Frost Feedback - again
Following on from my original post, more feedback on the Frost tree changes.
Fractured Frost
The more that I test this the more it doesn’t work with the actual gameplay. Frost’s AoE rotation for both Spellslinger and Frostfire are essentially the same, where it’s focused on Frozen Orb, Blizzard, Comet Storm, CoC/Coldest Snap, and FoF Ice Lance as fillers. From all of my testing, I am getting zero downtime in my Icy Veins AoE rotation to cast Frostbolt at all, which means Fractured Frost is providing zero benefit for AoE while IV is active.
The only time when Fractured Frost is benefitting is as Frostfire when Frostfire Empowerment procs, as that’s causing Frostfire Bolt to be instant cast with a dmg boost so it can squeeze into the primarily instant-cast AoE rotation window. However, I’m averaging 1-2 Frostfire Empowerment procs per IV window which isn’t a lot to provide any noticeable benefit for Fractured Frost.
Frostbolt is a filler spell and our AoE rotation is too busy with better priority spells. There is just no opportunity or desire to ever cast Frostbolt particularly while IV is active. This is making Fractured Frost in its current iteration a dead talent.
Cold Front
Linking from Fractured Frost, Cold Front’s benefit is then severely diminished in AoE due to Fractured Frost providing no next to no benefit while IV is active. From my testing, in Spellslinger I am exiting a full IV AoE window with no new CF stacks and risk any existing stacks to fall off. For Frostfire, depending on Frostfire Empowerment procs, I am exiting a full IV AoE window with 3-6 CF stacks.
This is causing Cold Frost to benefit primarily from only the ST rotation despite being locked behind an AoE designed talent. Due to the 30 CF stacks needed, this takes significant time to ramp up, particularly in Spellslinger when there’s more Winter’s Chill stacks from Splinterstorm so there’s less Frostbolts being cast. In the end, any CF Frozen Orbs are unnoticeable from a gameplay change/interaction perspective and likely does not provide sufficient dps over non-capstone talents.
Suggestions
Fractured Frost needs to be de-synced from Icy Veins and needs to provide some incentive to be used in a busy, instant-cast AoE rotation that has noticeable impact.
If it is not going to be redesigned away from Frostbolt, then I’d suggest something like:
“Damage from your [insert AoE spell] has X% chance to make your next Frostbolt instant cast and hit up to two additional targets, stacking Y times.”.
The triggering spell could be Blizzard or Frozen Orb as examples. This would allow usage outside of IV, provide a regularly occurring buff that causes a change in our AoE rotation for more variety, allows us to fit it into our AoE rotation because it’s instant-cast, and that it can contribute towards Cold Front for more reliable CF stacks.
Or better yet, just redesign Fractured Frost so that it’s not Frostbolt related so that we don’t have an incentive to cast Frostbolt in our AoE rotation and instead have Fractured Frost augment our existing spells used in AoE for a benefit. A suggestion for example: “Damage from your [insert AoE spell] has X% chance to make your next Ice Lance against Frozen targets to fracture on impact, dealing Y% damage to nearby enemies.”
For Cold Front, if you want this to be locked behind an AoE talent then this needs to be designed so that it’s beneficial in AoE. CF just needs to come out faster, the 30 stacks is too high due to the lack of Frostbolt and Flurry usage in AoE. Include Ice Lance in there so it can build stacks. The Frozen Orb that CF casts is not impactful given we’re casting so many Frozen Orbs already in AoE, so having this trigger something else that is more distinct would be better. Comet Storm is a great example or instead CF just grant us a buff that allows us to do something interesting and new that’s AoE related.
Variety and choice - again
From this recent build and the Hunter rework, Frost Mage now sits at the lowest number of total talent points offered in the tree across all specs including choice nodes and 2-point talents. It also now has the lowest number of total unique talents across all specs in the game including choice nodes, as the only spec in the game with under 40 total unique talents.
There are a larger number of talents in the tier 3 capstone area that are Frostbolt focused talents so for the AoE ones of these they need to be tuned away from Frostbolt where possible given we barely use Frostbolt in AoE. Currently in tier 3 for AoE builds, Coldest Snap is the only true AoE option to pursue, where current AoE builds are leaning to take GS and RoF/Cryopathy because the rest of the tier 3 capstone options provide no AoE benefit.
Frost is crying out for talent variety and choice, as currently it’s expected that our AoE and ST builds are essentially identical except for 2 talent points. There needs to be revisions and work on Frost in this area to provide better choice and variety. Some new choice nodes would be great too.