have the presence of mind to Feather Fall away from fights and spam Mana Shield if they are truly hopeless? How many Fire mages do you know that forget they HAVE mana shield and treat BW and DB like pure DPS tools, ignoring their survivability components? How many Arcane mages do you know that can (mostly) correctly re-scale their DPS to account for situations where careful use of wards and Mana Shield are the only way to make it through to the end of the fight and win instead of wipe? Sure, some of it comes from not being part of a true hardcore raiding guild. I've been in more non-ideal situations [in both senses] than content pushing guilds because THEY are just that good and have the gear to back it up, whereas I'm not typically with that crowd. No offense to HV, I love the guild and they're competent enough raiders, but most of us wouldn't be up for consideration for a true EJ guild. Put simply, I know what the hell I'm talking about when I talk about whether being Frost matters for your survival or assisting with less raid healing.
More than the greater majority of raid fights, even going south but salvagable thanks to a thunderstorm DCing and killing your main tank but having an OT that can take it as an off-hand example, it simply doesn't. Ice Barrier is typically just not enough to make a solid argument for a boss fight when all Mages can use Mana Shield on the GCD and have Flame/Frost Ward. The times where Frost is an advantage are fights like Gluth, 10-man Kologarn, X2, and other fights that specifically benefit from Blizzard + slow + Frostbite, extra Frost Novas from both the Mage and his WE [triple your FN action or more with shattered barrier!]. Only, there's a sticky, ugly side to that. A competent warrior with Thunderclap and Hamstring can fill in for a fair bit of that. A Hunter is good at that sort of thing too. Rogues have slowing poisons and can make Hamstring look almost silly. Warlocks, Priests, and Warriors have fear tools. So the only (and I mean only) way Frost has an advantage is by being practiced at that sort of thing and being able to cut down on the OTHER players doing it. If you can do it with one Frost Mage instead of the full focus of two players or that equivalent of DPS cut and attention, you're not, strictly speaking, gaining anything. Oh, hey, Frost Mages tend to get passed over for raids, so other than your friendly neighborhood windbag here, how many do you know that could fill that role well enough to make it worth it? I'm sure there are plenty on these forums and in high-end raid guilds the world over, but hey guess what? They do what I did and have it as a second spec, thanks to good old Dual Spec.
In other words, Catch 22 has nothing on Frost Raiding. And it's not like anyone is asking for Frost to be, or even compete for, truly top Mage DPS in single target raid situations. We're just trying to lobby for the DPS to come within an acceptable range of other Mages in those fights. Admittedly, this is a mutable range and has been defined differently by different people, even right here. The evidence shows, however, that the current gap is NOT acceptable and needs to be closed some to truly be able to stand on the spec equality leg.
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I am still raiding as 18/0/53, with better equip I produce equal dps to other 2 fire mages in my guild, so it is not as bad for me at the moment. Though the CL generates much more and time to time he tries to push me to fire. I was happy when I could give him advice when he was running Ulduar 10 and going frost for replenishment, haha.
In Ulduar 25 I can say one of the most frost mage friendly bosses is General Vezaxx. That shadow stuff General sometimes throws boosts frost mage as nothing else and because of much lower MPS comparing to other mages, frost has lower downtime (frost mage do not need to regain mana in green stuff as often as others). I can even start dps at the very beginning and not wait for that boost (that stuff reduces a mana cost too). Haha, my CL respeced to frost for this fight last time.
Hint for mage here: Because of the boost you are going to aggro the boss very very soon. Use Invisible to reset and you are free to dps as much as you wish. If I am not acting lame I am always being top damage/dps here.
Our older design was that warlocks and mages were the kinds of AOE. We've backed off that because it's just not a very fun niche. To be "the best" at something implies you're second best at other things. If that is not the case, then mage and warlock are just the best damage classes because they are tied for everything while also being the best at one thing. So then the design needs to become something unsatisfying like mages and locks are the best at AE, but not as good at single-target, or not as good at staying alive, or not as good on long fights. That technically gives everyone a role, but we found it wasn't a fun role for the mages and locks.
Our LK design is that single-target dps matters the most, because that's the most important to players, and things like AE, crowd-control, survivability, etc. are all "good enough" for everyone. There isn't a "best at AE" -- it's just something all classes do. You don't park the rogue when you have a high AE fight and you don't park the mage when you have a high single-target fight. AE matters on almost all of the Ulduar fights to some degree, but single-target dps still probably matters more.
Glyph of Ice Lance and frost mage's replenishment both are fail from Blizzard. Replenishment is ok in 10 mans, but only 1/3 specced, Ice Lance has no benefit if replaces Elemental or Molten Armor glyph. I am desperately looking forward for another steps to fix frost mage for raids.
The only good thing about the current broken implementation of Replenishment is that it leaves you two frost talent points to spend elsewhere after you spec 1/3 Enduring Winter. You could get Ice Flows if DPS is your main criterion - I personally prefer to have 2/3 in Improved Blizzard and Permafrost, for a bit of that frosty flavour.
I like Brain Freeze too much to give it up. In some fights at least you can't have too much mana, particularly in 10-mans, and the BF fireballs are a DPS benefit on any fight you have to move, i.e. any fight except Patchwerk (maybe Noth and Faerlina also I suppose, but that's it!).
I would like to see frost trade some survivability for dps. Here are the examples of a trade-offs:
Talent named Cracks in the Ice: Reduce the amount of damage Ice Barrier takes by 50% and gives the mage an x% increase in spellpower.
Or even better, Talent named Touch of Frost: As long as Ice Barrier is not being used, you get an increase of frost spellpower 5%/10% to your frostbolt or frostfire bolt. Once you use ice barrier, this self buff disappears.
A change I would like to see that might add to our rotation is make Deep Freeze pve friendly. If mob that is three levels about the frost mage's level and immune to Deep Freeze, the next ice lance that is cast has a 100% chance of proccing Finger of Frost.
I agree with other frost mages that we don't need to be at the top of the dps meters but should be in the same room as other dpsers.
Why not just make it so frostbolts hit 25%-50% harder against 83+ or just boss level mobs? how hard would that be. It wouldn't effect pvp at all, it wouldn't effect leveling or questing at all and it would bring frost to as being near fb/ffb/arcane and we wouldn't need any new stupid glyph to use it.
P.S I obviously don't mean 25-50% exactly that is just a random figure, they could just figure it out by increasing/decreasing values until they find a reasonable number that is equivelent to the other 3 specs.
This would change and effect NOTHING in the game besides frost mage damage on a boss level mob which obviously needs increasing and this is probably the only logical/reliable way to do it.
Why not just make it so frostbolts hit 25%-50% harder against 83+ or just boss level mobs? how hard would that be. It wouldn't effect pvp at all, it wouldn't effect leveling or questing at all and it would bring frost to as being near fb/ffb/arcane and we wouldn't need any new stupid glyph to use it.
P.S I obviously don't mean 25-50% exactly that is just a random figure, they could just figure it out by increasing/decreasing values until they find a reasonable number that is equivelent to the other 3 specs.
This would change and effect NOTHING in the game besides frost mage damage on a boss level mob which obviously needs increasing and this is probably the only logical/reliable way to do it.
This sort of change would skew frost into ONLY spamming fbolt, something that the WotLK talents were trying to address. (However, because of the mechanics of many encounters, sadly spamming frostbolts and ignoring FoF and BF is still optimal) FoF and BF need to do their "job" better. (Ice Lance to 6x PvE dmg, BF procs off GCD, etc)
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This sort of change would skew frost into ONLY spamming fbolt, something that the WotLK talents were trying to address. (However, because of the mechanics of many encounters, sadly spamming frostbolts and ignoring FoF and BF is still optimal) FoF and BF need to do their "job" better. (Ice Lance to 6x PvE dmg, BF procs off GCD, etc)
Brain Freeze off GCD would be OP in a PvP context, and would never happen. Blizzard has been reluctant to allow damage skills to go off GCD in the past. What I'd like to see is adding Frostfire Bolt to the list of allowed BF spells, because at least FFB has some synergy with the rest of the Frost tree. Adding Frostfire Bolt to Empowered Frostbolt would also be a good move imo, since you can't get both the Emp Frostbolt and the Emp Fireball talents at the same time.
I don't think they're going to get anywhere on the playstyle issue, and possibly not on the performance issue, without retooling at least one, possibly two PvP-oriented talents into PvE-oriented talents. Figure for the sake of illustration that PvP is currently at 95 and PvE is at 65, and they don't want either number to go above 100. Wouldn't it make sense to change, say, Brain Freeze, which currently isn't really of much value for PvE (it's just another Clearcasting), but is highly valuable in PvP for providing mobile damage, into something that doesn't provide mobile damage but does provide increased stationary DPS and casting variety? This maybe changes those numbers from 95 and 65 to 85 and 75, making a lot more room for general improvements that increase both numbers.
Basically, every single talent in the tree that does something other than increase Frostbolt DPS/range/efficiency provides some kind of PvP functionality. Without changing that fact, I don't see a way to fix the problem.
Another option would be to add additional talents aimed at PvE, rather than retooling existing talents -- deliberately bloat the tree. If you've got a talent that increases DPS by 5-10% by mixing FFB's into the rotation, but you can't take it without giving up Brain Freeze or Shattered Barrier or something like that, it's effectively going to be a PvE-only talent.
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Another option would be to add additional talents aimed at PvE, rather than retooling existing talents -- deliberately bloat the tree. If you've got a talent that increases DPS by 5-10% by mixing FFB's into the rotation, but you can't take it without giving up Brain Freeze or Shattered Barrier or something like that, it's effectively going to be a PvE-only talent.
Frankly, this is long overdue and something they clearly ARE willing to do: see Feral druids. I think the quote is even "You can be the best bear, or you can be the best cat, but you can't be both", and Frost needs this. "You can be the best player-fighting Frost Mage, or you can be the best boss-killing Frost Mage, but you can't be both." I think part of the reason this hasn't happened is because the assumption is that with the Chill, Improved CoC, Frostbite, and Frozen Core talents, that this bloat already exsists. Look at the top DPS frost specs and top PvP frost specs, it becomes pretty clear.
'But you have Torment of the Weak to boost your damage, giving you a true Frost DPS spec!' --Um, no. It's been shown that this isn't nearly enough, because even treating up to 18 in Arcane as PvE DPS bloat, there simply isn't enough there. A better solution would be a speration of certain talents with multiple effects, straight up new talents. One example would be Arctic Winds. It used to be a flavor/PvP talent, only providing miss mitigation. Then they tacked on +1% frost dmg / point, making it a mandatory PvE talent and DPS boost to address the Frost damage issue. Talents that provide other benefits, even if they have to be cloned from other classes, can still fit into the Frost playstyle while boosting PvE damage without significantly affecting PvP.
Example: *You have stolen Sniper Training!* *Sniper Training has become Coat of Ice!* Coat of Ice provides a +frost damage bonus to the Mage after standing still for 5/10/w-e? seconds that lasts X seconds and is removed when the Mage moves. What does Frost do in PvE? Stands there spamming Frostbolt [and Ice Lance and the occasional Fireball], not moving. When on the move, Ice Lance provides reasonable DPS. In PvP, frost is much more mobile unless they can do what a Hunter does - find a spot to stand and shoot without getting shot at, then go do it again. Obviously, this is both a simplification and would need tweaking, but to use a Lhiv comparison, if it gives +5 to PvP it gives +10 to PvE.
The point is that there's plenty of inspiration for talents to provide that would fit the playstyle. Changing talents to provide a bit less PvP benefit for a PvE boost open room for buffing to both. Using intentional bloat would prevent a spec from being 'PvE: 93 / PvP: 90', and would create spec1 - 'PvE: 75 / PvP: 95', spec2 - 'PvE: 93 / PvP: 77' with a modular range in between. This is as opposed to the current reality that is more like 'PvE: 75 / PvP: 97' and 'PvE: 85 / PvP: 87'. You'd almost think they were halfway there...
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I think we just wait and see what the Q&A results are...
I asked if brain freeze fireballs could be made to scale with spirit and the added damage put on the DoT part. That way, you would have the current brain freeze fireball (with a tiny buff, but no extra burst) for PvP and a more worthy one for PvE. I think this is something they could actually hotfix right now. It wouldn't fix all frost problems, but every little bit helps.
I was also pleased to see how many questions there were about how focal TTW is to most mage builds today. One way to pave way for frost buffs is to change TTW so that it doesn't work as well for PvP (only on attack speed slows). This reduces PvP damage significantly, which can then be compensated for in the frost tree. Arcane can still use slow to apply TTW and PvE builds rely on tank slows. The thing to note there is that TTW doesn't apply to ice lance, but it does buff both brain freeze fireballs and frostbolts.
That of course doesn't release PvE builds from the clutches of TTW and 18 points in arcane. As has been suggested before, a more fire/frost-friendly arcane tree would be nice with the new TTW replacement talent placed in the 11-13 point range rather than at at 16-18. Simply diluting TTW and spreading the DPS increase earlier in the tree (first and second tiers) would make the venture into arcane talents much smoother. You might see more casual PvP builds without improved counterspell and possibly some PvE builds with a slightly reduced investment in arcane. The absolute hardcore PvE raid build might still go 17-18 into arcane, but builds like that could be tuned to be only 2-3% ahead of builds that only take 13 arcane and puts a few more points in frost (or fire).
Changes like that would be rather major and I remember ghostcrawler saying that they think frost can be helped with relatively small changes, so I don't actually expect to see a big arcane tree revision unless the Q&A session turns the developers' heads somehow.
Here are some ways to differentiate PvP and PvE:
- Spirit as a minor DPS stat (*)
- Target level such as in the ice lance glyph
- Target health (*) (similar to the ice lancy glyph condition, but with fewer consequences on leveling.)
- Elite/non-elite target
- PvP target immunity to spells/debuffs (*)
- Effect duration on PvP targets (*)
- Effect dispellability in PvP
- Target resilience (*)
- Caster resilience
- Cast time
I marked my favorite methods with an asterisk (*).
The replenishment issue has also gained quite a bit of visibility, so hopefully that question will be answered.
I think another way to differentiate Frost PvE from Frost PvP would to change Empowered Frostbolt to affect Frostfire Bolt and create some synergy between a Frost heavy Frostfire build with 10+ points in fire. That combined with a new Ice Lance Glyph that allows IL to do Frostfire damage (with some tweaks) would not only improve heavy frost builds in PvE but also give a good reason to use Ice Lance and thus make the spec more interesting to play.
I've long since retired from frost raiding but this post by Ghostcrawler about warlock/hunter pets is interesting.
The way pets scale from the master's stats was implemented (on our side) in a slightly clunky way which made it difficult to add additional stats. In BC, it took some effort to kill a pet so it wasn't a burning problem for us. In LK, we have bumped up pet health a few times, but we are thinking now that the balance will never work right without some crit mitigation. Pets will never scale right with gear as long as the master improves in ways that don't benefit the pet.
We have a new way to let pets scale, and assuming it works, we should be able to give the pets scale with all relevant stats from the master, from hit to haste to crit. Some things will need to scale at 100%, since it's silly to have your pet inherit part of your +hit.
He doesn't specifically mention other pets such as the Water Elemental but lately he has group it with permanent pets. While this change wouldn't fix all of the many problems with frost raiding, it would help in making the elemental a larger portion of a frost mage's total damage. This could help distinguish the play styles between frost and fire and end the snarky "red bolt vs blue bolt" comments.
When I saw this my first thought was how that would effect the Water Elemental. My second thought was “uh-oh”. Is this the solution for Frost PvE damage being “probably” too low?
The spectre of pet adjustments being the fix for Frost performance is disturbing. I have done some calculations around this in the past, making a few different assumptions about how the pet might benefit from masters stats, from 25% of masters offensive stats up to a full 100% for everything (including Ice Shards). This is an idea that would definitely help us on paper…
I can already hear the howls from PvPers though. As I see it, any boost to the elemental is going to totally upset the (allegedly fine) PvP balance, far more than say a flat 10% increase to Frostbolt or a 5x or 6x Icelance or even perhaps a damage component on Deep Freeze. This would surely lead to more compensatory nerfs for other aspects but even if not I really don’t see this as a PvE solution.
We’d become even more dependent on our pet. Since we have no way of independently positioning him, he is almost always right beside us, vulnerable to player targeted bombs and void zones. Keeping him alive is already becoming a major issue for frost mages in pretty much every fight in Ulduar. Not that I mind this personally, it’s an aspect that adds a little bit of interest (and a big reason why I take exception to the perception of Frost being simple Frostbolt spam). But having the Elemental become an even larger and therefore even more important proportion of our damage would thrust us even further into the RNG dependence that we already have with FoF and BF – environmental RNG at that.
I’m all for buffing the pet, having him scale with our gear. Even if it incurred a talent point or glyph slot cost, I’d probably take it. But the prospect of this being the unique fix for the dps issues we have is a bit worrying. The point was driven home for me last night on XT where I seemed to be getting continuously and consequetively Lightbombed - Splashy was never up for more than a few seconds.
I have not raided as Frost since BWL so I'm a bit unfamiliar with the playstyle. More of an Arcane mage that's been forced into Fire in 3.1. However, my guild has been trying Freya with 3 adds up and I've had to investigate this tree again.
Basically the fight has massive aoe damage, so much so that the RL would like people to have at least 25k buffed hp to prevent unlucky instagibs (they happen a lot). Mages are by far the most squishy class to bring to this encounter and so I'm here looking for a Frost spec that'll give me more survivability and good AoE damage. The spec I'm considering looks like this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?mage...0&version=9551
I've kept the 18 points in Arcane for TotW. Within the Frost tree, I've dropped Elemental Precision because the adds are not raid level mobs. I've put the points into Ice Barrier and Frost Warding instead. I've kept Brain Freeze for mobile DPS and only 1 point in Enduring Winter following the discussions about raid replenishment. 1 point in Frostbite and Improved Blizzard are for boosting AoE damage.
Ideally I would like 2 more points into Frostbite and even 2 points in Shattered Barrier (although I'd need to test the actual usefulness of this talent in the fight). I can't really see where they could come from though.
There used to be a bug where FoF on Blizzard wouldn't proc if you didn't have a point in frostbite, but that one has been fixed for quite a while now.
If it wasn't for the "I'm rooted, so I'll hit anyone in melee range", I think frostbite would be an acceptable talent even for PvE raid, but it's just very risky in its current form and isn't really needed for raiding at the moment.
I have been switching to a deep frost spec for the trash before Mimiron and that spec has frostbite. Having all the snares and then frostbite on top of that (and some elemental freezes) means that I can slow down targets very efficiently and have everyone AOE from range. If you don't have all the chill talents maxed out, you'll probably do better without frostbite.
Does anyone have any actual anecdotal raid experience as Frost in (Hard Mode) Ulduar?
Just from data that is out there, it seems widely accepted that Frost is the preferred spec for Hard Mode Freya and Vezax. I plan on doing some experiments tonight where it seems like the speed of frosts casts, the AoE, and the survivability give a frost mage an edge on not only other mage specs but other dps classes.
I intend to do some tests on the following:
Razorscale: AoE and Icy Veins/Water Elemental Burst on ground phases
Deconstructor(Heartbreaker): Double Icy Veins
Auriaya: AoE
Hodir(Hard Mode): Double Ice Block for flash freeze.
Does anyone have any real proof other than theorycrafting that Brain Freeze is not worth taking. It says on page one of this thread that even with 4 piece T8 that you should ignore procs and spam Frostbolt. This would imply to me that speccing for brain freeze at all is not worth it for PVE. Yet, the first talent link that is posted has it specced. Maybe it's not updated. I don't know. However, almost every wowmeteronline record has frost mages throwing out fireballs on vezax.
The one point in enduring winter seems to be widely accepted also.
This spec is speciffically designed to prioritize survivability followed closely by single target and AoE DPS.
2/2 Magic Attunement - This is strictly for Amplify Magic on the tank for Vezax. Only one mage in the raid needs this. Stick these points somewhere else.
2/2 Magic Absorption - Damage Mitigation for Vezax hard mode and freya hard mode. I believe resists are available on Hodir as well.
1/3 Improved Blizzard - This is the only thing you need to proc fingers of frost with blizzard. Also good for AoE slowing but not snaring
0/3 Brain Freeze - The first post claims to ignore Brain Freeze procs because fireball doesn't get helped by your tree. There really seems to be no reason to spec for this.
Also, with this spec, I swap out glyph of molten armor for glyph of Ice Barrier for Freya and probably Vezax hard mode
I would love some commentary on what people think of the Brain Freeze/No brain freeze. And anything else regarding frost DPS in Ulduar. We need to get the first post updated!
05/11/09, 11:40 AM
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