Introduction
My name is Tamir, also known as Tam1h, Raiding with Angered on Ragnaros EU. I’ve been raiding competitively since Warlord of Draenor, and Pushing High Keys as a Mage since Legion.
You can find me on Twitch or Twitter:
Strengths:
- Frost as a spec is in a very competitive spot right now. It has one of the best, if not the best 2 target cleave and a very high sustained single-target damage over long fights.
- Significant funnel damage (funnel means you are utilizing multiple targets to funnel damage into a priority target or a boss).
- It has the potential to utilize double immunity due to Cold Snap which gives you essentially 2 ice blocks.
Weakness:
- Frost, as a spec, suffers a lot from heavy downtime on some fights when you have to stop DPS, such as on Painsmith, Kel’thuzad, Sylvanas, since you want to always be in combat and cast frostbolt \ flurry to keep reducing the cooldown of Icy Veins.
- Relatively weak damage on demand.
- Low Priority Target burst \ Swap targeting is pretty bad unless you are Holding Flurry \ Fingers of Frost procs in advance.
What has changed
9.2 Frost Mage Changes
- Comet Storm (Talent) no longer removes Winter's Chill.
- Frozen Orb damage was reduced by 12%.
- Blizzard damage reduced by 12% and reduces the cooldown of Frozen Orb by 0.25 seconds each time Blizzard deals damage (was 0.5 seconds).
Nerf Conclusions:
Overall, a small nerf to Frost Mage in mythic+ output.
We will feel these nerfs more on 5-8 target pulls since we will require more blizzard ticks to reset Frozen Orb. Blizzard and Frozen Orb will also do less damage.
However, during big pulls with Freezing Rain and enough mobs, these nerfs will be more noticeable, with Blizzard\Frozen Orb doing less damage on bigger pulls.
In patch 9.2, we will gain a significant power spike with an additional legendary on top of our current one. We will be using 2 legendaries, a covenant legendary and a secondary one that we can pick ourselves.
In addition, we will also be able to get tier sets.
Frost Mage 2-Piece — Your spells have a 25% chance to call down a Comet Storm on your target enemy. This effect cannot occur more than once every 20 seconds.
Frost Mage 4-Piece — Enemies hit by Comet Storm take 2% increased damage from your frost spells, up to 10% for 8 seconds.
The 2p as a whole is a pretty big DPS spike, on top of the fact that the Comet Storm procs help us reduce the CD on our Icy Veins because of the Icy Propulsion conduit.
The 4p is also quite good since we will be in our Icy Veins window for the vast majority of the fight; having our main target take up to 10% increased damage is pretty massive.
Overall Conclusion:
The frost mage tier set might not be the most fun and interactive, but it has good synergy with the spec and contributes to our biggest issue: resetting Icy Veins on a single target encounter.
Frost Mage will gain a substantial power spike in raids and Mythic+.
For Mythic+: we will gain the power of the Night Fae legendary Heart of the Fae. This will allow us to cast shifting power while moving and gain up to 10% Critical Strike and 10% Haste for 15 Seconds. (Assuming you can hit at least 10 Mobs with shifting power)
For Raiding: The Necrolord Covenant and Legendary Death's Fathom
has good synergy with frost. It will essentially give you a 1% spell power buff for each enemy you hit with frostbolt. It gains a massive value in single target with Slick Ice and even in Cleave situations. You want to keep an eye on this one!
Things to keep in mind:
The Necrolord Covenant is highly competitive in single target and cleave situations once we have access to our 2nd legendary.
With the new 2P tier set bonus, Comet Storm as a talent might be something to keep in mind, especially for pure single target encounters because it has good synergy with the Comet Storm proc and our actual Comet Storm talent.
Currently, on PTR, you can extend the 4P Buff from the Comet Storm Proc and our actual Comet Storm since they are double-dipping. (might be a bug, subject to change)