20% Ice Lance buff coming in 8.3

Classes Mage
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Blizzard finally realized that no-IL glacial build has been a thing for a whole year, although I have no idea why this can’t be a hotfix (frost is at the bottom in Eternal Palace currently).

Now we just have to wait a few months for this to hit retail…

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At least you haven’t sucked for most of the past 3 expansions though this, like the arcane buff, is long overdue.

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I really liked Arcane spec in Legion. Back then we:

  • Had good mobile dps with bankable hard-hitting AM procs.
  • Had first-tier AOE dps. Especially when couple with the shoulders.
  • Had gigantic AOE radius with our 15-yard wide arcane explosions
  • Could easily solo-kite large groups using Arcane Explosion and Slooooow Doooown.
  • Single-target dps was unexceptional, but it wasn’t bottom tier for most of the expansion. Good enough.
  • I liked how with the change to Mastery arcane in Legion “reverted to its roots”. You didn’t need to keep up mana during conserve phase. Instead you could gradually burn it down similar to arcane’s gameplay prior to the introduction of Mastery.
  • Shoulder legendary was a lot of fun. It was really fun positioning so the orb proc would fly the right direction. And very satisfying when it did proc.

Personally, I thought Legion arcane was the best arcane has ever played. Even better than TBC and WOTLK.

… but then we got to BFA and everything took a huge step backwards:

  • AM now hits like a wet noodle and can’t be banked so mobile dps is really bad.
  • Arcane Explosion back to 10 yard radius and Slooooow Doooown removed. No more giant radius AOE or solo-AOE farming.
  • No more legendary Orb shoulders or kilt.
  • AOE damage is no longer first tier. Arcane is now 3rd-tier AOE and bottom-tier single-target DPS.
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Arcane was pretty bad until Nighthold and even then terrible on Elissande and Gul’dan. We really only started having fun in ToS and Antorus.

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Buffing a weak spell is not going to help frost a lot, especially considering how weak it is in EP now (last 3 spots). We needed a 3-6% aura buff.

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So here’s the thing. This doesn’t fix no-IL being a thing, it simply loses the lead from 6% to 3%. They need to fix Flash Freeze’s Mastery interaction or this will continue to be a pointless endeavour. Buffing Ice Lance is one half of the equation.

What this does do instead, is make Frozen Orb the predominant build.

Flash Freeze’s total damage pool is multiplied by 1+5*(Icicle SP coeff/GS base SP coeff) when used with GS, for reasons that absolutely no one can figure out. The 8.2 GS nerf/Icicle buff skewed this even harder since it was a buff to both sides of the FF equation. They need to remove that interaction so it just simply applies the bonus Icicle damage as a flat number, keep the Lance buff, then adjust the global tuning aura by about 10% upwards. That’ll keep Frost where it is, and it still needs buffs on top of that.

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Yall are too much i swear lmao! Even in a thread about frost mages, you find a way to turn the convo to arcane sucking. Forget beating a dead horse, that thing is pulped at this point.

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That will help my packed ice build.

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But your packed ice build will still be behind the best Frost mage build which should still underperform in the next patch. I hope they fix things better than this plaster for frost.

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Why cant this be a hotfix instead of a class update for 8.3? That will give them enough time to assess whether it is a sufficient buff before the next patch hits.

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I wish we knew buddy, I wish we knew.

All the class balance changes can easily be done via hotfix. They are needed right now in Eternal Palace and I have no idea why Blizzard are making us wait months.

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Because Blizzard knows that Frost needs an aura buff and they are not prepared to give it before the next patch hits, if at all.

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Has anyone done any ptr testing with the three mage specs to see if the extra slot in essences and this new boost to ice lance actually end up being more meaningful? Essentially what I am asking is, can I finally switch back to frost or Arcane (prefer both to fire) for 8.3?!

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So assuming this now means Orb build is going to overtake NoIL?
Or is a standard rotation viable even?

Just my opinion on this next part
If anything the community has been smart enough to figure out something not intended and it works I don’t really think just because its against what blizzard wanted it should be ‘fixed’, reward the whole concept even, like what can’t their be more ways of playing a class than what is ‘intended’, make it intended.

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Highly doubtful as a) the buff isn’t enough and b) orb build is totally reliant on positioning and that’s never a guarantee.

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It just buffs the standard Glacial spike build to be better than noIL build I THINK. Thats why I requested that someone with the ptr access (I dont like spoils) to take some time to test it out or if you know any youtubers or streamers who have done this?

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Problem is this still wont make ice lance outperform glacial spike or even keep up.

I love frost mage but I HATE glacial spike. It feels so… uninteresting… simply building up icicles to use on a glacial spike. I found it more fun throwing ice lances constantly and having 1-3 icicles fly off with them like a frosty machinegun.

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Yes, FOrb is beating NoIL.
No, Standard is still lower than NoIL, but closer

I’d include a link, but forums tells me I can’t :frowning:

You can check the research channel in the Mage discord to confirm.

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You can put the link in a code tag, i.e. "[code] <insert text> [/code]"

Here’s one of the links I found in the #research channel.

https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/6pWuRH5nXswLnyYxVFs1Km
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I did. When I clicked Submit, the forum popped up a message saying I’m not allowed.