The quick answer to that is: Nope, you will still have your “ghost charges” and “shatter combos”. Don’t worry. The way Blizzard worded the change to Fingers of Frost can be misinterpreted easily, and can cause some confusion.

Here is the new change:

“Fingers of Frost: This talent now triggers immediately on casting a spell rather than being delayed until the spell strikes the target.”

The way the FoF Charges will be consumed, will be exactly the same- on cast. So you will still have your chance to do your “shatter combos” and attempts on using the “ghost charges”.

What this means is, you will get the Fingers of Frost buff as soon as Frostbolt is cast, rather than waiting until the Frostbolt hits the target. This change is actually a buff for Frost Mages.

Currently, if you are just spamming Frostbolts, this is the Fingers of Frost scenario for a Frost Mage:

Casting Frostbolt #1
Precast Frostbolt #2
Release Frostbolt #1 / Casting Frostbolt #2
Precast Frostbolt #3
Frostbolt #1 Lands / Fingers of Frost Procs
Release Frostbolt #2 / Casting Frostbolt #3 / FoF Charge Used

By this time, you’ll realize that FoF had proc’d and you already used a charge, and would be already in the middle of casting the next Frostbolt that would use up the next FoF charge. At this point, you’ll have a split second to cancel the third Frostbolt to use Deep Freeze- or keep going and attempt to use the “ghost charge”.

With the new change to Fingers of Frost, the new scenario for a Frost Mage would be like this:

Casting Frostbolt #1
Precast Frostbolt #2
Release Frostbolt #1 / FoF Procs / Casting Frostbolt #2
Precast Frostbolt #3
Frostbolt #1 Lands
Release Frostbolt #2 / Casting Frostbolt #3 / FoF Charge Used

The big difference with the new Fingers of Frost mechanic is, you will see the buff much earlier, and will have more time to plan/react to better use the 2nd FoF Charge. Instead of realizing you have the buff while casting your 3rd Frostbolt, you’ll know while casting your 2nd Frostbolt.

Sorry it took so long to answer. I’ve been… busy. Heh heh…

Hope everyone had a nice, safe, and happy Thanksgiving!

Now that I am in the WotLK Beta, I can test out all the new spells and their mechanics for all to see. So far I’ve only got an hour of testing in before fatigue kicked in, and servers are down. I will make a post for each individual spell, and update each post as the spell changes. So check back every so often as the spell evolves.

9/9/2008

At the time of this testing, Finger of Frost (rank 2) has a 10% chance to proc a BUFF on the caster, making his/her next two Frost Damage spells cast on the target to be considered “Frozen”. Again, Fingers of Frost is a BUFF proc and not a DEBUFF proc. YOU will gain the buff, and it is a Magic Buff which can be dispelled. You can proc the buff while dpsing one target, and use the buff (next 2 frost spells) on another target.

FoF CAN proc again while the buff is still active. Sadly it will simply refresh the current buff instead of adding to it. Just like Clearcasting with a 10% chance, it wasn’t uncommon to see strings of FoF procs.

You CANNOT squeeze off an Ice Lance right after the 2nd Frostbolt to get a 3rd Spell out of the FoF proc. If it was a debuff on the target, it may have worked, but not with FoF as a buff on you.

You can however use the FoF proc on another Frost Damage Spell: Blizzard. That’s right, the entire duration of the “next 2 Frost spell cast on the target as if the target were frozen” works with Blizzard. With Blizzard ticks now being able to critically strike, when you cast Blizzard with the FoF buff, you will start seeing ticks of ~1400.

The reason the left target dummy is taking more damage than the right target dummy, is because other players are debuffing it.

I also put one point into Improved Blizzard, giving the spell a chill effect, making it able to proc Frostbite. When it does proc Frostbite, you will see more ticks critically striking.

9/10/2008

Tooltip for Fingers of Frost has been changed to: “Gives your Frost damage spells a 5/10% chance to grant you the Fingers of Frost effect, which treats your next 2 Frost spells cast as if the target were Frozen. Lasts 15 sec.” (old version: Gives your Frost damage spells a 5/10% chance to apply the Fingers of Frost effect…) New tooltip is to clarify that it is a self buff and no longer a debuff.

Ice Lance DOES NOT proc Fingers of Frost anymore in the beta build 8926. I actually wasn’t too surprised when I saw that my Ice Lances weren’t procing FoF anymore. You would have been able to Ice Lance players to death.

9/12/2008

After the lag fest that is the Dalaran training area, I logged onto my copied Mage on the Northrend server to do some more testing. There is a lot less latency issues here, and my Frostbolts don’t take 5 seconds to cast.

When I got FoF to proc, I tried the Frostbolt -> Frostbolt + Ice Lance again and was still unable to pull off getting three charges out of the proc, well sort of. My Ice Lance would crit and get the triple damage bonus from the frozen target, but the 2nd Frostbolt would normally be a hit.

However if I got the FoF proc and tried Frostbolt -> Frostbolt + Deep Freeze. The Deep Freeze will land (and usually crits), and the 2nd Frostbolt would also crit. This is most likely due to the debuff that Deep Freeze gives, which is a stun and freeze effect. Still this is a very viable combo to pull off if the mob is Deep Freeze-able.

9/18/2008

Fingers of Frost has been changed to have a 7/15% chance to proc off of any Frost Spells with a Chill effect. This confirms that Ice Lance will no longer proc FoF.