Hey all. I just decided to get back into the game and try the mage out. I'm confused what counts as a target being "Frozen" for the purposes of Ice lance.
I thought originally that the slow debuff from Frostbolt counted, but I think I might have that wrong? Frostbolt has a chance to activate that Fingers of Frost passive, and every time I throw the lance with that passive buff up, it seems to do just a HUGE amount of damage.
Meanwhile even with the Frostbolt debuff, I can spam Ice lance all day long and it doesn't even come close. So I've come to the conclusion that Frostbolt doesn't "freeze" my target. Is that correct?
Anyways I was just wondering what abilities I DO have that constitute as "freezing" the target.Whats considered as frozen is usually a mob thats frozen in place, from your Frost Nova or Pet’s Frost Nova version.
Or Fingers of frost procs will always consider the mob as frozen.
And when you get the instant Flurry procs, it’ll make ever ability that hits it, consider the mob as frozen for that short time.
Forgot to mention that the slow from frostbolt doesn’t consider the target frozen as it’s not frozen in place unfortunately.
Yeah I noticed that Flurry adds around 3-4 instances of this small half second debuff. So you’re saying that counts as a frozen target?
Also small aside, the entire system DOES seem a little unintuitive
It mostly just takes time to get used to. I would recommend casting an ice lance after you cast flurry as often as you can 1-2 should be fine then go back to frost bolts.
Okie dokie!
Thanks for the help Faelystiri.
1 Like
No problem at all
Don’t forget to use a Frostbolt before hitting that Instant Flurry cast, as it will cause the Frostbolt to Shatter as well to deal additional dmg.
1 Like
Ok I will do that from now on but I WAS doing something else. Since that instant cast flurry procs when I use Frostbolt, I WAS casting nothing after every Frostbolt so I could see if it procced or not. I wasn’t waiting like 2 seconds, but something like a half second. Just to see if the passive procced.
I thought that might be a dps boost because I wasn’t going to accidentally overlap the passive procs in case it happened twice in a row. Was this an incorrect thought process?
It was incorrect.
There is a buffer time between brain freeze procs so that yoy dont waste them.
You can see this by castjng frost bolt until a freeze proc.
Yoy can then cast evonbolt, then flurry, then ice lance, and they will all treat the target as frozen.
Best part is because you cast flurry as soon as you finished xasting ebonbolt, you can still use the forced brain freeze proc from ebonbolt.
Frozen is when your target is rooted in place. Graphically this is shown by the ice chunks at their feet. Some targets are immune to roots (Frost Nova, Pet Nova).
When you cast Flurry, it applies a 1-second debuff on the target Winter Chill. This treats the target as frozen. The idea is you use flurry after a cast time spell (Frostbolt, Glacial Spike) to shatter (critical strike bonus).
Fingers of Frost also count as frozen for ice lances only (as read from the proc).
Frost bolts only slow, they don’t freeze so no bonus is applied.