Glacial Spike - Updated

[Xinder]

Have you guys seen the new T20 bonuses for frost? They seem amazing, especially coupled with the 2piece t19 if that will be possible, although I doubt it.
Item - Mage T20 Frost 2P Bonus (New) Frozen Orb increases your Critical Strike damage by 30% for 10 seconds.
Item - Mage T20 Frost 4P Bonus (New) The cooldown of Frozen Orb is reduced by 5 sec whenever you gain Brain Freeze.
Also to be remembered that we are getting a trait that allows us to cast blizzard instantly when Frozen Orb is up, I think this tier will be huge, both for gs and tv

Unless there wearing 2p T19 and 4p T20 will be better dps than the standard frost leggos, you won't be wearing all 6 pieces. Though I suppose for someone with the TW ring and prydaz you could probably get away with wearing a 6p, just don't know if that would be better than the Frost Gloves/Bracers.

[Cames]

Anyone of you have the issue that with so many FoF and BF procs you mostly IL even in GS build. Casting GS have became so rare.

Not sure that this is a completely horrible thing depending upon the situation. This week with Volcanic having lots of BG/IL in Mythic+ is very useful.

[Arandomperson]

Have you guys seen the new T20 bonuses for frost? They seem amazing, especially coupled with the 2piece t19 if that will be possible, although I doubt it.
Item - Mage T20 Frost 2P Bonus (New) Frozen Orb increases your Critical Strike damage by 30% for 10 seconds.
Item - Mage T20 Frost 4P Bonus (New) The cooldown of Frozen Orb is reduced by 5 sec whenever you gain Brain Freeze.
Also to be remembered that we are getting a trait that allows us to cast blizzard instantly when Frozen Orb is up, I think this tier will be huge, both for gs and tv

Unless there wearing 2p T19 and 4p T20 will be better dps than the standard frost leggos, you won't be wearing all 6 pieces. Though I suppose for someone with the TW ring and prydaz you could probably get away with wearing a 6p, just don't know if that would be better than the Frost Gloves/Bracers.

Well with the 6pieces combo I was mostly talking about GS frost, which doesnt use gloves anyway, your best legendaries being ring wrist prydaz trinket in this order you dont even have to worry about legendaries taking a set spot. Also not every mage playing tv has the gloves, and aside from that every other good legendary does not take a tierspot .

[Rabona]

I'd worry about that when the patch hits live servers. With titanforged and all that fun stuff GS mages won't be the only ones thinking about wearing old tier pieces and I'm pretty sure Blizzard wouldn't want that to happen. Remember WOD when they nerfed Fire's T17 to the ground but waited until after the new content was released?
I imagine they will even be stricter when it comes to wearing multiple sets.

[Arandomperson]

Yeah that is probably true. I guess it was just wishful thinking

[Kumpare]

I've been questioning this build's success in the patch 7.2.

With the paragon traits going, I doubt this build will be viable right at the start. But will it "come back" once you have obtained the new paragon traits, even if (at the moment) they are only giving 10% damage increase instead of 15%?

[Montegomery]

The current 35th trait, which yields +5% damage, isn't going away, it's just being turned into a 1 point trait. Couple that with the +10% from taking the first of the new traits and you're exactly where you are today at 54, only with the potential to go further.

[Litemode]

My ILs keep missing my shatter window when I FB > Flurry > IL. I've got very low haste(14%) and whispers. Is there anything I can do?

[nirdana]

My ILs keep missing my shatter window when I FB > Flurry > IL. I've got very low haste(14%) and whispers. Is there anything I can do?

dont lance after flurry if you have the slow debuff from the whisper.

[Sleepymages]

My ILs keep missing my shatter window when I FB > Flurry > IL. I've got very low haste(14%) and whispers. Is there anything I can do?

Not directly related to your question but when I dropped my haste to 14% in favor of more vers my sims went down and it didn't feel as good to play (subjective). 19% now feels much better and stat weights are all pretty equal on sim.

[Zeam]

My ILs keep missing my shatter window when I FB > Flurry > IL. I've got very low haste(14%) and whispers. Is there anything I can do?

I used to have the same problem, but fixed it by turning on Custom Lag Tolerance. Set the number close to your latency. My latency is 44, but I had to set it to 77 to get ice lance to consistently shatter.

/console SpellQueueWindow 77

*Updated for patch 7.2.*

[Byubyu]

The ability to shatter glacial spike was a theory that was thought possible when the new changes were announced... after much testing both on my own, and by others here on the forums, it appears that at this time it is not really possible to shatter glacial spike. For me, the first flurry does hit before glacial spike, but the winters chill debuff appears to not benefit glacial spike as a spell to prevent it from benefiting from shatter, which TBH would be really OP. I could see this having been done intentionally by blizzard.

So Glacial Spike can't be shattered right? Was watching a M+ video this morning ( [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSSjfUvIzE[/youtube] ) and it looked like Glacial Spike was consuming the FoF charge? Or am I going crazy?

(New here and just wanted to say, you guys are awesome and super informative. )

[Arandomperson]

There is actually a way to shatter glacial spikes but it is hard to do and is very rarely viable to do. I do however find myself doing it more and more as I am getting comfortable with the fights in nighthold. What you have to do is make a macro that casts shimmer and then flurry. You cast glacial spike at long range( at least ~22 yards) and then just as it finishes casting you use the macro towards your target( dont forget to icelance after the macro, I kept forgetting the first couple of days after I starting doing this). This technique is especially useful on fights like chronomatic anomaly where you will use shimmer to move anyway so you can plan things in.
A good tip to keep in mind is that a shattered glacial spike is more valuable than a shattered ebonbolt so if you have 5 icicles, no brainfreeze proc and feel like you can do the combo safely you can throw out a naked ebonbolt and use the brainfreeze from it to shatter your spike instead.
This technique is especially useful on tychondrius after you get the dmg buff so a guaranteed crit on a double dipped spike is huge.

On another topic in the latest interview with Ian he said it wasn't planned to forbid using 2piece t19 + 4piece t20 which will be huge for the glacial spike side of frost since our best legendaries are not on any tier piece slots, and since 2pieces t19 is huge.

[t3hbar0n]

The ability to shatter glacial spike was a theory that was thought possible when the new changes were announced... after much testing both on my own, and by others here on the forums, it appears that at this time it is not really possible to shatter glacial spike. For me, the first flurry does hit before glacial spike, but the winters chill debuff appears to not benefit glacial spike as a spell to prevent it from benefiting from shatter, which TBH would be really OP. I could see this having been done intentionally by blizzard.

So Glacial Spike can't be shattered right? Was watching a M+ video this morning ( [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DSSjfUvIzE[/youtube] ) and it looked like Glacial Spike was consuming the FoF charge? Or am I going crazy?

(New here and just wanted to say, you guys are awesome and super informative. )

That is my video. It just looks like that because I am following glacial spike with an icelance. It is possible to shatter glacial spike, but not by just hardcasting. The only way is to use shimmer to blink in so the flurry lands before the glacial spike which is why you see me blinking in with glacial spike when I have a brain freeze active. In m+ i will follow GS with ice lance as GS will freeze most trash mobs. On bosses i will only follow GS with lance if I had a FoF.

I just filmed a little guide on how I have been playing the spec. You can find it here. https://youtu.be/ZTHWp2YGn4U" target="_blank

[Byubyu]

Thank you Baron that video was super helpful (and it is amazing how much shattering GS boosts your damage.)

I have one more question if you don't mind. I went and simmed by character the other day and plugged in the stat weight into my pawn addon. Is there a reason pawn is showing a piece of gear with a lower ilvl as a major upgrade (+27%)? The "upgrade" is 10 ilvl behind what I currently have equipped and has around 100~ lower INT. With my stat weight showing INT as my highest priority, does that mean my pawn is off? Or am I missing something? In an effort to double check, I did switch to the "upgrade" and resimmed with the result being a lower dps (by a few hundred).

TD;LR - Can I trust pawn even with inserting a custom stat weight string I obtained from simming my character?

[Rabona]

Is there actually any boss where it makes sense to play GS over TV? Between Augur, Elisande and Guldan there is only one parse with GS (23rd/32 on Augur). And judging by what I saw on their kill video even Razlopp seems to have switched specs on Elisande.

Don't get me wrong, I have no itention of shitting on the spec, I think it's viable and a great starting point for people who want to switch over from fire (not sure I'd be playing frost right now myself, if it wasn't for this thread), I'm just wondering how relevant it still is from a progression pov.

[Arandomperson]

Well you can't quite switch back and forth as the gear is very incompatible, haste being out worst stat while it is best ( after shattercap) for TV. Gs also has almost no legendary requirement scales just slightly better is way less punishing while still requiring enough planning and skill to be engaging. Gs is also much better at bursting while tv is linear all the way.

I think the main point is that it is way less punishing and it loses way less dps when you have to deal with a mechanic

[t3hbar0n]

Thank you Baron that video was super helpful (and it is amazing how much shattering GS boosts your damage.)

I have one more question if you don't mind. I went and simmed by character the other day and plugged in the stat weight into my pawn addon. Is there a reason pawn is showing a piece of gear with a lower ilvl as a major upgrade (+27%)? The "upgrade" is 10 ilvl behind what I currently have equipped and has around 100~ lower INT. With my stat weight showing INT as my highest priority, does that mean my pawn is off? Or am I missing something? In an effort to double check, I did switch to the "upgrade" and resimmed with the result being a lower dps (by a few hundred).

TD;LR - Can I trust pawn even with inserting a custom stat weight string I obtained from simming my character?

TBH i'm not sure, I don't personally use Pawn so i'm not really familiar with how it works. Generally Ilvl>all when it comes to GS except in situations with items like jewelry/trinkets or socketed items. The only way I could see a item 10 ilvls behind being better is if it fell into one of those categories. I just sim my char using simcraft and leave it at that and i've had good results.

I think the main point is that it is way less punishing and it loses way less dps when you have to deal with a mechanic

Ya I agree, I found GS to be much more consistent because it doesn't get wrecked by mechanics which cause you to break casting (running out for bombs, phase changes etc). These mechanics totally screw TV due to the inability to generate FoF procs and extend IV... while with glacial spike I can just run around with the spike over my head until the mechanic is completed.

[Sniv1k]

Thanks a lot for the guide!
I have 26% Crit, Simcraft told me collect vers, I have now 5%, do we have a minimum cap of vers?

[Cvijan]

For what bosses in NH AG talent is better than UM?