2.0.10 news for mages
by Elizabeth Harper 
Mar 3rd 2007 at 1:26PM
As Blizzard would hate to leave anyone out of the joy of patch 2.0.10, we have recent news of a change for mages. And despite the fact that I don't regularly play a mage, I don't think it's good news for the class. Tseric informs us that you were never intended to be able to crit a frozen target and have the target remain frozen. So as of patch 2.0.10, any crit (and that is any crit at all, not just a crit by the mage) on a frozen target will immediately unfreeze them.
So watch out, rogues -- you could be the next victims of patch 2.0.10!
Filed under: Mage, Patches, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Acceptable Risk Mar 3rd 2007 1:35PM
One of the things that bothers me most about these changes they've been making lately is that supposedly there are all of these egregious problems that they've always intended to fix but somehow never got around to in, what, almost two years.
Why don't they just come out and say, "We didn't test 'such-and-such' ability enough while TBC was in beta and now we're having second thoughts."
Variblex Mar 3rd 2007 2:45PM
glad i am arcane fire now.....as a ice mage u already can rarely do enough dmg...
Shalkis Mar 3rd 2007 2:08PM
The difference here is that the effect was barely noticeable before. If you used Frost Nova or Frostbite against a target and then threw a Frostbolt at them, they had at most 1-2 seconds of freeze time left by the time the frostbolt critted. That was enough for a Cone of Cold and/or a Fireblast at most. With Ice Lance being instant, you could cast it 3-4 times with some luck. This bug has always been there, but wasn't a balance issue until recently. The beta had a relatively small population, so the issue didn't show up on the community managers' "radar" until thousands of people complained about it.
It's a well-overdue bug fix, not a nerf. And yes, my main is a frost mage.
Luclan Mar 3rd 2007 2:10PM
This almost entirely destroy's the purpose of ice lance, IMO ice lance was added in many for frost mages to deal just a little bit more damage after a frostbolt. Being that it is insta cast, ideally the mage would frost nova blink away frostbolt *hopefully crit with shatter??* then ice lance to give just a bit more dmg kick. now that frostbolt crits, or any crit for that matter, removes frostnova ice lance has no effective use.
Does that sound right to anyone else?
Cort Mar 3rd 2007 2:25PM
This an out and out nerf of Ice Lance. Ice lance on its own is worthless, but does triple damage against frozen target. With a full frost spec, the crit chance against frozen targets is high, thus making for tremendous damage output via the low-cost Ice Lance spell.
Time to start rethinking that Fire spec. :P
Kryz Mar 3rd 2007 2:40PM
Wow...they always do this. They put something in the game, and instead of balancing that spell, they say "...was never intended..." and nerf a bunch of stuff. If they keep nerfing mage's burst damage, they aren't going to have anything left.
Tainted_Mage Mar 3rd 2007 2:47PM
WoW.....shitty.....i use a arcane spec and i usually frost nova then spam Ice Lance but now that they doin that as soon as it crits just once BAM unfreeze= it takes us a shit load longer to kill something....and its just plain annoying.........i mean up until now it didn't matter...2 years of having frost nova like that and now...BAM!! it unfreezes when something crits.....which for arcane missiles=sucks as well
Rolarian Mar 3rd 2007 2:56PM
Already there was the chance that any damage could unfreeze the target by any source. Being able to stick them in place for a few hits means survivability for many solo frost mages.
poe Mar 3rd 2007 2:59PM
This change is really more to prevent consecutve ice lance crits as opposed to frostbolt-ice lance crits.
When you fire off a frostbolt on a frozen target, you can cast ice lance immediately. Because the ice lance moves faster than the frostbolt it will land at roughly the same time and due to issues with the servers both will be able to take advantage of the freeze effect. It does not matter if either spell breaks the freeze and this issue with the server is unlikely to change in the next patch.
Or thats what i hope :D
baccob Mar 3rd 2007 8:34PM
This is such a load of TRASH. why even have ice lance. its hard enough to even get it off against a frozen target in a raid. so now when ANYONE crits its gone...GG Blizzard. Time to go Roll a Lock.
Kyle Mar 3rd 2007 3:42PM
Ick.
Glad I switched over to arcane and fire recently.
Hitman Mar 3rd 2007 4:47PM
Tseric, like all blizzard employee are infallible. They are always 100% right and of course this was never meant to happen... cough...
Seriously.. this is a stupid nerf. Mages are overpowered and need some sort of nerf i agree (im a 70 fire mage) but they havent thought this particular nerf thru much. I personally dont see it affecting me much as fire but poor frost mages with talents are going to be seriously stuffed.
Aladek Mar 3rd 2007 5:42PM
As a frost mage - ouch... but I can live with this, I just hope that at the same time, any other stun or type of stun would also be broken if hit by a crit.
Vision33r Mar 3rd 2007 5:46PM
The next thing to nerf is counter-spell, stay tuned. Time for Blizz to buff melee and nerf casters.
Mages are still the most OP class in the game, many of them are arrogant and never understanding of other classes, its time to nerf down the arrogance and bring them down to earth.
SymetriX Mar 3rd 2007 8:42PM
Being a fire Mage I don't mind the frost Mage buff (you guys aren't supposed to be doing top dmg anyway!).
However, this does make me hesitant to spec elementalist. I mean, fire already has combustion which is 3 crits guaranteed, and 4 with a well timed fire blast.
Now that ice lance is nerfed I think the only reason to go frost is for survivability and killing warlocks :-)
ranova Mar 3rd 2007 10:07PM
http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9499/icelancegg5.jpg
THANK YOU BLIZZ!
ranova Mar 3rd 2007 10:08PM
btw I was a level 68 rogue in eye of the storm vs a badly geared level 66 mage from that combat log cap
cap Mar 4th 2007 12:52AM
Awww, man.... I was really getting used to 2-shotting level 68s.... The world of warcraft as we know it is over.
Alex Mar 4th 2007 1:42AM
If this is intended to prevent Ice Lance from critting multiple times against a target, then NERF ICE LANCE. Make it do 150% or 200% damage against frozen targets. I don't think many frost mages would have complained about that. But now they're going and nerfing a spell that has been the saving grace of frost mages not only in PvP but also PvE.
I think all mages would agree that Ice Lance is overpowered, but you don't fix that by nerfing a different spell.
Malicernum Mar 4th 2007 9:21AM
In my experiences so far (70 Mage 0/13/48 build) Ice Lance allowed me to keep up with DPS / Mana efficiency in most of the Outlands instances, PVP, and soloing. I won't go into Mark Hunter one-shots or Judgement / Pally Bubble smites, but I don't think that this is the way Blizzard should have gone on this.
As a frost mage I accept the fact that I'm not going to be the DPS leader, but I am the guy who can keep the mobs slowed and prevent them from getting to the squishies in the back of the group. Frost-casters are there to do mob-management, which our talents allow us to excel at.
Yes, consistently critting for 1600 points of damage on a frozen target may seem cheap I don't believe the fix is to ruin the utility of Frostbite / Frost Nova by ruining it's root / CC ability. Most of the gear out there in BC is crit-focused, so most of the 70's out there, caster and melee alike, should be running at least 20% crit-rates. That means that there's a high probability that someones going to break the root before I even get Ice Lance off.
I've been a frost-caster for almost a year and a half now and seriously have to look at re-speccing arcane / fire for endgame if this is the way things are going to be going for the frost-casters out there. Hopefully the community can leverage our feedback and get them to either nerf Ice Lance (which would have been the right move) or let Ice Lance proc Frostbite (which is probably overpowered and prone to abuse, but would make up for a global nerf like this).