In the latest PTR Build 10072, Blizzard had made a few more changes to the Mage class- Frost Mages in particular. This had been brought to my attention by the folks at MMO-Champion, and you can view the entire list of changes here. Like always, I’ll be concentrating on the Mage changes.

Frost Mage by Dan Scott

The changes to Empowered Frostbolt and Permafrost has been updated on the latest Test Realm Patch Notes. You can read the notes here.

Here is the list of changes in the new build:

Fire

• Living Bomb can now be used on multiple targets at the same time.

Frost

• Ice Barrier mana cost has been reduced from 25% of base mana to 21% of base mana.
• Cone of Cold mana cost has been reduced from 29% of base mana to 25% of base mana.
• Frost Ward mana cost has been reduced from 16% of base mana to 14% of base mana.
• Frostbolt mana cost has been reduced from 13% of base mana to 11% of base mana.
• Ice Armor mana cost has been reduced from 28% of base mana to 24% of base mana.
• Ice Lance mana cost has been reduced from 7% of base mana to 6% of base mana.
• Frost Nova mana cost has been reduced from 8% of base mana to 7% of base mana.
• Empowered Frostbolt now reduces the cast time of your Frostbolt by 0.1/0.2 sec instead of increasing its critical strike chance by 2/4%.
• Permafrost now also reduces the target’s healing received by 7/13/20%.

The Living Bomb on multiple targets we knew from before, and is now just clarified by Blizzard.

Mana cost reduction across most of the Frost Spells. Like I said before, any Mana cost reduction on Spells without any drawbacks is always a welcomed change. I’ll take it.

Losing 2/4% critical strike chance on Frostbolt for a 0.1/0.2 second cast time reduction on Frostbolt seems to be a big change. Let’s look at some math to figure it out.

% Spell Haste at level 80 = (Haste Rating / 32.79)

Haste Rating needed at level 80 = ((Base Cast Time / Desired Cast Time) – 1) * 32.79 * 100

If we put 2 points into Empowered Frostbolt, it would reduce our Frostbolt casting time from 2.5 seconds, to 2.3 seconds (assuming you have no Haste on your gear). Let’s see how much Haste Rating we would need to get from gear to get your Frostbolt that low.

((2.5 / 2.3) – 1 ) * 32.79 * 100 = 284.9451 Haste Rating or about 8.69% Spell Haste for Frostbolt. I’ll take that over 4% critical strike rating for Frostbolt. Add any Haste you have on your gear, and you’ll have a sub 2.0 second Frostbolt in no time.

Another big change is that Frost Mages are getting a Mortal Strike effect on their Permafrost. This will cause an uproar in the non-Mage communities since this will be making Frost Mages even MORE powerful in PvP.

Dispelling against a Frost Mage will be even more painful. You would need to cleanse off the Frostbolt/Cone of Cold/Frost Nova effect, Winter’s Chill effect, maybe Frozen effect, and now Permafrost effect.

I like how Blizzard can’t make Frost Mages more viable in PvE without making them too powerful in PvP, yet they can just make Frost Mages even more powerful in PvP. Oh wells, I’ll still take the buffs.

Related Posts:

• PTR Patch 3.2 Testing: Frostbolts and Mounts and Titles, Oh My!
• PTR Patch 3.2 – Living Bomb on Multiple Targets
• PTR Patch 3.1.0 – Set Bonuses and Crit Nerfs
• PTR Patch 3.1.0 – Newest Build Give Mages Buffs
• PTR Patch 3.3 – Fingers of Frost Change