Welcome back, im sure you guys know the drill by now. Long post, lots of technical stuff.
Now that ive finally gotten to dig deep into frost in dragonflight, theres a couple very apparent issues id like to talk about, as well as some minor bits of awkwardness with the spec.
Lets start off with the larger issues, beginning with the most obvious, Breath Duration.
Well, to be frank, its just… too long. The resource abundance we are seeing here in dragonflight leads to breath durations being just, absolutely incredible in season 1, and i just, don’t think its healthy for this to continue the way it has. While without good RNG, most people are seeing like 1-1.5 minute breath durations, add in a little luck and you can keep that going for 2-3 minutes strait. On a real boss encounter, well, this becomes incredibly punishing if the player does not plan ahead, and play just, incredibly well for those 1-3 minute periods. But, with a 2m cooldown, this ends up being like, 70-80% of a fight where frost DKs have to manage this, and its becoming just a bit too extreme. Id love to see breath duration brought down, while maintaining its cleave niche. Potentially a 30-50% increase in cost per second (from 16rp/s to 20-24rp/s), while increasing its damage proportionately. Yes, this makes frost a but more bursty in shorter windows, but, it keeps a lot of the nuance breath requires. Planning ahead to be able to use that breath window to its fullest, while also giving it a bit more of a friendly playstyle for mythic+ dungeons.
Next up, Obliteration’s absurd skill requirement. I know this is contrary to popular belief, but, obliteration is HARD, even more so DW Shattering Blade Obliteration. The reaction times needed to be able to maximize your killing machines, wasting as few as possible just becomes absurd. Fiber internet, and sub 100ms response times are what you need to maximize this setup, and, well, its just unreasonable in its current state. Is it good if you can manage this? absolutely, but, for the average player its just not feasible. For this, i do think the fix would be adding some leeway to Obliteration specifically, potentially an extra effect on the talent allowing you to stack killing machine twice to minimize waste and lower the skill ceiling? Its a hard one to tackle honestly, but, that might be the best solution to give obliteration a bump by reducing its skill requirement. It does add some nuance to obliteration windows, where you may pool 2 killing machines before pillar to instantly pump the strength amp, but, should make it much more approachable to a new player, or someone who may not have the reaction times/internet capability to really let the setup shine.
Finally, well, to be frank, frost is a bit too much of a generalized spec. The differences between single target, and AoE in playstyle is basically non existent. Talent build diversity between the two is near non existent… well, its just, too cookie cutter friendly. Some extra diversity being added to frost would be a godsend i think, reduce some of the power of AoE specific stuff in ST, and do the same for ST stuff in AoE to create some differentiation between the two, as it stands now its just, not quite different enough.
Now to get into the more minor awkwardness with the spec itself.
The age old, forever been the case issue of frost ignoring some resources in some forms of content. This was exaggerated to an extreme this expansion, where we just, really, really do not care about runic power most of the time. Its just something we generate a ton of and spend when we have no runes (if youre not playing breath). It doesn’t really feel great currently. Im not sure there is a good solution to this without some major reworks of how the spec operates, but, taking it into consideration for the future would be ideal.
The dead/awkward talents. Granted, frost does not have many of these, but, going into Improved Frost Strike for breath when you have breath up 80% of the time just, feels like you wasted 2 talent points, conversely runic command increasing your RP cap when you kinda just, dont really care about runic power in the first palce also feels like you wasted 2 points… These two just, kinda feel like point dumps for the sake of being point dumps.
Improved Rime, honestly, just… strange to have. It blocks our path to the remorseless winter buffs, and chill streak, but, is kinda a mediocre talent we are forced to take just to get to the good stuff. Eat your veggies before your candy kind of feel. Not sure why random % buffs to abilities exist in the trees without adding some mechanical nuance, or other benefit to it honestly. And this leads me into the 2 most ??? points in the tree.
Cold-Blooded Rage, and Invigorating Freeze. These also feel like a “eat your veggies before your candy” talents. Gotta spend 2 points you kinda dont want to spend just to get to the final row talents. These, well, they dont deserve their position as penultimate talents to be quite frank. I know there needs to be 2 point cost talents here to prevent some crazy talent combinations, but, id appreciate if these were more potent, more interesting, and leaned into the mechanical play that their following ultimate talent provides. Cold Blooded Rage giving killing machine on frost strikes, when you already guarantee that will happen with Obliteration feels like its just, never useful to have, and doesnt augment obliteration like how id expect from a penultimate talent. Invigorating freeze is in the same boat, we dont really pay close attention to our runic power already, and getting more of it passively doesnt really enhance the gameplay at all, or benefit breath as much as youd expect from a talent here.
Cold-Blooded Rage, could be reworked into something that works with obliteration, rather than outside it. Of course, this is just a random idea that i don’t expect to actually make it to the game, but, something like “Frost Strike and Glacial Advance during Pillar of Frost increases your Strength by an additional 1/2%” would be a godsend in terms of people feeling like this talent is worth the points they have to spend to get obliteration.
Invigorating Freeze conversely, could be reworked to be used to amplify Breath in the same way, “Increases the Runic Power cost of your abilities by 25/50%, but, increases their damage by 30/60%”, this change would tackle 2 issues at once. Or, a talent in that vein could be put elsewhere in the tree as to allow people to choose between a long, lower damage breath, or a short, very potent breath depending on their preference, while allowing the scaling to be applied to Frost Strike, or Glacial Advance for non breath setups, giving some more reason to care for runic power in AoE.
And the final awkward bit… Glacial Advance. This not interacting with icecap feels a bit… awkward. Obliteration has its AoE counterpart, Frostscythe work for Icecap, dont see why Frost Strike shouldnt also see its AoE counterpart work for this talent. Its really perplexing if im being honest, and limiting Glacial Advance’s ability to amplify Obliteration setups in AoE.
And an awkward side note. Icy Talons was increased to 10s for the sake of unholy, but, i do think that should also be considered for Unleashed Frenzy for the sake of frost, just so the timers match and the priority doesnt shift around as much. I know frost keeps this up way more passively than unholy does, and doesnt require the same setup periods unholy has. But, just for the sake of them working together, rather than being awkwardly desynced, id like to see this changed.
Thanks for reading, and hope youre all having a great new year so far. I know my opinions on these things wont reflect everyones preferences, but, i do hope that ive managed to compile most of the common complaints about Frost here, and explain them in a way thats understandable.
anywyas, Taez out.
