Respecing Frost...not AoE grindingFollow

Is reduced Frostbolt still worth it in pve after the nerf?

It seems like you would get the same dps before crits, lower crits, and it would only help for enemies that resist a lot (more casts with an equal chance to hit, if you don't hit enough the frostbolt snare effect wears off). For a shatter build, the reduced crits could make a noticeable difference.


Also, remember to use terrain to your advantage - your spell range is as the crow flies, but your (melee) enemy has to climb over whatever obstacles are in the way. For bumpy terrain, I can regularly get 4 frostbolts completely off before the mob gets to me (and I only have 2 points in imp. frostbolt, and none in frostbite).

For casters, just start with your top damage spell.

I started fire, then respecced frost and loved it. Maybe it's just my temperament, but the slower kills were more than offset by reduced time running from the graveyard back to my body. Then again, I like to push the envelope a bit, so the extra survivability counts for a lot - my 36 mage kills level 42 mobs (and I soloed the 40 elite demon in the Tabetha wand quest*).

*I popped most of my long CDs to do so, and have good gear

Edited, May 10th 2007 8:26pm by compyro

thanks for clearing that up - I'd repeatedly seen here that the damage got normalized/nerfed, but no one said exactly how. Guess I'll have to find more room for the rest of imp. frostbolt in my next respec.

That is an excellent question. Since I can get 2.75(ish) fireballs off before they get to me, that's 2.75 * 3 = 8.25 seconds from the start of cast of the first fireball. Since the mob is unaware of the first cast time, the actual time from aggro to hitting you is probably about 5.25 seconds. For frost, if you hit it with 3.5 frostbolts (which I what I seem to remember), it's 3.5 * 2.5 = 8.75 seconds, minus the first frostbolt casting time leaves you with 6.25 seconds to reach you. So, it is close to being equal, but you can see the slowing effects of frostbolt makes them cross the shorter span of space in 1 more second.

I think that the reduced range makes it impractical unless you are in an area (cave?) where you cannot get further away. Lack of permafrost makes the slowing effect not as good as a frost mage's slowing effect as well.

lol!

Generally speaking, you pick up improved fireball instead of impact for the dps increase. I have only had impact on one build which was a deep fire build when I has points to spare. The scenario we are talking about is a PvE scenario, so not as apt to be using PvP specs when discussing it, but some PvE specs do have impact, so yeah.... could go on, but the proc rate is not great or dependable (e.g. I need to impact on this next fireball)... that would be nice, but OP and others would whine and we would get nerfed so that we would become vending machines and a fire totem.