First of all, let’s talk about some general runes:
as frost, for waist you are stuck with frostfirebolt for the stun chance of fire.
Chronostatic Preservation heals way too much as frost and fire.
Now let’s dig into specs:
FROST:
Playing as frost now is like being an annoying mosquito. Yes, you got survivability with ice block, ice barrier (wich cost too much mana for little absorb), and of course Displacement that let you teleport around the battlefield and feels cool to play with.
Your source of damage is Frostfirebolt, wich is almost impossible to cast with his 3 second cast. I mean: why not target the squishy mage on the back hardasting a 3 seconds spell?
Fingers of Frost probability is way too low, and playing it feels just bad: it never procs. Same as Brain Freeze.
Ice Lance never really procs due to Fingers of Frost problem, and when it does it’s simply not good enough to waste a global cd on it. Better play Living bomb.
Deep Freeze is used only with forst nova combo (for the FoF problem), and its more used as defensive than offensive as it is now.
As a Frost mage I finded myself prefer casting Chronostatic Preservation over others spell, and just play the “you can’t catch me” game, wich in my opinion is not fun for both players.
FIRE:
I’ve played Fire with Frostfirebolt. Yes. Big numbers. BUT: the 3 second cast make this choice annoying to play, like frost.
I prefer Hot Streak: the procs are funny, spamming living bomb, search for scorch procs and comboing with a good Combustion is satisfying, yes.
But you are a glass cannon. Instatly die to hunters, rogue and sometimes casters too like druids and shamans. If a shadow priest dots you, is better you have Chronostatic Preservation or is gg.
ARCANE:
I’ve tryed it but not so deeply. My thought is that healing doing damage in pvp is just not my playstyle, and I found myself just spamming mass regen and Chronostatic Pres. But I’m not experienced in it and so I’ll not dig the topic.
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS:
- Make Frostfirebolt a chance to proc spell like is in Cataclysm (tuning the damage ofc).
So Frost will get back to the frostbolt gameplay with a chance to proc a bigger spell (funny both for PVP and PVE imo). Fire will be just more funny to play with another proc chance other than Pyro to add some diveristy. - Fix Finger of Frost proc. I take Cata as comparison. Maybe Cata is too much, but its a lot of fun playing frost and the water elemental in cata gives you even more FoF procs. Fixing FoF will make Frost funnier to play, comboing with Deep Freeze and with some Ice Lance.
- Ice Lance damage need to be increased.
- Add a Fire Barrier for Fire PVP. I understand Ice block is a frost only, it’s ok. But Advanced Warding rune feels not good enough, expecially with the mana issues. Adding a Fire Barrier like the Ice one will give Fire the chance to survive being one shotted.
In General, I think there is a mana issues expecially in STV event. Maybe add some bubbles around the event that give you mana back or something like that. It’s not funny to finish the mana and just run to a random group hoping to get killed. Or maybe just add a consumable that give you mana back faster than 40/50 sec.
That’s it, thank you for your time reading this. I hope developers will see this post and maybe do something to get mage pvp more funny =D
