I think Ebonbolt could be a possible alternative to Glacial Spike when then nerf on 10.0.7 hits. I haven’t tried it on the PTR and the nerf is 2-part, but it does sound pretty significant, so I spent some time yesterday playing with Ebonbolt instead.
It hits for less, but it’s a slightly shorter cast time and doesn’t take up icicles and works as an opener for a pretty good combo (EB-FL-IL-IL) that as a combination does about the same damage as the pre-nerf Glacial Spike.
I have one loose point in the build though that could go in Frostbite (didn’t like giving my opponents root immunity), Brain Freeze (which is fine if you cast Frostbolt), Deep Shatter (doesn’t seem worth it) or Splintering Cold (low value, but at least Flurry benefits a bit) or Snowstorm (stacks up slow, but gives CoC a bit more damage).
You could just ignore Ebonbolt and put both points into Snowstorm and that might be interesting, although I find the Snowstorm buff builds up pretty slow. The buff doesn’t have a duration, but when I was testing it on dummies in Valdrakken, it dropped off after a while when not in combat. When I was playing with it out in the world about a week or two ago (just trying it for AOE), I was left with the impression that it does not drop off, so maybe it only drops off if you become rested? (More testing needed, I guess.) I don’t think it really suits the ideal PvP Frost Mage arena play style though - it only really works as a “punisher” if you get trained after you have already had a chance to cast some blizzards.
If Frostbolt hits hard enough, maybe just Brain Freeze + Frozen Touch? Shorter cast, but the outcome does not guarantee a combo with Flurry unless you already have a charge.
Right now GS is still way to go, even after nerfs. Optionally you can play a hybrid with frozen touch and deep shatter which evolves even more on instant cast and fishing for big frostbolts in downtime.
In S2 with ice lance set buff I believe this will be way to go
I went back to GS too. I had Ebonbolt bound on the same key and using the same aura/icon to indicate it’s available in my UI, so even though you could run both spells, I don’t have it set that way. Ebonbolt felt fine in BGs (I didn’t try it in arena), but GS still hits hard enough in arena to be worth taking.
If you do go Deep Shatter, you have to take either Ebonbolt or Frozen Touch. There was some discussion about Frozen Touch on the Aeghis Twitch stream. They weren’t sure if the 20% more often is additive or multiplicative. I think it’s multiplicative. So you would go from 30% chance of BF to 36% and from 15% FoF to 18%. BF is definitely not a 50% chance with it specced.
I noticed Aeghis having some frustration not getting a BF from Frostbolts. The chance is in the range where you typically do get them regularly, but you can also easily get unlucky and it will just ruin your day (or at least that round). The thing about Frozen Orb with Freezing Winds is that it gives you guaranteed instant cast damage and if you can trim the CD with Blizzard, the uptime is very good. (A good counter to classes with tons of pets.)
Ebonbolt guarantees the BF, but it wasn’t buffed along with Frostbolt in PvP, so it does feel a bit weak considering the cast time. If you run Slick Ice, the difference is even more noticeable.
It would make sense to have all the Frostbolt talents also affect Ebonbolt and that could (maybe) make it viable in PvP and PvE. (Deep Shatter, Fractured Frost, Slick Ice, Cold Front, Splintering Cold - although Ebonbolt is already affected by Splitting Ice.
(2)Set Bonus: Flurry and Ice Lance damage increased by 10 percent. Flurry causes an explosion on impact, dealing 50 percent of its damage to nearby enemies, damage reduced beyond five targets.
(4) Set Bonus: Casting Ice Lance on a frozen target has a 10 chance to trigger Brain Freeze.
Well with these changes i belive GS will no longer be viable and we fall to either ebonbolt or frozen touch choice. But then frozen touch will have more impact along with set bonus than ebon. I just feel like everything is lining up for deep shatter - instant / frostbolt build
Can you explain why this new version would benefit Frostbolt over GS? When the set bonus was for Frostbolt+Flurry damage, then I could see how that could happen, but the latest version is Ice Lance+Flurry and you even get BF procs from IL spam, so there’s less need for Ebonbolt and Frostbolt to proc BF.
What I was thinking here was more about icicles. If you run 5 of them on GS you just gonna go for gs on sustain dmg phase. However if you run touch / deep shatter frostbolt machine gun every 5 icicle you want to unload them with lance which is affected by both set bonus. Also you can squeze in ice nova for BF coming from 4 set on 5icicles ice lance cast