So I'll first come out and say I haven't actually leveled from 90 to 100 in this spec yet - I've only done that with a Ret Paladin and Frost DK (2H variety.) But I have played around a lot with my favorite Mage spec, and I'll try to get all the pertinent details. I would have done Frost DKs, but frankly, they play more or less as they did in Mists.
Ice Lance - a stronger movement filler
With Fire Blast gone, Ice Lance has become the new instant spell to cast while on the move (if you don't have a Brain Freeze proc.) Its damage has been doubled, but its bonus against frozen enemies has dropped from quadruple damage to merely double damage. Which means it will do the same damage it does now (relatively speaking, given the item squish) when used in its typical stationary rotational way.
Water Jet - Making the Elemental more interesting
One Draenor Perk we'll be getting will teach the Water Elemental a new trick. This is an ability called Water Jet, which as a cool down, and is a channeled spell that does a bit of Frost damage to the target, but any Frostbolt cast at the target will automatically get you a Fingers of Frost charge. You can set this ability to auto-cast, but I suspect it might be better to simply have it hot keyed (and with the ability squish, you'll have room to do so) and to use it strategically. In my experience, it seems to always come off cool down right when I've already got several procs. The channel only lasts a couple seconds, so you'll need to be quick to get the maximum benefit of it. Still, it's a nice bit of on-demand FoF procs for any dry spells.
Blizzard and Frozen Orb - Synergized!
Blizzard, once the iconic AoE spell of all AoE spells, has kind of fallen by the wayside, particularly since these days it seems that Arcane Explosion is the go-to AoE for all three specs. Well not anymore, because Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, and Flamestrike are now all spec-specific! (Which... I'm actually fine with.) The more interesting thing is that one of the Draenor perks you'll get will cause every time Blizzard hits a target to reduce the cool down on Frozen Orb by a second. The idea, I think, is that we'll be expected to use Frozen Orb often for AoE, and to fill the gaps with Blizzard (and probably some Glyph of Splitting Ice-enhanced Ice Lances.)
Mana Regen Tier - Practically Gone:
The only super annoying thing in Mists of Pandaria for Mages was the mana-regen talent tier. At level 90, you suddenly had to use some maintenancey thing to perform decently. Incanter's Ward had to be kept fairly weak to make the others viable, so you'd either have to set up Runes of Power or throw in an Evocation every minute for Invocation.
The level 90 tier has been drastically changed. The sole survivor is Rune of Power (actually my least favorite of these,) but the mana regen aspect of it has been removed, so it's purely a damage buff, meaning that it shouldn't be mandatory for Arcane anymore. Joining it at that level are two new talents. Incanter's Energy is a kind of interesting, though potentially weird and tricky talent. Essentially you'll have an ebb and flow of power, increasing your damage by up to 30%, but with the bonus dropping down to 0%, while most of the time it'll be at 15%. I suspect the idea will be to save your big procs (in the case of Frost, Fingers of Frost and Brain Freeze) for when you hit that peak. Finally, Mirror Image becomes a talent. Now, it's perhaps a little upsetting to see this ability - one we've had since BC, as I recall - become a talent that locks us out of other stuff, but the good news is that it now becomes a real damage cool down, where previously the damage it dealt was sort of nominal. I think it down deals something like 1000% more damage.
The Mage Bombs - Consolidated:
Bad luck if you liked a cross-elemental mage bomb, but good luck if you didn't really like dealing with DOTs all that much as a Mage, and would much rather leave that to the Warlocks thank you very much. The "Mage Bomb" is just a single talent, and changes depending on spec. Frost Bomb has been reworked, though. Now it's a somewhat passive debuff that you place on an enemy, but every time you hit it with Ice Lance (which as you'll recall, now does more damage against non-frozen targets than it used to) the target will explode with lots of Frost Damage.
There are now two other AoE oriented talents. Unstable Magic is the simplest, auto-pilot talent. It causes your Frostbolts (also Fireballs and Arcane Blasts) to occasionally explode, hitting other nearby targets for 50% damage. The other talent affects Frost Nova, turning it into more of an offensive ability. Each spec gets an elemental-themed version that works in a different way, but Frost gets Ice Nova, which basically does more damage and is targeted against an enemy, and is not a self-oriented AoE. It also has two charges.
Talents at the Cap
The three level 100 talents at the cap are all quite different. The first allows Mages to extend the duration of their major cool downs. With Thermal Void (the frost variation,) you'll be able to extend Icy Veins by two seconds with every Ice Lance. Probably not enough to have you just spam Ice Lance forever, but with some luck, you'll probably get a bit more out of the cool down.
Prismatic Crystal is the really weird one of the bunch. Casting it on an enemy will summon a Prismatic Crystal at their feet and have you target it. Only you can target your crystal, but all damage you do to it will explode for 30% extra damage, split evenly between the targets you hit. On a single target fight, this will be a pretty straightforward 30% damage bonus (assuming the boss doesn't move) for the duration of the crystal, but on AoE fights, I wonder if it's worth it. Definitely something to play with, though.
The third talent of the tier is your "big round thing" talent. Frost gets Comet Swarm, which is an awesomely satisfying ability. It's an instant-cast spell on a 30 second cool down that summons seven comets to land on your target, dealing a bunch of damage split between any enemy within 4 yards. There's admittedly not a lot of interactivity on this one, but it just means that every 30 seconds you get to summon icy death from space against your enemies, which is pretty awesome.
Multi-Striking!
Frost is one of the handful of specs to get the attunement for the new stat, Multistrike. While we're seeing a few new stats like Versatility and Bonus Armor, Multistrike is really being worked out to be on par with Crit, Haste, and Mastery, and Frost will theoretically favor this one. Given how many instant-cast spells we have, it's actually probably an improvement over our current favored stat of Haste.
Stay Frosty:
I don't know what the latest numbers pass is on this - tuning is always a tricky thing, and it can change wildly over the course of an expansion. But gameplay-wise, I think Frost Mages are looking great. We seem to have gained some cool toys while retaining all our favorite ones (except Alter Time, which I liked, even if I think I'm alone in that.) And the things we've gotten rid of are generally well-rid. Being able to opt out of Mage Bombs and Mana Regeneration talents is a big plus for me. And hey, the center-stage hero of the expansion (other than you, which they really do hammer home, plot-wise) is Khadgar, who, despite the shameful loss of his wizard beard, is awesome (and I don't know who the voice actor is, but I love how everything he says has a kind of unfazed, good humor to it, especially as WoW is a game where just about everyone tends to sound angry and growly.)
No comments:
Post a Comment