Frost change 7.2.5

[Elementcharm]

Thermal Void redesigned: Increases Icy Veins’ duration by 10 seconds. Your Ice Lances against frozen targets extend your Icy Veins by an additional 1 second.

I sounds like this would buff the worst case where generate only 5 figures of frost and nerfs the best case anything over around 10. Thoughts?

[mustreach]

This is definitely a massive nerf to geared players and frost mage scaling in general. I have gloves/shard/mags and regularly reach my 2nd or even 3rd frozen orb, but with this change it looks like reaching even the second will be practically impossible in ST scenarios. Surely they're going to buff us back to fighting shape after this nerf and the eventual double IL fix, right??

[Mcpenco]

This is a huge nerf...

We went from needing 20 ILs to 30 ILs to get a 2nd orb during veins.

I hope some kind of buffs are coming to balance this out especially if they are planning to remove double IL.

I started the expac as fire, then went all in frost 1 month and a half ago, got the BiS legendaries and everything. I don't know if I have it in me to start all over with another spec...

[Eyliria]

At 1 second gained per IL, with IV up, you barely gain any net time on pure IL spam assuming you had infinte FoF procs (think GCD)

...I hate to be a doomsday type person, but, Blizzard has had an awful track record with mages this expansion and I'm dreading having to relevel another spec (What now, are we nearing the point when Arcane is going to be it? Should i be setting loot spec to arcane?).

This is stupid. They shouldn't be making GAMEPLAY changes at this point of the expansion.

[seali]

That line of text will not change. The same happened to combustion. They dont want to understand the real frost mage problems: double shatter, OP legendary gloves. Those 2 extend the ST IV uptime to nearly 100% with okayish procc luck (even with LW) Why not change the gloves to something different? They said having 100% uptime on IV is bad because you can make it baseline at that point, but that kills the reason why that specc is fun to play: racing against your remaining IV duration. The dev team is unfortunately too stubborn to take any advice from the community regarding gameplay mechanics.

[Mcpenco]

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20754165786" target="_blank

I made a small thread in the class development forums. I will try to keep it on the first page, feel free to add your opinions on the matter so that we can get a dev to answer it.

thanks

[exuplosion]

The notes also say they're upping the damage of most frost spells by about 20%. Compensation for IV uptime loss?

I guess they want to take away the fun part of playing TV frost mage, while also removing the skill gap of the play style.

[mml]

devs said that they want to give more love to frozen touch talent but also they didnt want to make 100% iv uptime. wait few build more they are going to buff this talent to compensate

[Vaccine]

Do people enjoy blink double IL? Like the mechanic of it. I do it but it's always more of a fiddly annoyance to me than something I enjoy about the spec.

[Dakodai]

I don't know, I'm pretty worried about this change. I just hope they compensate us in some other way, preferably so that I don't have to drop my current setup for different stats.

Also I really am not looking forward to playing if it means I'll have to play Arcane.

[Bomb]

I keep hearing about buffs to the damage but haven't been able to find the notes other than a buff to glacial eruption and ebonbolt?

[Anchor]

They didn't buff frost damage, they did the same thing they did with fire in 7.1.5, removed frost +%damage aura modifier.

All those "buffs" are a compensarion for this change.

Frost Mage Increases damage/healing of Ancient Fire, Beam Rifle, Big Red Rocket, Blast Wave, Blizzard, Comet Storm, Cone of Cold, Ebonbolt, Fire Blast, Fireball, Firebomb, Flame Dispersion, Flamebreak, Flameshocker's Revenge, Flurry, Frost Bomb, Frostbolt, Frostbolt (Sarah test missile), Frostbolt, Improved, Frozen Orb, Hand of Thaurissan, Ice Lance, Ice Nova, Jagged Shard, Lesser Shadow Fissure, Molten Blast, Rocket Launch, Ron's Test Cone of Cold, Scald, Scorch, Summon Void Zone, Super Rocket Launch, Void Zone, Waterbolt, Worm Blast by 17% 0%. Increases periodic damage/healing of Ray of Frost and Water Jet by 17%. Mage - Frost Spec. 0%. Mage - Frost Spec.

[nirdana]

The notes also say they're upping the damage of most frost spells by about 20%. Compensation for IV uptime loss?

I guess they want to take away the fun part of playing TV frost mage, while also removing the skill gap of the play style.

yeah the increased dmg of spells were in the post, but they increased SP % coef, because they removed the 17% flat dmg buff

[subtlexgaming]

They said they are buffing Frozen Touch because they know it was too weak. We'll see what happens, just make sure you collect fire/arcane gear just in case...let's hope they learned something from destroying fire mages and hold back slightly.

[Bucky]

just make sure you collect fire/arcane gear just in case...

The problem has never been about gear. It's about collecting the right legendaries and the AP investment.

[subtlexgaming]

just make sure you collect fire/arcane gear just in case...

The problem has never been about gear. It's about collecting the right legendaries and the AP investment.

I'm not as worried about legionaries as I am AP. I've had pretty poor legendary luck and they seem to be dropping more frequently this patch with all of the extra chests to open. I'm almost two full sets. By the time the 7.2.5 comes out, I hope to be on last loot spec.

[Breshnak]

The notes also say they're upping the damage of most frost spells by about 20%. Compensation for IV uptime loss?

I guess they want to take away the fun part of playing TV frost mage, while also removing the skill gap of the play style.

"Skill gap" Right. Frost is already extremely easy to do well, especially compared to fire. Playing frost bad will already net you 200k more DPS than playing fire perfectly (with perfect fire legendaries and poor frost legendaries).

[Imaskar]

The stupid EU/US apartheid doesn't allow me to reply to that topic, but I wanted to reply to DyLemma.

In reality, it's a good change. Yes, when double Ice Lance is removed as well the spec will need some numbers tuning, but don't we all? With more gear, the new frost traits and the tier bonuses in Tomb, Frost would be out of control(1). They do not want Icy Veins to rely on 100% up-time (2). Frost is insanely good at the moment (3) and frosts tier in Tomb is even crazier with the way frost CURRENTLY plays. Also frost never had it that bad, glacial spike was very very good in EN, Fire's Ignite cheesing on a lot of useless adds in EN heavily inflated it's ACTUAL damage but yes fire was for sure the best spec (4) but not completely overpowering. I remember some glacial spike users beating out fire mages on parses (5). I also remember frost doing just as well as fire (6) in Trial of Valor. We all have that feeling of "uhg switching specs, I need to grind". But it's not all that bad now to be honest. If you've been playing this whole time you should have legendaries for almost 2 specs at this point (7). I know I have 10, I've been playing the entire expansion and I have legendaries for frost and fire.

First of all, I have huge respect for you for enduring this legendary drop hell and showing awesome results as fire, despite being nerfed so hard. But...

In reality(1) frost is already falling behind. Not only OP affli, even demo locks have surpassed it. Not to mention DH, Rogue, Warrioirs. Those who haven't got LVG (and high ilvl, and good team who downs bosses fast and covers mechanics for you) do not go out of control.

(2) But it's fun! It's a thrilling race to good dps, I wish I could participate in it! r n with my gear I can barely get a 50%-ish uptime (

(3) ... when people cover mechanics for you so you don't drop IV too early.

(4) *among mages

(5) late in EN when fire was already nerfed and gear was collected.

(6) you mean as bad as fire?

(7) i've played since release and I have 5 legs (1 frost - Ice Time ). Not to mention low weapon ilvl (913) because it's hard to get gear for offspec in my guild and low traits (42 frost weapon). Not everyone can and want to be that dedicated to wow as you. I so miss SoO times when I could only log in for raid and logout immediately after and still be top performer in raid.

[Itsmesoft]

What is all this here below? Are these also changes that are being tested? To me it seems like quite alot of buffs? Or am I wrong?

Frost
Specialization (7)

Blizzard Ice shards pelt the target area, dealing [(49.5%57.915% of Spell power) * 8] Frost damage over 8 sec and reducing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Frost (Level 63)
Each time Blizzard deals damage, the cooldown of Frozen Orb is reduced by 0.5 sec

Cone of Cold Targets in a cone in front of you take (57%66.69% of Spell power) Frost damage and have movement slowed by 70% for 5 sec.
Effect #1 School Damage
Value: 1 (SP mod: 0.570.6669)

Flurry Unleash a flurry of ice shards, striking the target 3 times for a total of [(152.3%178.191% of Spell power) * 3] Frost damage.
Each shard reduces the target's movement speed by 70% for 1 sec.

Frost Mage
Effect #1 Apply Aura: Modifies Damage/Healing Done
Value: 170%
Affected Spells:
Cone of Cold NEW Frost Nova Waterbolt
Frozen Orb Frost Bomb NEW Water Jet
Ice Nova NEW Ray of Frost

Effect #2 Apply Aura: Modifies Periodic Damage/Healing Done
Value: 170%
Affected Spells:
NEW Cone of Cold NEW Frost Nova NEW Waterbolt
NEW Frozen Orb NEW Frost Bomb Water Jet
NEW Ice Nova Ray of Frost

Frostbolt Launches a bolt of frost at the enemy, causing (175%204.75% of Spell power) Frost damage and slowing movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.

Frozen Orb Launches an orb of swirling ice up to 40 yards forward which deals up to [20 * (26.3%30.771% of Spell power)] Frost damage to all enemies it passes through. Grants 1 charge of Fingers of Frost when it first damages an enemy.
Enemies damaged by the Frost Orb are slowed by 50% for 15 sec.

Ice Lance Quickly fling a shard of ice at the target, dealing (120%140.4% of Spell power) Frost damage
Splitting Ice
and [(120%140.4% of Spell power) * 80 / 100] Frost damage to a second nearby target
Ice Lance damage is tripled against frozen targets.

Talents (7)

Bone Chilling Whenever you attempt to chill a target, you gain Bone Chilling, increasing all Frost damage you dealthe damage of your spells by 0.5% for 8 sec, stacking up to 12 times.

Comet Storm Calls down a series of 7 icy comets on and around the target, each of which deals (130%152.1% of Spell power) Frost damage to all enemies within 4 yards of its impact.

Frost Bomb Places a Frost Bomb on the target for 12 sec. Limit 1 target. Your Ice Lances that benefit from Shatter will trigger the release of a wave of freezing ice, dealing (157.5%184.275% of Spell power) Frost damage to the target and (98.4%115.128% of Spell power) Frost damage to all other enemies within 10 yards.

Glacial Spike Conjures a massive spike of ice, and merges your current Icicles into it. It impales your target, dealing (1000%1170% of Spell power) damage plus the damage stored in your Icicles, and freezes the target in place for 4 sec. Damage may interrupt the freeze effect.
Requires 5 Icicles to cast.
Passive:
Ice Lance no longer launches Icicles.

Ice Nova Causes a whirl of icy wind around the target enemy or ally, dealing (450%526.5% of Spell power) Frost damage to all enemies within 8 yards, and freezing them in place for 2 sec. A primary enemy target will take 100% increased damage.
Effect #2 School Damage
Value: 1 (SP mod: 4.55.265)

Ray of Frost For the next 10 sec, you can channel a beam of icy power at an enemy, slowing movement by 50% and dealing (230%269.1% of Spell power) Frost damage every 1 sec. Each time Ray of Frost deals damage, its damage increases by 20%.

Thermal Void YourIcy Veins' duration is increased by 10 sec.
Your Ice Lances against frozen targets extend your Icy Veins by 2an additional 1 sec.

Can be found here (you have to scroll pretty far down):
http://www.wowhead.com/news=262448/7-2- ... ss-changes" target="_blank

[Emmeh]

Its the 17% aura that we have now thats getting weaved Into the spells.