Hello all! This thread contains feedback about latest changes to Frost Mages and their hero trees in this build, some remaining issues with both base and hero trees and offers some potential solutions.
An additional opening part for people who might come here to claim that their X class might need changes more - this post does not mean that Frost Mage is the only class / spec that needs changes, it simply provides feedback about changes and remaining issues of the spec. If you think that your class / spec needs changes just as much or more - you can create a similar feedback thread for it and Blizzard developers can decide on the priority or necessity of changes.
Feedback below is split into initially hidden subsections for better readability.
Frost Mage feedback
1. Playstyle issues
Frost Mages have several unaddressed issues with their gameplay - Frozen Orb placement issues with necessity to stay in melee range to reliably put Frozen Orb where it is needed in PVE and not get it randomly stopped at first enemy that aggroed on an ally nearby, significant output difference between enemies that can and cannot be frozen that can cause tuning issues, is very negatively affected by a choice node between Ice Nova and Ring of Frost in general tree and has unaddressed issues with Fractured Frost playstyle. Combined with Frost Spellslinger being massively nerfed in 11.0.5 and Frostfire being already undertuned these issues can make Frost Mage not competitive enough with both other Mage and other classes specs and could be looked at alongside damage tuning.
1.1 Frozen Orb placement issues
Since Frozen Orb massively slows at first enemy hit and Concentrated Coolness is not available in instanced PVE, Frost Mages can have placement issues with it if there are any enemies outside of main pack on the path to it (like enemies that aggroed on a ranged dps nearby) - Frozen Orb stops at that enemy without reaching the pack and either has big part of its effect wasted or requires tank moving pack into its new area which is often harmful for their positioning. As a result Frost Mages are forced to stay in melee range to pack to land Orb where it is needed, which is not a good design for ranged spec and should be addressed. Even if earlier interview called that a “skill expression” part of Frozen Orb it is actually not and just an unnecessary handicap that harms Frost Mage’s playstyle and positioning. Similar issue existed with Sorcerer’s Frozen Orb in Diablo 4 (though in a bit different manner - there it had fixed distance and has opposite problem - it could be landed on distant enemies but had minimal to no effect on melee range enemies) and was addressed there via allowing to better control its placement and Frost Mage’s Frozen Orb could receive similar treatment.
Suggestion: Create a new optional choice node capstone in Frost tree that would allow Frost Mages to better control their Frozen Orb positioning. There is even a suitable spot for it already right beneath Slick Ice - it is both a free capstone spot and it can be accessed directly from Freezing Winds that are another talent that upgrades Frozen Orb. Here is an example of such choice node:
Concentrated Coolness - Frozen Orb’s damage is increased by X% and is now castable at a location with a 40 yard range but no longer moves.
Comment: This effect already exists in form of PVP talent, so would not even need any additional implementation. It would be useful for cases where tank and pack are not moving much to drop Frozen Orb right on top of them. As for having number of PVP talents reduced by 1 by such change - it is not much of an issue, since even without Concentrated Coolness there would be 9 PVP talents to pick from which are the usual minimum.
or
Drifting Coolness - Frozen Orb now starts its slowed movement from a spot selected by player (instead of first enemy hit). In addition, Frozen Orb explodes when it expires dealing X% of Spell Power Frost damage to enemies within its area.
Comment: This alternative to Concentrated Coolness would be more fitting for kiting based tanks that would be frequently moving with the pack. Explosion part provides a throughput increase to match damage bonus of Concentrated Coolness and this throughput increase would also allow to keep this capstone talent competitive with AoE damage increasing talents in third gate.
Such choice node would both address Frozen Orb placement issues in PVE and PVP (with fair talent point cost as a trade-off) and keep the skill expression part - Frost Mages would still need to correctly place Concentrated Coolness Frozen Orb (since unlike base one it does not move and would not cover some additional area with time) and correctly place Drifting Coolness Frozen Orb (to account for its movement and be able to affect as many enemies as possible and as quickly as possible). If some people like current placement option most, they can also keep it via just not taking this capstone and picking another AoE boosting node instead.
1.2 Ring of Frost vs Ice Nova choice node
This choice node is very harmful for Frost Mages, since it forces them to pick between an important rotational ability that is used to AoE shatter other spells like Comet Storm and Glacial Spike and their main utility spell. Mass Polymorph might seem like a viable substitute, but it is not - Mass Polymorph has melee range, heals targets (without a PVP talent that is not available in instanced PVE) and has target type limitations, so there are cases where Ring of Frost is applicable and Mass Polymorph is not (and vice versa too). As a result, Frost Mages are punished for just picking a rotational ability (for comparison - imagine reaction of Hunters if they had to pick between Explosive Shot and Binding Shot) and that should be addressed.
Suggestion: Split Ice Nova with Ring of Frost and make Ring of Frost a choice node with Mass Polymorph instead. That both keeps number of crowd control spells available in general tree similar to current and makes much more sense - Ring of Frost and Mass Polymorph are both long duration AoE crowd control spells that can break on damage with different pros and cons, so having a choice node between them could be more reasonable.
1.3 Freezable vs unfreezable enemies
Frost Mages have significant difference in output between enemies that can and cannot be frozen - former can be affected by freeze shatters and Subzero and latter cannot. This can cause balancing issues where Frost can be too strong against freezable enemies, too weak against unfreezable enemies or even both simultaneously and could be addressed too.
Suggestion: Consider changing Subzero to make offensive rotational abilities that freeze enemies also provide some additional value against crowd control immune enemies to reduce the difference and then tune output of Frost Mages accordingly. Simple example is that Subzero could make Ice Nova and Glacial Spike apply 1 stack of Winter’s Chill to enemies immune to crowd control effects for the duration of their negated freeze or standard duration. That would make them provide similar shatter effect to their freeze against bosses, but weaker (not affected by Subzero bonus and with no crowd control attached) and can make Subzero itself more generally useful (it would provide value against both freezable and unfreezable enemies) and competitive, as it is currently undertuned. Consider also reducing Subzero to 1 point investment with according effect to both match left side of tree (which contains 1 point investment talent Comet Storm) and to make it more competitive against freezable enemies (since suggested addition would affect only unfreezable enemies and might still keep it not competitive enough against freezable enemies). This list also intentionally excludes non-rotational / non-offensive freezing spells like Frost Nova, Freeze and Freezing Cold affected Cone of Cold, since they should be used primarily for utility / crowd control purposes and not become required for rotations.
1.4 Fractured Frost playstyle issues
While these talents have a clear role (3 target cleave) and some potential, current implementation is not very good - it promotes 1 button spam (literally) and ignoring most of Frost’s rotational abilities, does not synergize with Thermal Void Icy Veins extension and does not provide good means to shatter cleaved Frost(fire) Bolts against crowd control immune enemies that cannot be AoE frozen. All of these issues could be addressed simultaneously.
Suggestion: Add more spells to list of spells affected by Fractured Frost and its related talents and if needed tune its damage bonus / cleave values of affected spells to compensate. Here is an example of such redesign to Fractured Frost related talents:
Fractured Frost - While Icy Veins is active, your Frostbolts and Flurries hit up to 2 additional targets for X% of their damage and Splitting Ice affects 2 additional targets nearby instead of 1.
Comment: This change 1) allows to use most of Frost’s rotational spells for Fractured Frost phase 2) gives means to shatter cleaved spells against crowd control immune enemies via cleaved Flurry 3) gives value for Fingers of Frost procs during Fractured Frost phase since they can be spent on 3 target affecting Ice Lances and 4) restores synergy with Thermal Void’s Icy Veins extension and keeps Fractured Frost rotation more diverse.
Death’s Chill - While Icy Veins is active, damaging an enemy with Frostbolt, Flurry, Ice Lance and Glacial Spike increases spell damage by X%. Stacks up to Y times.
Comment: Such change allows to keep Death’s Chill synergizing with new Fractured Frost and with more diverse Frost’s rotation in general.
Cold Front - Casting X Frostbolts, Flurries, Ice Lances and Glacial Spikes causes your next Frostbolt or Ice Lance to also call a Frozen Orb towards your target.
Comment: This change makes Cold Front synergize with more varied Frost rotations. Change to its trigger mechanism (on next spell cast instead of passive) allows to better control direction of launched Frozen Orb and prevent issues like missing or aggroing unintended enemies.
Slick Ice - While Icy Veins is active each Frostbolt and Glacial Spike you cast reduces the cast time of Frostbolt and Glacial Spike by X% and increases their damage by Y%, stacking up to N times.
Comment: Small addition that would make Slick Ice also synergize with Glacial Spike.
2. Lack of choice nodes
Frost Mage tree has zero choice nodes and I’m not sure whether there is any other tree that has such issue. That makes their rotations and builds very similar, hurts build diversity and could be addressed.
Suggestions:
- Create a choice node for Frozen Orb placement options like suggested above. It would both help with build diversity and address its placement issues mentioned in previous part.
- Make Glacial Spike a choice node with talent that would passively increase damage of Frost(fire) Bolt and Ice Lance by X%. That would allow players who don’t want to play with Glacial Spike to pick the alternative and remain competitive enough, but Glacial Spike should still provide a bit bigger average output increase (since it is an active ability that requires additonal management).
- Make Frostbite a choice node with some other more controlled by player crowd control option. This option would be fitting for people who still want to contribute to crowd control, but without randomly harming tank’s mob gathering in PVE and root diminishing returns for whole party in PVP.
3. Pathing issues and undertuned / underused PVE and PVP talents
Frost Mages still have several talents that are undertuned or too niche or overpriced for their effect and could be looked at. Aside from mentioned in previous parts, these include:
Wintertide - costs 2 points to get a niche effect or effect that is comparable to 1 point investment of other talents like Piercing Cold and makes left path to Icy Veins more expensive for no particular reason. Is likely overpriced and could be reduced to 1 point investment to address all these issues.
Splintering Ray - is not competitive enough with other talents in third gate and Ray of Frost itself desynchronizes with most other AoE periods like Coldest Snap. Both issues could be addressed simultaneously.
Suggestion: Make it also reduce cooldown of Ray of Frost to 45 seconds (to align with Coldest Snap) and if that would be needed for competitiveness also increase its cleave value.
Ice Form PVP talent - provides too low and much more niche bonus than cooldown it replaces and on top of that is easily dispellable while most other major cooldowns are not. Should be tweaked with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make it increase all Frost damage by X% (to provide more generally useful bonus) and undispellable, but remove its stun immunity to compensate. Such changes would make it more competitive and a more viable alternative to Icy Veins for 1 min CD based comps or players who prefer damage increase to Haste bonus.
Icy Feet PVP talent - has very niche bonus that is also easy to negate - immune to snare Mage can still be affected by other types of crowd control effects making them immobile and snare immunity provide no value. As a result this PVP talent is underplayed and could be boosted or redesigned.
Suggestion: Revert it to Chilled to the Bone (previous interaction of this PVP talent) and just make it affect all Mage’s freeze effects and deal meaningful damage. That would make it a decent tool against dispel or freeze break heavy classes and comps and more competitive with other PVP talents.
Improved Mass Invisibility PVP talent - requires sacrificing both a PVP talent slot and another major defensive in general tree, so is pretty much never played. It is also bugged and not reset by Shifting Power and as this bug persists from 10.1.5 and was not reported enough to get fixed you get the idea of how little it is used. Should be boosted for competitiveness with other PVP talents.
Suggestion: Make this PVP talent usable without having Mass Invisibility picked in general tree (like Ancestral Swiftness for Farseer is usable even without Nature’s Swiftness taken) and just increase base cooldown of PVP version and have it reduced if Mass Invisibility is taken in general tree. Such change would both make this PVP talent more usable and competitive and still keep it compatible with and beneficial from taking Mass Invisibility in general tree.
4. General Mage bugs / oversights
There are also several remaining bugs / oversights that affect all Mage specs and should be fixed:
- Arcane Intellect affected by Inspired Intellect is removed from Mage when Arcane Intellect is used on other player.
- Pet bar is reset to default settings with each relog, even if you pick “lock ability bars” option in settings. That does not allow to customize it for player’s needs and should be fixed.
- Shifting Power does not reset cooldown of Mass Invisibility (neither normal nor PVP talented).
Frostfire (Frost) Mage feedback
Aside from currently being undertuned for Frost, this hero spec also still has several gameplay issues and oversights that could be addressed.
1. Proc visibility and overlaps
Frostfire Mage in general has multitude of procs and these procs overlap with existing procs - Excess Fire highlights Flurry that is also highlighted by Brain Freeze, Excess Fire highlights Ice Lance that is also highlighted by Fingers of Frost and Frostfire Empowerment highlight while not overlapping directly with other procs does not show when buff has 2 stacks (which can be useful to track too). That makes Frostfire’s procs hardly distinguishable without addons, can make players confused (which while not that harmful for Flurry can make people launch non-shattered Ice Lance when taking Excess Fire for Fingers of Frost) and could be improved.
Suggestion: Make Excess Fire and Excess Frost override already displayed on UI bar stacks of Fire and Frost Mastery when activated and be removed after being spent and add Frostfire Empowerment icon (including number of its stacks) to UI bar too. That would allow Frostfire players to see when and what proc they got (including from Frostfire Empowerment that can affect regular cycles) and make much better use of them.
2. Frostfire Bolt issues
Even after several bugfixes Frostfire Bolt still has several issues and oversights that should be addressed. These include:
- Frostfire Bolt does only barely more damage than Frostbolt in PVE (too low increase for a hero tree upgrade talent) and less damage than Frostbolt in PVP.
- Frostfire Bolt’s damage over time effect is not applied to targets cleaved by Frostfire Empowerment.
- Frostfire Bolt’s damage over time effect breaks breakable crowd control effects like Dragon’s Breath (when many damage over time effects like Ignite are prevented from that).
3. Undertuned / not competitive enough / too niche / bugged talents and abilities
Frostfire Mage in general has several talents that are too niche or not competitive enough and could use a boost or are bugged. These include:
Flame and Frost - both provides less usages of opposite school spell than Elemental Affinity and is tied to a major defensive cooldown that likely would not be spent just to trigger the reset. Could be tweaked with all that in mind.
Suggestion: Make Flame and Frost affect only abilities that have 45 seconds and lower cooldown and attach it to casted Icy Veins for Frost instead. Such change would bring number of opposite school spell usages from Flame and Frost more in line with Elemental Affinity with different pros (on demand reset) and cons (less usages of low cooldown Fire spells) and make it more competitive.
Thermal Conditioning - provides lower value than Severe Temperatures and on top of that has part of its value wasted for some Frost builds - combined with maximum stacks of Slick Ice it drops base cast time of Frostfire Bolt to 1.44 seconds, so below GCD and part of its throughput value is wasted. It could be boosted and tweaked with that in mind.
Suggestion: Reduce its cast time reduction bonus to 6% (which when stacked with Slick Ice would provide exactly 1.5 sec base cast time for Frostfire Bolt matching the GCD) and to compensate and make it competitive enough with Severe Temperatures make it also constantly increase damage of Frostfire Bolt by X%. Such change would make it both more competitive and more compatible with Slick Ice.
Excess Fire - its Living Bomb proc is very undertuned for Frost, especially against low target count. Consider increasing its proc value for Frost only.
Frostfire Empowerment - its tooltip in hero tree should mention its guaranteed crit too (currently buff tooltip mentions it and hero tree tooltip does not and that can make players confused).
Fire Blast - is bugged and can trigger Excess Fire for Frost too. It is also massively undertuned for Frost and has pretty much no use even for Frostfire since it as a cooldown based ability does less damage than non-shattered Ice Lance and its Fire Mastery stack is not needed much. It could receive an aura buff for Frostfire Frost spec only (like Cone of Cold has received an aura buff only for Frost).
Frost Spellslinger feedback
While change to Splinterstorm might improve spec mechanically and reduce Ice Lance spam, new proc chance is too low (it went from 100% chance to activate 2 additional shattered abilities to 5% chance to activate 3 additional shatter abilities) and was not compensated in any way, so Frost Spellslinger might result being massively undertuned. As such - consider both increasing Brain Freeze proc chance from Splinterstorm and buffing damage of some Spellslinger effects or Splinters to compensate for remaining damage loss.
This hero spec also has some other remaining issues that could be addressed.
1. Bad control over Splinters created by some effects
Many effects of Frost Spellslinger send Frost Splinters at random enemies nearby instead of current selected / affected target(s) - Splintering Orbs launches them at entirely random enemies instead of enemies affected by Frozen Orb, Shifting Shards launches them entirely randomly etc. That can cause issues with priority damage (for example against important targets that should be killed as soon as possible) or aggro unintended enemies that might even be out of combat beforehand and should be addressed.
Suggestion: Make Frost Spellslinger’s Splintering Orbs launch Splinters at enemies hit by Frozen Orb (like Arcane version does) and make Shifting Shards for both specs prioritize current selected target if any, if there is none or it is affected by a breakable crowd control effect - prioritize enemies hit by Shifting Power and only if there are none - random enemies within 40 yards. Such tweaks would make Splinters more controlled, better contribute to priority damage and less likely to affect or aggro unintended enemies.
2. Not competitive enough talents
Spellslinger has several choice node option talents that are simply not competitive enough with alternatives and will be underplayed, so could be looked at. These include:
Look Again - provides very niche bonus (if you use Displacement in normal period time and within 40 yards you get no value from it) and Displacement itself is badly accessible for many PVE builds, so can be not competitive enough too. They could be addressed with that in mind.
Suggestion: Make Look Again provide some additional effect to its Displacement range / period boost - it could also increase movement speed after using Displacement by X% for Y seconds or make Displacement off-GCD or something else. As for making Displacement itself more competitive for PVE builds - consider moving it to a more reachable position in Mage’s general tree. For example, it could switch positions with Accumulative Shielding and become accessible from both Flow of Time and Temporal Velocity.
Unerring Proficiency - has too many stacks with too low value, so requires too much time to stack and also requires potentially holding a rotational ability to use with maximum stacks, so is not competitive enough with Volatile Magic that provides both better bonus and with no such drawbacks. Unerring Proficiency could be improved with that in mind.
Suggestion: Reduce it to 30 stacks with bigger value per stack and make it also reset cooldown of Ice Nova for Frost Spellslingers when reaching 30 stacks. Such changes would make it more competitive and usable without harming Ice Nova’s rotational or utility usages.
If you have additional suggestions, you can post them in the comments, as it is better to keep feedback and suggestions about a spec in one thread so it would be easier for Blizzard developers to find and analyze them. Thank you for reading!
Links to other Mage specializations feedback posts:
Fire Mage - 11.0.5 Fire Mage Feedback And Suggestions
Arcane Mage - 11.0.5 Arcane Mage Feedback And Suggestions