Over the last few days, I’ve been playing around on my alts a lot more than I usually would. I don’t know if it’s the lack of anything significant to do on Tarial – my Death Knight main (Frost/Blood), but regardless, it’s been happening.
Most recently, I’ve revisited a character that I’d dropped flat about a year ago. My mage, abandoned at level 72, when frost leveling was just starting to get annoying. I’ve always loved frost mages, but the relative annoyance of doing anything when your character (even with heirlooms) couldn’t really keep up was frustrating. With patch 4.0.1 coming out though, I decided to hop on and give it another shot.
Spec:
While I’m not 80, and hence can’t use a fully fleshed out spec, I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I began with the following spec:
I skipped the points in Frostfire Orb because I don’t have it yet, but I fully plan to drop the two points in Shattered Barrier to pick it up once I hit 81. Other than that, all of the talents seem fairly self-explanative. I like the way that all of the talents in the tree feel powerful, and I can see some choice on some of the tiers. It feels very solid. I plan on heading down the arcane tree, mostly because I’m a quick-trigger on interrupts, and I like that I’ll get a bonus for doing it. With heroics as current content, I feel like those points won’t be wasted. I’m also considering grabbing two points in piercing chill – because that appears like it’ll drastically improve my Fingers of Frost uptime.
Overall, the tree seems powerful, but not overpowered. Keep in mind that because of all the reworking to Frost – especially on a backend mechanics level – a lot of the theorycraft isn’t quite up to where it is for a lot of the other specs. Elitist Jerks, at the time of this writing, is still discovering things, specifically the exact benefit of Early Frost, which I had dismissed as useless, when it appears now to be a significant DPS increase.
Glyphs:
I could be wrong, but I’m under the impression that mage glyphs are borked. There’s very little in the way of choice for Prime Glyphs, while all the good ones seem to be Major. I believe I read something about a bunch of them being glitched, so, we’ll see how that plays out. I’m currently using the best of a bad bunch, which isn’t saying much.
Gameplay:
Here’s really where Frost shines. More than any other spec I’ve played, Frost benefits from Blizzard’s new built-in Power Auras. Being able to tell when Fingers of Frost procs is hugely useful. Same with Brain freeze. Allowing Fingers to stack to two charges was a masterstroke, and all of a sudden, the old boring gameplay that I remember from frost has been completely changed. Giving Water Elemental the ability to freeze while permanent also helps the spec out a ton. I’ve found that to be especially helpful when I’m hitting a dry spell as far as procs go.
From what I’ve gathered from online research, the spec won’t really kick it into high gear until I hit 81 and get frostfire orb, but as for right now, I find myself engaged in the rotation, but still with enough situational awareness to react to things (and pull a hero mode every so often.) It’s been performing well in heroics, either topping damage or coming close, often times despite being a little bit underleveled for the dungeon. I feel like I’m pulling appropriate numbers for my gear level, which is shocking because – again – I’m playing as Frost.
Overall:
I really enjoy the changes to Frost. I feel like it’s finally becoming the competitive PvE dps spec that I’ve always wanted it to be (despite many attempts at making it viable that failed.) I’m looking forward to leveling this alt up to 85 and using it to get some ridiculous PvE Shatter action going.
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