Plenty of threads about the tank stuff already, cleaving strikes has inherent issues right now that have nothing to do with tanks.
Only possible consideration is the kiting going on beta atm, it’s pretty tricky to get a good dnd window off.
One of the reasons I’m not playing my FDK. I might end up playing one anyway but I’ve always hated DnD AOE.
It has almost everything to do with tanks.
Tanks kiting to stay alive is just the other opposite extreme that causes the same issues. Make tank threat important again and the kiting nonsense will go away. Tanks can and often are the biggest hit to other people’s DPS and enjoyment of the game.
3 Likes
Alright man I didn’t wanna talk about the tank stuff here because it’s way off topic but you’ve baited me.
Can you please explain how you think the gameplay issues of cleaving strikes is inherently connected to tank independence? I genuinely don’t understand.
I’ve already explained it in this very thread on a post that you responded to.
You’ve unbaited me.
You get it. Welcome to one of the very few who do club.
Everyone hates cleaving strikes and with good reason. It creates friction for the player in a way that is not fun or intuitive.
It’s the lazy solution in search of a problem, where there previously wasn’t one. Both Unholy and Frost had the ability to AoE fine before this change was made in Legion and Shadowlands, respectively.
DnD is an iconic spell and was perfectly fine as a situational utility spell, or something to supplement AoE when you had nothing else to press.
Unholy should go back to leveraging its diseases for AoE. Similarly, Frost has many tools in its toolkit that can be tuned to compensate.
2 Likes
I like the effect of “now your main Rune spenders cleave,” but it would be nice if it could be attached to RW instead, with RW’s damage/duration balanced to compensate.
I really don’t understand why there has to be AoE stacking at all. 1-2 abilities should be enough. Frost has plenty of wet noodle AoE abilities. I would like to see 1-2 at max but let them have some teeth. Seems like every class has 3-5 AoE abilities most which don’t do that much damage these days and sometimes they are put in position of compromise against single target. Must be a lack of creative intelligence maybe or just a bit of laziness. I get it, AoE is fun because you get to see the big numbers and if you can stack them up then you feel like omg wow, look at my numbers. But, to me it is just cheese. Number padding to make weak ST balance look good in a lot of cases. Single target is where it is at when it comes to most boss fights. Even on add fights where you look at the logs, you will look at the damage on the trash and then you will look at the boss damage. AoE is garbage outside of dungeons where you just pull trash endlessly and mindlessly spam aoe to watch them fall. This whole mythic + dungeon and even normal dungeons idea was ok, but they kind of meshed it with the idea of there is no time, let’s make it a rush fest for those that can play for 20minutes, but they took it a really strange direction. Trash dragging is just bad design. Like I said, it is just lazy creativity. I hope Microsoft sees how much cash they are throwing away on bad design to make unhappy customers.
TL;DR Too much Aoe abilities with crap damage, yes, Frost doesn’t need DnD.
I really enjoy it, but I think the spec has a plethora of problems that are currently making it problematic. Frost has far, far too many force multiplication features, and while I think DnD is usually the most fun of the lot, it plays into cooldown and passive bloat in the worst ways.
I would enjoy a good buff to Howling Blast to replace cleaving strikes. Let howling blast do decent damage without rime and let it BLAST with a rime proc.
6 Likes
Of course the issue with buffing HB too much outside of Rime is that then it competes with Obliterate for rune usage. I don’t know if you remember or were around for the “Masterfrost” play style at all?
Imo just bring power back into frostscythe, I liked that ability
Baseline Howling Blast does less damage than an auto attack.
You could literally buff HB damage by 300% and leave Rime as is and it still wouldn’t be better to use than Obliterate in 99% of scenarios.
Seriously? Never noticed before, but guess with talents it’s most used to throw on frost fever and razor ice stacks now… then the actual ability
It feels kinda weak atm. Not even sure I’m gonna take it with current tuning. Could def use a little beefing up I think.
that’s why if you want cleave you play horseman spec
they lay it down for you