From what I understand Frosts biggest problem in 3v3 at the moment is it has to cast to do anything and at the moment if you are trained you simply can’t stand and cast so they do nothing (Raiku’s words not mine) and get rolled over.
I had a simple idea to change this, what if they swapped Icelance and Frostbolt over somewhat? Frostbolt becomes instant and Icelance is a cast. This would enable Frost to get its base dmg out and enabling it to stack icicles up and procs without getting rolled. But when they want to use the dmg they have to get the Icelance cast off, something which would be easily counter played by kicks.
The biggest problem I could see with this swap would be the slow Frostbolt puts out, it would enable a Frost Mage to easily slow many targets at once, the idea to balance that out would be if the slow was stacking, first Frostbolt on a new target slows for 20%, 2nd Frostbolt into the same target puts it to a 40% slow and the 3rd puts it to the normal 50% slow it currently gives. Since the slow lasts for 8 seconds it would be hard for a Mage to keep slows on 2 people while also dealing their dmg and using their CC. It would take 3 globals to get the normal 50% it would take longer to slow someone than cast a normal Frostbolt thats currently in the game but the trade off would be they gain their icicles faster then will have to get an icelance cast off to use the dmg.
So you think its better to redesign the entire game over a simple fix like that? you realise they won’t ever redesign WoW back to Wrath levels of mobility etc right?
No way any caster would have its filler as an instant cast, you have to earn the instamt casts or they have to be too valuble to waste.
A cast time on frostbolt would have been a nice way to buff ST dmg in pve and make life a bit easier in pvp but the bis raid leggo reduces it so that won’t happen.
But the problem, in PvP specifically is its not just a filler, its your main source of slowing, its also your main source of dmg build up from generating Icicles and Flurry procs. I does next to no dmg in PvP unless you can shatter it. Something you can do every 25 seconds maybe. In PvE its fine you can stand and spam cast, build your Icicles and procs without a problem in arena people will actively kick you on Frost because the burst dmg is so high, kicking Frost mean you could potentially 1 shot a Frost Mage or force alot of CDs from the healer. So you’re basically risking that to cast a spell that you basically need to spam cast to keep slows up and ramp your dmg, whats the problem with it in arena at the moment.
Yh but don’t most caster specs have that issue? Isn’t that the reason fire gets meme’d on for being a braindead pvp spec because it doesn’t have too cast? PvP novice here mind.
Not so much that it doesn’t cast, because it does at some point but it doesn’t cast during Combustion so you can’t kick the dmg to stop it etc. Thats why I said to put Icelance as a cast instead, but Frosts AoE bust is already instant, so its just a case of letting the builder spell be instant and the other spell you only use with procs or to send icicles be casted.
1: Frost Armor baseline (armor increased to an amount equal to 5% physical damage reduction and a 40% slow with a 20% attack speed slow) and removing it as a passive from Ice Barrier (Ice Barrier gets the shattered barrier effect from wotlk instead - when ice barrier breaks it casts a frost nova)
2: Fingers of Frost having the ability to proc from ALL chill effects, again, just like in wotlk. This will help greatly when you’re trained by melee so you still have some damage output. In return, Ice Lance damage would need a 25% nerf.
I would agree to that. 5% physical damage reduction is not much ofc, but it is something.
That would actually screw your DR for when you actually need to cast Frost Nova. Generally passive abilities that apply CC effects makes it really hard to control your (or your teamate’s) DR effects.
Sounds really nice in PvP and tbh very much needed. BUT it would make frost mages OP as hell in PvE. Especially in this patch/expansion where it seems that Blizzard decided to put 100% of Mage’s damage into FoF icelance damage.
It wouldnt really screw up pve too much since all you do is cast frostbolt. Main issue would be the 3x flurry hits for single target but thats easily solved with just allowing it to proc once per flurry. Blizzard could be completely excluded from granting FoF
Overall its not going to be OP or noticable in the slightest in PVE. Frost mages used tp function like this for quite a while and they were about mediocre in terms of pve powerlevel
Shattered barrier wouldnt screw up with your DR that much. Remember, this is how mages played for quite a while and its one of the things that allowed them to be successful. Either way, frostbite procs already screw over your DR. This will just allow mages to play without the talent and still be successful against a high melee mobility meta and was a part of their toolkit for that reason alone. This change would only make you better against melees that train you and actually allow you to play the game.
Theres so many good plays you can pull off with shattered barrier, such as precasting a frostbolt right when its about to break so you can get that instant shatter combo or simply rooting a target without having to waste a GCD.
Overall the benefts of having shattered barrier greatly outweigh the negatives
Depends what you want, I personally wouldn’t want to micro manage my barriers like that, you have enough to track in arena as a Mage let alone when your Barrier will break. Also you don’t need 3 Nova’s as Frost the 2 you have is enough. I still don’t think its very good to constantly have constant DR’s on your Nova’s, you’re either using them to kite when you need to or Shatter a Frost bolt, you don’t want to randomly have a Nova what you don’t need it or don’t need to move.
Its primarily good for 1vX situations, but even in arenas I fondly remember it saving me countless times, not only against melee but casters and pet classes as well. Its far easier to play around (and to your advantage) with shattered barrier in mind than it does on paper.