A little surprised there's no thread yet on Icicles, the new Frost Mastery. Short version:
- Frostbolt, FFB and Waterbolt generate Icicles, storing damage equal to 1.5 * Mastery % of the damage they deal
- You can store up to 5 Icicles; they last 15 seconds
- If you generate a new Icicle when you already have 5, the new one is stored and the oldest is launched at the target that was just hit
- If you cast Ice Lance at a target, all Icicles launch at that target, oldest to newest, at a rate of one per second, adjusted by haste, until you have none left
I've written a blog post with more detail:
http://lhiveras-library.com/content/frostburn-dead-long-live-icicles
And there's a Mage forum post with some discussion and questions answered:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9499910300
I think this has a lot going for it. It smooths out burst, but it preserves kit by still buffing Ice Lance. It rewards casting in PvP, something I've seen people ask for many times (however, I'm also seeing many PvPers complain that the loss of the old up-front burst will be very bad for the spec -- I don't know who's right, definitely room for discussion there). It enhances Frost's flavor as the sort of rapid-fire spec, because it's going to be popping off projectiles like crazy. It greatly diminishes the difference in value of Mastery in PvE and PvP. And it's definitely much more interesting than "+X% Frost Damage".
What do you think?
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wysłany:
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wysłany:
Blizzard has commented and locked a few of the pop-up icicles thread, but remains silent in this main one. This is a bad sign. This mastery completely breaks Frost mages in PVP and their silence is simply an acknowledgement that a revert will not occur, and Frost mages will have to wait until 6.0 (if ever) to be viable in PVP again. Not even remotely the case. It's a sign that we're reading, considering, and discussing. |
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wysłany:
The feedback from the community has been extremely vital to getting this new Mastery working well. Iteration is key to us, and Icicles are a perfect example of that.
Overall, we like the core concept of Icicles, and are refining things at this point. The next (or perhaps one after that) PTR build will include several revisions. The Frostbolt debuff is now “baked in” (meaning the debuff no longer increases damage taken, but the spells it modified now do more baseline damage), and Waterbolt no longer generates Icicles (with Mastery now increasing Waterbolt’s damage directly). We’re also speeding up the rate at which Icicles launch when triggered by Ice Lance, as well as a few other tweaks. We look forward to more feedback from testing that next iteration on it. Thanks all. |
