Frost mage changes

In Development 12.0.5 Public Test Realm
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I figured I’d start a feedback thread since the two Frost Mage changes have fairly large implications.

Ray of Frost and Hand of Frost

This is the more disappointing of the two changes. As it is, the second Ray of Frost charge is the main thing that sets Frost meaningfully apart from the other two specs.

  • Ray of Frost with a fixed 60 sec cooldown starts competing with Fire’s Combustion, which is a much stronger cooldown. When two cooldowns become too similar, the stronger one is preferred.

  • The second Ray of Frost charge is the only meaningful rotational impact of the Frost Apex talent. In 12.0.5, none of the 3 apex subtalents will change how you play or approach the rotation.

  • The Frost rework received some mixed feedback from the community, but a second Ray of Frost charge is one of the few universally liked changes.

  • Glaciate depends on the flexibility of the second charge to be useful. I can’t recall a fight that would benefit from having a Ray of Frost every ~50 sec.

  • It’s already fairly hard to avoid Freezing stacks overflow, especially as Spellslinger. With these changes, overflow is pretty much unavoidable. (Same problem happened in beta when Hand of Frost applied 2 stacks)

  • Ray of Frost already is a moment. It might not be Combustion, but it’s a fairly strong cooldown in its own right. A spell doesn’t need to have rigid cooldown timings to be a high point of the rotation.

Right now, I think Frost has managed to find itself a nice niche, something that is has historically lacked. If you need fixed cooldown timings, you reach for Fire or Arcane. Frost is there if you need flexibility. And honestly, it’s just fun. Going from a single charge in the prepatch to full two charges has been a breath of fresh air.

Glacial Spike and Icicles

I’m not sure I understand the point of these changes. It seems that the only thing that meaningfully changed is that Icicles no longer generate quickly outside of combat; the GS buff is simply reapplied when it expires.

This change just makes Frost in open world much less fun. And it will likely lead to degenerate behavior like 30 sec pull timers so that the Mage can regain all Icicles between boss pulls (or after changing talents).

I’m sure there’s a way to resolve the confusion regarding the spellbook without having to remove a fun and interesting mechanic.

(OP US Forums - Norrinir - EU)

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Reposting as well.

… make Ray of Frost feel like more of a moment and help ease the decision point on its best use-case while we also look to distribute the power of the 2nd charge elsewhere.

I do not see the intended goal here? Ray settled into a very well-defined use case where you cast it once you run out of steam and want to rebuild Freezing stacks quickly. The flexibility also allowed to bunker one charge and use it for high prio adds, more dangerous packs in m+ or a time without deadly mechanics, without the bad feeling of missing out on cooldown time and losing overall dps performance.

Removing the charge and buffing its damage will delete these positive gameplay aspects and turn Ray into another press on cd asap button. I really dont want to munch even more Freezing stacks just to get things on cooldown. Casting Glacial Spike and Flurry as Spellslinger into 20 stacks feels already bad enough.

Some other gripes with Ray:

  • Except for Shimmer we still do not have any meaningful way to protect the very long Ray cast. Having to hold or cancel Ray due to mechanics will happen and these changes will make it feel even worse.

  • Since Ray of Frost is now supposed to be our main cd, some love for the visuals could go a long way in improving the moment feeling, as its animation is really showing its age.

Some general stuff:

  • Generally the more raw power a cd spell has the less you care about munching freezing with it. Why is there a balancing act that is decided by Simulations on what we want to do with spells like Glacial Spike and the changed Ray? Adjusting their powers towards one side (hit hard or generate ressources) would make the gameplay more straight forward and intuitive.

  • Infused Splinters generates a ton of Freezing stacks, at least half of which just get munched.

  • Still not sold on Frostbolt and Glacial Spike being the same button. Icicles are just a periodic procc with a somewhat variable cooldown and a lot of confusion sprinkled on top. It also brings along a few other disruptive quirks, like not being able to instant cast a Frostfire Bolt with Frostfire Empowerment during movement because you have 5 Icicles.

  • Between Freezing, Fingers of Frost, Brain Freeze, Thermal Void, Icicles and Freezing Rain (and FFE for Frostfire)… is it just me or do we kinda have to track more auras now than pre-rework?

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I am not the OP of this article all credit goes to Norrinir - EU. i just want some EU weigh in and will add my opinion here.

When apex talents were announced i was so excited looking through them all. i then got to frost expecting such huge things! After a bit more research and game play the only redeeming quality of our entire apex talent tree is the second charge of ray of frost.

Removing it takes away all flow and bad luck protection the spec now has. accomplishing nothing other than punishing those who have discovered a new love in frosts current identity.

Your intentions of creating a moment are lovely and refreshing to hear, but removing gameplay benefits for the sake of invisible hands that only show up on logs is hardly the moment your preaching?

I really hope you reconsider these changes.

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Frost Mage has been my most played spec in the game by far, and although I really did not enjoy much some of the recent previous iterations, I really found myself enjoying the spec once again these last few days.

I cannot give an honest opinion on Ray of Frost losing a charge as I haven’t played enough with the 2 charges to really feel the flexibility it brings, although the comments that many of my fellow mages have been leaving leaves me with concerns. However, what I can speak on is that although the problem seems to have been identified, the solutions seem weird to me. You claim wanting to make it more easy to understand when to use Ray of Frost, and I agree in a way that seeing Ray of Frost so low on most priority spell rotations can be a bit worrying, but I think it’s mainly due to the fact that as of now, pressing RoF means almost always wasting ressource, whether it’s fingers of frost or freezing stacks, which pushes us to use it when we’re in a drought of ressources.

The changes proposed won’t fix that issue and will probably aggravate them, we’ll still be overcapping every single ressource in the opener, but now we just might not have RoF ready when those ressources are needed. There’s a lot of ways to change the spell without altering the current feel of frost, you could make the spell stronger (and possibly with a better animation to really give us the “moment” you want us to have) or you could give us the ability to move while casting.

Speaking on the “moment” thing, I have to say this line kind of worries me. Most of the DPS specs in the game right now suffer from a feast or famine syndrome where outside of their cooldowns the loop feels extremely unsatisfying, and Frost had somewhat managed to avoid that. Sure we’re not pumping insane burst numbers but it’s alright to not have every spec do that I feel.

On the GS changes, I’m not a fan either, especially as an avid open world activities enjoyer, it would make the spec extremely annoying to pilot in those environments. It already feels pretty bad to tackle on a beefier mob and you run out of impactful spells to throw at them, if we have to endure it at the very beginning of an encounter that’ll feel even worse. I don’t really mind the fact that GS is baked in frostbolt now (I do like the current cast time of GS), but I think these changes completely hit the mark as to understanding what makes frost enjoyable right now.

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All these changes takes fun out of frost mage, pure dissapointment. Absolutely unnecessary. Please hear us.
I absolutely love fast icicle generation while out there questing and being able to go at full strength between pulls in dungeons.
And flexebility of 2 charges of RoF. Also RoF itself is not that exciting button to press compared to combustion and surge. Casting those make you feel powerful for a much longer time, compared to 2 sec of stationary turreting of RoF. And you make this buttons even worse now.

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“I have nothing to work on to justify my paycheck, therefore let me change random things so I can show my superiors that I’m working”

-Blizzard Employee

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Please revert these changes. They are not good for anyone and makes me question who makes these decisions. Surely you have people to play test these things? Someone must have told you this is a terrible idea?

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US Forum already got flooded how bad this is:

Agree to 100%. These gonna be horrible changes.

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Totally agree with OP. Spec feels good and is fun after the rework. Before the launch in prepatch I was having less fun with 1charge of ray, the double charge is just making this spec feel good.

This rework would instantly remove the fun of this spec, please reconsider.

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Terrible changes. Please revert them. Frost feels better than the other specs right now exactly because it is not as CD reliant as the other specs.

If i want to feel the moment i’m gonna play arcane

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Like many of you, I don’t comment on the forums often but with these proposed changes I felt that I had to.

I whole heartedly agree with the feedback so far that these are awful changes. Granted their implementation is a way off yet, but the timing of their announcement is equally as bad. The expansion has literally just launched and people may have come to a decision about the spec that they want to main and are “locked in”, and for there to be a fairly hefty rework on the horizon either puts the dampener on things or makes them not want to continue playing as Frost with what’s (possibly) on the horizon. These are the type of changes for Beta, and given we’re relatively not long out of it, it just does not sit right in optics alone.

Going into Midnight I was not too keen on the Frost changes (the lack of Ice Floes), but after spending some proper time with it, I have come round, even with Comet Storm being locked behind Ray of Frost, and feel that Frost is finally in a decent place. The two charges of RoF feels befitting of an Apex Talent capstone and does really differentiate our role over Fire and Arcane, and being able to decide when to use the second charge is impactful in of itself; plus on longer fights it gives us sustain when typically we have dropped off between cooldowns. It feels good, it works. Also, it seems that the devs have not considered what this change does to Frostfire Frost in not having access to two Comet Storms/Meteors. Please, really consider leaving us with the two charges, especially given that RoF remains un-castable while moving and is susceptible to being interupted. If you want to make it feel more impactful, when most argue that it already is, buff the spell effect to be more inline with Jaina’s RoF in BoD.

The Glacial Spike change I truly do not understand, either. Opening an encounter with GS feels good, and all this because of the spellbook? It seems like a misstep. Add Frostbolt back to the spellbook with a tooltip change stating that when placed on the action bar, and at five Icicles, it will change to GS? I don’t know if I’m just being dense but, again, I just don’t get it. Also, again, for Frostfire Frost, this change seems too harsh considering FF-F is more reliant on GS for shattering.

At the end of the day, these proposed changes do nothing but to frustrate the spec and the player-base but more it removes the “fun” and identity that Frost has literally just been given which has more or less been wholly received well.

Oh, and while we’re at it, please look at the most annoying feature of Frost that really needs a change - having to resummon the Water Elemental every time we land.

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The two charges of Ray of Frost make the spec in my opinion. It gives Frost flexibility and removes the pressure to cast Ray of Frost on cooldown. That is important because Ray of Frost is interuptible, so it is nice to be able to hold ray of frost during a period of heavy movement without feeling that every second I am unable to stand still to channel is lost DPS.

The ‘compensation’, slightly more damage and EIGHT hands of frost, is not only not enough but the extra hands of frost are going to contribute to our freezing stacks overcapping (which is already incredibly easy to do…at the moment it’s tolerable but eight hands of frost is inevitably going to lead to a lot of frustrating wastage).

I am afraid I don’t entirely accept the explanations about Frost ‘needing a moment’ (ROF is fine for that as is, if you want to make it a moment, make it castable while moving and uninterruptible) and as for Glacial Spike being hard to find in a spellbook…I don’t think that is a big concern either. It seems to me you are worried about Frost’s potential burst (opening GS, 2 x ROF) to the point you are considering actually degrading the spec’s design to mitigate it.

This is a terrible design choice though, and coming so soon after expansion launch feels greatly unfair. I hope you revert this shortly and find other, less invasive, far better designed ways of addressing your concerns.

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I’m not one to use these forums a lot either tbh. I just wanted to also chime in on these being terrible, terrible changes for frost. A Spec that feels great to play right now.

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We’re making some cosmetic and clarity-related changes to Glacial Spike so that players can easily find Frostbolt in their spellbooks. We’re also adjusting the 4th rank for Hand of Frost to help make Ray of Frost feel like more of a moment and help ease the decision point on its best use-case while we also look to distribute the power of the 2nd charge elsewhere. We’ll be monitoring the throughput impact of these changes and make adjustments as necessary.

I am confused by the goals of these changes.

While I can understand that players being able to understand their spells more clearly is important, I do not think the proposed rework solves this problem and comes at a steep cost to spec enjoyment especially in open world and more laid back content.

I am also unclear how the GS 60s buff timer is supposed to function out of combat. Currently on PTR after the buff expires it regenerates on the next icicle, which means you have a few seconds looking at Frostbolt and then back to 60 seconds of Glacial Spike. I assume this is unintended.

Assuming that the idea is that GS is not something you have after being out of combat for a while, I think this just significantly nerfs the fun of the spec in open world content. Surely it would be possible to add Frostbolt to the spellbook manually to address any potential confusion. (Although many, many talents and interactions in wow are confusing and not explicitly explained. Glacial Spike is fairly clearly explained in talents) .

On Ray of Frost charges, I don’t think Ray of Frost should work in the same way something like Combustion or Arcane Surge does so that it is differentiated as a spec from Arcane and Fire. The way Frost plays currently is fairly nice and benefits heavily from the flexibility that Ray offers. It still feels like a moment when you hit ray and generate a bunch of freezing and then spend them after.

It would feel like more of a moment if it was improved visually.

I don’t think removing charges would really help the spec out and would rather Frost continues to fill this more flexible niche offered by Ray as a small cd and resource generator.

Thanks for your consideration.

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I just wanted to reply and say that these changes are targeted exclusively at how the class plays and not how it performs - and in order to do that successfully you should listen to the players. I think I can speak for a lot of Mage players right now when I say that damage being nerfed is not the concern we have and not why we are all a little worried about these potential changes. These changes only serve to alter the flow of the class, which is in a good state. Why it is necessary to alter that, I am not sure. We are all enjoying how it plays currently, and for me a huge aspect of that is two charges of Ray - it lets me fill a different role to the other two mages and also a different role to my other dps in the group - they have higher burst in the cool down window, I have a more steady burst for most packs - and it lets me control freezing stacks with more precision - which is absolutely pivotal to the class not feeling dull.

Please consider reverting these changes before they go live - for many expansions players have been funneled to arcane - at least let frost remain fun to play if you want to limit the output.

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Agreed. Everytime i start to like playing WoW again, they find a way to get me dislike the game again with these dumb changes. Why do we even have these beta and other form of testings before retail, if they gonna make the biggest changes in the actualy retail?

Blizzard, dont make them changes!

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We’re also adjusting the 4th rank for Hand of Frost to help make Ray of Frost feel like more of a moment and help ease the decision point on its best use-case while we also look to distribute the power of the 2nd charge elsewhere.

I don’t even understand what they mean. It’s not really rocket science currently, is it? What a nonsense, the real reason please…some Youtuber complained? Couldn’t fix the single-button-assistent? …

Terrible changes, and way too significant (rotation wise) so early on in the expansion. Shame.

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New player here. Tried playing a lot of classes/specs that feel fun to me and finally stumbled upon Frost Mage and having a blast currently leveling it.

Seeing these changes and the community reaction honestly makes me feel why even bother wasting my limited time on leveling/playing this game if the Devs can literally ruin the fun out of nowhere for no reason.

Honestly considering dropping the game overall. Very sad.
Is there any chance that the Devs listen to the community and not go through with changes?

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It has happened, it’s possible. I don’t consider it likely, but who knows.

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Would honestly prefer a flat-out 10-15% damage nerf than the proposed changes to Glacial Spike and Ray of Frost.

Frost feels so great to play in both dungeons and open world right now, these changes would completely ruin it.

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