Can Blizzard make this talent baseline? It’s functionally useless, even with Frost’s AoE legendary. Splitting Ice is still superior because both lances can proc the explosions from the legendary. Freezing Rain only lets you use 1 lance which is 5 explosions at best.
This talent is supposed to be Frost’s AoE talent yet it loses to Splitting Ice on every realistic AOE situation in any dungeon.
Surprisingly enough, it is better for single target LOL…it actually is.
And it is also better against a LOT of targets, such as 100 to give an EXTREME example.
Also better on arenas for the single fact that you can cast blizzard on the move without fear of interrupts.
Splitting Ice is only better for what you said “on every realistic AOE situation”.
Still, if you are going single target Freezing Rain is better, if you are going Epic BGs it is also better. Also, once you get used to instant blizzards is hard to go back.
Splitting Ice is better ST, because it increases Ice Lance power by 5%
So never
Comet is better in arenas
So everything
Yet easy for anyone to step out of them
Idk how to do what you did, bare with me.
The last thing you said “Yet easy for anyone to step out of them” if you got the pvp talent that has a chance of freezing enemies you attempt to chill, blizzard is almost a guaranteed mini-frost nova, it will almost 100% root them (freeze them).
And it IS better in single target, the 5% damage bonus is not enough to compete with being able to cast blizzard without losing dps to reduce frozen orb CD, which in turn allows you to cast more Ice Lances in a long enough fight (aka every Raid boss fight)… without that talent hard-asting blizzard on a boss is a huge dps loss.
WE Freeze into Comet is more reliable and totally under your control instead of praying for a root. Not to mention you are forced to expend your orb to get your insta blizzard anyway. Comet bypasses this. It is the best talent in that row for PVP
In case you are unaware, Splitting Ice buffs both Ice Lance and your Icicles by 5%, which makes it the best talent in that tier for single target. You are talking about the 8.3 FO build which is DEAD right now. Freezing Rain isn’t winning anything on ST over Splitting Ice. Check any raid ST encounter for any top Frost parses.
It has a legitimate usage in rated battle grounds.
If you are base sitting as frost it’s a good idea to take it, especially if the enemy team is running double rogue or rogue/stealth. One rogue will shadowy duel and the other will cap. Usually the dueling rogue will open in duel with a cheapshot or mfd kidney. You have to emfh it, or trinket it, then block the blind, which leaves you about 2 seconds to get an orb on the flag. Freezing rain makes this much more possible.
Orb spins the flag through duel.
If it buffs both Ice Lance AND your icicles by 5% then it is still only a 5% damage buff… Imma stop replying because you are ignoring my point:
More Frozen Orbs mean more Ice Lances. More Ice Lances are better than, 5% better, less Ice Lances. Even if you can only squeeze one extra Ice Lance every 19 Ice Lances it is still better cuz of math, relative to a 5.26%… and you, ofc, can squeeze more Ice Lances than just one every 19.
Without Freezing Rain you get 1 Blizzard every 9 seconds (at least at my haste rating). With Freezing Rain you get 1 Blizzard every 7.2 seconds but only during Frozen Orb. Frozen Orb lasts 15 seconds. Now, every time Blizzard hits an enemy you get 0.5 seconds off Frozen Orb per enemy hit. So how many enemies are you hitting realistically in those 5.4 extra seconds you gain from taking this talent? It is a useless talent, especially with the legendary. I agree it should just be a baseline thing since it’s such a minor gain.
EDIT: Sorry, Frozen Orb lasts 15 seconds. So you would save 5.4 seconds, not 1.8. Makes it better, but still should be baseline.
Best to ignore it.
Can pretty easily show w/ simming that what you’re saying is right - spoiler: All those talents are within less than 1% of each other. There isnt a debate to it, what people use for their personal comfort doesn’t change numerical performance.
One of the best uses for Freezing Rain avtually comes from Necrolord’s Deathborne due to the multiplicative damage increase. This is especially true if you use the Slick Ice legendary, and have Gift of the Lich potency conduit. This makes your frostbolt your primary cleave during burst phases and allows for single target ice lances to generate with more frost orbs and buffed blizzards.
This setup can be easily macro’d to pop both icy veins (which will drop rune) and Deathborne together allowing for around 11k burst followed by normal single target rotation afterwards. On bosses this gives a +2% higher dps except for Huntsman and Council of Blood (in which case you are down 1.5-3% compared to Splitting Ice)
It also increases its damage, without the talent you lose dps when using Blizzard, besides what you mentioned.
It is good for it to be a talent, it is good to have choices on how you want to play. If you don’t like it you don’t pick it, if you DO like it you pick it. If you like other talents in the tier but are annoyed that this one performs better then you should ask for those other talents to get a buff. And if you do not like this talent you simply don’t pick it. Remember that this gives a 60% damage boost on Blizzard, it is not neglectable. against 5+ targets the damage boost will always be active as you can repeatedly cast frozen orb once it ends.
So yeah, in summary, if you don’t like it just don’t pick it and ask for buffs for other talents instead. If you DO like it just pick it. or ask for it to be buffed if you feel like it is not powerful enough.
Using blizzard on any boss for single target rotation is net dps loss.
Looking at your spec i hope you’re using GS build for pvp. Even then your talent choices are niche at best.
The best return on investment would be splitting ice for the purposes of this thread. In every encounter. Because more ice lances doesn’t mean more dps in this case per your previous posts. Since casting blizzard at all on single target is a dps loss with the top frost mage build.
If you are specifically addressing your glacial spike build then you’re nit really speaking to the majority of mages using the popular build for thermal void
As someone said up top… you can just use sims and see for yourself how it actually is better. If your DPS is around 3k (without buffs) then you will be losing no DPS by using the empowered blizzard instantly, while decreasing the CD of Frozen Orb.
But don’t believe me just see for yourself.
Base on my tool tips atm:
You can either cast a frost bolt (724 dmg) w/ 1.7sec cast.
Or
You can cast the insta bliz for 1415 dmg over 7 seconds instantly.
But yea I guess that insta blizzard is a real dps loss… 
I mean if you want to argue on forums that’s fine. I’m basing my posts off of frost mage guides. You’re just arguing with the majority of mages. If you’re running personal sims based off of non conventional specs it’s not gonna paint and accurate picture.
You shouldn’t cast blizzard in a single target rotation. Splitting ice is the best single target rotation talent. Also cleave.
A guide is written by 1 or 3 people based on information available at the time. Did you know that the people who put those guides out there can be wrong?
Sims are updated more than guides are, and give you a more accurate picture that w/e the person writing the guide assumed at the time.
But okay.
https://www.wowhead.com/frost-mage-talent-guide
I sincerely hope no one uses forums as a source of reliable information for any class.
Take it from an expert.
You’re entitled to play how you want. My only intention was to clarify for others that Freezing rain is not the best single target talent choice.
Freezing Rain isn’t the best ST choice, you are right. Take it also from all the ST fights in CN on Heroic for Frost mages or even mythic. Skriekwing H is the only fight where 1 frost mage has parsed in the top 100 with Freezing Rain on top Frost mage performances. Even then the person isn’t on the Top 50 or anything.
Also important to note that although they sim close enough, Splitting Ice will always win because you don’t have to worry about the boss moving out of your Blizzards either due to a mechanic or due to tanks repositioning it.
I thought your post was from a PvE perspective. Are you now changing your mind to PvP?
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