I’ve been Arcane since P2 and had to switch to frost due to low dps, and the current playstyle of spamming Frostfire Bolt is just flat out unfun. It’s a 3 second cast and there’s a lot of movement in ST. So my point is this, when is Ice Lance going to get a buff? Is it just going to remain a dead rune? I want a playstyle similar to retail with Ice Lance and Brain Freeze, but that playstyle does so little dps that it’s just not worth taking. Can we please get a buff to Ice Lance and make it viable?
3 Likes
I doubt you’re gonna see ice lance buffed at any point in SoD going foward. Blizzard realized in P2 that the instant cast damage nukes they showered on casters completely ruined PvP and they’re afraid to open that can of worms again.
Which is understandable since casters are still crazy OP even after the nerfs to Death/Starsruge.
1 Like
Yeah, that’s a good point. I just wish it was at least viable though :\
Mage buffs aren’t coming, a Mage spec has been the lowest DPS spec in the game the entire length of SoD. Many unused/under tuned runes that have never been changed. We got the make 20x water per cast instead of 2x water so we can be vending/portal machines. As a mage main, just re-roll or play retail/cata, they want mages to be mediocre in SoD.
2 Likes
Then you know what you must do. Bye.
Yeah nice try bud. The runes are there and they have the groundwork layed out. Fingers of Frost, Ice Lance, Frost Fire Bolt and Brain Freeze gives you a playstyle exactly like retail, that’s what I’m wanting. I’m not asking them to add something that’s not there, I’m asking for them to buff what we have, which they won’t.
Why don’t you go step on a lego?
Doing an actual shatter combo should do way better damage. +1 for my frost homies.
2 Likes
Would be nice to differentiate frost and fire, but to make Ice Lance viable it’d need to be strong enough to make it worth spending FoF procs on over Frostfire Bolt, which I don’t see happening unless Frostfire gets nerfed…which would then necessitate a lot of other buffs to frost and fire to compensate.
That level of tuning seems unlikely given a) how simple/basic their recent tunings have been, and b) that frost and fire are in decent spots in PvE (still best caster DPS right?) so arcane is the most likely to get buffed given how bad it is right now.
As much as I want to complain, I’m also just happy frost is viable in raid this phase. Even if it’s more so due to the power of a frostfire spell and because we can take Ignite and benefit from Improved Scorch from another mage. It feels good to have access to Ice Barrier, Ice Block, and Cold Snap in raid especially given Icy Veins is actually decent now too. Much better spot than in p2.
I think at 60, when you see a lot more frost mages, Ice Lance will be not feeling so under-powered.
1 Like
I hope so. Frost’s rotation right now is just FFB spam and it’s worse than Vanilla right now. FFB takes a whopping 3 seconds to cast and talents don’t reduce cast times :\
It’s pretty simple, just make FoF only affect Ice Lance, DF, and Brain Freeze’d FFB/SFB. Make the proc chance 30% but only proc 1 charge at a time. It’s baffling they have the blueprint right there staring them in the face on Cata and refuse to implement it in favor of this crappy WotLK version.
3 Likes
Maybe make an additional condition to ice lance rune. For example, they could make every chill or ability that applies chill causes a stacking buff that increases the damage of your next two ice lances by X% and if max stacks are reached ice lance will act as though the target is frozen.
This seems like the best fix, but given how things have been I’m not hopeful that they will buff it :\