Deep Freeze for Frost Mages (PvP)

Classes Mage
1

Hello fellow (Frost) Mages,

I will begin by saying that as we approach the present moment the absolute need for Deep Freeze to come back becomes more and more urgent. Here I will allow myself to speak on behalf of all the Frost mages who want this spell back on their action bars. The number of people who argue in favor of this change is not small at all and it only takes a few searches on the forum to see the number of posts and extent to which Mages want DEEP FREEZE Back.
This argument has been going since Legion and I will state a few reasons/suggestions which will contribute to the general discussion.

1st , Deep Freeze allows for more flexibility in PvP situations defensive, offensive or simply used as utility spell for a set up. The spell greatly increases the quality of world PvP and the ability for skilled mages to engage in 1 v X situations.

2nd, The shimmer(Talent) blink + Polymorph playstyle in arena is boring, one dimensional and already in place for 5+ years since Legion came out. It is much more satisfying to be able to cross cc with deep freeze and get a sheep than just blink behind pillar while casting poly and get the sheep on the enemy healer. Here I suggest the removal of Shimmer and its replacement with Deep Freeze.

3rd, Deep Freeze allows for different offensive playstyles. Right now the only time anybody would use Ice Lance over Frostbolt is when you have Fingers of Frost procs and you have nothing else left. If Mages had Deep Freeze they could choose to cast a fat shatter into it or to simply spam lances if they are afraid of getting interrupted. As we know, the main reason why Fire Mages are preferred to Frost Mages in Arena is because they don’t have to cast spells while bursting and also there is no danger of getting kicked on Frost school.

4th, 97% of Mages in arena are Fire because the spec provides an alternative to Deep Freeze. As we know, Dragon’s Breath is often used in the same way as deep freeze to secure a sheep on the enemy healer or as a defensive to prevent enemy from damaging, setting up etc. Combined with the ability to burst almost instantly with combustion Fire becomes the better alternative to Frost. In order for all Frost mages to become relevant they need to stay on common ground with the Fire spec which means getting Deep Freeze back.

5th, Mages are the only class in the game that do not have a stun. I think that for the sake of balance they should also be given a stun. This does not necessarily mean that it should not come at a cost. I am not simply pleading for mages to be granted more spells to become ‘‘more OP’’. So perhaps a change that takes away Ring of Frost for Frost mages in exchange for Deep Freeze (PvP talent) can sort these thing out.

In conclusion, I would say that in order for Frost Mages to become relevant once again in PvP they don’t need constant damage buffs but the return of Deep Freeze, which will allow for more flexibility, fun and explosiveness at the hands of the Frost spec. Consequently, Frost can transform from a dampener spec to a dangerous and bursty class played on the highest of levels once again.

Let me know what you think guys, every one and each opinion will be appreciated!

5 Likes
2

Totally agree with you, I have also suggested in my post that Deep Freeze should make its come back at the cost of Shimmer for Frost (and Fire?) Mage.

3

I don’t think Blizzard will ever allow mages to get stuns again.

4

I agree with you too, Deep Freeze should return but :

  • if you give a stun to frost spec, fire and arcane will ask for something too
  • if you replace a talent with deep freeze (especially Shimmer) ppl will complain too

If you replace a talent it could be :

  • Ice ward because it’s a crowd control row (instead of buffing aoe control you pick a single target cc) (shadow priest is like this on 4th talent row buff silence vs replace aoe fear by aoe stun vs pick an additional single target stun)
  • Ebonbolt because forcing Brain Freeze proc to gain shatter would be what we want from Deep Freeze (on the damage part) and loosing Frozen touch could be a nice counter part

If you add it as a pvp talent, it will become mandatory and we don’t really lose something. (I’m using the fast that the most picker pvp talents are Deep Shatter, Concentrated coolness and neitherward armor)
I would insta swap neitherward armor with an on demand stun, the trade is too good to pass ^^
and i really think we should lose something to gain a stun.

Then during WoD, Deep Freeze broke after damage from frostbolt/iceland just like nova (because it was probably too strong), would you put that kind of restrictions nowadays ?

5

No, if it was up to me I wouldn’t bring back deep freeze under the condition that it brakes from lances and frostbolt because I think that it would be a throwback to WoD. Deep freeze would then become a tool to get a free comet storm and ice nova crit as it was back then and this playstyle is boring.
Instead, I would take inspiration from MoP or the previous expansions where Deep Freeze was something that you would like to either cast into or use lances to get a good chunk of damage. I think that the early MoP playstyle with frost bomb exploding into deep freeze was cool and enjoyable but this is just one of the applications of deep freeze.

6

Arcane should get “Time stop” - 5 sec stun on 45 sec CD.
Frost - deep freeze 4 sec stun on 30 sec CD
Fire has dragon’s breath, which is strong enough not to warrant another stun on top of it

7

I really miss MoP arcane shatter combos. It was super fun to play with Ice Ward and Deep Freeze.

I would like to have a stun for arcane again, something like the gravitation sphere from SC’s phoenix unit. But it doesn’t seem the moment for it.

8

As long as they make Deep Freeze to break on Ray of Frost or Comet Storm, the spell would be totally fine. Another argument would be to make it work only off of roots and not from Fingers of Frost, so there’s a bit more counterplay, but then again DHs have Fel Eruption, 4sec stun with 30sec CD, no setup and instant :man_shrugging:.

As for arcane, it’s in even worse state than frost. As for what it needs imo, it’s Improved CS, supernova baseline and off gcd knockup and regular Blink removed off GCD.

9

I love mages and want them OP but I think you’re a bit biased towards arcane xD

All arcane really needs is instant touch of the magi ;p and unnerf on arcane power/overpowered in PvP

10

I saw the instant Touch of Magi request many times, and I sincerely don’t think that is an issue in PvP. I’m more concerned about its damage on players, it’s underwhelming.

Supernova yeah, that spell needs something extra. To also make it apply Slow would be an easy addition that totally makes sense. And it would be the equivalent of Deep Freeze somehow.

Maybe instead of the two Frost Nova talent we could have something like: Your Arcane Explosion has a 20% chance and your Arcane Orb and Supernova has a 100% chance to apply Slow. Your speed increases by 10% for each enemy slowed.

11

Am I really? If you look at the ladder, arcane is literally the worst performing caster spec in the game and it’s basically tied for worst spec overall with outlaw rogue and fury warrior. (And yes
even mistweavers are performing better.)

That would help a little, since Arcane burst is lacking rn, but by no means will it save the spec.
Especially since Touch of the Magi is currently bugged, doing ~28% less damage to PvP geared targets, due to versatility(and other DR effects) reducing it’s damage 3 times.

What arcane lacks is mobility/utility/CC mostly.
In BFA we had Displacement and shorter CD Shimmer for crazy mobility, which helped us do damage, get CC or help peel with more Polymorphs.

But now we only have Chrono Shift as extra mobility over Fire/Frost and even lost the niche strenght of Prismatic Barrier, since all specs get it with Triune Ward.

Arcane just doesn’t offer anything.

  1. Worse burst damage than most specs.
  2. Spellsteal spam is not relevant since meta is too fast and haste values are low.
  3. Less CC than fire/frost, got nothing new while every other class got more than before.
  4. Less mobility than legion/bfa to support the single spell school and high amount of casting required.

Here’s a better example:
3v3 game vs warrior, rsham, random class and you’re trying to get a poly off:

  1. Wind Shear every 12sec.
  2. Pummel every 15sec.
  3. Spell Reflect every 30sec.
  4. Overwatch Intervene Reflect every 30sec.
  5. Grounding Totem every 30sec.
  6. Stormbolt every 30sec.
  7. War Banner every 90sec.
  8. Bladestorm every 60sec.
  9. Intimidating shout every 90sec.
  10. Capacitor Totem every 60sec.
  11. Hex no cooldown.
  12. Spirit Link Totem every 180sec.
  13. Healing Rain, 2 seconds downtime between casts, cleanses all magic effects on critical heal tick with PvP talent.

So yea
good luck with your Slow, 1 root, 1 kick on 24sec cd and poly.
And that’s without the 3rd member of the enemy team.

12

Put Deep Freeze to Talent tier with Frostjaw and Dragon’s Breath for every Mage spec.

Return Shatter mechanic for every Mage spec.

Remove Combustion from the game.

Rework Ignite.

13

IMO, arcane with Deep Freeze and Shatter and the rest of its bursting toolkit would be just WAY too broken. Especially with Kyrian or Venthyr.

And imagine a Frostjaw on mage-rogue? In the current burst meta? The CC target won’t be able to twitch a single muscle for solid 30s.

Deep Freeze for Frost only is fine though.

Combustion was quite OK before they reworked it and gave it 100% crit chance. For example, in Cata it was like that:

Combustion
40 yd range

Instant 2min cooldown

Combines your damaging periodic Fire effects on an enemy target but does not consume them, instantly dealing 23 to 32 Fire damage and creating a new periodic effect that lasts 10sec and deals damage per time equal to the sum of the combined effects.

Which doesn’t sound broken at all. And 2 min cd even seems a little bit too much. Something like 30-45 would be more appropriate.

14

Cata Combustion was broken. I once killed 30 Alliance near Icewing when they stacked together in a clutch fight. It was insane.

Again problem is Covenant Abilities. They are badly designed and they should not have such big impact to classes. Current gameplay is simplistic and unfun. And pruning did so much damage on gameplay that the game hasnt still recovered from that. Add the fact that people who now work with systems and classes are incompetent morons.

15

How so arcane exactly? I can see it being broken on Frost and Fire, due to high damage talents such as Comet Storm, Meteor, Ray of Frost, Greater Pyro, Pyroclasm and Glacial Spike, aka talents that would never be introduced if all mage specs still had Deep Freeze + Shatter baseline.

If anything, Arcane is the only spec of the 3 that doesn’t have such a spell/talent that would cause crazy burst damage in combination of Deep/Shatter.
If we still had Mark of Aluneth, then I would agree, that’d be broken.
But as it stands right now, Arcane would have the most fitting kit to receive Deep/Shatter, without breaking the spec.

I’d rather give Deep only to Frost, but make the said talents break Deep Freeze, and give only Shatter back to Fire/Arcane, which would also incentivize our crit damage legendaries for all 3 specs. And also add Improved CS for Arcane and Cone of Cold instead of Frostbolt for Arcane/Fire to make it more even for Frost having a stun.

16

Many suggestions have been made which tackle all the different aspects of Fire, Frost and Arcane but so far there are 3 things that I think the majority of us mages agree on!

1st Deep Freeze should be given back to Frost mages !

2nd All Specs should get the benefit from Shatter! (fire and arcane have 1, maximum 2 novas if speced as a talent anyway and it wont affect their gameplay tremendously)

3rd Combustion should be reworked so it doesn’t work simply as a one shot button and force the entire Fire spec to revolve around it!

Arcane also needs more flexibility but it is debatable what exactly should be changed. If anything, I would like to emphasize that right now is the perfect moment for Blizz devs to consider the above mentioned changes which are highly requested and bring a fresh breath to the Mage class in the upcoming patch and Shadowlands season 2!

1 Like
17

Arcane had shatter combos during MoP, and The combo DeepFreeze-Missiles-Missiles-Barrage could desintegrate anybody.

Also it was fun to cast Ice Ward on the tank (the real Ice Ward) and get all Barrages crit. Most fun gameplay ever.

18

I didn’t actually try arcane in Shadowlands, but I was seriously considering it – and exclusively for the reason of extremely powerful burst capability with Kyrian’s Radiant Spark and Arcane Barrage stacking legendary.

I know noone really uses Kyrian (I do, though, with frost), but imagine this: you farm 2 Clearcasts in the row. Then stack your Arcane Barrage legendary. Then cast Radiant Spark , then Touch of the Magi + Arcane Power, then x3 Arcane Blast, then Barrage, then Touch of Magi explodes for the last stack of Radiant. Conduits are, obviously, Ire of Ascendant and Touch of the Magi’s one.

I didn’t actually check the numbers, but I would imagine that’s a crapload of damage in an extremely short tie window.

And then imagine all of that damage goes into Stun and into a +60% crit chance modifier.

19

Arcane Harmony legendary is nerfed to stack only 10 stacks in PvP tho.
Also it’s not really a “short” window.

  1. 2x Arcane Missiles casts
  2. TotM
  3. Spark
  4. Fire Blast (1 stack)
  5. PoM Arcane Blast (2 stacks)
  6. Frost Nova
  7. Deep Freeze
  8. 2x instant Arcane Blasts (3 & 4 stacks)
  9. Arcane Barrage (final stack of Spark)

It’s like over 15 seconds of casts/globals, you might even not have enough duration on Spark/TotM to get in everything. It’s really not that good xD.

And then you have fire mage:

  1. Frost Nova
  2. Meteor
  3. Deep Freeze
  4. Fire Blast x2 + Pyro in 1 global
  5. Pyro + Fire Blast
  6. Pyro = enemy probably dead

Frost:

  1. Pet Nova + Frozen Orb
  2. Deep Freeze
  3. Comet Storm
  4. Ray of Frost = enemy dead
20

I don’t like Kyrian Spark for arcane PvP, it’s another arcane cast. Mirrors of Torment fits better (even bugged).

It gives you a shadow cast which is good for school locks. And has great synergy with Arcane Echo.