Did some playtesting to get a better feel of these changes.
Wintertide:
This buff just cannot be consumed by Icicles, this needs to be fixed. Either the buff is not consumed at all and is another maintenance buff that Frost has to manage, or GS consumes it. The former is currently my preference.
This new talent also solidifies GS as a mandatory talent, which further reduces the little choice we have. Non-GS builds need to be viable.
Spellslinger:
- The new 8 sec duration on WC is better than before but WC is still expiring a lot, particularly in AoE. There are still just too many FoF from the extra Frozen Orbs to be able to consistently consume all the WC stacks.
- But even a potential 10 sec might not be enough in those occasional scenarios where you get multiple back-to-back Frozen Orbs from Spellfrost Teachings. The question is, how many WC are fine to lose before it’s a design problem?
Frostfire:
- I had to set up weakauras to track all the buffs now, as without monitoring those I was munching a lot of Excess Frost and Excess Fire buffs. This is in contrast to live where it doesn’t really matter too much. This is additional complexity.
- The gameplay feels rewarding and purposeful. I find the flow of Frostfire to be a little smoother than Spellslinger and I’m finding that’s due to having access to more Flurries.
- I am finding that random Frostfire Empowerment procs are disrupting the flow and it’s a little frustrating. When I’ve already got Excess Fire and Excess Frost buffs while having no FoF and needing to build up more Icicles for GS, a random Frostfire Empowerment will cause a friction of not being able to cast GS yet and having to choose between not wanting to cast a naked unbuffed IL, or casting a naked Flurry without shattering something into it, or consuming Frostfire Empowerment and munching your Excess buffs. None of these decisions feel good to make.
- Needing to cast a naked unbuffed IL just to proc Excess Fire so you can get a Brain Freeze to shatter GS doesn’t feel good. I’m finding this happening more often that desired.
Winter’s Chill - the problem?
It’s starting to feel like the crux of a lot of the problems with Frost can’t be resolved due to how WC currently works.
Needing to precast Frostbolt/GS into it to consume that mid-flight WC stack, WC often expiring mid-RoF channel, the short duration of 2 WC stacks on a single targeted enemy, conflicts and issues with difference in spell speeds and distance standing away from bosses for which spells consume WC first before they hit, WC expiring while a spell is mid-flight, etc.
It feels like a lot of this could be resolved by just making WC a player buff that is consumed on spell cast in place of the Brain Freeze buff, which would potentially address Frost’s tuning and mechanical fragility and likely give much more freedom in design.
Blizzard:
In AoE, still casting Blizzard every 5 secs or so. I don’t feel there has been a reduction in cognitive load if we’re still casting it at the same interval as now on live. Can you explain more of what cognitive load you’re trying to reduce through the Blizzard changes because I’m not seeing much of a difference.