Frost
“With the addition of Mirror Images and Alter Time, Frost Mages will have some cool new abilities to weave into their gameplay. One of the more noticeable changes to Frost Mages in Shadowlands is the update to Flurry’s Winter’s Chill debuff . Previously Winter’s Chill was tied to Flurry’s movement speed debuff, which created tight windows and required distance checks to achieve the maximum-damage bonuses. Moving into Shadowlands, Winter’s Chill is now a much longer debuff that causes Frost Mages’ next two spells to treat the target as frozen, a debuff that increases the critical hit chance from the Frost Mage and their allies against the target”
Never too early for feedback, right!? I will cut straight to the chase: The distance checks add a value to frost that ‘attempting’ to eliminate double lancing took away, an increased skill cap, particularly during progression. Weaving in and out of melee during mechanics that require stacking is difficult, but necessary, to maximize damage output with frost. Positioning is always on your mind, planning your shimmers, adjusting your rotation if there is no way to step out of melee…all these things added flavor to frost. A big reason why such a large core group only plays this spec (call us noobs if you want).
HOWEVER, let’s not beat around the bush with how frustrating it is having such a weird requirement to maximize damage. Everyone’s range check relates back to your haste values, whether your moving, whether you’re using shimmer… All these combine to make a very weird gameplay experience, one that I enjoy, but I can understand the frustration of others and the inability of the game devs to be able to properly tune the spec.
I had a thought a long time ago about the core issue with frosts rotation revolving around the fact that flurry applies a short term debuff and can shatter multiple spells, leading to things like completely wasting FoF procs because you want to Fbolt–>flurry–>ice lance and the Fbolt procs another ice lance. And that’s just a single example. I had an idea that maybe turning flurry into an ability that causes your next “specific” spell to shatter (such as ice lance) and also not soaking a FoF proc (having a priority system that soaks flurry debuff before FoF), breaking any chance of NoIL builds, while also maintaining a rotational flow.
NOW, what are blizzard trying? It’s very much a mixed bag. We don’t know if the debuff will apply quick enough for rotations like glacial–>flurry–>ice lance or frostbolt–>flurry–>ice lance , BECAUSE it’s going to come down to what is the most efficient spell to shatter at any given moment. This has the opportunity to make the rotation feel MORE impactful, or less. If I just click flurry and then hit ice lance twice every time I flurry, that will make the spec feel less impactful. My hope is that this can lead to double lancing until you build up icicles and can flurryglacialice lance for some insane burst, or glacialflurryIL if flurry still hits before glacial. This spec is going to require some fooling around with before we know the overall impact, but I’m excited to get at least one change to the core gameplay. What does everyone else think? Maybe I’m totally missing something or not wording it correctly.
