Tyrian

Strongly dislike this idea. Hopefully Ice Lance combos are implented as an attractive DPS option/motivator primarily. Frost mages themselves barely need the mana, using a low dps spell (in pve anyway) like ice lance solely as a way to play with replenishment applications, just doesn't sound exciting or fun at all. Moreso tedious and frustrating. When I think of uses for Ice Lance Shatter combos, I want to be motivated to do it for the DPS.

Perhaps i'm opposed to the idea because frost just doesnt seem a natural fitting place for a buff like replenishment currently. It's just not a mana themed spec, it doesnt have Arcane Blast/LB equivilants - and is very efficient. I think "Mage Replenishment" really still belongs as a themed Brilliance Aura in the arcane tree. Having it in frost, and manipulating frost spells (like ice lance in the manner you mentioned) to try to make it all fit, just feels like a bad chord that doesn't fit the tree. Brilliance aura, arcane, replenishment: It fits together thematically so much better.

 

TigaFin

Putting replenishment on frost may also benefit the spec in PvP without making it overpowered.

 

Lhivera

Hm, personally, I always associate mana with water, so replenishment seems to fit the Frost tree like a glove.

I agree that it would be preferable for the Shatter Combo motivation to be DPS. I brought up this non-DPS-related suggestion simply because GC has repeatedly told us that they're finding PvE Shatter Combos to be a very tough nut to crack without overpowering Ice Lance in PvE. I'd prefer to have Shatter Combos motivated by DPS than utility, but I'd rather have them motivated by utility than not at all.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Synrel

I think the "utility is better than nothing" mindset leads to a problem which we already struggle with today. Balance Druids do nothing except cast their main nukes to trigger the 13% damage boost. Shadow Priests cast 3 of their main rotation DPS spells to apply Misery; if they don't take the talent, it has no effect on their rotation. Hunters trigger replenishment when they crit some of their highest DPS shots. It seems like it would only be consistent for Blizzard to let mages operate in a similar manner, but there's a reason beyond mere consistency.

Supposing that mages do indeed have to cast the ice lances, the scorches, etc., to apply these raid buffs, it makes us next to impossible to balance. If there is "enough" replenishment, "enough" crit debuffing, then mages can actually skip the scorches and the ice lances and just concentrate on their main nukes. We've all been in our raids where the colloquially-named "scorch bitch" handles scorching, freeing other mages to just cast fireball, or go full-out on arcane, and their DPS over a 5-minute fight is far higher than it otherwise would be. It leaves us in one of two situations:

1) Mages are overpowered when just casting "main nukes", because they balanced us around having to inject low-DPS spells in our rotations, OR
2) Mages are underpowered when injecting low-DPS debuffs, because they balanced us around just casting main nukes.

I realize that what I'm saying here suggests they remove a little more interactivity from the class, and I don't like that part of it at all. Ultimately, however, I think the only way to avoid the situation is to make interactivity always lead to a DPS increase, so it should be executed correctly (and skillfully) and reward the better players. As it is right now, the better players, the ones who can keep scorch debuffs and the like up, are actually penalized for playing better than those who can't.

Granted, casting scorch every so often is hardly a difficult skill test, but we've likely all encountered at least one mage who couldn't do it.

 

Searix

Ok, i'm confused. I keep hearing about how we need a "shatter combo" in PvE.

Don't we have one already? Doesn't doubling up the fingers of frost combo with an ice lance on the 2nd charge give us a shatter combo? Why is it that the devs, and people around here continually claim that we don't have it?

 

cryek

It's a DPS boost to add an ice lance after the second buffed frostbolt when you're in small groups or when you're undergeared. As you add spell damage and haste, either through gear or raid buffs, frostbolt out-scales ice lance to the point where you're better off just spamming frost bolt.

There are other factors, such as the frostbolt's chance to proc FoF itself where the ice lance wouldn't, and latency - I'm sure this has been covered in more depth on EJ, but I don't have a link handy. There are shatter combos, just not for 25 man raids.

 

radikal

Something like "Your frostbolts crits cause your next Ice Lance spell to trigger no GCD" would probably sort of work...

Doesn't seem like it would change PvP any except potentially allow for easymode double shatter combos if you could save the proc for a while. (Crit a fbolt earlier, then fbolt->petnova->nogcdlance->normallance) It also allows for an extra lance during DFs probably. I'm not sure either of the above breaks much, but I do take the point that it is hard to improve IL in PvE only and have it be "fun" to use.

radikalnoise.com :: Dicks, Strats, Drama, eFame, and More Dicks
FH - LF 1 Baller PvE Mage
All noncrit DoTs (not Ignite) generate Combustion charges (Bug?)

 

galzohar

The idea is to buff frost in pve without buffing it in pvp. Most changes I see people suggesting will give a significant pvp boost for frost mages.

 

Vektor

If FoF procs again on the second frostbolt in the combo and you "ghost shatter" the tail, the new FoF proc will just be consumed (entirely - both charges), leaving you with nothing rather than another 2 FoF crits to use.

Discussions have indicated that the gains from the shattered lances doesn't make up for the losses you'd take from throwing away FoF procs. Furthermore, since they're a trick of latency and not an actual game mechanic, they aren't even reliable if you have a bad connection - and using dps boosting tricks based on latency is bad design and obviously not what blue wants frost dps to be based on.

 

Lhivera

Responses have already been made regarding the practical problems with this, but I also consider it important that this simply isn't intended behavior; unlike the Arcane latency exploit, this one is probably quite difficult to fix, but it should be fixed nonetheless, if possible.

At Veridian Dynamics, we can even make radishes so spicy, people can't eat them. But we're not, because people can't eat them.

 

Organigami

I haven't played a Frost spec for some time now, but back when I was exploring FoF that bug you mentioned didn't work exactly the way you described.
Particularly, using a "ghost shattering" Ice Lance at the end of FoF won't cause a potential next FoF to vanish and is not relevant in that regard.

The problem was that if the Frostbolt that consumes the 2nd charge of FoF also procs FoF, then the new FoF will disappear immediately. I assume this is due to a conflict in the same Frosbolt calling for an expiration and a renewal of FoF.
This was recognized as a bug, so it is possible steps have been taken to correct it, Live or 3.1.

I'm totally in agreement with your second point and it represents the main reason I became frustrated with Frost.
I personally think Frost's damage is barely good enough for the level of raiding I'm in, but I was only able to keep myself awake and motivated by Shattering Ice Lances/BFFireball on the ghost charge - which became completely impossible with the lag and frame rate issues I encountered in 25 man.

However, it's not essential that the possibility to benefit from Ghost charge is removed/fixed.
There only needs to be an alternative to it, one that offers better dps and is motivating from a game play pov. A completely random example would be Ice Lance gaining an especially large damage multiplier when used on the 2nd and only the 2nd charge of FoF.

 

TigaFin

I use the ghost charges all the time for IL and DF while playing solo and doing PvP or and even when dealing with trash in raids (like Kel'thuzad adds or Gluth zombies). If you have irregular latency, then it becomes difficult to pull off, but if your latency is steady and you use something like Quartz, they are practically 100% reliable. I think it would be better to fix ghost charges by making them legitimate:

- FoF Procs: 15 seconds / 2 charges
- Charge used when at 2 charges: reduce charges by 1
- Charge used when at 1: reduce timer to min(timer remaining, 0.5 seconds)

That way you get an extra 0.5 second time window for the ghost charge, which should be plenty for casting an instant, but it's never enough to launch a third spell with a cast time.

 

Tyrian

As people noted, the big question is "How do we make Ice lance attractive in PVE, without overpowering it for PVP"? Ice Lance is a great spell, lets look at why:

- Instant Cast
- No Cooldown
- Strong Multipliers to its damage on Frozen Targets (triple)
- Frost Mages have some control over when to freeze targets (frost nova, elemental etc)

If we wanted to improve Ice Lance drastically in PVE, you need a safeguard that hits it where it hurts in PVP, by looking at the aforementioned points. For Example:

Hitting the No Cooldown point where it hurts: A Fiery Payback style talent that increases the cooldown on Ice Lance (Lets say to X seconds). This removes some burst potential from frost mages and allows you to buff Ice Lance's damage in PVE. Ultimately you'd end up with a talent such as this:

"Your Ice Lance spell now has a X second cooldown, but causes 1000% damage versus frozen targets and is not capable of a critical strike. The Ice Lances hit will consume any chill effect on the target"

In a PVP mindset, its effectively an ABarr on a higher cooldown and not capable of critting/applying frostbite etc. Consuming the chill effect basically means the frost mage will lose any frostbolt snares on the target. This is a big choice a frost mage has to make. You might get some extra damage in, but your opponent suddenly is going to be free to run at full speed to melee range. Is it worth the damage to take this talent and that risk in PVP?

In a PVE minset, its your Hot streak. You want to get the proc in every time it's up. Hot Streak is a fun talent, we like instant Pyroblasts. Ice Lance just needs a special talent to allow it to shine as well.

 

Northerner

I think it is fair to say that latency shatters are not what we would like to see as the mechanic any more than bugged (munched) ignites are an enjoyable mechanic.

Blizzard wants to reward those that know a class very well but the trend should be towards not even further penalizing those that are unfamiliar with the very detailed mechanics. Reactive mechanics are great. Non-intuitive reactive mechanics are anathema to the semi-casual base though.

 

galzohar

It may be just me, but in my opinion having negative effect talents, glyphs and items is bad design. Having to respec/reglyph so you can get talents/glyphs that are good in PvP is one thing, but having to respec so you don't have talents/glyphs that kill your ability to pvp is a much bigger annoyance.

 

Mintrol1

Mage (Skills List / Talent + Glyph Calc.)

* Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute. (Note: The spell is actually different in game and increases damage and mana costs by 20% with a 2 minutes cooldown.
However it would probably be better to wait until servers are online to confirm that.)
* Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
* Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
* Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
* Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
Glyphs

* Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
* Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
* Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)

 

Weemuu

This doesn't make any sense to me. I read this as such:

Pop AP -> 15s CD on PoM
Pop POM -> still free to AP PoM Pyro macro-blast people, with a 1.5s CD on the cast of Pyroblast (which ... is no different from a GCD anyway?)

I understand that Blizz is trying to curb the burstiness of Arcane in PvP (thus the AP rework), but how does this change do anything but make people move their PoM to the top of the macro?

I guess we'll probably have to wait until tomorrow to see exactly what happens.

 

Anobix

That is exactly what I was thinking as well Weemuu. I don't understand what benefit it has to make a change like that. Hell, it may be better to just 'unlink' the two and just tie pom to arcane blast in a macro and use the AP one as long as the pom is on cooldown.

Also, with this cooldown change... this means that you can use a 10% spell power boos every 42 seconds... I guess that would be a damage increase over the 20% every 2 minutes? Again, you can see that with the cooldown changes you would have to wait one way or the other as well to get the benefits.

Not quite sure what to think of the AM glyph. Seeing how we (PvE at least) only use it when it procs (and I assume this will not change), is it even a worthwhile consideration?

 

Selun

I understand it as:

Pop AP -> PoM can't be used for the next 15 sec (the duration of AP)
Pop PoM -> until consumed, AP cannot be used and makes a 1.5 sec CD once consumed

Thus PoM cannot be stacked with AP anymore, reducing the burst that arcane has currently in pvp.

 

InFi

First of all, Arcane Burst will be alot less, because you can no longer Instant Pyro during Arcane Power. That's a 30 % less dmg compared to the Pyro before the patch. Additionally AP itself got a it's damage reduced. So it is a good PvP nerf. Lower cooldown is trying to keep the damage in PvE.

And I think the new AM Glyph is pretty good. I think it will give you more damage than the Arcane Power Glyph.

And I am still wondering about if it isn't even better than molten armor

 

Weemuu

But why would Blizzard explicitly say "Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown" instead of "share a category cooldown of 15 seconds"? This is where my confusion is. Saying one causes a cooldown explicitly implies that the other doesn't cause the same cooldown.

 

Selun

Because otherwise will create confusion when looked from Presence of Mind point of view (AP is not usable until PoM is consumed), since AP has a finite duration (15 seconds, well 18 if you add in the glyph) to me seems normal to be saying that AP will cause a 15 second CD on PoM. Maybe they are also trying to have a "lee way" with this, thinking here to more experienced/skilled players, to use PoM efficiently with the AP glyph to actually improve your PvE dps, or if you want to use it in PvP.

 

Duravi

I don't see evocate on the list for arcane flows. Either it is unchanged or they just killed arcane pve.

 

Phatpharm

I know they are trying to look at the spells themselves vs the tree's weaknesses in PvE, but I can't help but feel that the "synergy" between Frost + Fire spec could be so much better than it is.

I think Frost is loaded down with a lot of pure PvP talents, and am pretty sure that the standard PvP specs ip into Arcane. Therefore re-tooling the lower fire tree to benefit PvE Frost would be a great place to start.

Unfortunately they are looking at Ice Lance and Shatter Combos, and somehow balancing it to not give Frost PvP a buff. Pretty hard task to take that approach.

They really broke PvE Frost when they changed it from a "binary" spell. Its true strength before was having no partials, versus the fire spec that could potentially have huge partials (like Supremus)

 

Pheroz

Making frostbolts damage able to be partially resisted instead of binary had little to no effect on its PVE viability. Clearly, you never fought Rage Winterchill as a frost spec and watched ~25% of your frostbolts be fully resisted. Partial resists and level based resists just aren't a major factor in raid DPS, and they certainly have little to now effect in how the different specs balance out.